Soviet Bus Stops

Architecture, like anything else during the Soviet period, was under strict centralized supervision. While art and grand monuments were expected to advance the state narrative of communism as paradise on earth, sometimes the benign bus stops were overlooked. As a result, hundreds of architecturally distinctive bus stops are now scattered across the former Soviet Republic. Their bus stops were built as quiet acts of creativity against overwhelming state control. In 2002, Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig came across his first of these distinctive pieces of architecture, and has since pioneered a bus stop hunting trend from Kiev to Vladivostok. The bus stops he has chronicled represent an astonishing variety of original styles and types, from the strictest Brutalism to exuberant whimsy.