A Phallus-Shaped Bottle Made in the USSR in 1988
The glass vessel is in a Russian museum and may have been intended as a gag gift.
The Shuya Historical, Art, and Memorial Museum, named for M. V. Frunze, holds a phallus-shaped glass bottle. It was made in 1988 at the Urshel Glassworks in the Vladimir region.
The bottle has a narrow neck, an elongated body, and a rounded projection at the base. A raised spiral runs around its upper section. Gold paint was used to decorate the bottle. It holds 700 mL, stands 28 cm tall, and weighs 388 grams. Its museum inventory number is ШИММФ 2871/13, and it is listed as no. 17048340 in Goskatalog, Russia’s state catalog of museum collections.
The Shuya museum collects bottles with sculptural forms and other unusual vessels, including Russian and foreign examples with hidden features. In the 1990s, the museum organized an exhibition called “Bottle” that included unusual pieces of glassware. But when “Phallus” entered the collection and who it came from are still unknown.
The Urshel Glassworks, where the bottle was made, was originally a crystal factory belonging to the industrialist Ivan Sergeyevich Maltsov. The factory began operating in 1858.
After the Russian Revolution, the factory was nationalized — seized from its owner and transferred to the state. In the Soviet era, the factory mass-produced drinking glasses, decanters, beer mugs, and bottles. Its workshops were retooled in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Phallus” may have been made to order, as a prototype, or even in secret. None of these possibilities has been confirmed.
The bottle was made at the height of perestroika, the Soviet reform era, when sexuality began to be discussed more openly in Soviet films and the press. Measures from the anti-alcohol campaign launched in 1985 were still in force. Whether these circumstances influenced the bottle’s design is unknown.
Glass souvenirs were also made in the Vladimir region at the time. The Experimental Glassworks in Gus-Khrustalny, for example, made figurines of animals and fairy-tale characters. “Phallus” may likewise have been intended as a humorous souvenir or as a bottle for giving alcohol as a gift. Who devised its shape, what the vessel was intended for, and how many bottles were produced remain unknown.
Bibliography and Sources
- Vasilyev, A. [Report on the Souvenir Department of the Experimental Glassworks]. Призыв, September 5, 1987. Reprinted in the historical overview “ООО ‘Опытный стекольный завод’ (ОСЗ), г. Гусь-Хрустальный [Experimental Glassworks LLC (OSZ), Gus-Khrustalny]” on the “Любовь безусловная” website.
- “Уршельский стекольный завод [Urshel Glassworks].” Раритетус.
- Shuya Historical, Art, and Memorial Museum Named for M. V. Frunze. “Бутылка. Фаллос [Bottle. Phallus].” Государственный каталог Музейного фонда России [State Catalog of Russia’s Museum Collections], record no. 17048340. The object’s specifications follow the available description of the record. The original catalog entry still needs to be checked.
- Shuya Historical, Art, and Memorial Museum Named for M. V. Frunze. “Сотрудники редакции журнала ‘Тара и упаковка’ в музее [The Editorial Staff of ‘Tara i Upakovka’ at the Museum].” August 27, 2022.
- Bhattacharya, Jay, Christina Gathmann, and Grant Miller. “The Gorbachev Anti-Alcohol Campaign and Russia’s Mortality Crisis.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5, no. 2 (2013): 232–260.
- Ter-Grigoryan, Svetlana Yuriyevna. “A Soviet Parade of Horribles: Conservatism in Glasnost-Era Discourses on Sex, 1987–1991.” Master’s thesis, Western Kentucky University, 2016.
