The article presents a study of daily life of the state elite in USSR in the late 1940-ies. The research was carried on the base of the history of emotions. The main attention is paid to the biographies of the chairmen of the Leningrad city and regional leadership. The study of emotional standards allows us to offer a new interpretation of historical facts, as well as to reveal the characteristic features of family communication in the era of late Stalinism. The study is based on a set of offi ce materials, oral history materials and ego-documents