As someone from a post-soviet country, and had to live in one of those.. there's plenty of reasons to shit on them.
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Ok im gonna try typing out some of the observations of living in commie blocks from personal experience as well as some stories from my friends. Im also spoilering it for anyone who doesn't want to read the list.. also also.. not a comprehensive list of everything, just what I can think of on my lunch break
here goes
- The first thing to point out in my opinion is the construction: The construction of these were often rushed so at best they require expensive renovations and at worst they collapse, see tofu dreg in china
- Safety: This is something I remember from my safety classes back in school. We had to make a fire escape plan for our houses, with at least 2 exits.. which I really struggled with cause I lived on a high floor, so no jumpimg out the window, and no fire escapes only meant I could do 1. So the commie apartments don't meet our modern safety standards
- Location: A lot of this down to the economic collapse of various commusist countries, but many of them are quite literally in a middle of nowhere, in terms of finding a job. This is something I struggled with a lot, cause any job I could find would require a car to commute
- Parking space: The commie blocks were often designed with green space in mind which would be nice, if they weren't also not designed with the idea of every household having a car, so when you have 16 parking spaces and the rest of the 40 cars in the mud that was once grass they start to look a lot more depressing
- Accesability: The majority of commie blocks had no elevators, with the exception of quite tall ones. And even then the elevator usually started at the first floor rather than ground floor. This means if you're disabled and the only available social housing is commie blocks.. tough shit cause you're not getting in. I know someone who's a single mother with a disabled adult daughter who's she the primary caretaker off. She would have to carry her daugher up and down a flight of stairs everyday, and then also drag the electric wheelchair up
- Renovations: Pretty simple - the apartments are usually owned by individuals, rather than a housing company, and getting all 60 or so people to agree to renovate the outside of the building is imposible, with both poorer people and older people stubborn to change, as well as alcoholics and the like
- Utilities/equipment: Many of the commie blocks in my area didn't have city gas, that means for cooking anything you either had to have an electric stove, or more commonly from what I've seen buy big gas tanks and lug them up to your floor. They also lacked extractor fans, so I hope you like greasy walls
- Insulation: Have you seen soviet wall carpets? It's cause even with the windows closed you could feel the breeze through the walls. The winters there meant multiple jackets indoors, and the summers were unbearably hot too
- Insulation pt 2: With high humidity it also meant mold. Fun right?
- Insulation pt 3: No noise insulation either. At least meant the cops got called a lot for all the spousal abuse
Just to name a few :3.. im gonna go eat now
Indeed. There is a hierarchy.
Commie blocks are better than tents.
But proper social housing is better than commie blocks.
And proper social housing mixed with middle class owner-occupied housing in the same neighborhoods and even within the same buildings is the best.
Honestly if I wasn't busy at work I'd make a whole list of why commie blocks are bad, including why they hardly make good social housing