From Brutalism to sheer whimsy, these images are just a small edit of images from a beautiful book by Canadian Photographer ‘Chris Herwig’ which surveys hundreds of unique public structures raised beyond the Iron Curtain.
The Soviet Union is a time and a place commonly misinterpreted as one of conformity and of restrictions on creative freedom. To the contrary, functionaries of the state, albeit sometimes anonymously, were experimenting in design and planning departments across the entire territory.
Comprised of photographs from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Estonia and the disputed region of Abkhazia, Herwig’s recent book Soviet Bus Stops is the most comprehensive survey of Soviet bus stop design in print. The designs he reveals are as daring as they are unexpected.
On a long-distance bicycle trip from London to St. Petersburg in 2002, photographer Chris Herwig encountered something unexpected in the barren post-Soviet landscapes—artsy, unusual, and almost spaceship-like bus stops. The more he rode, the more he came across such unique transit structures.
These are not your standard photo subject and Soviet-era bus stops can be bloody hard to find. They may be visible from the road, but these bus stops sit on some very remote roads! That’s why the photographer spent 12 years, covering over 18,000 miles by car, bike, bus and taxi to find these Communist relics.
“I’d never seen such a variety of creative expression applied to a public structures before,” says Herwig. “The designers pushed the limits of their imaginations. They did not hold back and sometimes, maybe, even they went too far!”
Some of Herwig’s stops reflect post-Constructivist ideals and Modern preoccupations with new materials and function — the poured concrete, the cantilever coverings. Yet, there’s the inexplicable, too — the massive walk-in animals and the strange fusions of religious motif with municipal utility.
Built seemingly without design or budgetary restrictions, bus stops proved to be fertile ground for artistic experimentation. Herwig shows us everything from strict Brutalism to left field exuberance. All-in-all, considered collectively, these bus stops are, for Herwig, not a reflection of a top-down state but of barnstorming thinkers.
On one particular trip to Armenia, Herwig had been driving for hours in a barren landscape when suddenly he saw a bus stop in the distance. “It was big, with heavy brutalist-style concrete, but at the same time really light, experimental, and fun—built to last,” he says. “It was like a spaceship [had] landed in the middle of nowhere. It’s finding them in settings like that that makes it feel really worthwhile. The architecture, landscape, and culture all come together. You’re in these flat landscapes, and boom, you see a bus stop and it’s like it’s on a pedestal, like a fantastic art installation.”
“These bus stops are less about the Soviet Union as a whole and more about the local regions and individual artists … people who were often creatively oppressed.”
Many are now falling apart and being replaced by more boring standard structures. Some of the ones in the middle of nowhere built of concrete seem to have the potential of lasting forever while ones closer to towns have often been replaced.
“It would be great if this project brought more attention to the value of these fantastic structures but I doubt it will happen,” he says.
“I felt an urgency to document as many as I could so they could, at least, be preserved in photography.”
As much as Herwig respects these structures and loves his chosen medium he isn’t so sure his photographs will bring tangible improvements.
