04/06/2026
Our new book CIRK is out now!
www.zupagrafika.com/cirk
Permanent circuses built across the former USSR between the 1960s and the 1980s formed a distinct architectural typology. Rising in capital cities and regional centres alike, from Chișinău to Dnipro and from Tashkent to Almaty, these arenas combined socialist modernism, experimental engineering and choreographed spectacle. With their futuristic concrete forms —often resembling flying saucers—and intricate interior mechanisms, they transformed the travelling circus into a civic institution: part theatre, part machine, part urban landmark.
Spanning Eastern Europe, Central Asia and beyond, this book documents seventeen Soviet-era circus buildings as they exist today. Some remain active performance venues; others are undergoing restoration following a period of neglect. Together, they reveal a lesser-known chapter of postwar modernist architecture shaped by ideology and mass entertainment.
Through striking photographs and insightful narratives, the first part of CIRK explores the history and architecture of these landmark buildings. The second half of the book contains five illustrated paper models that readers can press out and assemble to re-create selected circus structures. All you need is glue.
• Includes 5 press-out circus models to assemble:
Bishkek > Kyrgyz State Circus
Chișinău > Chișinău State Circus
Dnipro > Dnipro State Circus
Moscow > Great Moscow
State Circus Tashkent > Tashkent State Circus
• Author: David Navarro & Martyna Sobecka (Zupagrafika)
• Foreword: Jelena Prokopljević
• Photographers: Artem Baidala, Faye Davies, David Navarro, Alexander Veryovkin, et al.
