Nowadays junkies’ syringes lie underfoot and its columns are daubed with graffiti

Nowadays, junkies’ syringes lie underfoot and its columns are daubed with graffiti.Although sanatoriums were found across the country, the Black Sea was considered a prize destination, reserved for party bigwigs. Today, the Odessa Sanatorium has passed into the hands of the Ukrainian Secret ServiceFrom neo-classical to concrete, Black Sea sanatoriumsNeo-classical architecture found favour with the authorities just as the first wave of sanatorium construction began. From the Thirties onwards, the sanatorium programme it launched became less a way of treating sick workers and more a means of rewarding loyal party members. Since many residents came only for a holiday, and often alone, leisure-time activities became increasingly important. Most sanatoriums are equipped with theatres and dancing halls. These establishments were a hotbed of extramarital liaisons, and the open-air discos with which some are equipped can only have added further temptations.

The outdoor cinema belonged to the Livadia Sanatorium, which is housed in the same Romanoff palace where Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt carved out the new world order in 1945. The Buildings, Roads and Machinery Sanatorium in Odessa changed its name to the Magnolia Sanatorium in 1995. But over the course of three generations, ideology embeds itself deeply, and it is difficult to see how such a simplistic image makeover was ever really expected to work. Although the corridor, with its peeling paint and rusting radiators, appears to be leading somewhere, it is no longer headed to the promised land. Instead, what it more properly shows is a vision of the future that failed. Outdoor cinema, Livadia Sanatorium, near YaltaLong before the Soviet Union fell apart, Lenin’s 1920 decree “On the Use of the Crimea for the Treatment of the Working People” had begun to ring hollow.

Yet the version of it they promulgated was often impractical and doctrinaire. After the collapse of communism, institutions made an effort to adapt to the larger post-ideological world. The Soviet authorities fetishised science, holding it up as a cultural model that would allow life to be lived in an ever more rational way. Lifts were constructed to overcome these natural obstacles, since a socialist utopia that could put a man into space should certainly be able to convey vacationing comrades to the beach Nowadays, few of these devices still work. Even though this one has found new life as a cruising spot for gay Odessans, it, like the greater part of the Valery Tchakalov Sanatorium it once served, now stands quite derelict.Corridor, Magnolia Sanitorium, OdessaWith a little effort of imagination it is possible to picture this corridor when it was first built – a gleaming white arcade reflecting the totalitarian regime’s conception of modernity.

The Black Sea coast is precipitous and cliffy and many sanatoriums are hundreds of feet above the sea. As a result, although it may not be in pristine condition, it has certainly fared better than many of its counterparts. Pictured above is the spider-plant-filled TV room and, above right, the lecture hall.Lift shaft to beach, Valery Tchakalov Sanatorium, OdessaMarxist doctrine has it that history propels mankind along an evolutionary path, ending with the satisfaction of every material need. Bathing is also encouraged – pictured opposite are a row of waterfront changing cabins.Public rooms, Odessa SanitoriumUnder communism every sanatorium was affiliated to a trade union. Members earned their three weeks of sun, sea and treatment through a combination of loyalty to the party and hard grind The Odessa Sanatorium used to belong to the KGB. Although sanatoriums were to be found right across the country, the Black Sea coast was considered a prize destination, reserved for party bigwigs and model workers.