Russian Housing in the Modern Age

The chapters in this book, by specialists in various areas of modern Russian history and culture, explore the ways in which Russians of the past century have provided one of the most basic of human needs - housing. At the end of the nineteenth century, Russian housing reflected both tradition and sweeping social change, from the peasant countryside to the growth of major new urban centres. The first three chapters of the book illustrate this contrast in shelter, as well as the accomplishments and inadequacies of the pre-revolutionary building boom. The intractable problems of housing within a society in transition were addressed with new vigour by Soviet planners. The book examines idealistic, modernist projects for housing in the 1920s, as well as workers' settlements for the Five-Year Plans. The bombastic pretensions of Stalinist architecture are also explored from a sociological and historical perspective. Later chapters examine the origins of the dreary countryside and cityscape of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras. The volume concludes with a view of contemporary developments and offers views of possible developments in the next century.