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Pre-Soviet Russian architecture served tens of thousands of highly privileged people in metro areas and estates. Meanwhile everyone else lived in izbas with no
by ak217 8y ago
Pre-Soviet Russian architecture served tens of thousands of highly privileged people in metro areas and estates. Meanwhile everyone else lived in izbas with no electricity, running water or sanitation, or worse.
The khruschyovkas and neobrutalist apartment blocks, for all their faults, lifted tens of millions of people out of medieval living conditions. They made extensive use of mass production and prefab.
- gandhium 8y agoWell, khruschyovkas and neobrutalist apartment blocks were started some 40 years _after_ Soviet rule was established. So their primary target before that was not to take millions out of mediocre living conditions, but world revolutions and such.
- ak217 8y agoThat it was. I am under no illusion about the communists.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoBefore they had khrushchyovkas they had komunalkas. Most everyone is familiar with Doctor Zhivago, aren't they?
- PeterisP 8y agoTheir primary target of those apartment blocks was to serve urbanization - to house millions that were moving (or were moved) out of rural villages, with their quite mediocre living conditions, to the industrialized cities. That process was quite ongoing 40 years after Soviet rule was established; lots and lots of peasants in 1950s-1970s USSR lived with a home environment that was quite comparable to early 1900s except with kolkhoz tractors and a propaganda radio. Moving to an apartment with running hot water, indoor toilet, and centralized heating was a major improvement for millions of people during Khruschev era, because their previous dwelling did not have those 'luxuries'.
- icebraining 8y agoNo doubt, but that just reinforces my point; the conformity was the result of trying to build them out rapidly, not due to some preference in Russian culture. I wasn't criticizing the architecture.