Soviet Asia: Photographic Journey Through Ex-Soviet Republics' Architecture

Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego's photo book 'Soviet Asia', published by FUEL in April 2019, documents architecture from the 1950s to the fall of the USSR across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The images capture a hybrid style blending Soviet brutalism with Persian and Islamic geometric ornamentation. The book includes texts by Alessandro De Magistris (Politecnico di Milano) and Marco Buttino (University of Turin). The photographers spent about a month on the campaign, using satellite imagery and local resources like Archcode Almaty for research. They previously focused on abandoned places around Milan and later on brutalist and avant-garde architecture in former Yugoslavia and USSR. The work aims to provide a visual interpretation of buildings as symbols of their time and society.