Club Jacobin

Soviet landscape design — planting trees in patterns that could only be seen from the air, to celebrate important events or anniversaries (looks like mostly Lenin’s birthdays and anniversaries of the founding of the USSR). I can’t tell how old these photos are so I don’t know if these are still visible or for how much longer they’ll remain that way.

I’ve seen similar photos from China, except in that case the designs were made on the faces of desert mountains — maybe by clearing off rock in a pattern or piling up rocks from somewhere else, I’m not sure. Those definitely had a more Ozymandias-like “Nothing beside remains” quality to them. Not sure which ones I like more.

(Also I’m pretty sure there’s a good Lysenko joke here about trees acting collectively for the glorious socialist cause, but I can’t be bothered to find it.)