Soviet and Abandoned Places

Soviet Tbilisi is more than grey panel blocks. Its best known symbol, the former Ministry of Highways that now houses the Bank of Georgia, is built from concrete blocks stacked crosswise on top of each other. On the Nutsubidze plateau residential towers are linked by skybridges, while Varketili and Ponichala are lined with long panel blocks and renovated courtyards. The gallery also includes a Stalin era colonnade above a tram square, a metro entrance, the Iveria hotel with an Intourist bus, and vintage trams and trolleybuses. For abandoned places there is the biochemical plant in Tabakhmela with its Soviet ceramic panel, and old Tbilisi houses with collapsed walls.

Soviet apartment blocks rising above the green park in Ponichala district of Tbilisi

Weathered Soviet apartment blocks in Tbilisi with cluttered balconies and hanging laundry

Soviet apartment block in Tbilisi framed by a round concrete opening on a hillside

Lone Soviet high rise standing on a dry hillside above garden sheds in Tbilisi

Soviet tower blocks of Tbilisi silhouetted against a pink and violet dusk sky

Soviet era apartment towers in Tbilisi linked by a high pedestrian skybridge

Crumbling corner of the abandoned Soviet biochemical plant near Tabakhmela outside Tbilisi

Long peeling facade of an abandoned Soviet plant above a meadow of buttercups

Soviet ceramic relief panel overgrown by trees at an abandoned plant near Tabakhmela

Soviet apartment blocks and an old church above a busy highway in Tbilisi

Morning sun over a courtyard park beneath a Soviet block in Varketili

Concrete path and young conifers in front of a Soviet panel block in Varketili

Long Soviet panel blocks above a renovated courtyard square in Varketili, Tbilisi

Collapsed wall of an abandoned old house with carved balcony and faded wallpaper

Wooden spiral staircase in the courtyard of a derelict old house in Tbilisi

Soviet residential towers linked by an elevated skybridge on the Nutsubidze plateau in Tbilisi

Passengers under the modernist canopy of a Tbilisi metro station entrance

Elevated glass traffic police booth over a plane tree avenue in Soviet Tbilisi

Tram and trolleybus passing a glazed modernist store on a Soviet era street in Tbilisi

Trolleybuses and trucks on a tree lined avenue in Soviet era Tbilisi

Autumn trees and empty benches in the central park of Ponichala, Tbilisi

Yellow stone arches of a Soviet era hydro dam on the Mtkvari river near Tbilisi

New benches and young trees on a renovated courtyard path in Varketili

Stone drinking fountain topped with a cross in a Varketili courtyard, Tbilisi