Since the early 2000s, Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has captured the strange and distinctive Soviet-era bus stations. According to the guy, the initiative started accidentally during a long-distance bike trip from London to St. Petersburg in 2002. Christopher set a goal of taking a picture every hour on the 1,800-mile journey and quickly started to notice the oddly-designed bus stops on apparently deserted sections of road.
They prompted him to start the Soviet Bus Stops project. Over the following five years, he traveled over 18,000 miles across 14 nations, photographing the most unusual bus stop designs he could discover.
Since the early 2000s, Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has been capturing distinctive Soviet-era bus stop designs.
Christopher has his theories on why the bus stops are all so different. “During the Soviet time, the local bus stop proved to be fertile ground for local creative experimentation, and it was erected apparently without architectural constraints or financial concerns,” the photographer noted. “Amazing range of styles and kinds may be seen throughout the area, ranging from rigid Brutalism to joyful whimsy.”
The photographer traveled to numerous Eastern Bloc nations, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Latvia and Lithuania.
Christopher released a compilation of his images in a photo book called Soviet Bus Stops in 2015, and it sold out quickly. You may buy a copy of the book here if you want one for yourself!
Christopher went to the former Soviet Union after the success of his first book in quest of even more exciting bus stops. In 2017, he completed a 9,000-mile journey across Russia and released his second book.
Christopher’s most recent effort is a photographic book called Soviet Metro Stations, published in 2019.
Below are some of Christopher’s other attractive bus stop designs.
