Some weeks ago, while we were listening non-stop to the CIAO 2021 compilation, we received an unexpected call. Svetlana Magomedova, Soviet Bus Stops Federation account manager, complimented us for three images we created last year, inspired by its bus stops. She then asked us to go further with this idea: creating a campaign for the federation that could shed new light on the uniqueness and cultural value of these communist relics scattered in badlands within the former Iron Curtain.

If you’ve never heard about it, these mini-monuments were brought to the forefront by Christopher Herwig. The photographer has covered more than 30,000km by bus, bike, car and cab in 14 countries to snap bus stops that show the Soviet empire’s taste for the future fantastic, giving life to his two best-sellers photographic books. The Soviet bus stops are among the fetish architectures of the Soviet aesthetics. In fact, those structures could maintain their own autonomy under the regime, allowing architects and artists to freely experiment with one only constraint: to reflect the local culture.

Today, some of those unique transit structures are being repaired but most of them are neglected, abandoned to their fate just like the planet we live on. That’s why we took the opportunity to launch an important environmental message. Without moving away from scientists’ predictions, we imagined a post-apocalyptic future where the sea level has risen so much that the earth is completely flooded. In the midst of this catastrophe, the soviet bus stops, pop out of the water in all their beauty and grandeur, are the clearest symbol of our disengagement: we’ll have kept waiting, doing nothing to make things better, until the world is not livable anymore: Did we miss the last bus? Maybe these bizarre canopies will still be there, providing shelter to survivors.