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A poignant remembrance of things past
FM Dostoevsky Academic Drama Theatre in Nizhny Novgorod, designed by V Somov, built in 1987 [Arseniy Kotov]

SOVIET CITIES Labour Life Leisure
by Arseniy Kotov  
FUEL £24.95

“I WAS born in 1988 and have no experience of life in the USSR, but looking at its architecture it is clear that it was a great civilisation with a genuine intention to build a fairer society,” writes Arseniy Kotov in the introduction to his fascinating photographic record of the Soviet Union interrupted.

Kotov denotes the ever-present art on the facades of buildings, particularly housing estates, with motives from socialist life and regrets the demise of the architecturally legendary palaces of culture — vibrant communal hubs with workshops, lectures, performances — these days transformed into indoor markets where now, its once gainfully employed visitors and participants, eke a meagre living.

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