Traffic control booth. Chernivtsi, Ukraine. 1970s

Nimo@lemmy.worldbanned from community to pics@lemmy.world – 277 points –
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Say what you will about the brutalist architecture , but the eastern block also had some pretty interesting bits of, well now retro, futurist design in their public works.

How did that work? Did he manually operate traffic lights or something?

I don't know, but a lot of east bloc had a quite high surveillance. There were often a zero tolerance for drinking, speeding... and they had people oversee main roads.

But as I said, no idea what that dude is supposed to do!

Zero tolerance for drunk driving? Crazy that one didn't have enough social inertia to stick around after the collapse. Then again, given the conditions in the 90s, maybe the chance to get home faster vs potentially die, taking random people with you looks like a win-win.

How the hell would he get up into that thing?

Ladder or steep stairs on the back side of the pole. You can kind of see a handhold railing there.

Gotta imagine that ladder was covered in ice for much of the year.

In Soviet Russia, OSHA violates you

Russia is big, in the south it can easily reach +40 degrees in summer if not more. Can imagine they did not build in air-conditioning back in those days