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Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

Its very interesting to me, as a person who grew up with very anti-communist parents, to see that most citizens of the city still live in Soviet Era apartment buildings. If the country/city could build an entire fucking city under Soviets, what's preventing more modern city blocks from being built in these times? Or is it just that the population is not expanding enough?

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I hear in Moscow they were trying to tear some of these old buildings to build new apartment complexes. It's controversial in how it was handled I hear especially with respect to older people who have lived in those buildings.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/31/moscow-bigges...

It's allegedly the largest planned urban demolition.

In general Soviets liked to build fast, cheap and efficiently. Corners were often cut. The apartments were not luxurious and would be considered cramped by Western standards. Everything was standardized so you'd see blocks and blocks of almost identical buildings. There is even a well known movie that has that as a key plot element: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073179/ (Man gets drunk, accidentally flies to another city, which had an identically named street, apartment block looks the same, etc).

However it was provided to the citizens for free, sometimes after waiting in line for years. My parents waited for 6 years to get a new apartment after I was born, we got one with 2 rooms instead of 1 room. And yes, they were also very anti-communist (in private at least during those times).

In a place like Norilsk I would guess there other constraints such as extreme cold, would make things hard. Even as new developments having 5 or 9 story blocks might be the more efficient to heat and maintain them. They also built on permafrost, with global warming melting, they'd probably be having major issues soon.

> There is even a well known movie that has that as a key plot element: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073179/ (Man gets drunk, accidentally flies to another city, which had an identically named street, apartment block looks the same, etc).

My wife makes me watch this every Christmas. (I usually fall asleep before the second part) I have the feeling it is a tradition somewhat like It's a Wonderful Life.

Interesting intersection of traditions.

Usually Russians watch Ironiya Sudby on December 31, since Christmas is not celebrated.

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Another one that everybody watches is Briliantovaya Ruka.

Russia's population is shrinking and Soviet-era monotowns [1] are shrinking fastest of all, so housing supply exceeds demand everywhere except hotspots like Moscow and St. Petersburg. Norilsk is doing better than most because its raw materials are still valuable, but per Wikipedia even its recent population growth appears to be mostly due to absorbing two nearby cities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotown

Possibly there’s nothing much wrong with the actual structures? Tearing them down and replacing them with modern versions mightn’t yield that much improvement. The design life of an apartment block tends to be pretty long.

There are lots of 60s and 70s apartment blocks in my area; many have had improved insulation, windows etc, put in (and in a few cases even an extra storey) but it wouldn’t be normal to demolish and rebuild them.

It's not only in Russia, actually.

In New England, many buildings are from early XX century or older. People still live there. (Of course, they are refurbished.)

What changed from the Soviet times - now there's no free money, so no one will build new buildings unless someone else will pay for it.

"to see that most citizens of the city still live in Soviet Era apartment buildings."

In this context, "Soviet Era apartment buildings" means "crap quality buildings". A while ago there was a post on here on how bad they are, that Moscow's municipal government is on a replacement spree, but how some were fighting tearing them down because of nostalgia. Either way, the plumbing was all broken, they're tiny and with inadequate heating systems, etc. Of course the Soviet system could build cities, they did all over the place. The problem is the quality and the long-term economic sustainability.

>but how some were fighting tearing them down because of nostalgia.

No.

Alexey Kovalev (of Moscow Times IIRC) is your guy if you wanna know more. But I am sure these people are not going to protests for "nostalgia".

No you're right, now I remember - some people got replacement home in other neighbourhoods and they didn't want to move. Either way, doesn't really change my point.

I imagine that construction costs in such a remote area are astronomical. Under the Soviet system, the buildings were simply built regardless of cost because the economy was centralized. Now, most Norilsk residents probably don't want to shoulder the costs of construction there. After all, the salaries are high for unskilled Russian labor but still not high (2,500 USD/year in 2011 [0]).

Apparently, apartments are dirt cheap too, and other prices are quite high [0]. So maybe Norilsk residents don't have the disposable income to replace the blocks even if they would like to.

[0]http://siberianwonders.com/2011/03/norilsk-nickel-siberian-c...

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