Soviet Architecture In Dushanbe

The Soviets were running Tajikistan for about 70 years, from around the time of the Russian revolution until independence in the early 1990s. From baroque to brutalist designs, the Soviets built all sorts of things in Dushanbe and some of the old USSR style is still holding on.

The coolest Soviet building in Dushanbe, the round Borbad Hall. Great avocado and yellow concrete sculpture out front.

Put the great ones on a wall. At the writer's union, a spacial space is reserved for sculptures of some of the best Tajik writers. A park cable car station, as brutalist as it gets. Striking. Alas, closed.

Older buildings in Dushanbe have more of a baroque, rococo, maybe moderne style. The Tajik Institute of Art and Design. Nice clock tower.

Movie time, the Batah theater. A staircase at the old Soviet department store. Love the blingy balusters. A little touch of luxury when buying your rubber underpants.

Ahh, progress. The death march of American fast food, butting up against the grand National Academy of Sciences building. The Colonel beats the Tsar.

The Tashkent Aviation Worker's Palace

The Soviets liked to divide up neighborhoods by vocation and give the people what they wanted. Or at least build them what they needed. In the area of Tashkent that used to be a hub for aircraft building, the government built the area residents a nice community hall. The place could hold classes, social events, arts performances, rousing political meetings. Comrade, get together and rejoice!

After the fall of the Soviet Union, so went the fall of the Aviation Palace. The place is kind of closed, falling into disrepair.

Nice tile mosaic, nice ceiling woodwork. One of the lobby floors.

The main performance auditorium.

Another floor, another lobby area. Bringing the glass bling.

The caretaker. 

Enjoying The Beauty Of The Tashkent Metro

One thing the Soviets knew how to do is build beautiful subway lines. The stations are unique, fancy works of art. Marble, murals, themes, all sorts of features to brighten one's commute. The metro in Tashkent opened in 1977 with one line and nine stations. It now consists of four lines and 50 stations. The art keeps moving.

A typical metro station, all clad in marble, fancy columns and a prominent, unique art feature.

The station is Pahktakor and the mosaic tile work on the walls is an abstract cotton design. Props to one of the main crops in Uzbekistan. The Chilanzar station features about a dozen colorful genre scenes.

At Almazor station, a tribute to heroes of the Great Patriotic War. A memorial to those soldiers is near the station. Nice cross promotion.

Fancy tile design and luxurious marble work on a lighting column are features at the Hamid Alimdjan station. How about endless candelabra lighting? Just head to the Pushkin station.

The human struggle is real. At least in the Soviet socialist realist style. An impressive mural frieze at the Buyuk Ipak Yuli stop.

Getting Monumental In Almaty

Of course Almaty has a nice collection of old, Soviet, Russian, Communist, propaganda, whatever you want to label them monuments. The regime liked statues and making statements in bronze. Comrade, enjoy history on a pedestal.

Behold, the mighty Memorial of Glory. The sculpture commemorates victory during the Great Patriotic War, otherwise known in the West as WWII. A clever design, posing he-man Soviet soldiers into the shape of a map of the USSR.

To the left of the Memorial of Glory is a bronze frieze called, "Oath." Something about a Red Army soldier leading his fallen comrades' horses. Looks a little knight-ish. Also in the same park, a little bronze shout out to military medics.

Girl power. Here's the Memorial of Aliya Moldagulova and Manshuk Mametova, two women warriors who fought in that Great Patriotic War.

Suave. A statue of Gani Muratbaev, helper of the poor, founder of the Youth Union of Kazakhstan in the 1920s. Zipping forward to 1986, a sad, moving memorial to workers who died while putting out the fires and cleaning up at Chernobyl.

Lenin appearance, now relegated to a minor park, bunched up with various communist cronies. Still golden.

Greeting Cards From Soviet Holidays Past

One can find all sorts of old stuff in Tashkent, plenty of relics, detritus from the Soviet era. For this holiday season, time to look back at how Christmas and New Year's were celebrated in greeting/postcards during Soviet times. Happy Holidays, comrade.

The Kremlin wishes you a Happy New Year. Officially. What, you didn't think that giant communist operations put out corporate greeting cards as if they were IBM?

More of a traditional card, all decked out in folksy design cues. Santa partying with the animals. Tea for him, a carrot for the rabbit. Slurp it down and chomp it up.

Good thing that rabbit has been fed. Forget reindeer, go with a juiced-up bunny.

Rabbits suddenly not available? No problem, Santa can take a rocket ship or even a snowmobile, whatever was hip that year.

Getting back to nature with white birch trees from way up north.

Going with the 1960s-1970s stop motion block look. Giving mad props to local, Uzbek symbols, places. Notice the cotton bud filigree and the center clock graphic featuring the Lenin Museum and the adjacent clock tower on an office building. Cotton is the country's biggest crop and the buildings can still be found in downtown Tashkent.

The space race, planting a tree on the moon. Staked!

Happy Holidays to everyone! It's Sarah's and James' last year in Uzbekistan. Next summer, they will move to Canberra, Australia for three years. A new adventure and new holiday traditions to explore. 

Taking In The Saken Seifullin Museum

Saken Seifullin was a Kazakh writer and political activist, born in 1894. He supported the Bolshevik revolution and he headed the Kazakh delegation at Lenin's funeral. No matter, the Soviets under Stalin turned on him and he was shot and killed in 1938. It doesn't pay to be an educated intellectual, even one supporting the cause.

The museum is located in a period log cabin, originally built for a merchant.

A couple of rooms in the house continue the period theme, re-creating Seifullin's study and his family bedroom.

Super friends. The front room contains large, life-like statues of Seifullen's contemporary writers. Nice robes, make sure you always have at least one hand on it.

(Getting) Personal effects. Various writings and a sample suit.

Next to the museum, a statue of our suave, relaxed hero was erected in 1994, marking the centenary of his birth. The babushka is not impressed.

The Amazing Yangiobod Market

Think of your standard flea market and multiply it by 10. Or 50. Just make it huge. Plop it down in a dusty area by some railroad tracks, have it sprawl in and out and around a set of musty, dark warehouses. Sell everything, mostly used. Tools, clothes, auto parts, restaurant equipment. Some of your vendors have regular stalls, shops, areas. 

Many of your vendors are weekend junk collectors with a blanket of their finest products. Which means, they cleaned out some old lady's apartment a few days earlier. Score!

A pause before the dive.

The range of products. A regular stall, specializing in bolts, etc.. and a typical table of a someone's junk. Or treasures.

Young patriot. She helps her grandfather at his camera, telescope stall.

Old Soviet era stuff is around. "Who's bust can I interest you in today?" Moving off the cult of past personality, a suitcase filled with family snapshots.

Oh boy. One of the more interesting rooms, a musty-looking and -smelling place, filled with old art. Let's just call it the Salon of Yangiobod.

Back outside, another typical spread, a real random mix of stuff. "I need a meat grinder, a suitcase and a long brown coat and I don't have a lot of time." Whew! Not everything is inanimate. There's a pet/live animal section. You choose whether it's a pet or dinner, no judgement.

The lonely plant seller.