Frunze Museum – Bishkek – Kyrgyzstan

Posted on 16/07/2025 by Michael

Frunze Museum – Bishkek

Frunze Museum – Bishkek – Kyrgyzstan

The Frunze museum was originally opened in December 1925, centred on the small house where he was born. This house is now a feature on the ground floor of the modern building.

The present building was constructed after the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution in 1967. The murals that surround the exterior of the building were the work of Alexei Kamensky and Alexander Voronin. The murals depict events and personalities from the Civil War in which Mihkail Frunze played such an important role, especially in the Central Asia front, that part of the future Soviet Union from where he originated.

There are two exhibition floors (plus the family house on the ground floor). At the time of my visit in the summer of 2025 only the top (second floor) was open to the public. I have no idea why the first floor was closed or how long it will remain so.

The floor that is open tells the story of Frunze through photographs and documents, with an obvious emphasis on the period following the Revolution and the battle against the White (reactionary) Russian forces – assisted by the imperialist powers.

The sculptors of the large statue of Frunze at the end of the room were A Muhutdinov and V A Shestopal.

Although interesting for those who might know little about Frunze what is more impressive, I believe, and which is probably overlooked by many people who visit the museum, are the murals on the outside of the building. These include a profile image of Frunze just above the main entrance and scenes representing the Red Army in its struggle to defend the Revolution between 1918 and 1922. Unfortunately, in places the trees are starting to obscure some of the images but it is still possible to follow the story being presented.

Location;

364, Frunze Street, Biskek

GPS;

42.88068 N

74.60514 E

Entrance;

125 Kz Som (which has to be paid by card)

Opening;

Monday; closed

Tuesday-Friday; 10.00-17.00

Saturday and Sunday; 10.00-16.00

JV Stalin Museum – Mamayev Kurgan – Stalingrad

Posted on 09/07/2025 by Michael

Stalin Museum – Mamayev Kurgan

JV Stalin Museum – Mamayev Kurgan – Stalingrad

This is a very strange museum – not to what it is dedicated – but for its location and very existence. Mamyev Kurgan is probably the most revered war memorial in the whole of the Soviet Union/Russia – and that would include those Republics which broke away amidst the chaos of the early 1990s. And yet just a few hundred metres behind the mammoth statue is a private hotel and restaurant which just happens to have a small, three room museum to JV Stalin in the basement. How that has been allowed in such a location is a mystery to me.

It’s a very amateurish collection, doesn’t have a great deal of structure and not all the exhibits are displayed in the best way possible. It would probably be fair to say no one with curator skills has been involved in the project.

It is, therefore, nothing like the Stalin Museum in Gori in Georgia. That museum has been established on a scale the museum in Stalingrad could only dream about. However, there are a few items that I hadn’t seen before and although not everything is on display I was given the impression that in the collection there are a lot of original documents and newspaper clippings that might be hard to find other than in the national archives in Moscow.

It is hoped this post gives an idea of what’s on display. The lighting conditions are not of the best and that has had an impact on the images but you should be able to get an idea of what’s on show. A slight diversion along the paths at the back of The Motherland Calls! for anyone who visits the monument would repay the effort.

Location;

Imani Mershala Rokossovsky 102

GPS;

48.74132 N

44.53259 E

How to get there;

The museum (and the hotel of which it is a part) is behind the monument of The Motherland Call! on Mamayev Kurgan, as the path goes down the hill.

Tashkent Metro – Uzbekistan

Posted on 09/07/2025 by Michael

Tashkent Metro

Tashkent Metro – Uzbekistan

The Tashkent Metro was a relatively late addition to the Soviet Union’s mass transit system being the seventh to be completed in 1977. The system followed many of the conventions established since 1935 in Moscow; the design of the station platforms; the style (if not the content) of the decoration; the use of light to give the impression of not being underground; the use of the finest materials; and the method in moving people through the system as fast as possible. However, following the lead from the centre, which began with the Premiership of Khrushchev but continued after he was ousted, there was a general ‘depoliticisation’ of the decoration.

Although by 1977 Revisionism was well entrenched within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the newer metro stations in Moscow, for example, there was still some reference to the construction of Socialism, using images and motifs that had been part of Soviet culture since the 1920s – the image of the Hammer and Sickle, for example.

However, there was none of that in Tashkent. In fact, there’s barely a reference to the social system supposedly being constructed at the time. The Red Flags in the image at the top of this post are one of few such references and they stand out because they are so few. This would tend to reflect the anti-Communist views of the leadership of the local Communist Party and demonstrate the weakness of central control of the periphery.

The purge of the local Communist Parties in the 1930s are understandable at the time (although I have to admit I do not really know a great deal of the details) as in a part of the Soviet Union where there was little tradition of working class organisation it wouldn’t have been a surprise if the remnants of the feudal ruling class hadn’t been able to infiltrate the Communist Party leadership and manipulate it to their own personal ‘class’ advantage. Through the imagery in the metro it is possible to see how the replacement ‘leadership’ was as divorced from the ideology of Marxism-Leninism as the group they surplanted.

The themes represented in the various stations follow a traditional, folklore style. In place of drawing upon a new form of representation of the interests of the working class the artists commissioned to produce the art works in all the stations represented here took as their starting point traditions established during the feudal, pre-revolutionary period. Instead of creating images that could assist in the battle for the construction of Socialism the artists chosen to decorate the station harked back to feudal traditions and imagery, reinforcing the old social system, not the new. If there are any ‘new’ styles they tend to be in the more abstract images, especially in the imaginative use of metal.

The dominant material used in the decoration were ceramic tiles which were built up to create large images with rural themes dominating. Industry, which had been introduced to the predominantly agricultural society, appears only sporadically and briefly in the imagery.

The main reason for including these images is to allow viewers to compare and contrast the way the metro systems in the Soviet Union were seen during the different stages of its existence and the difference between the Revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist leadership (as represented in the decoration in the Moscow and Leningrad Metros) and the Counter-revolutionary, Revisionist leadership (represented in Tashkent) which eventually led the Soviet Union to its self-destruction.

There are also images included in the slide show below from some of the stations opened after so-called ‘independence’.

Plan of the Tashkent Metro.

Location;

Various places in the city.

Access;

All the stations have staffed ticket offices and entry to the system costs 3,000 Uz Som (in the summer of 2025). With that ticket you can visit all the stations on the network as long as you don’t go out into the street.