an abandoned maritime school in Kronshtadt, near Saint Petersburg, with almost all classrooms preserved and even the names of the students still written with the chalk on the blackboards…
an abandoned maritime school in Kronshtadt, near Saint Petersburg, with almost all classrooms preserved and even the names of the students still written with the chalk on the blackboards…
Photos by Alisa Oleva
According to Lenin: ‘Religion is opium for the people’. Thus, religion was banned during Soviet era and most of the churches either destroyed or reused. Furthermore, some of them became home for museums of atheism.
According to Lenin: ‘Religion is opium for the people’. Thus, religion was banned during Soviet era and most of the churches were either destroyed or reused as factories, storages, schools or even prisons. Some of them even housed museums of atheism.
Despite recent aggressive revival of the church in Russia, there are still some abandoned ruined churches to be found all around Russia.
More than 1 200 people used to seat in this huge hall. And now it is totally abandoned with only a giant chandelier hanging in the middle. The round stage itself has apocalyptically fallen down.
More than 1 200 people used to seat in this huge hall. And now it is totally abandoned with only a giant chandelier hanging in the middle. The round stage itself has apocalyptically fallen down.
The Lenin House of Culture in Nizhny Novgorod was built in 1927 to commemorate 10th anniversary of the Great October revolution. Lenin is still present here: there is a giant smashed head of Lenin and the other bust is standing facing the corner. A lot of artifacts are scattered everywhere: books, film rolls, slides and course materials. As a souvenir we took tokens, which would be given to people in the cloakroom.
Standing as it is, a sort of contemporary ruin, the former Lenin House of Culture could be a great sight for a performance. So I really hope to come back one day – if it will still be there as life of such buildings is unsecure and unpredictable.
I am Russian. I was born in 1989. When I fill in a visa application form I need to write that I was born in USSR, Moscow. I was born in the country, which you can no longer find on a map and in which I only lived for a little more than two years. From the 21st of August 1991 it no longer existed…
I am Russian. I was born in 1989. When I fill in a visa application form I need to write that I was born in USSR, Moscow. I was born in the country, which you can no longer find on a map and in which I only lived for a little more than two years. From the 21st of August 1991 it no longer existed.
Urban exploration (urbex) is popular in many countries. However, it is very specific on the post-Soviet territory. In this particular case we are dealing with the abandonment of a whole country, an almost century-long historic period and a never fulfilled utopia.
These buildings stand as phantoms, often with complicated ownership situation, abandoned and in decay. Although not completely destroyed, they are as if suspended between existence and absence.
Together with my friends I have been practicing urbex, travelling around the former Soviet Union countries, for more than three years now. In this blog I will be constantly sharing with you some of the photos (both by me and my friends) of the abandoned buildings we’ve been to.
an abandoned factory ‘Zarya’, Dzerzhinsk, Russia
Photos by Alisa Oleva
the demolition project 