Walking around Moscow, one can occasionally spot the old Soviet past peeping out from behind the landscape. Take, for example, the Marx memorial which has now become a tourist destination. At the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, visitors take in old anti-capitalist posters from the revolutionary period.
Monthly Archives: October 2017
Walking around Moscow’s Krymskaya statue garden is an eerie experience, as the visitor is greeted to a seemingly vanished Communist world with age-old dinosaurs.
Walking around the All-Russian Exhibition Center, visitors are greeted to the sight of hyper-stylized statues which idealize Soviet industrial and military workers, women and even astronauts.
Outside Moscow’s city center, visitors are greeted to the curious site of the Soviet-era All Russian Exhibition Center. The site itself is vast, sporting multiple pavilions touting supposed ethnic harmony in the Soviet Union. Other oddities at the Exhibition Center include old Soviet facades touting the authorities’ prowess in animal […]
In Moscow, patrons may visit the original art nouveau house of writer Maxim Gorky which has been refashioned into a museum. As Russia marks the 100th commemoration of the revolution, Gorky is worth reconsidering. A keen social observer, Gorky himself worked at many menial and proletarian jobs during his youth. […]
At the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, patrons are greeted with the site of Soviet-era art. What constitutes “revolutionary art” one hundred years after the Russian Revolution? At Pushkinskaya-10, a local art museum in St. Petersburg, patrons may take in a degree of somewhat subversive art. On the outskirts of […]
Judging from appearances, Russian hipsters don’t differ substantially from their U.S. counterparts in terms of underlying tastes. In St. Petersburg, youth congregate at Etaji, a series of shops with trendy foods such as “black ice cream.” Etaji started as a squatted building. Today, shops are located in improvised compartments. At […]
In St. Petersburg, visitors are sometimes greeted to odd, quirky or ironic vestiges of the old Soviet Union. Take, for example, the Soviet Arcade Game Museum, where people may play some decidedly retro-era games. Nearby, visitors may see Soviet-era trains at a local train museum. Along a pier, a parked […]
In St. Petersburg, the visitor can still get a glimpse of what life was like for the old Soviet elite. Take, for example, Lenin’s old desk at the Museum of Political History. Nearby is the Kirov museum, the original art nouveau home of Sergei Kirov, a prominent Bolshevik leader. Nearby, […]
Though some might choose to forget the former Soviet Union, some of the old architecture still peeks out in St. Petersburg. Take, for example, the old Finlyandskiy railway station. Walking outside the city center, the visitor comes upon the old Soviet Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad.