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Sad glimpses of an era gone by
Bleak documentation of the remnants of the Soviet period is made soulless by an absence of human beings, writes JOHN GREEN
(L to R) Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture by Vera Mukhina, 1937, Moscow; abandoned office for the construction of the Nadezhda (Hope) factory in Norilsk, Russia; Shaybale housing estate, built in 1974, Novokuznetsk Russia Built in 1974
[Arseniy Kotov]
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Soviet Seasons
By Arseniy Kotov
Fuel Design & Publishing
£24.34
THIS is the follow-up volume to Kotov’s debut Soviet Cities. It is an odd collection of photos, all in colour, featuring Soviet-era urban landscapes of housing estates and industrial sites, interspersed with murals, mosaics and monumental sculptures, many in a state of semi-dereliction. He covers four areas of the post-Soviet republics – Siberia, Ukraine, European Russia and the Caucasus.
Each area is separated incongruously by season, but you would be hard-put to guess in which season any one of the photographs was taken, as they are all drained of real colour, mostly sepia-toned, taken at dusk, night-time or under grey skies. The viewer is confronted with almost identical images of densely packed, faceless housing blocks, seemingly dumped into the landscapes.
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