Soviet mosaics sometimes take on the appearance of wall sculptures through the use of three-dimensional panels, as is the case here in Bukhara.

On this section of wall at the Bukhara Irrigation Management Building, the tesserae have fallen like drops of water, revealing the raw structure of the work, which, unsurprisingly, illustrates the water cycle.

The Soviet mosaics in Bukhara are less well-known than those in other cities, such as Tashkent. But they have their share of admirers, and you can discover them by following, for example, this itinerary : A Guide to Soviet-era Mosaics in Bukhara (+ Free Map)

Photo credit: Megan C. Starr (US, Megan Starr)

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A torch being carried, smiling gymnasts, a colourful composition showcasing the full range of sporting disciplines: everything suggests that this mosaic was created on the occasion of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. It is located in Semey, a city in north-eastern Kazakhstan, formerly known as Semipalatinsk and notorious as a site of Soviet nuclear testing.
These Soviet mosaics unfold across expansive murals, embodiments of a national optimism that variously took local folk tales or more overt state narratives as its subject matter. While these remnants of a bygone era may divide opinion, they bear witness to the fragility of what historian Ilia Malkov calls “minor architecture”.
Products of Soviet urban planning, which sought to enhance everyday life, mosaics and Soviet bus shelters lack the grandeur of public monuments. Their discreet yet distinctive presence has made them objects of both preservation and destruction. In this respect, they reveal the full ambiguity surrounding the restoration of the Soviet-built environment.

Photo credit: Simone Bergonzi (Italy, @simonebergz)

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Soviet mosaics are most often figurative. Designed to bring a touch of warmth to new towns built from heavy slabs of raw concrete, they also serve as a vehicle for propaganda. They celebrate heroic feats, technological and economic achievements, and the values of labour and industrialisation. Artists drew on local aesthetic conventions: arabesques, geometric patterns and the colour blue.

At first glance, none of this is apparent in this section of mosaic housed in the lobby of the Tashkent TV Tower. This masterpiece, verging on abstraction, depicts the space in which two cosmonauts are moving.

Credits: Isabelle Vincent (France)

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Karaganda is a city built from scratch from 1934 onwards, under the direction of architect and urban planner Alexander Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Like many Soviet cities shaped by large-scale construction projects, its façades of public and state buildings are adorned with Soviet mosaics. Today, these mosaics have become part of the Central Asian urban palimpsest: old towns, monumental construction projects, new neighbourhoods, Brezhnev-era apartment blocks, presidential ambitions… As material embodiments of the Soviet legacy in public space, the presence of Soviet mosaics raises questions and can even provoke unease.

Photo Credits : Mathilde Ramkissoon (France, @sovietblocs)

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This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful Soviet mosaics in Tashkent. It is located on the southeastern outskirts of the city, in the Bektemir neighborhood.

In 1966, a devastating earthquake destroyed the city. It was rebuilt in record time, in accordance with the Soviet Union’s new standards and aesthetic ideals. The massive wall mosaics, which soften and brighten the concrete facades, became the new symbol of Tashkent.

Credits : Massimiliano Macrì (Italy, @tarakano_me)

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Jars filled with pickled vegetables, spicy adjika, and homemade specialties. In Kazakhstan, food preservation has a long tradition: the harvest from the warmer months is carefully stored to bring a taste of summer to the winter table. A part of everyday culture passed down from generation to generation.

Credits : Gereon Wintz (Germany)

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Nomadism takes many forms, with different social structures and patterns of seasonal movement. In Central Asia, it is most commonly pastoral, revolving around seasonal migrations between summer and winter pastures. In this respect, it bears a resemblance to the pastoral traditions of the Alps.

In Kyrgyzstan, the summer pasture, known as a yaylak or jailoo, is home to clusters of yurts, herders moving their livestock between pastures, and the occasional tourist. Here, in Chong Kyzyl Suu, the atmosphere is peaceful, broken only by the calls of shepherds gathering their flocks as the day draws to a close.

Credits : Pierre-Armand Dussex (nomadsland, Switzerland)

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The Indomitable Spirit of Childhood: white dominates the daily lives of Ashgabat’s residents as a symbol of purity, grandeur and stability. Yet it yields to the colourful world of children.

Photo credit: Cornelia Steinigen (Germany, @cornelia_la_andarina)

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Residential blocks line the streets of the town of Daşoguz, 455 km north of Ashgabat. Outside the Turkmen capital, the abundance of gold and marble is less ubiquitous. The architecture, however, continues to set the same tone: white on white.

Photo credits : Anton Pfaller (Germany, @apr_jnr)

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As night falls, the white façades of Ashgabat’s monuments are transported into a colourful wonderland, an electric mirage in the middle of the Karakum Desert.

Photo credit: Cornelia Steinigen (Germany, @cornelia_la_andarina)

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Rising out of the ground, seemingly out of place amid the greenery, these pristine buildings dominate the landscape of the Turkmen capital. High-rise towers have proliferated since the country gained independence in 1990, fuelled by close partnerships with French construction firms (Bouygues, Vinci) and Turkish companies (Polimeks). Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most gas-rich countries, draws on export revenues to fund monumental construction projects : extravagant, almost hallucinatory visions that flourish in the capital, Ashgabat, in the heart of the Karakum Desert.

Photo credit: Cornelia Steinigen (Germany, @cornelia_la_andarina)

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In Ashgabat, when the streets are not deserted, they are filled with white cars and only white ones.

This began in 2015, with a ban on the import of black cars. In 2018, outside any legal framework, coloured cars were gradually banned and confiscated. Their owners had to consider spending considerable sums to have them repainted white and get them back.

Photo credits : Anton Pfaller (Germany, @apr_jnr)

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Two motorcyclists pass through Alichur, a small village on the route to the Pamir Highway. Known as the M41 during the Soviet era, this highway stretches over 1,200 km. Winding, steep, and offering spectacular scenery, it is one of the highest highways in the world. It is often the only route connecting the Autonomous Province of Gorno-Badakhshan to the rest of Tajikistan. Geographically isolated, this region has historically been inhabited by the Pamiris, who have been regularly and severely persecuted by the Tajik central government.

Photo credits : Simone Bergonzi (Italy, @simobergz)

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Rising above the white mass of buildings, a statue of a horse stands over 40 metres tall. It marks the Olympic Stadium built for the 2017 Asian Games. 

In 2013, Ashgabat was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the city with the largest number of white marble buildings in the world, totalling 543 structures with a combined surface area of 4,514 million square metres.

This is the result of the vision of its two successive presidents, Saparmurat Niyazov (who died in 2006) and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. The latter also wrote a book entitled ‘Ashgabat, the White City’ to mark the 140th anniversary of the city’s founding.

Credit: Cornelia Steinigen (Germany)

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Spectators are waiting for the doors of the Astana Opera House to open. The building’s strict symmetry contrasts with the hustle and bustle of the crowd.

Credits : Simone Bergonzi (Italy, @simobergz)

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View of the barren and imposing foothills of the Kopet Dag Mountains, in Turkmenistan, which rise south of the capital and form the natural border with Iran.

Photo credits : Anton Pfaller (Germany, @apr_jnr)

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A woman walks through the mountains of Tajikistan, a book clutched tightly in her hand. An ordinary, everyday scene, set against the backdrop of the arid landscapes of the Central Asian highlands.

Credits: Sascha Ronneburger (Germany)

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A daily stroll through the narrow streets of Bukhara, in Uzbekistan. In the 10th century, when the city had already been inhabited for centuries, these very streets were home to some of history’s greatest figures: the physician and philosopher Avicenna, the poet Rudaki, the scholar Al-Biruni…

Photo credits: Étienne de Vaumas (France)

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Timur’s mausoleum in Samarkand, the Gur-e Amir, is an architectural marvel dating from 1403 which is said to have inspired the Taj Mahal (1631) in Agra and the St Petersburg Mosque, Russia (1910). It could be a symbol of the much-discussed and much-commented-on concept of the Silk Road.

Credits: Salomé Aldeguer-Roure (France)

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In the Aktaou region, camels come to drink as the sun sets. In the faint glow, their bodies and humps blend together.

Credits: Tolgahan Biskin (France, @tolgahan.iso)

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