Khrushchevkas
Khrushchevka are housing projects constructed first in Russia then throughout the Soviet Union.
Contents
Description
Khrushchevka are repeated tesselations of small housing units designed to be dense and cheap. They are prefabricated buildings that can be rapidly assembled. Importantly though, they are designed to be shorter than any regulatory thresholds requiring elevators.
As a part of the propiska system, residents did not pay rent. They were only charged for utilities.
History
Khrushchev, as first secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Moscow CPSU obkom), oversaw the construction of housing projects in the 1950s. The priorities were speed of construction and number of people housed, as opposed to aesthetics and commodities.
As premier, Khrushchev oversaw the expansion of this program across the Soviet Union in the 1960s.
In the 1970s, limitations on horizontal space forced the contruction of more vertically dense residences. The Brezhnevka followed.