Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: communism

I rarely take car photos anymore, as I hate the car culture, but this is no ordinary automobile, comrade! This is a Lada 1500. :-) :-) :-) I don't know the year, but I know that these were introduced in 1966, and not significantly redesigned until the 1980s.

Here's another underexposed winter shot, this one taken in Sidliste Haje.

This is the waterspout at Bruckenmeisterei shed, pretty well intact, from the look of it, although I doubt that there's any water left in the tower posted earlier.

This is one of the signs that I've been talking about all this time, over the former yard office which is now the park office. So which is it? Rangierbahnhof Tempelhof, or Bruckenmeisterei (or for that matter, Bruckmeisterei West)?

This was the turntable for near the Bruckenmeisterei West office, which also is situated close to the Bruckenmeisterei shed and the Class 50 2-10-0 I found, as well as other steam-related facilities.

This is the water tower at Rangierbahnhof Tempelhof, or Bruckenmeisterei, if you will. This was where I found the Bruckenmeisterei signs, on the former yard office, which is now occupied, appropriately enough, by the offices of the park's management.

This was one of the highpoints of my visit to Berlin. You know how I said that everything in the yard was just left as-is? Well, that even included this former Deutsche Reichsbahn Class 50 2-10-0, although it's been stripped for parts. Someone repainted it, though, in order to control rust on it and make it look nicer in what is now a relatively clean and green park.

This is another shot of the path through the Rangier Bahnhof Tempelhof park, showing a turnout in the track. This was approaching the hump, as this railyard was a hump yard, in spite of being built and abandoned in the steam era.

This photo, logically, should be the first rather than the last in the series, as it was the first on the roll, but I didn't notice it on the list of files until later, so I decided to put it last. This plaque is on the steps of the West Berlin City Hall (if I'm not mistaken), where U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech against the undemocratic Communist regimes of East Germany and East Berlin.

I took this in Sidliste Haje, Prague. Sidliste Haje was a Communist-era housing project intended to house as many of the "proletariat" as possible, in the most modern and luxurious conditions possible (acceptable?) under the Communist system. Surprisingly, the project seems to have succeeded, at least over the long-term. Almost all of the Sidliste complexes consisted of "Panelak" apartment blocks like these, built from standard designs and prefab materials. Many people say that they're ugly, but they're surprisingly well-equipped and insulated. In addition, many have been refurbished to a degree that would have been unimaginable pre-1989. Some of them, as in Sidliste Barrandov, are even high-rent. For that matter, most of Haje is in like-new condition, if you ignore the (post-1989) vandalism, and many Sidliste projects have even been expanded post-1989. I'm not aware of whether these are original Panelaky refurbished, or new builds, but the design is more or less the same. For all the criticism of this type of architecture, the Czechs have had no problem with continuing to build them in the post-Communist era. -Jon

Maybe this should really be entitled "Building Clocks," as there is also another one in the lower left hand corner that I didn't notice before. :-) I took this mainly for the composition.

Sidliste Repy is a Communist-era housing project consisting of "Panelak" apartment blocks built to standard designs. Although many other Sidliste projects have been fully renovated and modernized, Republiky is still a work in progress, and still has a great deal of its Communist-era grime. Here I've taken a picture of the tram terminus, where arriving passengers get off the tram before it goes onto the turning loop.

This photo looks a bit bleak, I know, but I shot it for the composition. It was from my first successful roll shot with my second Lomo 135BC.

This is another black and white conversion from my Fujicolor 100 in my Lomo 135. I saw this scene and thought of how it perfectly represented the Communist ugliness of much of Prague's outskirts, although in honesty American capitalists are at least as good at making suburbs look repulsive. Actually, though, Nadrazi Holesovice, Prague's international train station (it's bus and Metro terminal is in the foreground, dedicated, appropriately, in 1984), is one of the best-run in Prague, and maybe the very best. Although, not being Czech, and can't speak for all Czechs, I do know that people come from other parts of Prague just to make reservations and get railcards here because it's less of a nuisance than at the other Prague stations.

Like the "Shops and Shadows" shot, I also liked this one for the lighting, but also for the irony of going, historically, from one extreme to the other. The building is blatantly Communist (unless someone knows otherwise and wants to make a fool out of me), but the shops are all small businesses, in the finest tradition of capitalism, as Wal-Mart hasn't destroyed this neighborhood yet.

I'm 90% certain this sculpture dates to the Communist era. Why else would it have workmen and the word "Bratrych?" For the Czech speakers: is that "brothers," or "brotherhood?" I don't actually know since it's not in my dictionary.

I've posted, deleted, and reposted this photo many times, always trying to get someone to look at it. For some bizarre reason, it's one of my most unpopular photos, but here I go again.....Astronomical clocks can be found in many towns in the Czech Republic, and two of the most notable are in Prague and Olomouc. An astronomical clock is called an "Orloj" in Czech, so this one, in Olomouc, is called the "Olomoucky Orloj." This one dates to 1953, replacing an earlier one, and being built under Communism, it glorifies workers, scientists, and ordinary citizens instead of Monarchs, religious leaders, and such. The music which plays when it chimes sounds like the Internationale to me, although if someone knows for sure that would be great.

This building lay dormant from the fall of Communism until this year, when construction finally restarted in earnest on it. It's one of the more interesting buildings in Prague, being a building under construction that was abandoned for so long, but I must admit that I'm generally ignorant of it otherwise, so any input would be welcome, particularly if I got the name wrong. I mainly took this shot for the sunset, though, bracketed three times, and got this shot that looks a bit like an HDR, but isn't. At least it worked!! :-)