CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/11/2026

From solar furnaces to radio telescope control panels: Soviet Scientific Institutes

Behold, the reality of yesteryear’s Soviet Scientific Institutes, as documented by French photographer Eric Lusito in this newest release in FUEL’s acclaimed series on Soviet architectural relics. Housed in a tactile hardcover with laser-cut patterns based on antiquated, punched-paper computer tape, the volume spans the Baltic nations, Ukraine, Central Asia and East Central Europe, but does not include sites in territories that are still under authoritarian rule: Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Pictured here: the Big Solar Furnace of the Institute of Materials Science, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, comprised of 10,700 mirrors that focus light from an array of heliostats onto a single focal point; the Carl Zeiss telescope pavilion in Kazakhstan, opened in 1981 and currently under reconstruction; and the Ukrainian T-Shaped Radio Telescope (Second Modification) antenna control panel a few weeks before the 2022 Russian invasion.