Real USSR » housing

Work and Travel

eugenia — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:50:46 +0000

Hard work and no play

A good-sized Soviet factory usually consisted of up to a hundred industrial divisions, with 200–800 workers in each. They had to be accommodated, fed, and often educated, and typically to the Soviet way of doing things, that often wasn’t handled very well. So if you ever wondered what it would be like to be a young engineer at a large factory in the Soviet Russia — please read on.

Eat

The team leaders, heads of departments and the executives of any factory would dine separately and their cafeteria would differ significantly from the one for the regular staff. An executive canteen would have nice tablecloths, waitresses, paper napkins, flowers and subdued music. The menu would be extensive and could include trout, lamb and pork cutlets, plenty of meat in borsht and fresh croutons for the soups. Well, the working class canteen would be exactly the opposite.

Lining up to up

The idea of conveyer type service was borrowed from the US as it allowed letting many staff through in a timely manner. Well, that wasn’t the case in a typical Soviet canteen. There would often be queues, lack of clean trays, shortage of tables and rude staff – oh, those workers of Soviet canteens! Usually a middle-aged lady with bad temper and poor manners; they were said to be taking the nice cuts of meat and poultry home. One day there could be a book written on the tricks of the Soviet canteen workers – what they did to balance out the shortages! For instance, if you want to keep half a kilo of sour cream to yourself, you cannot simply dilute the rest with water – that could show up if the inspection came to check. No, they would use a cheaper yoghurt (kefir) or rancid milk – and often the sour cream served in those canteens was as liquid as milk. The menu was also unimaginative, with very little meat in soups or stews, but with plenty of over-cooked pasta and over boiled potatoes.

Drink

A regular Soviet factory worker would receive 1 rouble from his wife for the daily spends. Why the wife and why so little? The problem of alcoholism was an acute one. Since the jobs were very demanding physically and drinking was often the only known way of relaxation (not to mention the peer pressure!), it was impossible for the workers not to drink. Of course, bringing alcohol to work was not allowed, but there were ways around it. Like, pay a goods driver to bring you a bottle with a delivery. Or, even better, ethanol – used widely as a solvent, or a as cleanser for machine parts, it was a very popular drink.

Beer queue, circa 1987

As everyone was paid monthly, pay day drinking was part of industrial culture – the joke went that it was drinking “for the reason”, unlike any other day.

Alcohol and alcoholism were certainly berated; and the punishment was two-fold: moral and material. The drinkers were openly reprimanded at staff meetings; satiric caricatures were drawn and displayed, but if nothing helped, the punishment became more tangible: no bonuses, time off in winter (there was even a joke: You’ve got to hate warm beer and sweaty women, take some time off in Feb!) and potentially even medical rehabilitation. However, it was very rare for a drunkard to be fired: the country needed all labour force it could have.

Stay

The accommodation for factory workers was provided and almost free; the only thing was that it was of a peculiar character. The accommodating houses of communal living were of three types: male, female and family-oriented. The last type was probably the most decent of all, as a family would usually get a room of their own. The singles had to share: usually not the most capacious room would have to fit between two to three single beds. Nothing was private: if we said that the space allocation was about 5sq m, this would not mean per person – that would mean per room, and one was lucky to be able to share with friends! There would be a couple of showers for the floor, and maybe a couple of toilets. Typically guys would not be allowed even to stay overnight – event to visit the gals was forbidden! The kitchen was communal with a few cooking stoves/ovens – borsht or meatballs often went missing if left unattended!

The law and order would be guarded by a Commandant — and this is not a figure of speech, this was actually an official title! A woman in her late 50s, usually with a mean character and a lot of unresolved issues, this lady would be very susceptible to bribes and all sorts of favour – for allowing a visitor, for coming in after the doors were locked (and they were usually locked by 10pm, with no access granted. The latecomers might as well had sleep on the street, for what a Commandant would care!).

This is what is could look like, brand new.

Work

So how come that the Soviet manufacturing went belly up? The prime reason for it was the inability to sustain any competition. The items for everyday use (TV sets, washing machines, even cars or irons) were not user-friendly and just outright ugly. The situation was even more complex with heavier manufacturing. Anybody who had visited a factory which built planes in late 1970s or early 1980s would recall what a gloomy look it had. The technological rules were broken as much and as often as it could only be: the only help was an extremely high number of manual controllers.

The waste rates were as high as 80% of the total items produced. Hardly any metal was cast: the majority was about the metal cutting, which was ineffective and costly. The technologies which were getting a wider use in the West (lasers, blast moulding, precise cast) were still unheard of. Robots were still exotic as; nothing was automated. All the machinery was Soviet-made, often dated back to 1930s and 1940s. All graphics and design was done manually, with pencils, erasers and slide rulers. Even the finishing touches for plane parts were often done manually, with a metal file, sand paper and some polish paste.

Production line

The story goes that there was even a joke: American R&D scientists were scheming against the Soviet manufacturing, until the CIA cracked a spy. The spy said:

— Do you know what you need to do to kill the Soviet manufacturing?

— What?

— Nothing!

And indeed, those factories were only good for their times of Cold Wars, when the resources were unlimited but nobody would demand a cost-benefit analysis or even a ROI report. Not anymore, so rest in peace, “Made in the USSR”.

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Think Big? No, Even Bigger!

eugenia — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:18:04 +0000

“New Moscow”, by Tschusev and Zholtovsky, was developed in 1917–1924.

We have come across a few private scans of a book “New Moscow” published in 1982. Just after the Revolution of 1917 the new government officials were very keen to change everything around — even more so, they wanted to raze the existing system to the ground and build a new one. So the architects were busy thinking big — and bigger — for the new Soviet country.

This wooden Lenin’s Mausoleum was built in 1924 and was to presuppose the current one, built in 1929. The architectural historians place a huge significance on this particular building, arguing that this turned the Red Square into the celebratory-memorial place (as opposed to the market place, as it was before).

Lenin’s Mausoleum, 1924. Architect A. Tschusev.

One of the biggest problems of those times was accommodation — there was an acute need to smooth out the gap between the rich and the poor, which the pre-Revolution Moscow was so prone to. In 1918 the first step was to shift the workers from the horrible barracks from the outer areas into the bourgeoisie’s flats in central Moscow. This was an action more symbolic rather it was practical as it did not help much: it only geographically distanced the workers from their factories and increased the density of the inner city.

So the “new era” accommodation was required, and this was the initial plan. Sadly, planning often failed as shortly afterward it was discovered that apartment blocks are cheaper to build and easier to maintain than the individual houses.

Sokol village, 1923–1935. Architect N.Morkovnikov.

So the apartment blocks of the new generation were meant to contain everything for the new Soviet people: initially planned as mini-cities, they were designed to have all necessary facilities for everyday activities (gyms, shops, cafes etc). This building below seemed to be slightly ahead of its times: it was simply too big, and the tiny Moskva-river seemed too shallow of a creek next to it. Fortunately, as the city continued to grow, such apartment buildings grew to be fit the city’s layout in a more harmonious way.

Apartment block on the Bersen Embankment. 1928–1930, Architect M. Iophan.

If you remember our old post “How Khrushchev had Killed the Vamprire” , we covered this architectural style there in more details.

Apartment building of 1934. Architect I. Zholtovsky.

1940. Atchitects A.Burov, B. Blokhin. One of the first apartment buildings built out of whole conctrere blocks

Below are some buildings designed for work and leisure.

Workers’ Leisure Club. 1927–1929. Architect K. Melnikov.

The publishing house “Izvestia” (“News”). 1925–1927, architect G. Bakhtin.One of the first Soviet business centres.

Project of the Palace of Soviets. 1938. Architects — B. Iophan, V. Tschukho, V. Gelfreich. Sadly it was never built due to the lack of financing.

More about this building here: How Khrushchev Had Killed the Vampire.

The lenin’s State Library. 1928–1941, Architects V. Tschuko, V. Gelfreich.

The Crimean Bridge. 1936–1938. Architect A. Vlasov, Chief Engineer B. Konstantinov.

Project of the Red Army Theater and Entertaining Centre. 1934–1940. Architects L. Alabyan & V. Simbirtsev.

One of the most epic buildings of that era: Moscow State Universty. 1949–1954, designed by a group of architects.

These monumental beauties would have belonged to the last “big” lot. Shortly afterwards the architects were told to downsize, to design affordable simplistic buildings for mass production. The war had certainly played its part, but it was just a sign of those times — grand, hopeful for the best, and monumental.

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Sherlock Holmes VS USSR: 1 Nil.

eugenia — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:18:05 +0000

My iPad has really got me reading recently. On iBooks almost all of classic literature is free, so I am reading a book by Arthur Conan Doyle — The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man with the Twisted Lip. There was a passage that struck me as remarkable (or, as Conan Doyle would put it, rather singular):

One night — it was in June 1889 — there came a ring to my bell. … We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum. Our door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.

The Soviet movie illustration of this book. 1979. Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Dr Watson.

Really. In June 1881, just like that, Sherlock had linoleum, which was nothing extraordinary at the time — given he was presumed to somewhat struggle financially, and thus his need to share a flat. In the USSR — and this is the point I am making now — linoleum was one of the highest sought-after products until at least early 1980. I wouldn’t believe it myself, but I remember how excited my Mum was when in 199o we managed to “secure” some of this precious material to floor the kitchen in our apartment.

What was the price of those space exploration programmes if linoleum was a scarce commodity at least for a century after it became widespread in the rotten, capitalistic West? You feel my pain?

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Glass Negatives circa 1928

eugenia — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:59:24 +0000

Chemical photography as we know it today was not invented in a day — one of the stages in developing was the glass negatives photography, when the glass plates were covered with a protein emulsion — invented in 1841, the process was clunky and difficult to reproduce. Those images can now be identified by the uneven coat of emulsion, rough edges, thick glass and maybe even photographer’s thumbprint on it.

All in all, below are the 20+ images from the glass negatives — the shots of Soviet countryside life, shot around 1928. People, harvests, views, tools — whatever the photography aficionado encountered. Considering that this is pre-film, the spirit of these photos is mind blowing. We hope you’ll share our excitement.

A fashionista.

The glass slides. Dated 1928.

If anybody could help identify what these women are doing?

Late autumn

Sisters? Note the background

Another stylish couple. He reminds me of Clark Gable

River outing

Studying

A stylish threesome: mind the leather jacket

Harvesting

My favourie shot of the lot

If anyone could help us identify the little box? Milk? Tea? Coffee?

Everyone posing for the camera man

Still life

Woodworkers’ shop

City vistas

Family gathering

Winemaking?

Summertime. Apart from the watermelon, note the camera case in front. Now it would be called lomo

Lunch break

Harvesting. Plenty of apples this year!

TBC.

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A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

eugenia — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:53:25 +0000

The Griboedov Channel. The bridges St Petersburg is so famous for.

By many, St Petersburg (Leningrad in 1924–1991) is often considered to be so beautiful due to its architecture of Italian origin. Quite strange to see these fine buildings embellished by the symbols of the Soviet Era. Let’s take a walk around this fine city in the summer almost 30 years ago.

When I was 7 years old, there was a flower market just like that next to our house. By Erhard K.

Image by Erhard K.

Peterhof, the Russian Versailles, by Erhard K.

Peterhof by Erhard K.

The Smolny Cathedral, by Erhard K.

The Neva River embankment, Rostral Pillars. Image by Erhard K.

The Dvortsovaya Embankment. Image by Erhard K.

Summer river cruises. By Erhard K.

St Isaac’s Cathedral, the monument of Peter the Great. By Erhard K.

The Winter Palace close up, Dvortsovaya Embankment. By Erhard K.

The Winter Palace, from the Palace Bridge, by Erhard K.

Peter the Great was the one to build this city on the swamps. During the Khruschev Era, the city was further decorated.

Nevsky Avenue, by Erhard K.

The Neva embankment, the Aurora cruiser, by Erhard K.

In 1925, the Aurora cruise ship played a major part in the October Revolution: the city was flaming with revolutionary spirit and so the Revolutionary Committee was created. On 25 October 1917, Aurora refused to carry an order to take off to sea, which sparked the Revolution. At 9.45 p.m. on that date, a blank shot from her forecastle gun signalled the start of the assault on the Winter Palace.

The Church of the Saviour on Blood (Spas na Krovi), by Erhard K.

The main street: Nevsky Prospect (Avenue). By Erhard K.

The Dvortsovaya Square, Aleksandriysky Stolp, by Erhard K.

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21+ Depressing Photos of Post-Revolutionary Russia by Arkady Shaikhet

eugenia — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:11:22 +0000

When the new Soviet country was born, the people were promised a wonderful future under the socialism — just a few more years, the billboards boasted — and we’ll live in a glorious state. However the early days were more than gloomy: the rundown economy, disoriented society, the reek of fear and uncertainty — and that clearly can be seen through the photos of a prominent Soviet photographer Arkady Shaikhet.

This collection of photos starts off with nice, clearcut images of what the country was portrayed as by the media and propaganda — and progresses to a unsweetened world of the simple folk, vagrants, and peasants. Please let us know if there is a photo below that has touched your heart — we always value your feedback.

Gymnasts. Red Square. 1924

Arkady Shaikhet’s life story is one of the most remarkable ever. A fourth kid in a Jewish family from the South of Russia, with no school education or special skills, he was called in the army to serve in the WWI. However, the outbreak of typhoid saved him and so, being discharged at the age of 24, he moved to Moscow in search of great opportunities. And there they were: after getting a job at a local paper, Arkady tried his luck with a camera — only to realise that he got a special talent. It was all uphill ever since: publishing in the most influential newspapers, the honour of duty to photograph Lenin and Stalin, busy exhibitions and so on. He had the most remarkable shots of the Second World War events, which we hope to publish here in the future.

The cycle parade. 1924.

Morning exersize. 1927

Morning exersize. 1932

A sportsman. 1932

At the gym. 1928

And here’s some of the less life-assuring images of the new country.

A street kid is learning a shoemaking skill. 1929

A village in the mountains. Father and son. 1929

Engineers to be. Moscow. 1930

Bathing of a vagrant kid. Moscow. 1927

Voting. 1925

Out in fields. 1927

Plowing. Samara. 1927

Test drive. Moscow. 1924

City of Elista. A school lesson for the kalmyk’s kids (a small indigenous nation).

Electrification. 1925

Visit of a tax collector. Moscow. 1928

Putting up the poles for the electrical cables. 1925

Sharpening the tools. 1939

A building site. Uzbekistan. 1939

Workmen resting by a fountain. 1926

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Novosibirsk: Then and Now.

eugenia — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:11:01 +0000

The Communal Bridge, back then (late 1970s)

The Communal Bridge, nowadays.

The unofficial capital of Siberia, the city of Novosibirsk was founded in 1893 with the initial population of only 8,000 people. By the time of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, it grew to the population size of 80,000. The name, literally meaning New Siberian City, was adopted in 1926 — and since then, the town had become to grow and prosper.By 1962, Novosibirsk became the youngest city in the world to have the population of 1 million — it only took about 70 years. Now it is an important industrial, cultural and socioeconomic hub of the country.

We realise that today’s post is a little different from our usual format, as the modern pictures of the city are, well, modern and not of the Soviet epoch. It is still nice to see, however, how the city has been changing over the past hundred years — and the old photographs are still full of life and very easy on the eye.

Apartment block nicknamed “The house of porters”. Late 1930s

“The house of porters” now

The Architecture Academy, 1929.

The Architecture Academy now.

The Train Terminal. Early 1930s.

The Train Terminal nowadays.

Now the three images of the City Trade Complex.

Back in those days, the city was called Novo-Nikolaevsk

The City Trade Complex in late 1920s

The Labour Day Parade, 1938.

Still one of the prettiest buildings around.

The Siberian Military HQ. 1940s = please note the horse carriage.

The Siberian Military HQ building, now.

Stalin Street (later renamed as Lenin St). 1938.

Lenin St Now.

Another view of then-Stalin St. Please note the green building of the Opera and Ballet Theatre.

A modern close up of the Opera and Ballet Theatre — it is the largest theatre of the kind in Europe.

The city centre. Note the parking lot for the coachmen.

The same street photographed from a similar spot much later — a modern photo.

And finally some shots of the main street of Novosibirsk — the Krasnyi (“Red”) Road.

1927.

Exactly the same spot — now

The house of the merchant Mashtakov. Late 1920s.

The house of the merchant Mashtakov nowadays.

1960s

1960–1965

The Krasnyi Road now.

Most images are courtesy of Egor Egoshin, and we are very grateful for that.

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Interior Design and Furniture in the USSR

eugenia — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:27:25 +0000

Welcome!

As previously stated, the majority of people in the USSR lived in the apartments. Unfortunately, due to the the time constraints, they had to be built in a speedy rather than comfortable manner. After the war, when accommodation was extremely scarce, a three bedroom flat could accommodate up to 16 people (four average families), with one shared kitchen and one shared bathroom. The quality of living there was truly horrendous. So when Khruschev started his building binge in 1960s, a joke went that the legacy of those communal flats was agoraphobia – the fear of open spaces and the tendency to hoard things. Well, if you spent your formative years in a pokey flat where you’d have to dry your laundry next to the stove, you’d be just as agoraphobic.

So let’s look at the main trends in the interior design Soviet style.

Personal attachment

The severe deficits caused by planned economy had turned every Soviet into a thrifty squirrel hoarding everything, from tin cookie boxes to imported shampoo bottles. Everything which had a semi-practical implication (take an old tooth brush, pluck all the bristle out, heat it over a fire to bend in the middle – voile! You just made yourself a wonderful hook to hang clothes!) would have been kept for years, hence the overall cluttered look of a typical Soviet flat.

This is still “All in One” flat.

The habit to hoard

As we have figured, it grew out of extreme consumerism poverty, which barely anybody could escape. The constant visual hunger for pretty household things (say, the k-mart level would have been to die for, yet it was not there!) had lead to the lack of understanding of the true value of items. Hence the quantity of furniture items in a given flat was equated with the social status of its owners and overall achieving abilities. Considering there were no Tiffany lamps or Barcelona chairs, typically it was a sad cemetery of depressing clutter.

In a furniture shop.

Furniture essentials

During the Soviet times, the furniture shops had a truly non-existent range of furniture items. That’s why 95% of all apartments looked very much alike. The wall units were a must have, as they allowed lots of storage space and display. The sofa with two matching chairs was a popular item, however the irony was that the chairs were matching across the country. A lamp on a stand (aka torchere, after its French name) was also available.

Just another Soviet interior look.

Personalise it!

That’s why kitschy personalising was so in: macramé, tile mosaics, appliqué sofa covers, embroidered curtains, construction out of matches and paper snowflakes on windows every winter. Plus the rest of what was thought to be pretty (stuffed toys as a decorative element, artificial flowers in plastic vases, bamboo curtains etc), the look was truly sad.

This is more likely to be a village flat.

The standard Soviet wish list

Apart from wanting to own a flat, a motor vehicle and a summer bach on the allotment, the things that everybody desperately wanted to own included: a Yugoslavian wall unit (a piece of furniture having several units that stands against one wall of a room), a Polish bedroom suite, a collection of rugs (for the floors and for the walls, too!). A strange yet incredibly widespread habit of decorating the walls with rugs in the USSR took off in an instant and stayed till maybe late 1990s.

Dinner time.Please note the wallpaper, another Soviet craze, which is still popular.

And finally some appliances “Made In the USSR”

A vacuum cleaner, circa 1970s, to keep those carpets cleaned.

A device to manually clean the carpet by repeated hitting. Even those who could afford a vacuum claner would get one, to clean the carpet in winter on the snow.

A Soviet TV set, the image is still visible — it was often the quality of broadcast.

A manual meat mincer.

A semi-automatic washing machine (the crunching had to be done manually between the rolls)

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Cold Clone War

Stas Kulesh — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:54:31 +0000

Buran VS Shuttle

According to the Soviet propaganda, everything which wasn’t invented by the ancient Chinese, was invented by the Soviet engineers in the USSR. Ah, they were said to invent the best weaponry, the best tanks and the best cars.

In reality, of course, the path of inventions had a very moderate development but in order to keep the morale up, Soviet government had the engineers copying things off their American, Canadian or Japanese counterparts. Certainly, nothing is wrong with it per se– such strategies usually allow to save time and money by buying and recreating a licensed version. However, the root of all evils is the mentioned Soviet brainwash on the topic of Soviet superiority in all fields of engineering research and development.

Let’s have a closer look at who really invented what.

One of the most controversial inventions was the gunfire rifle AK-47 invented by a Soviet engineer Mikhail Kalashnikov in, well, 1947. The holy war over this rifle and its true origins has been going on for more than half a century. The story goes that after the second World War, Germany was not allowed to produce weapons, which the USSR authorities used to their advantage: the prominent weaponmaker Hugo Schmeisser was invited to visit the arms plants in the Ural mountains, where later on the Soviets allegedly stole some of his ideas. As per usual, the truth is hard to find, however, we won’t be surpised if his family would file a lawsuit over the intellectual property of this particual invention.

AK 47 vs Stturmgewehr 44 by Hugo Schmeisser

Another piece of weaponry story: it is hard to tell whether it was copied off the Finnish or the Soviets just happened to invent a similar-looking rifle just a year later. The resemblance is striking, and yet again, no mention of the rights reseved.

Shpagin Rifle, 1941 vs Suomi Rifle (Finland), 1931

Next, the popular Makarov pistol of 1951– another acclaimed example of Soviet weaponry, this pistol had been copied by many as a popular military side arm.The question is still raised whether it is a scaled up version of a German pistol (minus decorative elements), but the resemblance is quite uncanny.

Makarov 9mm Pistol, 1951 vs German Walther 9 mm Ultra, 1935

Next, heavy military machinery. Every kid knows that tanks were the USSR’s frst and foremost object of pride, yet there is an opinion that the famous T-34 and its later versions were just copycats of the American Christie line.

T-34, 1940 vs Tank Christie, USA, circa 1930

The next one is probably one of the fewer honest examples of Soviet cooperation. During the WWII, seventy of American electric locomotives were shipped to the USSR as part of the Allied Forces war effort. The USSR authories kept them after the war, adopting the design to form the basis of their own line of diesel locomotives.

Diesel-Electric Loco (DA), of 1946 vs American ALCO RSD-1, of 1941

As for the planes, here even the wikipedia supports the story of the Tupolev plane Tu-4 being shamelessly copied off the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress.In 1945 the Tupolev avia construction company had meticulously reengineered the American plane to the point of ashtray locations! Certainly the whole concept of reverse engineering (ie, discoverig the technological principles of something through analysing its workings in detail) is praiseworthy.

The Tupolev TU-4 (1947) vs Boeing B-29 of 1942

Even the rockets — the endless well of Soviet pride — are rumoured to be the copies of the German development. Needless to say, it is still a remarkable act of engineering. Academic Sergey Korolev — the same scientist who sent the first human Gagarin in the outer space — was in charge of this project, so it just as successful.

The rocket R1, 1948 vs the German V-2, 1942

The following projects do not look identical, however, both the hydro electrical power station on the river Dnipro and the American Hoover Dam, NV have something in common: their chief engineer, C J Thompson, who oversaw the development of both projects.

DneproGes (1927–1939) vs Hoover Dam (1922–1933)

Another finest example of dubious engineering success — when Khrushchev started his building binge, his architect team did not invent the hideous looking apartment blocks — they just borrowed the idea of the German civil engineers. Pity both parties, in this case.

Soviet vs German Plattenbau Apartment Blocks

The automobile industry was the one with the most copied items. In some cases, even parts are said to be compatible!

Moskvich-400 (1947) vs German Opel Cadette of 1936.

Gaz Mini Truck, 1932 vs Ford AA, 1929

Volga of 1970 vs Ford Falcon, 1966

Volga of 1970 vs Ford Mainline of 1954.

Also, remember our post about Vyatka mopeds, the exact and true copies of Vespa? That one is just classic.

The bottom line here is about honesty, really. Nobody is expected to invent things from scratch — you can borrow other people’s ideas as long as they are properly copyrighted. It is also more efficient to modify the original version to suit the domestic realities better. However, it is good manners to acknowledge the work of others. And it is certainly shameful to claim the intellectual rights to things which never belonged to you. And this is where the USSR had failed dramatically.

Based on: www.worldaffairsboard.com and muacre.livejournal.com

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How Khrushchev Had Killed the “Vampire”

Dmitry Yakimenko — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:26:31 +0000

Building binge commenced in the Soviet Russia in 1955 when the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a decree “About elimination of unnecessary extravagance in architecture”. The pre-war, Stalin-approved architecture was notable for monumental columns, high-stud ceilings and indispensable stucco mouldings. This was a Soviet version of Empire style (or “Vampire”, coined by contemporaries) and it was about to fade away.

Project of the Palace of soviets (1772x1374). Sadly, was not built due to the lack of financing.

Nikita Khrushchev who replaced Josef Stalin made a decision to build cheap houses at mass volumes. At that time the residential accommodations in еру USSR was in a totally disastrous condition – only 10–15% of urban population had private apartments; the majority of this group appertaining to the governing elite. The ordinary Soviets mostly lived in d.i.y wooden sheds - that comprised to around 30% out of all urban accommodation ( and possibly even more in some regions, like Siberia). Now those sheds are hard to imagine, however, there are still remnants of those in some remote places. Toliets, bathrooms, and even water supply were often missing.

A survivor. This one is up and still going. You’d hope to live upstairs, wouldn’t you?

So the mass construction of houses without unnecessary extravangances had commenced. To understand the scale of those developments, simply compare the following figures. From 1917 to 1941 (when the War began) 200 mln of square metres of accommodation was built. 70 mln was destroyed during the War but about 50 mln was restored in late 1940s. Whereas during the seven-year period from 1959 to 1965 more than 300 mlns of sq metres of accommodation was built — and hundreds of new flats got occupied right away. The first wave were the brick houses (those are still highly valued on the modern secondary house market). Despite tiny kitchens and quite pokey layouts, those flats had balconies and (sic!) separate toilets and bathrooms as well as soundproof walls! Really, those brick apartment blocks were a good deed of the Soviet system.

House on the bank of Moscow River

As it turned out in 1957, the population growth exceeded the speed of the construction. The change of power from Stalin to Khrushchev gave optimistic hopes to Soviet people, which in turn resulted in the Soviet baby boom. So, after two years after the first resolution, the Communist Party issued a second one “About residential accommodation development”. This resolution stated that constructors did not pay enough attention to panel and block-based construction and, hence, made a start to a new type of buildings. They were five-storeyed panel blocks without rubbish chute or elevators, assembled in less than a month. This manic constructing of 1950s was one of the most popular themes of the Soviet art. Mass demolitions of wooden sheds and, at the same time, demolition of antique buildings of tsarist Russia, were celebrated in a number of the Soviet movies. The typical movie showed a close-knit family moved into a separate flat where the typical urban landscape was studded with building cranes. That was an end of the era of shared households where people tenanted in huge communal flats with public kitchens and shared facilities.

Typical urban view, early 1950s

Certainly the difference to those wooden sheds was tremendous. Still, it is interesting to see what a typical Soviet flat looked like. The main distinguishing feature was a toilet of an incredibly small size. It was personally set by Nikita Khrushchev who tried the model of the toilet and said “If I fit into this toilet, they would also fit”. As the result, the toilets designs were based on the Khrushchev’s dimensions.

Khrushchev announcing the commencement of housing development, mid 1950s

As for the kitchen, it was often small enough to fit only one person of average size, whereas somebody bigger (let alone obese) may not have fitted at all. It is believed that the tiny size of the kitchen originated from the communist ideology. It was supposed for the people of this society to have lunch in a workplace and dinner at a cafeteria. It was also assumed that would be no need for the pantry as everything would be available from a local food shop. This approach resulted in the lack of space for the fridge. Instead, these flats were equipped with a so called “Khrushchev’s Fridge”. It was a small closet under the window approximately 1 x 1 metre in size where people could store some food only in the winter time, as it had an actual hole in the wall.

Literally — apartment blocks.

New suburbs, early 60s

Interesting to note how these apartments were allocated to people. One had to file a formal request for an apartment, and then wait for an approval. Importantly, the wait was never longer than a number of years and usually those who needed their own dwelling — like, young couples — were granted it. The queue might have been sped up in some extraordinary circumstances — like, for academics, sportsmen, high achievers on the production line etc.

The scheme of allocation usually worked as followed. The couples with no kids were given a studio, a living room with a separate kitchen. A family with a child were entitled to a one bedroom apartment. Two kids family would get a two bedroom flat. Three bedrooms was as big as any apartment got — no matter how many kids one had, they all would have been accommodated in three measly bedrooms. Oh well, with an average of 2.1 kids per Soviet family, and an overall scarcity of accommodation, this never seemed insufficient.

These five-storeyed buildings were being built until 1985 and they spread across the whole country. In 1985 the massive construction stopped. It was replaced by convenient individual construction of apartment building where the new apartments were not available for the majority of ordinary people any more. Then, it actually turned out that Khrushchev’s massive construction of tiny and inconvenient flats was not a bad thing — rather, an act of humane care, actually the one out of a small number of positive things of that time.

A well-to-do Soviet family having dinner in their relatively luxurious Moscow apartment. They are among the few in the city who have a new, modern apartment and elegant furnishings. — Image by © Wally McNamee/CORBIS

Source: www.sobesednik.ru

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