Exploring a Soviet Era Apartment Building in Armenia

Former Soviet Republics are deeply rich in history. The collapse of the Soviet Union has made these places riddled with abandoned spaces. From apartment buildings, offices, to huge factories. The rate of insane development in such locations is yet to catch up to that of the west, and the result is that it's incredibly easy to stumble across these places even in the most dense of areas. From Yerevan to its neighbouring towns, scattered across the busy roads and streets are signs of a former industrial might. Back in the day, I loved exploring old and abandoned places, there was always something incredibly fun about it, perhaps the feeling of being somewhere you probably shouldn't, mixed with the fun of discovering a new place that holds a lot of forgotten elements of the past. The little pieces of life left behind over decades, telling stories of their own as you stumble across them all these years later. I have barely scratched the surface of what I want to here in Armenia, especially in regards to the Soviet side of its beautiful architecture, but this is the start of many adventures to come, as I aim to both explore, and photograph and document a lot of these spaces before the inevitable takes place.

Architecture here is unlike anything I have ever seen before. A Soviet brutalism modernism that still in its rustic form looks utterly astonishing. You can truly feel the ways in which these buildings give off some emotion, the feeling of greatness and identity. The ideology of communism spreading into the mind from the environment people find themselves in. What's interesting today is how these buildings have slowly started to have elements of personality added to them from those who now inhabit them. Changes to the balconies, the ways in which people paint the outsides of their apartments, creating Soviet era towers that resemble a Jenga tower. Though not all buildings have had the fortunate outcome of being utilised well into the capitalist era. Many are left behind, forgotten, and generally quite dangerous.

Information about this particular building doesn't seem to really exist. Weirdly, it sits in the centre of the town and is passed by many each day. More looked at as the local place to take a piss based on the smell more than anything else. Gaining entrance is easy, you simply walk in from the main entrance or the back of the building which are both completely wide open. A rustic fence lays on the floor where I assume a decade or so ago they tried to stop people from entering. Though there are no signs or warnings about entering now. Nothing to stop you from exploring. Aside from perhaps a wish to continue living. For context: there are two ways to gain access to the other levels, one of which is the stairway from within the building. The flooring is no longer supported by anything, and neither are the steps. So each foot you place down is likely to be met with a slight vibration due to the lack of stability in the building at this point. It has been pretty much hollowed out, but holds a lot of curiosities.

The second way to enter is a spiral staircase to the side of the building. I placed a few feet up those steps and felt a significantly stronger reaction to those steps. Definitely not that safe at all. The building has harshly been exposed to the elements for decades, it's evident. And the instability is more a result of those elements rather than intense neglect from those around (as in, those causing damage to it).

In the above image you can see the lack of support in that spiral staircase. It's certainly something you could still walk up, but you'd have to be slightly crazy or with a very light set of gear. I was carrying a little too much with all the camera gear I had. I avoided going higher up out of a very logical fear of simply dying. Cracks are evident everywhere, bits chipped away at the building that reveal the metal structure in the cement. It doesn't invoke a whole lot of certainty that you'll be okay in here, even in the main lobby in which the flooring seems to be caving inward. Though, with cautious steps I continued on inside. I longed to find elements of the past within, aspects of the former Soviet Union in the form of old belongings that had been left behind. There are clear signs here and there, though the majority of the ground floor are littered with the trash of locals that had unfortunately used the building as more of a dumping ground.

It's a shame what has happened to the building, because the architecture behind it is beautiful. Particularly with the other buildings around it, some of which also showing their age, also getting some reconstruction in some aspects. I will share an image of the entrance, the archways which lead to the entrance, now mostly covered in litter and being reclaimed by nature, that last part not being so bad, I guess.

I loved the composition here. It is something I tried to capture a few months ago when I first discovered this place. But I wasn't really looking at it with the same mindset I have now. It invokes the thoughts of how life may have been here, to have lived in such buildings with grand structure to them. The beauty in the shape design that just isn't felt in the modern buildings of our present, which are all seemingly copy and pasted ideas without much thought behind them. It's interesting to look at the exteriors of older buildings and again notice that identity they had compared to all else around. A clear thought to really create interesting living spaces that gave the locals something to be proud of. I really can't say that we pursue development with that same idea these days. Soullessness with the pursuit of profit. Perhaps one of the things the Soviet Union did do right with the creative minds of architects.

Though let's move on into the interior. The signs of wear, the loss of the inhabitants, and the insane levels of decay that are seen within. No longer a place that one could call home, but a place that is definitely living on borrowed time, with a demolition coming within the next decade, I'm sure.

There isn't a whole lot in the main lobby, an archway disconnects the main entrance and lobby with the room where the small, broken elevators now sit idle. There isn't anything to see from that side of things. A small room is located to the right where the lobby would have had its workers, a few rooms behind that are followed. Broken glass is found with every step, and it's incredibly easy to catch a cut without taking some thicker shoes. I roamed with some winter boots that ensured I would be fine. Fortunately, this is Armenia, and broken glass or total building collapse are the highest of concerns. No drug addicts or drug tools sitting around. No homeless lurking in the darkness of the rooms. Just silence. Total abandonment. The smell is putrid, however. The stench of piss that I mentioned before. To no surprise, I did in fact catch a guy on his way to take one in the building, giving him a bit of a shock.

Again, sad that this is what the building has been reduced to. And I wish there were stronger efforts to maintain these buildings and repurpose them for something more modern. This was another day, however. So, today, I moved on deeper into the other rooms in search of story. Instead, I found trash and more debris.

The floor had been caved in somehow. I can't even begin to comprehend its cause, though I suspect it had something to do with some metals or rare items that were of interest at one point, causing people to remove them from the flooring. It doesn't look natural, as in decay over time in the flooring. Vast amounts of it were just removed, the foundations of the building now visible with the metal interior, the crumbling of them being incredibly worrying with each step deeper into the building, knowing the floors above with their thin flooring could come down at any moment. Though, isn't that partially part of the fun of exploring a place? That feeling of slight danger? Or am I just a bit insane? There wasn't anything much of interest here, a lot of the history had already long been removed. Yet I couldn't help but think of what life here must have been like back then. What sort of people came and went from this space. Where they all went in the first place.

Apartment buildings like this often have interesting stories. It's odd how a space so large can become empty, void of any life at all. It makes you think of what great incident took place that may have led to everyone leaving all at once, or was it something that took place gradually in time? Perhaps the lack of work in the area, the closure of factories nearby?

For now, these rooms remain silent. Empty in most hours of the day. The additional floors showing signs of graffiti as other curious adventurous individuals had made their way through the building in search of something different. I wanted to go in deeper, to see more of the rooms, to find something unique. But the more I went in, the less safe things felt. The more I began to question when the last set of people came in through here and how high up they went. I began to doubt whether it was safe to press on. The feeling that each floor would become less safe, more likely to result in something bad taking place. I intend on taking my drone here once it arrives and capturing it from above, to get a safer perspective of what the building is like in the higher floors. Thankfully, I don't have to risk my life.

After this I left the building, wanting to go back in and go higher up, but feeling it was best to just not do that. I walked around and looked at how nature had reclaimed the space around it. So much green suddenly with the spring months.

Though much of the building is now hollow. A space forgotten in time. Almost ignored by those around it. Like it never existed in the first place. Its windows show nothing of interest, but I see the many faces that may have once been looking from them. The music, the televisions playing, the factory workers that smoked from the balconies above, overlooking the centre of the town. Looking out into the many other unique buildings that surrounded the area. This building is just one of hundreds, if not thousands within each city of Armenia. Towns and even villages riddled with signs of the past, of an empire long gone. Rustic, depressing, and almost otherworldly. They sit idle as they rot year by year, and it is a tragedy.