Betonia

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project © Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project © Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project View all images ↓
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BETONIA is a project, which explores contemporary identity in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Block countries in relation to the architectural heritage - residential blocks from panels.

People live in houses created during the Soviet period, but their worldview and ideological component are already developing in a different environment from the socialist one. In this situation, they form new urban rituals, practices and meanings.

The project involves travelling along some countries (incl. Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia) of the Iron Curtain, which is understood as the former political barrier erected from 1946 which divided the Soviet Union from the West during the Cold War. By juxtaposing residents’ social rituals from different countries and integrating printed on curtains block house buildings from one country in another, I am looking for a comprehensive understanding of how the identity has been shaped. What are the differences in each of the country and yet what forms a unique mutual, distinct from its “Western” counterparts, identity.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Minsk, Belarus 2022
. Nearly half of all residential buildings in Belarus are typical Soviet–era apartment buildings, conventional panels.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Tychy, Poland 2022. 
Although the land in front of the block house is not privately owned, people from the first floor often use it for their own purposes, arranging small vegetable gardens and/or a recreation area.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Bratislava, Slovenia 2022. 
Benjamín Palenkas is living in his aunt’s apartment on str.Vážska, which she owns for more than 10 years. He doesn’t like in this block house the presence of neighbours,who can leave garbage on the staircase.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Visual illustration/installation of similarity of block houses of Minsk, Belarus (printed on curtain material) and houses in Warsaw, Poland 2023

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Wroclaw, Poland 2022.
Valentina Liulkova with her 2 sons are renting two rooms in a typical flat of block building on str. Gołężycka. This dwelling is very cramped, but she really likes the infrastructure of the area, where there is enough space.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Tbilisi, Georgia 2023
. The view from the ‘sky bridge’, connecting three brutalist apartment blocks in a famous Soviet housing complex Nutsubidze I Plato in Tbilisi.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Tbilisi, Georgia 2023. 
Makvala is living in her daughter’s Lia apartment in one of the blocks at Nutsubidze I Plato. Lia received this apartment more than 30 years ago from the government as she was working at the enterprise, that constructed them.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Berlin, Germany 2023.
 Balkony view from the apartment on str. Lilli-Henoch-Straße at prefabricated housing estate Ernst-Thälmann-Park.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Berlin, Germany 2023
. Lilli Gessner in her apartment at str. Lilli-Henoch-Straße: „I lived here since 2018. I was really lucky to get the flat and really always wanted to live in one of these houses. I enjoy the different people here."

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Visual illustration/installation of similarity of block houses of Turec-Boyary town, Belarus (printed on curtain material) and houses in Warsaw, Poland 2023

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Minsk, Belarus 2022.
 Sasha lives in the apartment of her grandmother, whose family received this apartment in 1966 instead of their demolished private house on the boulevard.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Smorgon, Belarus 2022. Vostochny district of Smorgon town is a dormitory area, grey and dull.
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Smorgon, Belarus 2022. Vostochny district of Smorgon town is a dormitory area, grey and dull.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Minsk, Belarus 2023. 
In residential areas there are step–down transformers that convert high voltage current into household - 220 V with a frequency of 50 Hz. A magnetic field is formed, which is also harmful to living organisms, like radiation.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Wroclaw, Poland 2022. Natalia and Denis Czekanowski have always been living in high residential blocks from a large slab. Even now renting the apartment in Kozanów district of Wroclaw, they enjoy the small stories that happen on staircase and balconies.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Visual illustration/installation of multiple repeatability of block houses in Kozanów district of Wroclaw, Poland 2023
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Visual illustration/installation of multiple repeatability of block houses in Kozanów district of Wroclaw, Poland 2023

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Warsaw, Poland 2023.
 Yulia Parmon: „I have been living in this apartment for two years. Most of all I like the furniture in it (probably my hostess is one of those who could afford a luxurious life in PRL)."

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Wroclaw, Poland 2022.
 Corridor in one of the famous high rise apartment buildings located at square Grunwaldzki, Wroclaw. They were designed by the very well known architect Jadwiga Grabowska - Hawrylak and constructed in the late 60’s - early 70’s.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Warsaw, Poland 2023
. Anna Rutkowska is living at the apartment on str.Jantarowy Szlak from the year 1985, while the house was built in 1977. Her son Lukasz is still living in the same district named Gocław and is in love with the whole infrastructure.

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Wroclaw, Poland 2022
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Wroclaw, Poland 2022

© Katerina Kouzmitcheva - Image from the Betonia photography project
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Tychy, Poland 2022. 
Tychy was created as the embodiment of the new socialist principles of urbanisation and architecture. The new city of Tychy was used by the Polish authorities to reinforce the supremacy of socialism as a political system.