Who invented the famous Soviet designers: you will be surprised when you find out!

Many are sure that the cult toy was invented in the Soviet Union: after all, who else could have such a simple and at the same time brilliant idea, if not a Soviet engineer? But in fact, it was the Englishman Frank Hornby, who was… an accountant, who developed the designer!

Frank Hornby was born in Liverpool in 1863. His biography was usual at the time: at 16 he finished school, started working in a family business when it went bankrupt, got a job as an accountant in a meat trading company. At the age of 20 Frank married a school teacher and the couple had two sons.

Frank was a great father – he spent a lot of time with the children and, of course, he constantly made toys for them. Hornby cut metal into pieces that could be used to assemble bridges, trucks, and even cranes. At first, all designers’ fragments were unique – each had its own place. But then Frank came up with the idea of ​​making interchangeable parts that could be used to build different machines.

Soon, Frank noticed that other boys were hanging out with his children, who also wanted to play with a homemade creator. This got Hornby thinking: what if the same sets were made to order? Things went well and in 1901 Frank got a patent for his invention. To pay for the paperwork, he had to borrow five books from his boss.

By the 1930s, Hornby had already become a millionaire. The cumbersome name “Mechanics Made Easy” has been replaced by a much simpler one: Meccano. Toys of this brand were sold all over the world. In 1913, Hornby had a competitor: the American Alfred Carlton Gilbert filed a US patent for the same designers. But in the end, Meccano “absorbed” the rival by buying the Gilbert Erector brand.

In the USSR, the achievements of the West were followed: the Soviet authorities borrowed everything that seemed interesting and useful. For example, canned fruit juices in bottles appeared in stores after Anastas Mikoyan, People’s Commissar for the Food Industry, visited the United States and saw that Americans were drinking orange juice. all prepared in the morning. I noticed the authorities and a durable and easy to make toy.

They did not blindly copy Meccano in the USSR – they decided to develop Hornby’s idea in the country. Foreign designers were somewhat reminiscent of Lego: only a few mechanisms or structures could be assembled from a single set. Yunost kits, which appeared on the shelves in the 60s, were universal and suitable for creating any model.

Designers differed in the number of parts: the simplest had plates of various shapes, bolts, nuts, a wrench and a screwdriver. Large sets included wheels with rubber tires, blocks and axles. Crane, tank, truck – do whatever you want! Missing parts? Go visit a friend who probably has the same toy and craft with them.

But “Youth” was appreciated not only by children, but also by parents. Fathers used drilled parts to fix furniture, attached plastic to them, made fasteners in cars – the metal was of excellent quality and never failed.

Today, analogues of “Youth” are still on sale. But they are made of flexible aluminum, which bends easily and quickly loses its appearance – and it’s not the same, not at all! The real “Youth”, which pleased parents with its “indestructibility”, is a thing of the past – more and more of these toys are no longer produced.