A fresh feature in the Style section of the CNN website raises the question of the current conditions and future prospects faced by Soviet-era monuments found throughout Georgia.

Originally written for The Spaces online publication by travel author Darmon Richter, the piece focuses on sites discovered by travellers in cities, towns and countryside during their stay in Georgia.

Cropping up everywhere from back-road village squares to mountain peaks, steel and concrete monuments survive as the legacy of a past many would rather forget", notes the author in his introduction.

Ranging from World War II-themed heroic statues to abstract creations of the Soviet modernist style, the sites are subject of an ambiguous state policy, argues the feature.

This attitude is detailed in cases ranging from the 2005 removal of an arched monument on the former Republic Square to the more nationally-themed works such as the towering Kartlis Deda statue overlooking the city from its hills.

Not every monument built in Soviet Georgia was overtly political, and some succeed in outrunning those former associations", says Richter in the feature.

Contrasting the projects for repairing some of the monuments outside the capital city with neglect of other sites of the Soviet era, the author highlights the different fate encountered by the creations.

Photo: Darmon Richter/CNN

Read the full story here: cnn.com

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