Soviet Bus Stops

In 2002 I decided to ride my bike from London to St. Petersburg, with the challenge of taking one good photo every hour. The subject didn’t matter, as long as it was interesting. Those 3000 kilometers across Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia forced me to notice details: graffiti, smokestacks, gardens, clothes on clotheslines, people waiting for the local bus. Those long roads were the start of my obsession.

In 2003 I moved to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and for three years I explored the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia. The stereotypes were all there: concrete apartment blocks, generous vodka shots, towering statues of Lenin. But so were the eccentricities that defied the Soviet conventions. In Canada, where I come from, bus stops are all the same. But in the former Soviet republics, many were unique, imaginative, and sometimes a bit mad. Each new bus stop I encountered came with its own personality. They made me realize that the Soviet Union can be remembered for more than the clichés we grew up with in the West. Behind the Iron Curtain were millions of individuals who liked to daydream, wanted to push the limits of creativity and needed a way to share it.

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My curiosity grew, and over the years I’ve hit the road again and again, traveling thousands of kilometers across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, hunting down the very best bus stops. It was surprisingly impractical to hunt bus stops by bus, so I used rental cars and taxis. Most taxi drivers were confused as to why I was interested in the old bus stops and would speed past them as if they were invisible. The drivers were bemused as I leapt from the car to photograph something that, to them, was just a totally normal part of their landscape.

Occasionally a local taxi driver would become addicted to the hunt too, developing an appreciation for something he had forgotten existed, and together we would careen round the Soviet landscapes, racing the setting sun in search of “just one more bus stop.”

What made it truly exciting was the fact that I never had a clue exactly what I would find or what would happen next. From the shores of the Black Sea to the Altai Mountains, spanning a dozen years and countries, and over 30,000 kilometers, these images represent to me a collection of epic road trips and great characters.

Christopher Herwig shares thoughts on four of his favorite bus stops.

This bus stop is close to a town called Saratak, in Armenia. I had been traveling all day around the country and, although I was relatively pleased with the bus stops so far, it didn’t compare to how excited I got over this stretch of highway, which was packed with amazing original creations. For hours on either side I had found little, and then all of a sudden in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, there were 3 of the most amazing bus stops within a few kilometers, each one completely unique and perfectly laid out on the flat farm land.

This one is from Belarus, near a town called Biasieda. It was on an unpaved dirt road through the forest. An man was hanging out there with some deer antlers he wanted to sell. The bus stop seemed out of place, as there was no village nearby, yet this man saw it as a good place to hang out, which in many cases is something bus stops became.

One of my favorite bus stops for its creative design. It is in Niitsiku, Estonia. At first I thought it looked too modern to have been built during the Soviet Union, as it had glass in it, but when I went inside I saw someone had carved into the wood in the 1980’s, while on a trip from Moscow.

This one is near the city of Taraz, Kazakhstan. I love the design. Its looks like some sort of robotic animal.