Russian Cultural House
The bombed out old Soviet Culture House in Kabul has become home to many of Kabul’s heroin addicts. Night after night they return to the once impressive building to smoke or shoot up their heroin and sleep a few hours. Ignored by the authorities and rejected by their families their only comfort is that the heroin is cheap, pure and easy to get. Today, this building, the auditoriums are littered with rubble; cold air comes in through rocket holes; and once-bold Soviet murals of men and women, Afghans and Russians, are hidden in the squalid darkness near cartoon images depicting a Taliban fighter instructing children to become suicide bombers.