Stalin's Rope Roads (2013)

These were quite common across many cities and towns in the USSR. The purposes were quite varied: get people to an attraction, offer a scenic route, serve as a shortcut between a residential and an industrial area, serve as an alternative route to public transport.

Here are the remains of one such road in my home city of Chisinau, Moldova: http://wikimapia.org/7913907/ru/Верхняя-станция-канатной-дор...

The machines that power these are old and incredibly huge. And the cabins look like they will fall apart mid-trip - it took a lot of courage to step inside, but the locals say it's OK. I recommend the place to everyone, Georgia is awesome.

The cable cars, the terminal buildings, and the first dozen or so pictures -- If you removed the people, it would look like an industrial inflected sequel to Myst.

Looks like a soviet dystopian version of Pittsburgh, as if it weren't bad enough already.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6640214

That river rock mosaic is gorgeous. Interesting juxtaposition. Such a beautiful medium portraying two men responsible for such a staggering amount of suffering.

Really fantastic photos.

I was here. Miss you Toma.

Does Russia have a national paint shortage? So much of this stuff would look 100x better with just a little cleaning/rust removal and repainting. Almost every picture in that album shows something that should have been repainted 20 years ago to inhibit rust formation.

Url changed from https://flashbak.com/stalins-rope-roads-401355/, which is cribbed from this. Or rather, particularly shamelessly stolen.