"It's the flower-shaped building"

One unmistakable legacy of communism is the bizarre architecture of the innumerable public works and other buildings from the era. It's difficult to capture in words just how massive, looming, and unattractive these buildings are. Yet they're still functional and thus still standing. Below are photos taken while wandering the center of Skopje, Macedonia.


This last building is the main post office, where I incidentally had to run a quick errand. The woman running my hostel described it as a "flower" with a noticeable chuckle. After staring at it for a few minutes, I decided it might just resemble a church or flower, though one that has been sucked through the uglifying concrete vortex that is the Soviet aesthetic. That said, the woman who worked behind the counter could not have been kinder or more patient.