In a new photographic essay titled
Soviet Asia, and published by FUEL, Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego explore the Brutalist heritage in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, detailing the regional variations of Soviet modernism in Central Asia. The photographers document this architectural legacy constructed between 1950 and 1991, the year of the USSR’s dissolution. Much of this architecture is mainly unknown to the broader audience, with several buildings included for the first time in a photographic documentary of Soviet architecture.
The urban development in Soviet Central Asia took on a specific form, drawing from the Persian and Islamic influences which shaped the region’s identity and architecture long before the assimilation into USSR. Architects from Kyiv, Moscow and Leningrad were brought to the capitals of Soviet Central Asia to unfold architecture and urbanism in the spirit of the Soviet Union. However, local architects