Tag: soviet legacy
Memories of KarLag
This wall sculpture is located at the Museum of Memory for the Victims of Repression in the Dolinka Colony, also known as the KarLag Museum. For many years, the… [...]
The Karlag infirmary
The former infirmary of the Soviet prison labour camp in Karaganda (KarLag) reveals a bare interior where medical care must have been rudimentary. This labour camp, one of… [...]
In the Karaganda Gulag
In this office at the Karlag labour camp in Karaganda, the only decoration is a portrait of Lenin hanging on the wall. Some historians believe that Stalin’s… [...]
The Karaganda Gulag
In the administrative centre of the former KarLag gulag in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, stands a brightly coloured flag, typical of the Stalinist era, bearing a slogan glorifying work. This… [...]
Sciences in mosaic
A beautiful Soviet mosaic on the façade of one of the buildings of the Karakalpakstan State University in Nukus. The Mosaic depicts… [...]
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He remains
The ubiquitous representations of Lenin in the Soviet space are, in a way, part of local folklore. What role could they play today in the former republics of Central Asia?… [...]
Cinema Kosmos
The modernist ‘Kosmos’ cinema in Buston (former Chkalovsk), Tajikistan, displays on its façade a spaceship flying towards the outer space. Unfortunately part of the façade is obstructed by a… [...]
The boy and the mosaic
A boy rides his bicycle past the mosaic facade of a multi-family home on Abuali Ibn Sino Avenue in Dushanbe. This mosaic, designed by Sadukov & Lukovtsev in 1971, celebrates… [...]
“I would be lying if I said I’ll see a nuclear-free world.” An interview with Togzhan Kassenova
The collapse of the Soviet Union left Kazakhstan with the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world and little say in its fate. In her book Atomic Steppe: How… [...]