03.27.2018

At first glance, a bus stop might seem the most mundane of spaces. But in Abkhazia, a surreal series of shelters shows that a bus stop is more than just a place to wait for a bus – it’s an opportunity to mix the ordinary with the extraordinary.   In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union went through a phase when it decided to use monumental art to bring fine art to the masses. Tbilisi-born painter-sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, today the president of Russia’s Academy of Arts, got the pick to design nine bus stops in western Abkhazia, in the popular resort towns of Pitsunda, Gagra and Novy Afon.