location: turku, finland
time: 1970s, 1980s

i was traveling all the afternoon. infinite curves and spirals in this mediocre port city. then i’ve seen these houses finally, and got off from the bus. varissuo was built on a meadow. the finnish people call it a problematic district. 32 percent of the inhabitants are immigrants. i am walking in a dreamlike ghetto in new york. finally something with meaning. the moomins definitely don’t live here, maybe the groke at best. pine trees and high rises merge into the dusk, people switch on the lights in their windows, all of them is a reminder, home is where the heart is far away.

location: turku, finland
time: 1970s

my fingers tend to type funland constantly. who would say something like that about this sinking rainy land. here immigrants live mixed with students, slava says happily in a downtown café when i mention where i go: my home! i am traveling with the star-shaped cookies got from her, with my 2.50 euros ticket to adventure. there is nothing here, the bus turns around at one point; hungarian higher middle class families live so hidden in their hillside houses like here. leaves are outstanding contrast to the other parts of the landscape; playgrounds, without any hint to the space age, stand in the fog, waiting for a spring which is deeply hidden in the future yet.

location: turku, finland
time: 1960s, 1970s

if the múmins had lived on a housing estate, that would have looked like this one: maybe just the illusory weather, but lauste looked like a tiny cartoon empire, where nothing remains on its place for long time, and building bricks are placed on the ground in the playful oblivion. because, eventually, nobody was there, only a girl with an umbrella, and an apparently disadvantaged couple who were pulling a shopping trolley and having a very unpleasant quarrel (some things never change anywhere?)

but come on, it’s october, the fictive inhabitants probably started their winter sleep already.

location: turku, finland
time: 1970s

the largest suburb of turku, with 20 percent of immigrant population. i get off the bus n18 a bit frightened, no idea why here, after all east europe. but nothing happens, really nothing, a few people walking on the streets, one group of kids, pensioners, grownups walking dogs, hardly any sign of life, because these places are not built for that, however impressive the vegetation is around them. finland is good in that: all housing estates look like elite healthcare institutions in the middle of a park full of primal trees, and sometimes it’s really hard to imagine the “serious problems” that are written in the articles on them, but in the end, segregation knows no borders.

location: õismäe, tallinn, estonia
time: 2010 november 

i don’t think i’ll ever be as happy as i was in that autumn in estonia

location: minsk, belarus
time: 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s…

tsentralny, sovietski, pershamaysky, partyzansky, zavodski, leninski, kastrichnitsky, moskovski, frunzenski… whatever. all sounds beautiful. i couldn’t find out where we are, street names are rare commodities in this land. but there are colorful tetris facades, rocket playgrounds, multicolor televisions, and all the shapes of the space age.

location: minsk, belarus
time: 18 July 2012 

welcome to minsk, where the past has not ended,

concrete skyscrapers are perpetually being constructed, light coloured high rises representing constant serenity, but cannot hide the overall greyness emanating from the city.

welcome to minsk, where the distant blocks glare like forgotten ruins of ancient towns in the accidental sunlight.

location: warsaw, poland
time: 1960-70s

next to wilanów palace, the polish versailles.

land of the pastels, bathrooms, balconies. green trees, concrete overpasses, loud city highways.

the diplomat housing estate.

the glass covered staircases.

the riverside and the polish caramel candies.

land of the early nineties, the memories before our birth.

the rain.

the future.

(the elite: here the 70s urban space starts to recall some desperate housewives scene. or, in this light, a bit of tel-aviv.)

location: warsaw, poland
time: 1977

it is wonderful again: since the estate is built by the housing cooperative gocław airport, the four subdistricts of gocław are named of different polis aircraft pieces:

iskra (spark)
jantar (amber)
orlik (eagle)
wilga (oriole) 

a secret sentence about socialism written into the urban landscape.

and in the middle of the estate there is a lake called BALATON!

location: warsaw, poland
time: 1980

going further on the bus, we arrive to a land even more out of reality. this is the postwar world of pastel lights reflecting eternal greyness. greyness is usual everywhere in warsaw, but here it looks like the official atmosphere ordered by the commanders of the neighbourhood. houses are tall and continue in endless fragmented structures, the strong aesthetic order of the elements which is a characteristic of all the concrete blocks is especially significant here.

and street names are written on the concrete walls with big letters, giving a title for every single artwork constructing this living reality.