MockbaDuring a recent trip to one of Bangalore’s dusty second-hand bookstores, i found an almost mint-condition copy of a pictorial guide to Moscow from 1954. Every page features a scene dominated by towering examples of classic communist architecture. The pristine state of the landscape and the printing technique used in the book gives the landscapes a surreal, utopian quality that contradicts the West’s idea of life under a communist regime. Whilst the whole images are fascinating, what i found really interesting were the human figures sprinkled around the bottom of each picture. Removed from their wider surroundings these members of the public could be mistaken for being American. Fleeting moments captured forever that, once cropped, begin to resemble the work of realist painters from the era such as Edward Hopper. Some of the images have a real sense of mystery and tension to them that artists would find hard to recreate. _ |  / Commune Square, outside the Central Soviet Army Theatre |  / Outside Lenins Tomb |  / Outside Moscow State University |  / Outside the Pavillion of the Kazakh Republic |  / Pavilion of the Georgian Republic |  / Sokol Subway Station |  / View over the Moskva |  / Zhuravlev Square outside the Mossovet Theatre |  / Blagoveshchensky Cathedral |