USJ852326_supplemental_material – Supplemental material for Continuities and discontinuities of Russian urban housing: The Soviet housing experiment in historical long-term perspective (original) (raw)
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Urban Studies, 2019
Did the socialist experiment disrupt continuity in Russian urban housing? Based on a unique collection of urban data covering several hundred Russian cities and spanning three regimes across more than a century, this paper gives a nuanced account of continuities and discontinuities of housing in post-Soviet cities. Three main housing characteristics are analysed: urban density (per-sons per building and living space per capita), ownership structure and the modernisation of stock (building material and provision with amenities). Although all Russian cities underwent a number of major shocks and regime changes during the course of the 20th century, their rankings with regard to these three key housing characteristics are still significantly correlated over time, whereas living space per capita is largely uncorrelated over time. This holds true despite significant convergence processes in almost all dimensions and also when including contemporary control variables. We hypothesise that local or regional building traditions, regional differentiation in Soviet urban planning as well as Soviet land use specificities could explain differential growth across cities. Going beyond existing late-Soviet-legacy timeframes, the long-term perspective reveals that even major regime shocks did not completely erase regionally shaped patterns in housing conditions.
A Look at Privatization of Housing in the Soviet Union: The Leningrad Experience
1990
An exploratory study of the housing allocation system in the Leningrad was undertaken in order to evaluate the feasibility of the Soviet Government's recent proposal to privatize approximptely 70% of the state-owned housing stock by the year 2000. The study included an analysis of the centralized political and planning processes as well as an evaluation the socioeconomic and cultural environment in the Soviet Union. S...other havens.. .were and remain the homes of friends: Those padded, intimate interiors whose snug warmth is all the more comforting after the raw bleakness of the nation's public spaces; those tiny flats steeped in the odor of dust and refried kasha in which every gram of precious space is filled, every scrap of matter-icons, crucifixes, ancient wooden dolls, unmatched teacups preserved since before the Revolution-is stored and gathered against the loss of memory; those homes which even in times of greatest dearth have centered about a table, about food miraculously foraged for the visiting relative or guest; those tables over which, until the Gorbachev era, one engaged in elaborate mimicries, note-passing, sign language, to escape the scrutiny of the state's murderers and spies. Over the years, such Soviet homes, however poor, beleaguered, continued to exemplify those virtues that underlie the national tradition of uyutnost: that dearest of Russian words, approximated by our 'coziness'... [which] denotes the Slavic talent for creating a tender environment even in dire poverty and with the most modest means; it is associated with intimate scale, with small dark space2, with women's domestic generosity, with a nurturing love."
Housing Shortage in Soviet Russia in 1920s
The following article examines a housing shortage on the threshold of revolution and during the first decade after establishment of the Soviet regime. Problems, which had been accumulating during the period before the revolution, escalated in 1920s. The first decade after the establishment of the Soviet government, the housing crisis reached its peak throughout the country. Looking for a way out of the current situation, the Soviet authorities carried out a whole range of measures, including "ushchemleniye former", the transfer of the private housing fund to housing associations, condensation, control of housing construction and the differential distribution of square meters. But, they resulted in "housing wars". The article deals with the housing policy of Soviet regime. The article is based on the background of the control authorities, publications and private sources.
2011
Moscow, St. Basmannaya Str., 21/4, bld. L, Room L-504 Tel.: +7 (495) 772 9590 *22885 e-mail: aguseva@hse.ru Personal page: https://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/116454807 EDUCATION Ph.D. 2011 Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo Dissertation title: “Urbanization and Second Homes: A Study on Formation of Second Home Settlements in Moscow’s suburbs in the Twentieth Century.” Prof. Shin Muramatsu, Supervisor. Specialist degree (equivalent to Master of Arts) 1998 Art History Department, Faculty of History, Lomonosov’ Moscow State University. Dissertation title: “Literati Painting in China and Japan in the 17th & 18th Centuries.”[In Russian]. Dr. Elena Serdyuk, Supervisor.
Review of Communism on Tomorrow Street: Mass Housing and Everyday Life after Stalin (Harris)
Anthropology of East Europe Review, 2014
It is not easy to find another social experiment as closely associated with different periods of Soviet history as the regime's grandiose mass housing projects. State-sponsored house communes (domа kommuny), communal apartments, people's construction campaigns (narodnye stroiki), cooperatives, and Khrushchev's promise to resolve the Soviet Union's housing crisis helped shape the development of the turbulent Soviet history. Despite the undeniable significance of this social experiment and its all-encompassing nature, historical accounts documenting the development of Soviet mass housing projects are a rare commodity. Steven E. Harris' well-researched book, therefore, is a welcome and timely addition to the small yet growing body of literature that focuses on the material development of Soviet history.
Housing in the post-Soviet cities: production and distribution under neoliberalism
Political and socio-economic changes entailed by the fall of the Soviet Union, namely the shift from a top-down planned economy and governance to a market economy and governance system serving private interests, have strongly influenced the housing production and distribution in post-Soviet cities. These transformations pushed for a number of social phenomena. This research proposal offers an investigation into the structural conditions and agencies which constructed this process. Firstly, there is a need to draw phases of growth and stagnation of housing production in the post-Soviet era. Secondly, housing production was geographically uneven. This opens up another field for the research - on conditions which underpinned growth in some cities and neighbourhoods and stagnation in the others. Thirdly, housing distribution is to be addressed - research aims to reveal those actors pushing for housing growth and extracting profit from it. Finally, the outcomes of this processes are to be shown, namely the new housing inequalities constructed under the neoliberalism. Kyiv is offered as a case-study, as the housing sphere in this city contains a broad range of variables which have the potential to show all four aspects of the production and distribution of housing in post-Soviet cities.
Rethinking Soviet Era mass housing in Kazakhstan
Spatium, 2023
Mass high-rise, tenement housing in former Soviet bloc countries, built within the modernist genre, has proved to be problematical throughout the history of architecture and urban planning. This study addresses features of mass housing in the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan, in which planning, artistic, psychological, social, and urban aspects of housing have resulted in the inhabitants' diminished quality of life. The study's findings reveal specific critical problems regarding typical tenements in Kazakhstan for their inhabitants and for the urban environments they occupy. An interdisciplinary approach reveals both negative and positive characteristics of various types of Kazakh mass tenement housing, with an emphasis on the former. The paper addresses some potentialities and recommendations for renovation that would enhance the quality of life in the urban setting.