Skip to main content
Soviet Signs and Street Relics by Jason Guilbeau
Poignant reminders of an optimistic Soviet past in Google-derived images
(Left to right, from top) Zernograd, Russia; Vasylkiv, Ukraine; Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan; Vorkuta, Russia; Novovorontsovka, Ukraine; Yakovlev fighter plane in Novosibirsk, Russia; Vorkuta, Russia; Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine and Shatki n/Nizhny Novgorod

WHILE “travelling” across the former territories of the Soviet Union by using Google Street View, photographer Jason Guilbeau zeroed in on images that fired his imagination.

He then stripped them of their navigational markers to eliminate visual interference and has come up with a mode of “travel” in which the sensorial experience of smells, weather, tactile sensations and sounds, including that of human voice, are absent.

But does it matter? Evidently not to Guilbeau, who seems unconcerned by the distance in both time and space to the subjects invoking his curiosity.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Cartoons: (L to R) Citizen Chicane and Songi
Culture / 23 December 2024
23 December 2024
(L to R) the book cover; Labour Party election poster 1945;
Books / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
Cairokee play Telk Qadeya (That is a Cause)
Gig review / 5 May 2024
5 May 2024
MICHAL BONCZA reviews Cairokee gig at the London Barbican
PROUD HISTORY: (L to R) Living Wage Campaign by COSATU (The
Culture / 29 April 2024
29 April 2024
Similar stories
PREMONITION OF DISASTER: Anonymous photographer, Fallen Stat
Book Review / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
(L to R) the book cover; Labour Party election poster 1945;
Books / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station, Eryri National Park
Books / 26 July 2024
26 July 2024
SIAN LEWIS recommends a unique book of photography that invites greater appreciation of our urban and industrial landscapes
MEDITATIONS ON LIFE: (L to R) Dawson Heights, Southwark, 196
Book Review / 21 May 2024
21 May 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a photographic sojourn around London housing estates that defined post WWII British civic architecture