Soviet Playgrounds

A photographic exploration reveals the playgrounds from the Soviet era scattered across former USSR countries like Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The book is divided into five chapters with over 150 images, capturing the mass-produced yet varied play structures such as rocket slides, planet-shaped climbing frames, spaceships, and animal-themed ladders. These play areas, found in the communal zones of socialist-era housing complexes, include cosmic roundabouts and odd constructions that might trigger modern safety debates. From Riga to Dushanbe and spanning Kyiv to Vladivostok, children aspired to be cosmonauts, interacting with the space-themed playgrounds that appeared abundantly during the Cold War period. Some of these structures still stand today, while others are gradually being replaced with contemporary equipment or, sadly, have been damaged in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leaving only a nostalgic echo of Soviet childhood. The book features a foreword by Ukrainian urban planner Mykola Gorokhov and detailed maps pinpointing the locations of the playgrounds highlighted in each chapter. Photography was conducted by Zupagrafika, with additional images provided by local photographers.