Aksu

 

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A small industrial town in north-east Kazakhstan, which can make for a day trip from Pavlodar or a short stopover when passing through (en route to Ekibastuz to the west or Kurchatov and Semey to the south-east). The reason why a dark tourist might want to make this detour is mainly for the quite remarkable park of Soviet statuary to be found here.

 
The collection includes quite a number of Lenins, mostly busts but also a couple of complete ones. Lenin is outshone, though, by a fantastic double statue (very reminiscent of a similar ensemble in Moscow): two athletes, or maybe just two very fit peasants, one holding up a hammer, the other a sickle – look at them from the correct angle, and both are united in the glorious symbol of the Soviet state insignia. At the southern end of the alley of statuary stands a separate war memorial involving the usual red star, two actually: one at its top and another in front of it set in the ground. The latter formerly hosted an eternal flame, which is now, as so often in the East, extinguished. At the time of my visit in August 2011, there were even fresh flowers laid at the base of the monument.

   
What I found the very best bit, however, was the small, silver-painted, crawler-type tractor on a plinth, which gives this rather mundane vehicle a hilarious status of worship. It's one of the models from the nearby tractor factory of Pavlodar. Indeed a symbol of the Soviet Union – and in particular the Virgin Lands Campaign of the 1960s (see Museum of the President's Cultural Centre in Astana).
    
Just outside the town proper, to the north, by the road leading to the main Astana-Pavlodar highway, you pass some cool heavy industry plants, including a coal-fuelled power station with three tall chimney stacks simultaneously belching out three plumes of (unfiltered) smoke in parallel harmony … while on the other side of the road utter dereliction reigns supreme. Certainly something for people (like myself) who love the grim "aesthetics" of industrial wastelands.
  
Location: in the south of the town of Aksu, Eastern Kazakhstan, in a park between Pushkin Street and Lenin Street
  
Google maps locator: [52.034,76.931]

      

 

• Aksu 01 - park of communist statuary
• Aksu 02 - lots of Lenins and a tractor
• Aksu 03 - hot-headed smaller Lenin
• Aksu 04 - granite big Lenin
• Aksu 05 - even bigger Lenin
• Aksu 06 - Karl is here too
• Aksu 07 - and so is Kalinin
• Aksu 08 - a lipstick-wearing lesser local hero
• Aksu 09 - hammer and sickle united in sculpture
• Aksu 10 - war memorial
• Aksu 11 - a glorious silver crawler-type tractor
• Aksu 12 - mural in downtown Aksu
• Aksu 13 - power station chimney stacks
• Aksu 14 - pollution in pretty symmetry
• Aksu 15 - mostly bricked-up house