Images of Crumbling and Decay II

Despite the current building boom in Bishkek, where luxury apartment buildings are springing up faster than dandelions, there is a parallel phenomenon where building in the public sector is almost non-existent and old projects that are now unfunded sit idle indefinitely.

Below is a building behind the Philharmonic Theater, not far from my apartment. It was started several years ago during the rule of the despot who was thrown out of office in the 2010 uprising. His sons used public money to engage in building projects, but after the uprising when they fled to the UK, many of these projects were halted and remain incomplete to this day. No one seems to know what this building was supposed to be. This sturdy and thickly constructed structure that resembles a pine cone or a hand grenade looks like it could survive an intensive bombardment. But it appears this abandoned shell will live out its life as a stillborn skeleton, never achieving birth.