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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