Yelena Vorobyeva & Viktor Vorobyev KAZAKHSTAN, 1959
We became interested in “socio-coloristic” relations while traveling the south of Kazakhstan in 2002. As participants in the international project “Non-Silk Road,” we visited several provincial towns. In the town of Taraz, our attention was drawn to decorative bas-reliefs with pictures of blue banners on one of the old administrative buildings. These banners used to be red. This blatant repainting of Soviet decorations was striking and provided the best possible illustration of the change in political epochs. The state symbols that had been canonized by the Communists were now subject to total “de-sacralization.” As the main sign of all things Soviet, the color red was repressed and replaced by other privileged colors all over post-Soviet space.
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