#eric lusito

Behold, the reality of yesteryear’s Soviet Scientific Institutes, as documented by French photographer Eric Lusito in this newest release in FUEL’s acclaimed series on Soviet architectural relics. Housed in a tactile hardcover with laser-cut patterns based on antiquated, punched-paper computer tape, the volume spans the Baltic nations, Ukraine, Central Asia and East Central Europe, but does not include sites in territories that are still under authoritarian rule: Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Pictured here: the Big Solar Furnace of the Institute of Materials Science, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, comprised of 10,700 mirrors that focus light from an array of heliostats onto a single focal point; the Carl Zeiss telescope pavilion in Kazakhstan, opened in 1981 and currently under reconstruction; and the Ukrainian T-Shaped Radio Telescope (Second Modification) antenna control panel a few weeks before the 2022 Russian invasion.

(via Soviet Science After The Fall - Flashbak)

In the late-1980s, construction started on a 45-metre-tall pavilion for the observatory’s new 1.5-metre AZT-20 telescope. The dome and the building structure were completed but funding was suspended after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2014, the institute was able to resume construction using its own resources, and it finally began operating in 2017. It is the largest telescope in Kazakhstan and it bridges the gap in this field between Europe and Asia

A new department of the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, the laboratory of electromagnetic oscillations, was established in 1930. Led by Abram Slutskin, it pioneered research into electrical engineering and electromagnetic waves. Effective microwave oscillators, magnetrons in particular, became key components of radar systems, a priority of the Red Army. The original Soviet-era staff attendance board is still a fixture at the entrance to the institute

Eric Lusito

Eric Lusito