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)