vendredi 1 mars 2013

Типовые серии жилых домов / Soviet blocks of flats

 

Добро пожаловать домой!

Welcome home!

Bienvenu à la maison!

 
 
Когда речь идёт о жилё, дома массовых серий доминируют. Ведь они были строены в городах СССР и в некоторых странах Варшавского договора, и являются основной архитектурного облика многих спальных этих городов.
 
Tower blocks of flats dominated and still dominate the construction sector in Russia and countries of the former USSR. They were built en masse during the USSR in the suburbs of the main cities as well as around energy wells to provide workers with accommodation close to their work. They are authentic dormitory towns.


 
When building them, Soviets did not look for sophistication, but only for basic functionality. Inside, each essential machine has its designated place, nothing is changed as long as it "works" even if in the end, almost half of the machine is missing. After visiting several friends and watching Russian movies, I realized that all these buildings are designed in the exact same way: all entrances, staircases, corridors and floors are exactly the same, and in every flat, rooms have the same proportions and even identical layout. In addition to this, in all cities in Russia, these buildings are ordered the same way: same name of the street, same number order of the buildings, entrances and flats...

This is shown in The Irony of Fate, a Russian comedy from the Soviet times. The key subplot is the drab uniformity of Brezhnev era public architecture. This is made explicit in a humorous animated prologue, in which architects are overruled by politicians and red tape. This results in the entire planet being polluted with identical, unimaginative multistory apartment buildings, called Brezhnevki, of the sort that can, in fact, be found in every city, town, and suburb across the former Soviet Union. These buildings are uniform right down to the door key of each apartment. On New Year's Eve, a drunk man flies from Moscow to Leningrad and, thinking he is still in Moscow, looks for his street. It turns out that in Leningrad there is a street with the same name (3rd Builders' street), with a building at his address which looks exactly like his girlfriend's. The key even fits in the door of the apartment with the same number (Soviet blocks were a bunch of standard apartments with standard locks). Inside, even the furniture and layout of the apartment is nearly identical to that of his girlfriend's apartment.
I felt exactly the same when visiting my friends, indeed, no need to ask them where the toilets were or where they kept their crookery...I had never lived in their flat but it was just as if I were in mine.
 
 
Юг Москвы, юго-западный район. South of Moscow, Yugo Zapadnaya district.
Once I visited a friend in this area and it took me two hours to find his place...

 

Our balcony: we hardly ever dare crossing the threshold. In big cities, some people restore them; our neighbours did so to make a (bed)room out of it.

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