As far as I can tell, the Downtown Development Authority must have been the first to notice Flickr user Russian Sam‘s new photoset, entitled “Paper Shreveport.” Flickr is a huge image and video hosting website and social community, where users can share content and interact. On June 12, 2012, a user named Russian Sam, from Priladojsky, Russia, posted this unbelievable set of images of a scale paper model of downtown Shreveport. Russian Sam, whose real name is listed as Ilia Shvetsov, has also created paper models of Midland, TX, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa. The Paper Shreveport is a painstakingly-detailed, 1:2,000 scale model (meaning that one centimeter is equal to 20 meters).
While it’s unclear if Shvetsov has ever visited Shreveport, his Flickr account contains a set of images of the artist touring Oklahoma (my personal favorite is this cool image of Shvetsov with a Tesla Roadster). Out of respect for the artist, I’m not embedding any images of his work from the Flickr site – just head over to Flickr to check them out for yourself. A few personal favorites from all of these great images are:
This overview of downtown, seen from the south
This detail shot featuring Holy Trinity Catholic Church
The Texas Street Courthouse
Thank you, Mr. Shevtsov, for sharing this breathtaking and, quite honestly, totally unexpected portrait of Shreveport’s lovely downtown. If you ever make it to Shreveport in person, we’d like to take you on a tour of the city (the full-sized one).
