Christopher Herwig's Soviet Bus Stops Volume II: More surprising sights behind the Iron Curtain

Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has an insatiable appetite for Soviet bus stops. After the popular and critical success of his first book – which documented wacky bus stop in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Abkhazia, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Belarus – Herwig has returned to the former Soviet Union to hunt for more.

In this second volume, as well as discovering new stops in the remotest areas of Georgia and Ukraine, Herwig turns his camera to Russia itself. Following exhaustive research, he drove 15,000 km from coast to coast across the largest country in the world, in pursuit of new examples.

An essay by renowned architecture and culture critic Owen Hatherley reveals new information on the origins of the Soviet bus stop. Examining the government policy that allowed these 'small architectural forms' to flourish, he explains how they reflected Soviet values, and how ultimately they remained – despite their incredible individuality – far-flung outposts of Soviet ideology.

Think of a bus stop, and you probably picture a sterile, functional shelter, perhaps covered in advertising. In the former Soviet Union, however, bus stops were often an excuse for designers to try out their most outlandish ideas. Bus stops shaped like trains, birds, light bulbs, rockets, castles, even a bus stop incorporating a statue of St George slaying the dragon... the variety is astonishing.

An essential companion to the first volume, this book provides a valuable document of these important and previously overlooked constructions.

Soviet Bus Stops and Soviet Bus Stops Volume II by Christopher Herwig are published by Fuel Publishing. Many of these bus stops may soon be gone forever. These books help to immortalise them.