The Beauty of Georgian Soviet Architecture

 

We spoke to Georgian photographer George Gogua about his work. Over the past few months George has been working on a project entitled “The Beauty of Soviet Architecture”; although we later found out that he was being a little cheeky about that title. He is a journalist and multimedia reporter for Radio Free Europe based in Tbilisi.

 

Can you just begin by telling us about your own living situation growing up? Where were you born and did you grow up in a Khrushchyovka? If so, how did you feel about it?

I did not grow up in Tbilisi. I grew up in the western part of Georgia, in a small district. I used to live in a private house and despite the fact that I would often visit the capital, those Soviet high-rise buildings made no difference to me.

I moved to Tbilisi when I was 18. That was my first experience of living in a high-rise building. It was not a Khrushchyovka as we know it, but it was a Soviet one too. The same gray façade, same strict shapes etc. Actually I did not feel any difference at first, except the fact that I did not have a yard to go out whenever I wished. Plus in a short time I got so used to the buildings that I stopped noticing them at all. They became a part of my everyday life very soon. It was 2 years later when I actually realized that there was something interesting in them and started documenting them.

 

When many people from the West speak about housing in the former Soviet Union there is a tendency for them to remark about the grayness, the monotony, and the general depressing quality to them. You shoot a lot of them in your photography. How do you feel about these buildings being disparaged?

I really find Soviet buildings depressing. I am not an expert in Architectural Psychology but what I assume is that there was a reason why the Soviets started building those buildings all over the Soviet Union and even outside it (I was surprised to see Khrushchyovkas when I visited Kabul, Afghanistan). And the reason I think was to create an ILLUSION of equality. But mainly my assumption is that the monotony, grayness and rigid shapes of these buildings were meant to somehow effect on the citizens’ minds and general moods.

 

In Tbilisi, you seem to have three major architectural styles from three different periods: the pre-Soviet era, the Soviet era, and the post-Rose Revolution. Which of these eras excites you most when you’re around Tbilisi taking photos? And why?

Yes, pretty much there are three major architectural styles in Tbilisi. Pre-Soviet, Soviet and Post-Soviet. In terms of urban development and architecture I find the pre-Soviet era the best of these. First of all because these buildings, built in the 18th, 19th and beginning of the 20th century are more Western-style and they make Tbilisi a city which it’s meant to be – a perfect mix of Asian and European culture. The old, historical part of Tbilisi is a unique example.

Regarding the post-Rose Revolution architecture, what do feel about the new buildings and such built by the Saakashvili government?

Saakashvili’s urban development policy was criticized a lot by architects and urbanists. So is the policy of the Georgian Dream. In fact, those contemporary-style buildings were built in the old part of the city and they did not match the overall architectural sight. As a journalist I have worked on this issue a lot and I agree with the experts’ opinion that contemporary architecture is important of course, but they can’t be used to ruin the historical look of the city.

 

I was recently in Kyrgyzstan and at first I found most Khrushchyovkas incredibly ugly and was thinking what an eye sore they were. However the more time I spent around them, the more I found myself kinda admiring the political quality of providing housing to those in need. Do you feel the social equality aspect of them is somewhat underrated?

I named my project as The Beauty of Soviet Architecture. This title is satirical but there is also some logic in it. One thing I admire is that if Soviets really meant to use these buildings as some kind of weapon for psychological pressure, they achieved that for sure. And this is nothing about equality; this is mostly about not letting people feel different.

That’s why I think, after 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed we suddenly got so much interference in those Soviet Blocks by the residents themselves. They would add balconies, loggias, windows and etc., and no one cared about that. They somehow felt free at last to do whatever they wanted (as a result we got buildings even uglier than they were before).