r/oddlyterrifying 6d ago

Numberless soviet phones

10.6k Upvotes

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812

u/AmonGusSus2137 6d ago

Why? And how does it work?

1.6k

u/InsouciantSlavDude 6d ago

It served as a reciever phone. You could only take calls, was used in administration and probably military.

739

u/bubbleweed 6d ago

Missile silos, many heart attacks probably when they tested the line.

381

u/BrambleBobs 6d ago

Love how these were used for military and came in cute pastels, the aesthetics are off the charts

175

u/R-T-O-B 6d ago

Blue for navy, brown for army, cream for airforce

228

u/AnusPaste 5d ago

"cream for airforce"

I did too 😉

57

u/Lunchbox223 5d ago

Good boy

22

u/migvelio 5d ago

Thank your for your service.

12

u/Nandoski_ 5d ago

Thank you AnusPaste

20

u/Urracca 5d ago

Username checks out.

23

u/Captain_Sacktap 5d ago

When an impending nuclear attack is stressing you out, nothing soothes you like the gentle pastel colors of a Soviet Armageddon phone!

1

u/malcallm 5d ago

They were also used in polish offices etc like 40 years ago. Low grade clerks were not allowed to make phone calls.

33

u/elebrin 5d ago

They may also have connected to an operator who dialed for you.

6

u/GrayCustomKnives 5d ago

Phones like this have been used for all sorts of things in Canada. 30-40 years ago some hospitals had these in the lobby and when picked up they just automatically connected to a cab company for people needing a taxi. I have also seen them in a couple houses where a small town volunteer fire chief lived and they just made a direct connection to the fire hall, somewhat like an intercom but using the telephone company’s switching equipment to make the connection between places.

1

u/snarkyxanf 4d ago

My first thought was "courtesy phone"

17

u/Volcanic_tomatoe 5d ago

I see, my first thought was operators. You don't need to dial if you just ask the person on the phone

19

u/ABHOR_pod 5d ago

Lot easier to keep track of who is calling whom if they just have to tell you up front.

"Operator, this is Yuri 3737, please connect me to Ivan 5575.

"Of course comrade." scribbles notes.

That was my assumption.

3

u/Worldly-Profession66 5d ago

That would make the most sense

1

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg 5d ago

Manual switchboards where used everywhere, not only the USSR

1

u/greenmonkey48 5d ago

I used to have nightmares about these.

-1

u/IRateRockbusters 5d ago

How would this be preferable to having one with buttons and just not using the buttons? You could maybe argue that it would be marginally less wasteful of resources, but I’d have thought that the overhead of manufacturing an entirely new type of phone would outweigh any savings on time/energy/costs.

6

u/superspeck 5d ago

In early days of telephones, first, not many people had them. Second, the switches that allowed pulse or touch tone dialing were very expensive and were difficult to put together. The USSR threw people at problems instead of developing complicated computers to do things.

125

u/Comfortable-Quiet-99 6d ago

You tell telephone operator who you want to call and operator connects you. Looks like never meant to be used by regular citizens and made for military bases and manufacturing facilities.

63

u/VECMaico 6d ago

You put one in room A, and one in room B. Pick up the horn on one, it rings on the other.

It's what the president of the former USSR uses. He doesn't have a cell phone.

Can't type his name here or a bot removes the comment because it thinks it's about some war somewhere (can't type that either)

10

u/DongQuixote1 5d ago

there is no president of the former USSR. there are multiple presidents in numerous ex-Soviet states. you're thinking of Russia, which was not the entire Soviet Union.

6

u/VECMaico 5d ago

You know I am referring to V.P.

If I am typing his name (only the P., then my post is deleted by a bot). So don't come posting here to be a historian hero, when there's nothing to pick here for you on online karma.

I was clearly with my previous post why I said USSR. And while you are right about what you say, you didn't even care a second about the bot. Do kindly go forward with your life, will you?

5

u/EE7A 5d ago

i didnt know that you cant type out "vp" in this sub until now, and that is very much oddly terrifying to me for some reason.

1

u/VECMaico 5d ago

Bot is programmed to see anything with it related to current events in a specific country. They should program said bot to look at more keywords in one post

1

u/EE7A 5d ago

yeah, i get it of course. its just kinda weird. im not a big fan of putler personally and it just kinda feels off-putting, but this is a pretty big sub and mods arent paid. preemptive bots make sense in this case; i just dont like it, lol.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-7

u/AutoModerator 5d ago

Sorry, but this comment has been removed since it appears to be about the situation developing in Ukraine. With Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, we've been flooded with a lot of submissions about this, but in addition to our politics rule, there is nothing oddly terrifying about the situation. It is a plainly terrifying situation that will affect the lives of many people.

If your comment is not related to the situation in Ukraine, please report this comment and we will review it. Thank you for your understanding!

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6

u/SparrowDotted 5d ago

Wow, they weren't wrong. What a stupid rule.

3

u/Waaswaa 5d ago

It's weird that the Rusian/Youkranyan dispute should affect other types of discussion so much.

Bad bot!

-1

u/DongQuixote1 5d ago

stop being wrong on the internet

1

u/VECMaico 5d ago

Stop telling random people what to do

14

u/Not_a__porn__account 6d ago

and manufacturing facilities.

We had one of these in an old print shop I worked at.

It was for the dude that ran the machine, and since it was so loud he needed a light like for deaf people to know it was ringing.

Strangest job I ever had but it was actually kind of fun. At least in my teens.

1

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-31

u/AutoModerator 6d ago

Sorry, but this comment has been removed since it appears to be about the situation developing in Ukraine. With Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, we've been flooded with a lot of submissions about this, but in addition to our politics rule, there is nothing oddly terrifying about the situation. It is a plainly terrifying situation that will affect the lives of many people.

If your comment is not related to the situation in Ukraine, please report this comment and we will review it. Thank you for your understanding!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

23

u/VECMaico 6d ago

Bad bot: it had NOTHING to do with the current situation over there.

11

u/andymacdaddy 6d ago

That bot is oddly terrifying

25

u/bubbleweed 6d ago

Probably used in businesses/government offices where there is a single connected line... pick up and its just auto connected to one contact. For instance gate house on a government building calls up to officials office by just lifting the phone, and vice versa. They do look creepy though lol.

6

u/theoldfamiliarsting 5d ago

This was called a "ring down circuit" btw.

8

u/am2kn 6d ago

secured line for direct call between high rank government members. you not in the network just a-guy to b-guy.

7

u/bubbleweed 6d ago

Yellow one for Dimitri and Red one for Stalin, never touch the red one comrade

1

u/DOG_DICK__ 5d ago

Unless you have spoopy story for Josef, he loves those

6

u/Alright_So 6d ago

Maybe to an operator?

2

u/A_Tad_Bit_Nefarious 5d ago

If you ever seen Power Puff Girls cartoon, there was that emergency phone with a direct line to the Mayor's office. These are kind of like that.

I work in aviation, and our operations room has a red phone that goes directly to the crash rescue/fire department.

3

u/Bong_Hit_Donor 5d ago

In Soviet Russia phone call you

2

u/ubergic 4d ago

Came here for that.

1

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/AutoModerator 6d ago

Sorry, but this comment has been removed since it appears to be about the situation developing in Ukraine. With Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, we've been flooded with a lot of submissions about this, but in addition to our politics rule, there is nothing oddly terrifying about the situation. It is a plainly terrifying situation that will affect the lives of many people.

If your comment is not related to the situation in Ukraine, please report this comment and we will review it. Thank you for your understanding!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/SwankaTheGrey 6d ago

Likely if it can make calls it's "trip/ring". Similar to bullpen phones. They only can call the other end

1

u/Fellow--Felon 6d ago

It calls only one number, party HQ. What more could a righteous citizen want?

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/AutoModerator 5d ago

Sorry, but this comment has been removed since it appears to be about the situation developing in Ukraine. With Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, we've been flooded with a lot of submissions about this, but in addition to our politics rule, there is nothing oddly terrifying about the situation. It is a plainly terrifying situation that will affect the lives of many people.

If your comment is not related to the situation in Ukraine, please report this comment and we will review it. Thank you for your understanding!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/viktordachev 5d ago

Functions like walkie-talkie. For example a security guard might only need to be able contact his officer (or vise versa, officers might have several of these on their desk, each with a direct wire line), but not his wife and cousin while at work. If this one rings you pick it up immediately! At the other hand THIS line can't be "busy" in case of emergency .

1

u/TheDwarvenGuy 5d ago

IIRC old phone systems used to either have just everyone on one line or have you vocally ask the operator to patch you in to someone.

1

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg 5d ago

With operators. You pick the receiver and got connected to an operator on the switboard. You tell them the number or name and they would physically connect your jack with the destination (before them calling the receiver and letting them know there was an incoming call for then)

For medium and long distance calls they would daisy chain switchboards until they reached the destination. It was bonkers and still in use longer than you would think. When the semi-autimatic switchboards where in use, the manual method was still in use for long distance calls (at least on my country)

1

u/GlassScooter 5d ago

The phone rings you pick it up, you are the sent to the front lines

1

u/aardw0lf11 5d ago

You don’t connect with the caller, the caller connects with you. /s

1

u/Penguin_Joy 3d ago

Probably used with a hot dialer that only calls one number

-9

u/grkuntzmd 6d ago

Being a piece of Soviet equipment, it probably didn’t.