"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.