How string bags appeared in the USSR: you will be surprised when you find out!

Now the string bag is a real trend! First of all, it slips easily into a handbag. Second, it makes you feel like a fighter for the environment. Third, it makes you a cautious hostess who saves on a set of packages. Fourthly, it allows you to take home even a loaf of bread, even a ten-kilogram watermelon. And so, this is especially interesting: who invented the string bag, and did the person understand how he invented a brilliant thing?

In the USSR, string bags began to be mass-produced in the 1930s. All of them were identical: each consisted of 14 rows of 24 cells. Soon they began to make additional devices for them: plastic handles, thanks to which the “native” ropes did not cut their hands, and special hooks that allowed them to hang a rope bag on a handrail in public transport.

The string bag had only one drawback: its contents were seen by everyone they encountered. However, this did not really bother the Soviet people: most of the “users” of the shopping bag put the same goods in it, which did not cause anyone envy or surprise. The only exception was Semyon Semyonovich Gorbunkov, who, out of inertia, put the gun in the net with the radish.

It is believed that the string bag got its name in 1935 thanks to the satirist Arkady Raikin. Like the economic peasant, he goes on stage with a mesh bag, lamenting: “Maybe I’ll bring something in it.” But in fact, the word appeared in the Russian language much earlier.

The first mention of the string bag appeared after the revolution. Leo Tolstoy’s daughter Alexandra described the early days of the Civil War as follows: “People walked along the sidewalk, dragging sleds behind them or carrying sacks, bags, dubbed ‘string bags’ – perhaps that they will get something – a piece of butter, horse meat, dry vobla or herring.

As for the origin of the bag, historians have a variety of versions. Some say that they were still woven by the Slavs, others recall that the women of Papua New Guinea and Panama used such bags to carry babies. However, the version closest to our time makes the Czech Republic the birthplace of the string bag.

It was there that at the beginning of the 20th century, businessman Vavřin Krčil began to produce women’s hairnets. However, they were not interested in customers, and somehow it was necessary to get rid of expired products. And then Krchil added handles to the nets, which turned the product into bags, which were immediately picked up by housewives, who appreciated the practicality of the idea.