StarDestroyer.Net BBS

By the way, my elementary school was located in a building that was almost exactly like the one Stas posted. This is a standardized project as well, right?

Yes. I can't find the index exactly (if I were still working at the Municipal Urban Construction Institute, i'd tell you just about anything on typical projects, sans the classified parts). But it's a 1970s project as far as I know, that's the time elementary schools were starting to get two interconnected blocks in a building.

And...you've probably been told that before, but Ania is totally hot

She likes photoshoots too, which allows me to improve my abilities

...although they are popularly regarded as lousy places to live,and districts they are concentrated in are usually rife with crime.

We also faced a problem when only part of the housing fund could be supported by the new government, leading to rampant homelessness and crime. Actually the Khrushovka type 5-store buildings are the most "ghetto" places right now, but the Brezhnew ones (9-11 storey) are considered to be ok places.

Technically the 9-story is very cheap to make and it's an efficient design. It is very important in a nation where suddenly the population can't afford housing due to laughable wages... meaning Russia

We can't build macmansions, because there'd be no one to buy housing in them.

Stas Bush wrote: Yes. I can't find the index exactly (if I were still working at the Municipal Urban Construction Institute, i'd tell you just about anything on typical projects, sans the classified parts). But it's a 1970s project as far as I know, that's the time elementary schools were starting to get two interconnected blocks in a building.

That would be about right - my parents moved away from the city center a couple of years after I was born, and the school was built around that time, which means 1985 or so.

This is the elementary school I went to.

You can see it's based around standardized blocks, each of them had three stories, and one - two stories. The two-story block had administrative offices and the dining hall, the others contained classrooms.

Incidentally, the entire area around the school was built in PPR (People's Polish Republic) times, and there are three architectural styles present:

1) Single family dwellings built in rows of four houses each, sharing construction walls.

2) Single family "Gierek's Bricks" - square homes. Ugly as fuck, but cheap. Freestanding.

3) Post-communist construction: various individual homes and small apartment blocks.

We also faced a problem when only part of the housing fund could be supported by the new government, leading to rampant homelessness and crime. Actually the Khrushovka type 5-store buildings are the most "ghetto" places right now, but the Brezhnew ones (9-11 storey) are considered to be ok places.

The blocks in Gdansk are usually the 11 story variety, and they have been getting better - especially since the housing communalities began investing and renovating them - they're being repainted, have heat isolation installed, their wiring re-done, etc.

Almost immediately after that happens, crime rates (especially petty crime and vandalism) drop in the concerned areas.

One of such renovated blocks in Zaspa, Gdansk

You can see there's no ugly gray walls left - those places really have plenty of life in front of them.

We can't build macmansions, because there'd be no one to buy housing in them.

People here prefer to buy newly built apartments and houses to living in blocks, but the trends here is to make clusters of small four-storey apartment buildings Like these, rather than American-style freestanding 500 square meter homes.

Incidentally, this means we use space much more efficiently, have little problem with suburban sprawl (I live in a suburban community, and should Peak Oil makes my car unusable, I'll be able to get to the city in about an hour via bicycle)

PeZook wrote:People here prefer to buy newly built apartments and houses to living in blocks, but the trends here is to make clusters of small four-storey apartment buildings Like these, rather than American-style freestanding 500 square meter homes.

We have those in the US too, the clustered design. In fact, the building my sister recently moved into looks very much like that. It's a brand-new, 10+ building complex (grouped in 2 "clusters"), each building with 5 floors of apartment space and a garage on the ground floor.

FSTargetDrone wrote: We have those in the US too, the clustered design. In fact, the building my sister recently moved into looks very much like that. It's a brand-new, 10+ building complex (grouped in 2 "clusters"), each building with 5 floors of apartment space and a garage on the ground floor.

Yeah, what I meant wasn't that we are the only ones building such apartments, just that it's the default option for most young people here. In my area, there's four developed areas: three of those are built up with five-story apartment buildings, and one (where I live) is mostly double 120 square meter homes.

So say, you want to see more industrial and decay stuff? Or perhaps some stuff from other cities, like, say, Barnaul or Novosibirsk - Ania took those but they're pretty good too IMHO.

I'd like to see what some of the other cities look like, if that's all right.

PeZook wrote:Yeah, what I meant wasn't that we are the only ones building such apartments, just that it's the default option for most young people here. In my area, there's four developed areas: three of those are built up with five-story apartment buildings, and one (where I live) is mostly double 120 square meter homes.

I wish there was more of that here. I'm on the East Coast of the US (Pennsylvania) and despite the housing issues, foreclosures and whatnot, the damn suburban subdivisions are still popping up around here like mushrooms after rain.

Stas Bush wrote:So say, you want to see more industrial and decay stuff? Or perhaps some stuff from other cities, like, say, Barnaul or Novosibirsk - Ania took those but they're pretty good too IMHO.

How about both? I like urban decay photos as much as anyone, but images of other cities would be interesting too.

I'd be interested to see photos of Omsktransmash

How about both?

Expect a few sets from Novosibirsk, Kemerovo and Sverdlovsk then.

P.S. As for Omsktransmash, I PMed Vympel. Really, a subject too murky to publish openly.

Series #7. Postcards: A Window to Yekaterinburg

Presented by:

Yekaterinburg, formerly known as Sverdlovsk, is one of the biggest and most economically powerful cities of Russia. Wide prospects, huge industries and lots of things to see. This can only show a little, a mere glimpse.



Will you be the next Hero?

At the Sverdlovsk train station, a huge memorial commemorates the victory in the Great Patriotic War. A worker walks in step with a tanksman, and the inscription reads, "To the heroes of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945, the tanksmen of the Special Ural Tank Corps, from the workers of the Sverdlovsk region".

A young Russian army soldier, dwarfed by the memorial, sits lonely beside it. What is he thinking? Will he have the courage to become a hero like they did, if the Rodina calls?

Ural Trans Mash

If you ever wondered which place makes the self-propelled artillery for the entire USSR and Russia, travel no further.

Guardian of the Old

An old industrial building rises in the street, with distinct old Russian architecture.

A Monastery in the Forest

In the forests of Ural mountains, monasteries are hidden from the eyes of the tourists. But it doesn't take much effort to find them, just ask the locals.

The Temple commemorates the murder of the Tsar family

The Tsar who was murdered in the Revolution, has been made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church, and his family likewise. A modern temple was built in their honour, with a memorial statue.


Lamp Posts

Those are rather specific design, uncommon for many other Russian cities

Pre-revolutionary Center

The city is old and big, harbors a far larger old historical center than Omsk. Here's just a few buildings from that ensemble.

Still Death

Historical buildings decay like all other ones do. Without money to keep them afloat, after 20 years of neglect, many are slowly desintegrating and require funds for repairs. However, the dying calm mood of the place is something that lingers on even after you leave it.

Yekaterinburg Administration - Workers' Imperial Style

A huge and beautiful Stalin Empire-style building with worker statues decorating the facade is in the center of the city, right across Lenin square.

One Lenin forgotted in the depths

We deliberately decided not to show the huge and nice Lenin statue in the middle of Sverdlovsk. Most can see it anywhere. But this Lenin, so neglected and forgotten, likesome of the historical buildings in the center, is hidden in the lush forests of the enormous Sverdlovsk Dendrarium. There he lives out his retirement. But even though the statue is small, and far less known than the Central Square Lenin, and is in great neglect, you can find flowers brought there on holidays.

Dendrarium the size of a forest

Yekaterinburg prides on it's enormous dendro-park, which houses lots of tree species and extends through a large portion of the city.

Ostankino's unlucky twin from the Dendropark

What is that huge, decaying and abandoned tower? Ostankino's unlucky twin. A 220 m concrete tower, was to be around 360 m with the 100m steel spire, and provide TV coverage for the entire area. It was started in 1987 and in a few years, put up to full height.

But even though the concrete works were finished, the collapse of the USSR and the ensuing economic disaster spelled doom for it.

In the 1990s, it was first unguarded, leading to the deaths of several reckless idiots, but later it was put under guard and is now scheduled for completion in 2011, with funds secured from the government.


Remember each war dead by name - Afghanistan and Chechnya memorial

Many of our people died in the wars against islamist nationalists in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

This memorial is a restless, mourning soldier sitting besides the Eternal Flame.

First constructed as an Afghanistan memorial, it has 10 stellas for 10 years, commemorating each and every citizen of the city who died in the conflict. Even though there's barely ten names on each stella, all are accounted for.

Later a Chechnya section was added in the background, with panels bearing the names of the later war dead.

Here's where we end our small tour...

Between the color and the architecture, the second photo of the temple to the Tsar and the photo of the historical town center both remind me very much of Produkin-Gorskii's photographs of old Russia.

The postprocessing is a little heavy on the last ones, I think. Still, some very worthwhile photographs here. Thank you.

When you take pictures with a small non-DSLR camra, postprocessing is about the only thing that can save them. The last image is done so on purpose, imitating the "Afghan heat", and some have been changed to unnatural sky colors to better imitate the postcard style (postcards here in Russia have unnatural, extremely vivid colors, a matter of printing I guess).

Stas, I'm coming to Russia to marry one of your russian women, and we will build a house and forever live in that Yekaterinburg Dendro-park thingy. And we shall be the Dendro-Park's Tom Bombadil. And it shall be good.

Been a long time since I haven't posted. My DSLR died, so I'm kinda busy getting a new one and I haven't paid much attention to what I was doing with other cameras, as well as older sets.

Omsk industrial decay

Abandoned gravel factory




Abandoned international airport with full airfield, 3-level terminal and all auxillary buildings


"There won't be any flights for today? Is my plane late?"

Old lifting crane

There's nothing wrong with using a compact camera! Especially in such brite, strong light in the middle of the day! . Lotsa processing, but some good stuff there as always. Why the different versions of some of the shots?

Well that's because I messed up the links, thanks for the tip - and corrected And making cheap stuff like compact camera photos work at all is rather hard without processing. Expect some more goodies when I get home.

Stas Bush wrote:Well that's because I messed up the links, thanks for the tip - and corrected And making cheap stuff like compact camera photos work at all is rather hard without processing. Expect some more goodies when I get home.

Not in my experience, my absolute favourite and best photos are with a compact camera. about 60% of the stuff I've printed and hanged up in my room was shot on my humble little Panasonic TZ1.

What's your compact? Why do you need to process beyond WB, contrast, maybe some cropping if shooting structures out on a sunny day?

I must agree in regards to compact automatics. If I had a nickel for every time I missed a shot because I was too busy tinkering with manual settings....

edit- great to see this thread again! I remember thoroughly enjoying your photos back in my pre-account lurker days.

Omsk Industrial Decay



Abandoned river cargo terminal and wood processing factory

HemlockGrey wrote:Those prefab buildings make me wretch. Robert Moses would be proud.

Nah, too colorful. For a proper Corbusierist look, you have to have plain reinforced concrete. Color is dishonest.

Omsk Various

Church of Paraskevi at dusk - I used to live in a flat which offered that view from the balcony


The bells ringing on holidays were intolerable and no sound isolation could help, but such are the peculiarities of living next to a church.

Uspenski Cathedral under construction


Child indoctrinates conduct Cross Processions around the building.

A memorial stella commemorating the awards of Order of Lenin and Order of Labour to the city of Omsk



The 14m high statue of Victorious Warrior in the Victory Park



(read about it here, Google translated but it's simple enough for that)

That cathedral is being built or rebuilt? It looks like something old and polished, not a new construction.
Is the weather really that crisp and blue skied or is that another bit of your post processing? And when will you upload something of a higher quality/size (just a tad) and not photobucket?

I don't see a reason to upload photos with greater resolution than the most common monitor space. Perhaps when everyone will have widescreen monitors permanently set to 1900x1200 like I do, I would consider doing it. As for the sky, it was pretty clear, if it went a little more blue than it really was that's due to my tampering with WB afterwards. The cathedral is completely new construction imitating an old design - the old one has been totally blown up.

Stas Bush wrote:I don't see a reason to upload photos with greater resolution than the most common monitor space. Perhaps when everyone will have widescreen monitors permanently set to 1900x1200 like I do, I would consider doing it.

Nothing extreme, but 800 pixels or 1024 (I upload mainly 840 these days due to being paranoid about the files being copied), as opposed to the small stuff photobucket shows.

As for the sky, it was pretty clear, if it went a little more blue than it really was that's due to my tampering with WB afterwards.

What did you do to keep the colours of the cathedral (gold and that) while changing the colour of the sky to such a strong, "painted" blue?

The cathedral is completely new construction imitating an old design - the old one has been totally blown up.

Cool, it's a pretty thing, though the shot might have benefited from not having the half-a-crane in the shot.

Um... dude, did you try clicking on the photos after you click on the link and open the imageshack page?

DEATH wrote:What did you do to keep the colours of the cathedral (gold and that) while changing the colour of the sky to such a strong, "painted" blue?

That's a pretty easy thing to do. Either tamper with "temperature" in Photoshop, (and if that's a RAW, tweak "White Balance" in whatever RAW editor you have), or just turn on "selective color" and push the "blue" color towards being even more blue. Selective saturation works nice on some photos (but it totally ruins stuff sometimes).