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Czechoslovakia's Architectural Heritage in Kyrgyzstan

Categories: Central Asia & Caucasus, Kyrgyzstan, Arts & Culture, Citizen Media, History

Karina Ditkovskaya writes [1] [ru] about a unique architectural heritage left by volunteer construction workers from Czechoslovakia in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan:

In the 1920s a commune of volunteers from Czechoslovakia built a whole district of Bishkek. Now, after almost one hundred years, this area of Kyrgyzstan's capital city stands out due to its unusual architecture…

The volunteers arrived in Bishkek <…> in April 1925, responding to a call by the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin to support the construction of the newly founded socialist empire…

After building several important factories and a district in the city, many of the [volunteers from Czechoslovakia] left [Bishkek] – some of them were purged, some died during the Second World War, and some returned to their motherland.

The blog features photos of the buildings constructed by the volunteers.