A City of Advertising

During the Soviet era, advertising was reserved for state propaganda rather than commercial use. Since the end of Communist rule, Western companies have infiltrated the spaces previously occupied by banners and posters extolling the virtues of the party.

A photoshopped sticker on a Coca-Cola machine that reads, "Participants in the Negotiations for the Destruction of Russia." Pictured in the photograph are Shamil Basayev (far left, with hat), a former Chechen warlord who once challenged then-President Vladimir Putin to a duel and was killed in 2006, and Boris Berezovsky (far right), an oligarch and former ally of Putin's who now lives in exile in England.

Before the financial crisis hit in the fall of 2008, the metro was plastered with advertising — both on the walls and in the actual trains. Pictured here is an ad seen through the window of a metro car for United Russia, the leading political party in the country that is headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Soldiers walking by a poster for "Dnevnoi Dozor," or "Day Watch," a 2007 Russian fantasy blockbuster that was the highest-grossing film in the country's history at the time.

A sticker on the State Polytechnical Museum advertising a website called Revolucia.ru, created by the banned National Bolshevik party, urging readers to "read and start a revolution!" 1918 was the year in which the Bolsheviks gained a substantial political foothold in the wake of the previous year's revolution.

Protesters representing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals standing in front of the United Colors of Benetton store in Moscow.

A bizarre billboard on Tsvetnoi Bulvar proclaiming, "There's nothing to do here!" In a city like Moscow, this sentiment is hard to come by.

A woman walking by a large-scale version of "Lily Brik, 1924," a photograph by avant garde artist and photographer Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956), on Tverskaya Ulitsa.

A man walking by mannequins on Tverskaya Ulitsa.