Heritage

Soviet Echoes And Forgotten Ties: USSR-Inspired Places To Visit In Kolkata

Once, Kolkata's middle-class named children after Russian writers and revolutionaries. Soviet art and ideas ran deep, from bookstalls to tea shops. That era has faded, but if you look closely, traces of the USSR still linger in corners of the city

The secondhand book stalls at Golpark stock out-of-print books from the former USSR Photo: Anuradha Sengupta
info_icon

There was a time when middle-class families in Kolkata named their children after Russian writers, revolutionaries, and thinkers. Soviet art, literature, and ideology once flowed through the cultural veins of the city. Young minds gathered at roadside tea stalls, sipping bharer cha and debating Trotsky and Marx late into the evening. Though those days have long since slipped into memory, echoes of that era remain—faint, but not entirely forgotten.

CLOSE