Kazakhskiy University – Almaty – Socialist bas reliefs

Posted on 06/07/2025 by Michael

Kazakhskiy University – Almaty

Kazakhskiy University – Almaty – Socialist bas reliefs

This is a (relatively) unique example of Soviet art in Kazakhstan for a number of unrelated reasons;

this was the only such example that I came across in my travels in the summer of 2025, not just in Kazakhstan but in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan;

it has obviously been looked after and any repainting and renovation has been carried out with care and consideration;

it is unusual that in the images on both sides of the entrance to the building it is the women who are playing the leading role – it’s normally shared by the genders;

the Hammer and Sickle is in a central and therefore important location but it is depicted in a form that is unusual (although not, I think, unique as I am sure I’ve seen such a representation but – unfortunately – can’t remember where). Here, in place of the shaft of the hammer crossing the blade of the sickle, the back edge of the sickle rests on the head of the hammer and its shaft touches the tip of the sickle’s blade. I cannot think of a reason for this inversion of the hammer, especially as this is at the entrance of an educational establishment. However, the laurel leaves (representing achievement and success) cradle the symbol of the agricultural and industrial workers;

both the women are striving high in their respective endeavours. The one holding the flaming torch (the flame of which is painted red) is promoting – and striving for – technology, knowledge and civilisation, but here a civilisation based on a newer and finer ethic, that of Socialism and internationalism. The woman stretching to her utmost so that her book is as high as possible represents learning, literacy (an always primary goal of any society with a Socialist aspiration) and the acquisition of knowledge in general.

These images are now at the edge of a much bigger educational complex than it would have been in the immediate pre-Great Patriotic War period but it is good to see that there are some people in a position of authority to ensure that this important aspect of Kazakh history and culture is preserved and respected.

The black plaque notes that this was the Kazakh State Institute of Foreign Languages, 1938-1940. I assume that was the period it took to build the complex as the Soviet Union always – even in its revisionist manifestation – placed great importance on the country having people with an excellent understanding of many of the world’s languages.

The gold plaque states that the building was completed and opened on 1st September 1941.

This is now quite a large complex but the learning, and teaching, of foreign languages does not seem to have the same importance in capitalist Kazakhstan as it did in the Soviet Union. Presently the building is used for a whole variety of subjects – including the ubiquitous business/management’ courses (which will lead students into debt and then into a dead end ‘start-up’, in the vast majority of circumstances).

Location;

Tole Bi Street 84, Almaty

GPS;

43.253986 N

76.936108 E

VI Lenin and friends in Family Park – Almaty – Kazakhstan

Posted on 28/06/2025 by Michael

VI Lenin – with friends

VI Lenin and friends in Family Park – Almaty – Kazakhstan

When the capitalist authorities of Almaty decided to relegate the monuments of Socialism to the sidelines they didn’t do as they did in Moscow – where a part of a park by the river was set aside for the Muzeon Art Park – or in Sofia – where the Museum of Socialist Art was established. No, the Kazakhs decided to use the space behind a popular cinema in the city’s biggest public park.

VI Lenin

This is one of the bigger remaining examples of Lenin statues. It bears some similarity with that which is in the small, narrow park behind the Semey Hotel in Semiplatinsk, to the north east of Almaty. There’s a similarity in size and also in the manner in which Vladimir Ilyich is presented. He is standing and is obviously in the course of giving a speech out in the open, in the winter – VI Lenin was renown for going to the workers and making his arguments at factory gates – as he is wearing a large overcoat over his suit. What is significantly different between the two statues is that in Almaty he has carelessly thrown his overcoat off his right shoulder and the edge of it is brushing against the ground. Also, this statue has been subjected to the ‘golden treatment’ and it is now this unnatural colour, not, I’m sure, as it was originally intended.

Maxim Gorky

There’s a very informal of the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky. He is depicted standing outside in the street; dressed in a suit and overcoat (which is open); with his right hand on his hip and his pork pie hat hanging down from his relaxed left arm. It’s as if he’s waiting to meet someone. Whilst waiting someone attacked him with silver paint.

Pavel Mikhailovich Vinogradov

Also in the group is someone of whom I had not heard before. Pavel Vinogradov was a Bolshevik before the outbreak of the First World War. He was eventually arrested for his revolutionary work and sent to the front but he survived that and after the revolution and civil war worked as a Commissar responsible for education in Tashkent. In March 1919 he was a delegate to the 8th Congress of the RCP(b). He later lived, and then died in Alma-Ata (the old name for Almaty) in 1932. His bust sits upon a stone plinth where information of his background is displayed.

Dmitry Andreyevich Furmanov

Furmanov was a writer, revolutionary and also took part in military campaigns in the Civil War. After the Revolution he worked in the propaganda department in the Yaroslavl District before heading off to take an active, fighting, part in the Civil War on the Turkestan Front. He died of meningitis in 1926. His most famous written work (which was translated into English in 1940) was a novel about Vasily Chapaev, a Red Army Commander in the Civil War. His image is depicted in the uniform as an officer in the Red Army with his ornate signature carved into the marble of the plinth.

Mikhail Frunze

Frunze was a revolutionary who rose to prominence in the struggle against the White reactionary (and imperialist supported) forces during the Russian Civil War, eventually becoming commander of the entire Eastern Front. He later was elected to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and later to its Politburo. His influence in military matters was such that his name was given to the most respected Soviet Military Academy. He is depcited as if giving a speech at a podium, the marble plinth doubling as that podium. There’s a museum dedicated to Mikhail Frunze in the Kyrgyzstan capital, Bishkek.

Monument to the October Revolutionaries

This group sculpture was commissioned to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution in 1967 and was originally installed at the top end of the wide, tree-lined avenue that is Pushkin Street. (I don’t know when it was moved here.) It depicts revolutionaries of various ethnicities defending the Red Banner, demonstrating the multi-ethnic nature of the Socialist, October, Revolution.

Mikhail Kalinin

Facing VI Lenin, at the opposite end of the small avenue formed by young trees and wooden benches, stands a statue of Mikhail Kalinin. Kalinin was a long time Bolshevik, having been a Party member at the time of the 1905 Revolution. After the Revolution he became the first, titular Head of State, being Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, until his death in 1946.

There’s also a now empty platform but I have no idea what might have stood there.

How to get there;

The exit from Saryarka Metro station is right at the main entrance to the park. Go though the arch and keep to the right as you enter the park, passing the collection of military vehicles and the amusement park on your right. You’ll start to see the statues through the trees on your right hand side.

Location;

Located in a small spur of the northern edge of Family Park.

GPS;

43.227245 N

76.856266 E

Aliya Moldagulova – in Aktobe – Kazakhstan

Posted on 26/06/2025 by Michael

Sniper – Aliya Moldagulova

Aliya Moldagulova – in Aktobe, Kazakhstan

Hero of the Soviet Union

I’d be very surprised if many of the people who fly into Aliya Moldagulova International Airport, in Aktobe, Kazakhstan are aware that the airport is named in honour of a young, female Soviet sniper, who was credited with killing dozens (I’ve seen various figures) Nazis in her short ‘career’ as a sniper before being killed herself. The airport was renamed in her honour on 28th April 2021 (which probably bears relationship to the time of the celebrations of May 9th, the final and ultimate victory over Nazi Germany).

Born in 1925 it appears her childhood was neither comfortable or stable. The suggestion that her father was some sort of ‘nobleman’ wouldn’t have helped as such a short time after the revolution many people would have still held resentments about the past society – whether those resentments and the targets were deserving or not. However, she was a true patriot and defender of the new social system and – like many hundreds of thousands of other young men and women – readily joined (aged less than 16) the Red Army following the German Nazi invasion in June 1941.

She eventually ended up in a sniper training school outside of Leningrad but her training, as far as I can see, only lasted about 8 months (from starting in the military until being assigned to the front) which seems a very short time for such a young person – even taking into account the seriousness of the situation.

She was sent to the front in August 1943 and she was dead In January 1944 – she never reached her 19th birthday. There are countess ways to condemn the futility of war – even one as existential as the Great Patriotic War – but the fact that a young woman’s life ‘achievement’ was the killing, and presumably wounding, of dozens of invading Nazis, many not much older than herself, and then to be killed after barely 5 months in battle, must be one of them.

However, all armies – not just the Soviet Red Army – paid homage to those who had gone that bit further in the fight against the enemy (whether they survived the conflict or not). These men and woman in the Red Army were designated ‘Heroes of the Soviet Union’ and even though the Soviet Union no longer exists you will see busts of those so awarded throughout the territory of the former Socialist country.

Aliya is among that group of celebrated individuals in an avenue of such busts alongside the avenue, in the newer part of Aktobe, which used to bear the name of VI Lenin.

Aliya Moldagulova – In Heroes Aisle

Aliya Moldagulova Memorial Park

The avenue of busts leads to what is now called Aliya Moldagulova Memorial Park. (I’m not sure if in this location previously stood a statue of VI Lenin. There are no statues of Lenin on public display in 2025.)

This complex was unveiled in 2005 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of her birth, ‘intended to appeal to be proud for our country and it’s heroes (sic)’ – according to the official visitors site.

The backdrop to this complex follows very much a Soviet, Socialist Realist pattern. On the left hand side as you look at the statue, the panel represents Aktobe (and also Kazakhstan’s) past. It shows the fights for independence (against whom is not specified) including a female warrior – which sets up the scene for Aliya to be represented in the right hand panel. On this left hand side we also have the introduction of Kazakh culture in the form of a group of musicians playing traditional instruments.

The right hand panel, however, deals with a number of specifics. On the left edge is a group of soldiers from the Civil War period when the Bolsheviks defeated the White reactionary forces, assisted by the capitalist/imperialist powers. Only when the Bolsheviks had rid their country of these elements were they able to start on the construction of Socialism. Then we have industrialisation (with the construction of dams and providing electricity to the whole country) and the collectivisation of agriculture – both of which, somewhat surprisingly, are represented in a positive manner here.

This is followed by images from the Great Patriotic War and the incident that led to the death of Aliya in 1944. It then takes a step 20 years in to the future with the launch of the Vostok rocket which sent the first human’s into space – all the Soviet space programme was based in Baikonur, in western Kazakhstan. Finally, we are faced with images that are supposed to represent modern capitalist Kazakhstan – a veritable heaven on earth.

Although I have issues with the panels behind the statue it is the representation of Aliya I found the most offensive and insulting (to her and her memory). This follows the same pattern that happened in Albania with another young, female victim in the fight against German Nazism, Leri Gero. In both cases the capitalist elements in power have sought to appropriate the heroism of these young women from the past to substitute for their paucity of heroism in their present. In the process they distort the reality of these two (although from different countries) very similar young people according to the little we know of them. They were simple, honest and dedicated fighters for their people and their country – and for that they paid the ultimate price.

This representations of them during Socialism followed a well worn and ‘traditional’ path. A simple three dimensional image in their memory. However, the modern ‘representations’ turn both of them into silly airheads who only think of their own pleasure and vanity. Leri looks more like a young woman going clubbing at the weekend and Aliya like a fashion model who has just flung off the jacket of a haute couture ‘army’ suit at the end of a catwalk.

By stripping Aliya of any real reference to her medal they take away the reason she is in that location in the first place.

But then this is the tactic. If you cannot obliterate their achievements just try and trivialise them.

Aliya Moldagulova – memorial park in Nedw Town

In Aktobe new town;

Memorial Complex;

Aliya Moldagulova Avenue, close to the Museum

GPS;

50.287698 N

57.152472 E

Monument in the Old Town

This is a much more staid and formal representation of the young woman. It is a bust, about 1.3 metres mounted on a high stone stele – giving a combined height of 3 metres. It stands at the entrance to a small green and garden space that leads off Shimize Street – opposite No 39 – in the older part of Aktobe.

We have here a uncomplicated head and shoulders bust of a young woman in a basic and unadorned military shirt and with a military cap on her head. The only decoration is the Red Star on her cap and the medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union on her right chest.

The area around the monument is always kept neat and tidy and ceremonies in her remembrance, and of the Great Patriotic War in general, often take place in this small corner of the city.

This small monument has survived the somewhat turbulent times over the last 35 years or so which demonstrates the respect the people of the town (and the country) have for her – so many years after the end of the war. I would venture to guess that most people passing would know who she is, not something that could be said in many western countries to street sculptures commemorating individuals from the Second World War.