Back in the USSR: A private collection of Lend-Lease relics

Take a virtual journey to the Soviet reality by following us in the best museums. This is the Museum of the Lend-Lease in Moscow. Nikolay Borodin, its founder and only curator, collected some rare equipment, clothes and supplements gathered in USA through the Lend-Lease program, which was launched in 1940 to help the USSR and other allies to eradicate fascism.

Lend-lease was a program under which the United States supplied equipment to allied countries during World War II. The form in which these supplies (lease) were presented was initially extremely convenient for the US government. Before December 1941, it did not take part in the war and had to deal with strong anti-war sentiments in the country.

The first deliveries of military aid from the West to the USSR started soon after Germany attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941. 

The USA came to the USSR’s aid. Starting at the end of October and the beginning of November 1941, the Lend-Lease law was extended to the Soviet Union. Throughout the war, three protocols were signed in which the maximum amount of military and civilian materials provided to the Soviet Union by the United States and Great Britain was established. The Washington protocol acted until July 1942, the London protocol until July 1942, and the Ottawa protocol until 1944, with a subsequent extension. Supplies under the lend-lease program were officially ended on May 12, 1945, but were further carried out all the way to August 1945 under a special program and the additional Molotov-Mikoyan List.

Estimates of the cost of US supplies to the Soviet Union under the lend-lease program vary. It is thought that during the period from 1941 to 1945, the Soviet Union received nearly 16.7 million tons of supplies amounting to more than $10 billion (the equivalent to $120-140 billion in today's money). 

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