ART MOSAIC: what the old bas-relief reminded you of

Almaty energy complex is one of the oldest in the republic. In 2025, it will celebrate the 90th anniversary of Almaty CHPP-1 named after B.Orazbayev. Along with production traditions, its own professional cultural environment was established here and began to take shape…

All this is also a history, fortunately, stored and enriched by each generation of the station’s power engineers. Each of the visual, architectural or design artefacts bears the stamp of time and reveals its secrets to the most inquisitive.

We will tell you about some of them in our column “Art Mosaic”.

 

Few people pay attention to them when having lunch in the canteen of CHPP-1 in the wall of bas-relief heroes of the Soviet era – grape-grower, fisherman, hunter, cook and others. They are habitually at the post, create a mood and as if they wish a pleasant appetite to all who enter.

“In our dining room, the bas-reliefs represent an integral panel that corresponds to the theme of this room: a woman picking grapes, a male fisherman, a hunter, a cook, images of kitchen utensils. The drawings reveal the very system of cultural norms, traditions, habits related to the kitchen”, says Lamzar Mashanlo, Head of the Adjustment and Environmental Protection Department. – They are reflected in the way food is sourced, prepared and served…”

Although CHPP-1 is the oldest in the Almaty energy complex, the bas-reliefs date back to the 60-70s of the last century, when the era of “making life more beautiful” came, or, more precisely, the time of industrial aesthetics came. The Soviet fashion included bas-reliefs, high reliefs, mosaics and stained glass. And not by themselves, but in accordance, as it was customary at the time, with directive documents. For example, in 1962 one of such documents was issued – the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On improving the quality of engineering products and household goods by introducing methods of artistic design”.

The matter was taken seriously and in order to implement the decree, first of all at large industrial enterprises, positions of design artists were introduced throughout the country, departments of scientific organization of labour and bureaus of technical aesthetics were created. Their areas of work concerned both the products produced and the aesthetics of the production facilities themselves.

 

 

Accordingly, employees of local executive committees and district party committees were responsible for this movement. As a consequence – there were decorated with stucco stops, bas- reliefs, high reliefs and mosaics on facades and inside premises of industrial enterprises, houses of culture, children’s and medical institutions. Of course, not all the works could be classed as works of art. But some works that have survived to our time, having become artefacts, have gained some value. They convey the atmosphere of the time and the production ideology of the time: they are an ode to the man of labour. They also testify to the diligence, skill and responsibility of artists and sculptors. In accordance with the traditions of socialist realism, their works conveyed details, proportions, shapes of objects, spirituality of people’s faces with great authenticity.

“I would emphasize the uniqueness of the bas-reliefs in the canteen of CHPP-1, continues Maksat Astaubayev, Chief Engineer of the plant – The uniqueness of them is that they are handmade and fully exclusive. It is rare to find exact copies of them anywhere. These are bas-reliefs, by which you can trace the history and culture of our people. And that is why I think that these bas-reliefs are relevant and fit into the interior of our dining room”.

Recently, attention to these works from the era of developed socialism has increased. And this is due to the natural desire to preserve fragments of that era for new generations. Maybe not even because of their cultural value, but more because of their historical value. Of course, from the point of view of art historians, these works, “moulded en masse, at every step” sometimes fell under the definition of “consumer goods or kitsch”, but remaining in single copies, they made us reconsider their evaluation.

It is noteworthy that among the first to search for such artefacts in Almaty was a Californian, Stanford University graduate Dennis Keane. His speciality – Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia, with a focus on Kazakhstan. The Kazakhstani media wrote about him extensively a few years ago. He made an inventory of such sites in Almaty and created a website with photos and a map of the city. In his Monumental Almaty project, he shared his photos of interesting mosaics, murals, stained glass, and bas-reliefs. He also appealed to the city authorities about their preservation, and even gave a presentation at the gallery “Artmeken. Territory of Art”.

As the media wrote at the time, Denis managed to photograph and describe more than 150 works, of which 106 still exist, 44 were lost. And about 10 objects were restored. And he himself also took part in the restoration of some of them together with Almaty enthusiasts-lovers of the city’s history. For example, in the restoration of the bas-relief located in the courtyards near the intersection of the Satpayev and Zharokov streets.

The bas-relief from the canteen of CHPP-1 is definitely not in Denis’s photo collection. But this makes the historical art object of the power engineers no less valuable. Preserved and carefully restored, it acquires even greater significance for both the station and the city. Not only as an object of mass art of the socialist realism epoch, but also as an object that has the value of a relay race of generations. The same as the values preserved in many families: grandfather’s watch, great-grandmother’s ring, prayer book or Koran in Arabic of distant ancestors. All the things that allow us to remain heirs, guardians of spiritual values, and not people who do not remember their kinship …