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Re:Postcards from Big Brother: The Curious Propaganda of a B... by ak217 on Friday October 19, 2018 @03:51PM (#18259489)
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.

Re:Postcards from Big Brother: The Curious Propaganda of a B... by gandhium on Friday October 19, 2018 @04:06PM (#18259603)
Well, 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.

Re:Postcards from Big Brother: The Curious Propaganda of a B... by PeterisP on Saturday October 20, 2018 @03:05AM (#18262157)
Their 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'.
Re:Postcards from Big Brother: The Curious Propaganda of a B... by HarryHirsch on Friday October 19, 2018 @06:06PM (#18260438)
Before they had khrushchyovkas they had komunalkas. Most everyone is familiar with Doctor Zhivago, aren't they?
Re:Postcards from Big Brother: The Curious Propaganda of a B... by ak217 on Friday October 19, 2018 @04:16PM (#18259686)
That it was. I am under no illusion about the communists.
Re:Postcards from Big Brother: The Curious Propaganda of a B... by icebraining on Friday October 19, 2018 @07:25PM (#18260803)
No 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.