CIAO USSR

Author: Ani Hakobyan

25.01.17

It all started with the crumbling buildings on Northern Avenue. Ten years ago, Hayk Bianjyan was taking photos of the decaying houses in downtown Yerevan when a thought struck him - “We have been erasing our past.”

Since then the 40 year old photographer started collecting objects dating from the Soviet era. Any object from - lamps or bearskin hats, telephones and Father Christmas’ dolls, and kitchen appliances to table games, menus, Red Army coats, garden furniture and shoes was collected. He has amassed thousands of items and cramped them into his garage and his dacha, a country house, just outside Armenia’s capital, and opens it to people interested in viewing these items. Bianjyan dreams of setting up a little village where everything will be as it used to be during the USSR - to preserve a slice of the country’s past which should not be forgotten.