Inside the Crumbling Apartments of the Former Soviet Union

In the decade after WW2, a new wave of architectural design emerged from the UK. Featuring monolithic blocks of raw concrete and steel, its name neatly summarised its look: Brutalism.

Brutalism quickly took root across Europe, but nowhere was it adopted more enthusiastically than in the Soviet east. There, the style seemed to best communicate the aspirationalism of space-age Marxism, and became the go-to aesthetic for untold thousands of civic buildings and high-rise apartments.

Today, these buildings are increasingly scorned as reminders of a Soviet past, and are being torn down. In others regions, they continue to stand silent and imposing.

Melbourne-based photographer Alex Schoelcher has spent the last two years traveling across the…