As years pass since the collapse of Soviet Union, most of the ancient traces of socialism are slowly getting wiped out from Moscow, but every now and then you see some left over crumbs from history.
Once you get away from the center of Moscow, you can’t ignore some very similar looking buildings scattered all over. These are not aesthetically pleasing structures which make you commend the architect rather “ugly” brick and concrete structures that make you wonder – why do they have so many of them?
Little bit of enquiry with the locals (who can speak English of course) will lead you to the answer – Khrushchevki (five storey buildings) – one of leftover pieces of Soviet history.
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| Khrushchevki |
With the cities expanding and people coming in from all over in the post war times, there was acute shortage of houses for people. The government started huge project to quickly built thousands of cheap, tiny apartments in five-story buildings, with no balconies, extremely small kitchens (where no more than one person can fit), box-like toilet-and-bathroom spaces and thin walls separating the apartments, allowing residents to hear everything that's going on in their neighbors' places!
"To add to that...", an old man pointed out, “…there were no choice of selecting your own furniture at that time – there was only one kind of TV unit, one kind of sofa which everyone had at their homes. Not just buildings from outside, but also the homes from inside looked remarkably identical”
Though these unpopular “Khrushchevki” buildings are soon disappearing from Moscow, it makes me wonder how depressing the city would have looked at that time....“Feel at home” – the common phrase we use to make our guests feel welcome would have had a completely different meaning in Soviet Russia ;)
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