7 ms·

How Soviet Kitchens Became Hotbeds Of Dissent And Culture

142 points by GuiA 12y ago

isalmon 12y ago
>> "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor" Pretty much every single apartment complex in the US I lived in (MA and CA).
- bdamm 12y ago
  The article then claims that these kitchens were private spaces. Doesn't that seem like a contradiction? If you can hear your neighbours then you can surely hear them playing Elvis.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    You can hear them, so what? Listening to music wasn't any crime. Possession of some samizdat surely was; but reading books is not the loudest hobby. Loud arguing lands somewhere in between. Still, what choice would you have?
- olegious 12y ago
  Actually my experience growing up in the USSR was completely different- you couldn't hear your neighbors because the walls were so thick (and not just our apartment, but all apartments that I remember), that was one of the surprising things about moving the US- hearing your neighbors through the walls.
  - Strom 12y ago
    I still live in an apartment of the type referred to in the story. These are indeed quite sound-proof and I found the remark surprising in the article. I would say the main sound leakage in the default design are the electric socket holes in the wall, although not much. Still, these holes were filled with foam when I moved in and now everything is rather sound-proof.
  - tolyk 12y ago
    You have probably been lucky to live in either Stalinkas or buildings built before the revolution. Buildings built before the revolution were mostly constructed for nobility therefore of a very good quality. Building build during the Stalin era(stalinkas) were also of the superior quality(and still are highly valued at Russia's housing market). Stalin's idea was that working class is a new nobility and therefore should live as the nobility. However construction rates were so slow, that by the time Kruschev came to power people were still living in wooden barracks sharing them between multiple families. Kruschevkas were never intended to be permanent housing, but rather temporary solution for the housing problem. It was intended to replace them with better quality housing once all Soviets had roof over their head. Which unfortunately never happened
    - aleyan 12y ago
      "They were called khrushchevkas — five-story buildings made of prefabricated concrete panels. "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor," says Edward Shenderovich, an entrepreneur and Russian poet. The apartments had small toilets, very low ceilings and very small kitchens." <- from the article. I grew up in a 5 story prefabricated concrete Krushevka in Moscow. This is my experience: [ ] you could hear your neighbor [ ] very small toilets [ ] very small kitchens [X] small toilets [X] low ceilings [X] small kitchens Kitchens and bathrooms were small, but not much smaller from what I encounter in some NYC apartments. I feel use of the word "very" was inaccurate in the article. Krushevkas may have been derided as ugly pox upon the cities, but at rubles to bubliks they got people out of communal apartments. Many families were able to live in their own spaces for the first time.
      - rdtsc 12y ago
        Same here. Lived in both an older 40s and 50s 5 stories building. Small narrow hallways and windows. Build mostly from ridiculous over-sized and thick bricks. But very sturdy. Don't remember hearing neighbors unless they raised an extreme ruckus (usually getting drunk and yelling at each other or kids stumping screaming while playing). Then lived a newer (built in the early 90s concrete block 9 story building). Much nicer, big windows, larger rooms. Wall not as thick but still very sturdy and don't remember hearing my neighbours same as above. Windows were letting cold air through in the winter and elevator kept breaking often but sound proofing was find and no cracks or structural issues that I remember.
  - qwerta 12y ago
    In my experience those houses were mainly compared to traditional well build stone houses, that's how they got bad reputation.
- rdtsc 12y ago
  Quite the opposite. Where I grew up they were built from large bricks, or concrete, and they were lots more sturdy and better built that man homes in US that are build from wood and covered in reinforced card-board (what others call "drywall"). I had relatives from back there look at my typical American built house and comment "oh nice hut, like a summer dacha or something". Thinking about it, I guess it is a ridiculously expensive wooden hut, but oh well. That is the standard here.
guard-of-terra 12y ago
With not much other public spaces, where else will you go? There were a few counter-culture places in Moscow and Leningrad for the select, and kitchens for everyone else. Still, it is impressive how viral some culture was. With nothing more than tape recorders and word-of-mouth, some soviet rock bands still had millions of listeners and could easily fill a stadium for a gig (and indeed did a bit later, when it became possible). Same for books and poetry. This internet-level virability is no longer seen. Today you can't do much on the word-of-mouth - cultural space is too crowded.
alex_doom 12y ago
I love that they turned used xrays into bootleg vinyl recordings. Disrupt! :P
dominotw 12y ago
It is suprising how little is known about private life before khrushchev era. I am currently reading a book called the Whisperers[1] which chronicles what really went on "behind the scenes" in Stalin's russia http://www.amazon.com/Whisperers-Private-Life-Stalins-Russia-ebook/dp/B009E7GVLW/ http://www.amazon.com/Whisperers-Private-Life-Stalins-Russia...
- arethuza 12y ago
  Really good book. However, it's perhaps the only book I couldn't finish because I found it so upsetting.
firstOrder 12y ago
> In a country with little or no place to gather for the free expression of ideas and no place to talk politics without fear of repression Edward Snowden revealed that the USA was monitoring its citizens and storing that data in a way that far outstrips anything the KGB was ever capable of. Should he fear repression? He should, the government wants to lock him up and throw away the key for revealing this, just like they did to Manning for what he revealed. Actually, NPR spends most of its time bashing Snowden. They seem gaga for dissidence in some foreign country, in a government that hasn't existed for over two decades though.
- vvpan 12y ago
  NPR bashing Snowden? Don't listen to it, but I'm very surprised.
- electronous 12y ago
  > just like they did to Manning for what he revealed. She, not he
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    'he' at the time, dysphoria nonwithstanding.
    - electronous 12y ago
      That's not how it works, bigot
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        Referring to someone's past actions using their preferred pronouns at the time of those actions is bigotry? Gosh, better inform all those contemporary news articles that they're retroactively disrespectful.
- mseebach 12y ago
  Without defending the NSA excesses, the difference is in the repression, not the monitoring. There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc.
turingbook 12y ago
Nobody else feels that recording music on exposed x-ray film is very cool?
- fit2rule 12y ago
  I think its totally cool, and I've been trying to work out how to do it myself for the last 10 minutes .. if anyone has any tips about this, I'd love to know. There's a few lung xray's waiting for my industrial tracks in the drawer .. ;)
  - farva 12y ago
    You'll need a recording gramophone like this one: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/164f/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/164f/
anovikov 12y ago
Except that it's not Khruschev's apartments. The building which interior we see on the photo is obviously not new, and Khruschev was in power for only 8 years, 1956-1964. So it couldn't be in that poor state in 'early 60s', those blocks have been brand new back then, or most of them, not even built yet. 'Khruschevkis' have been built since ca. 1959 through in fact, late 1970s (and very little, mainly in Moscow, were built before Khruschev was ousted), and they actually had thin walls through which you can hear. Most people in Khruschev's era lived in wooden temporary buildings (many of them stand till now, completely uninhabitable) built right after the war, or dormitories, or communal apartments (which were build in Stalin era and were normally very well built, except a family got a single room in 6-8 room apartment). Very few, upper class people could get a whole apartment of that kind. These indeed, had thick walls, high ceilings, were well-designed and still form a highly sought after part of real estate in Russian cities (while not many were built). And yes, Khruschevkis were a good thing because they, as primitive and oversimplified as they were, were the only way for most families to move to the city from countryside, or to get their private housing for the first time.
- dzhiurgis 12y ago
  Turns out there is a wikipedia page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka
Uhhrrr 12y ago
Reminds me of Txoko's, the cooking clubs which were basically the only place Basques could congregate under Franco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko#History
webmanoffesto 12y ago
I teach English in a technical college, mainly to construction majors. I'm surprised but happy that I've come across great construction-related articles via Hacker News. the New Bay Bridge, in California (unsafe, late, and over budget); the CitiCorp Center in Manhattan (was in danger of collapsing); and this one.

142 points by GuiA 12y ago

>> "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor" Pretty much every single apartment complex in the US I lived in (MA and CA).

bdamm 12y ago
The article then claims that these kitchens were private spaces. Doesn't that seem like a contradiction? If you can hear your neighbours then you can surely hear them playing Elvis.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  You can hear them, so what? Listening to music wasn't any crime. Possession of some samizdat surely was; but reading books is not the loudest hobby. Loud arguing lands somewhere in between. Still, what choice would you have?
olegious 12y ago
Actually my experience growing up in the USSR was completely different- you couldn't hear your neighbors because the walls were so thick (and not just our apartment, but all apartments that I remember), that was one of the surprising things about moving the US- hearing your neighbors through the walls.
- Strom 12y ago
  I still live in an apartment of the type referred to in the story. These are indeed quite sound-proof and I found the remark surprising in the article. I would say the main sound leakage in the default design are the electric socket holes in the wall, although not much. Still, these holes were filled with foam when I moved in and now everything is rather sound-proof.
- tolyk 12y ago
  You have probably been lucky to live in either Stalinkas or buildings built before the revolution. Buildings built before the revolution were mostly constructed for nobility therefore of a very good quality. Building build during the Stalin era(stalinkas) were also of the superior quality(and still are highly valued at Russia's housing market). Stalin's idea was that working class is a new nobility and therefore should live as the nobility. However construction rates were so slow, that by the time Kruschev came to power people were still living in wooden barracks sharing them between multiple families. Kruschevkas were never intended to be permanent housing, but rather temporary solution for the housing problem. It was intended to replace them with better quality housing once all Soviets had roof over their head. Which unfortunately never happened
  - aleyan 12y ago
    "They were called khrushchevkas — five-story buildings made of prefabricated concrete panels. "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor," says Edward Shenderovich, an entrepreneur and Russian poet. The apartments had small toilets, very low ceilings and very small kitchens." <- from the article. I grew up in a 5 story prefabricated concrete Krushevka in Moscow. This is my experience: [ ] you could hear your neighbor [ ] very small toilets [ ] very small kitchens [X] small toilets [X] low ceilings [X] small kitchens Kitchens and bathrooms were small, but not much smaller from what I encounter in some NYC apartments. I feel use of the word "very" was inaccurate in the article. Krushevkas may have been derided as ugly pox upon the cities, but at rubles to bubliks they got people out of communal apartments. Many families were able to live in their own spaces for the first time.
    - rdtsc 12y ago
      Same here. Lived in both an older 40s and 50s 5 stories building. Small narrow hallways and windows. Build mostly from ridiculous over-sized and thick bricks. But very sturdy. Don't remember hearing neighbors unless they raised an extreme ruckus (usually getting drunk and yelling at each other or kids stumping screaming while playing). Then lived a newer (built in the early 90s concrete block 9 story building). Much nicer, big windows, larger rooms. Wall not as thick but still very sturdy and don't remember hearing my neighbours same as above. Windows were letting cold air through in the winter and elevator kept breaking often but sound proofing was find and no cracks or structural issues that I remember.
- qwerta 12y ago
  In my experience those houses were mainly compared to traditional well build stone houses, that's how they got bad reputation.
rdtsc 12y ago
Quite the opposite. Where I grew up they were built from large bricks, or concrete, and they were lots more sturdy and better built that man homes in US that are build from wood and covered in reinforced card-board (what others call "drywall"). I had relatives from back there look at my typical American built house and comment "oh nice hut, like a summer dacha or something". Thinking about it, I guess it is a ridiculously expensive wooden hut, but oh well. That is the standard here.

guard-of-terra 12y ago

With not much other public spaces, where else will you go? There were a few counter-culture places in Moscow and Leningrad for the select, and kitchens for everyone else. Still, it is impressive how viral some culture was. With nothing more than tape recorders and word-of-mouth, some soviet rock bands still had millions of listeners and could easily fill a stadium for a gig (and indeed did a bit later, when it became possible). Same for books and poetry. This internet-level virability is no longer seen. Today you can't do much on the word-of-mouth - cultural space is too crowded.

alex_doom 12y ago

I love that they turned used xrays into bootleg vinyl recordings. Disrupt! :P

dominotw 12y ago

It is suprising how little is known about private life before khrushchev era. I am currently reading a book called the Whisperers[1] which chronicles what really went on "behind the scenes" in Stalin's russia http://www.amazon.com/Whisperers-Private-Life-Stalins-Russia-ebook/dp/B009E7GVLW/ http://www.amazon.com/Whisperers-Private-Life-Stalins-Russia...

arethuza 12y ago
Really good book. However, it's perhaps the only book I couldn't finish because I found it so upsetting.

firstOrder 12y ago

> In a country with little or no place to gather for the free expression of ideas and no place to talk politics without fear of repression Edward Snowden revealed that the USA was monitoring its citizens and storing that data in a way that far outstrips anything the KGB was ever capable of. Should he fear repression? He should, the government wants to lock him up and throw away the key for revealing this, just like they did to Manning for what he revealed. Actually, NPR spends most of its time bashing Snowden. They seem gaga for dissidence in some foreign country, in a government that hasn't existed for over two decades though.

vvpan 12y ago
NPR bashing Snowden? Don't listen to it, but I'm very surprised.
electronous 12y ago
> just like they did to Manning for what he revealed. She, not he
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  'he' at the time, dysphoria nonwithstanding.
  - electronous 12y ago
    That's not how it works, bigot
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      Referring to someone's past actions using their preferred pronouns at the time of those actions is bigotry? Gosh, better inform all those contemporary news articles that they're retroactively disrespectful.
mseebach 12y ago
Without defending the NSA excesses, the difference is in the repression, not the monitoring. There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc.

turingbook 12y ago

Nobody else feels that recording music on exposed x-ray film is very cool?

fit2rule 12y ago
I think its totally cool, and I've been trying to work out how to do it myself for the last 10 minutes .. if anyone has any tips about this, I'd love to know. There's a few lung xray's waiting for my industrial tracks in the drawer .. ;)
- farva 12y ago
  You'll need a recording gramophone like this one: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/164f/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/164f/

anovikov 12y ago

Except that it's not Khruschev's apartments. The building which interior we see on the photo is obviously not new, and Khruschev was in power for only 8 years, 1956-1964. So it couldn't be in that poor state in 'early 60s', those blocks have been brand new back then, or most of them, not even built yet. 'Khruschevkis' have been built since ca. 1959 through in fact, late 1970s (and very little, mainly in Moscow, were built before Khruschev was ousted), and they actually had thin walls through which you can hear. Most people in Khruschev's era lived in wooden temporary buildings (many of them stand till now, completely uninhabitable) built right after the war, or dormitories, or communal apartments (which were build in Stalin era and were normally very well built, except a family got a single room in 6-8 room apartment). Very few, upper class people could get a whole apartment of that kind. These indeed, had thick walls, high ceilings, were well-designed and still form a highly sought after part of real estate in Russian cities (while not many were built). And yes, Khruschevkis were a good thing because they, as primitive and oversimplified as they were, were the only way for most families to move to the city from countryside, or to get their private housing for the first time.

dzhiurgis 12y ago
Turns out there is a wikipedia page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka

Uhhrrr 12y ago

Reminds me of Txoko's, the cooking clubs which were basically the only place Basques could congregate under Franco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko#History

webmanoffesto 12y ago

I teach English in a technical college, mainly to construction majors. I'm surprised but happy that I've come across great construction-related articles via Hacker News. the New Bay Bridge, in California (unsafe, late, and over budget); the CitiCorp Center in Manhattan (was in danger of collapsing); and this one.