Growing up in England, I saw a lot of what we would refer to as brutalism in some of the architecture, mostly around the 60s - 80s. Which is a similar period to that of the USSR's development. But it's still very different in many ways, and I really enjoy stumbling across those more unique buildings. I stumbled across an Instagram page yesterday that posts photographs of the various SSRs and seeing such areas I've been to during their heights really showed how beautiful it all once was.
These days the general mentality of anything Soviet being bleak makes sense because the neglect over many decades is present. Those buildings crumbling, mosaics fading, paintwork peeling off. Also the lack of care in the surroundings as the ecological concept died off for the longest time and only recently became more of an issue again. Tbilisi is pretty good in that sense still though, it is a very green city. But in Yerevan for example, in some districts it's just total decay, nothing green to pull some life out.
I think I love walking around these areas and capturing them because I can imagine how they would've once been. In some ways I do feel the sadness as I realise that the greatness and pride in it all is now gone. I posted about a huge cascade here in Tbilisi the other day, I thought it was never finished. But that Instagram page had an image (must've been the late 70s) of the cascade fully developed with the fountains all running. So green and with people walking around it. Things like that can be tough to see. It does often feel like you're just walking around the relics of a bygone era.