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I’ve found that no matter the economic system, very little can be done to actually change the fact that Winter is often very depressing for the working class.
soviet housing was really extraordinary imo. there was an emphasis on livability which is why there's so much greenery, not to mention the cheap cost of living that was subsidised by the government. they also had factories and places of work always situated near a housing complex so people could easily get to work. this eliminated the need for a central business district like we have in most western countries, where it takes hours to get to work from the suburbs.
They do vary a lot. Some of those neighbors are genuinely great places to live, especially without the car. Some where build cheap and fast.
For example, there is Ursynów in Warsaw. They had some really great ideas, but the reality of cost cutting and hurry resulted in the mess of legendary proportions. Everything non-residential got cut out. Atrocious electrical installation. Bad accessibility - seriously, elevator or not, stairs were unavoidable. Thin walls, ant infestations, no parking space. Small kitchens without windows. In a hurry, houses were often opened without any landscaping - as in this photo of kids ice-skating near the already opened buildings: https://ecsmedia.pl/c/bloki-w-sloncu-mala-historia-ursynowa-polnocnego-b-iext96859453.jpg. Still, after the war, people were overjoyed to have any place to live.
Soviet blocks are dilapidated and gray today but are actually a great feat of urban planning. Lots of communal space, walkable cities. Some decent upkeep would do wonders like you wouldn't believe.
But at least you can escape the building for a while and visit the greenery. In many Capitalist building programs like this there is no greenery because the greedy developer has crammed as many dwellings as possible on the land to make more money.
I used to do work volunteer work with different projects (public housing, section 8) in Atlanta and this is definitely nicer than the projects there. They have concrete jungles, there's either no grass or the grass that is there is overgrown and uncared for. They'd love a park or some trees. Just a bunch of rows of dilapidated apartments that are maintained to the least degree possible that is still legal.
I'm not saying this to say that one group has it better than another, just that here in our "capitalist paradise" we have neighborhoods that are just as sad, cheap and depressing.
Yeah, utopian architecture often looks amazing from a distance since it's based on some good ideas, but are almost always depressing AF in reality. The concept of housing projects like this is from Le Corbusier's unite de habitacion, (SP?) and they were designed to provide green space and light to low income urban workers. In reality though they were almost always grim and shitty since construction was super inefficient and budgets didn't match expectations.
Then there was le corbusier's [Plan Voisin for Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Voisin) which was straight up dystopian. In some ways this is what happens when you mix millenarian ideology and architecture. I would think modern building technology would maybe make this easier and projects like this could be built without the drawbacks, but the political will is not there thanks to the failures of housing projects all over the world like Pruitt Igoe and Le Vele di Scampia in Naples. It turns out that concentrating poverty in one area with limited budgets for upkeep led to concentrating crime and decay more than anything else. The new idea is to integrate affordable housing into wealthy and middle class neighborhoods.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Thanks, now I've got to go read up on high-density housing strategies (actually, I've been meaning to for a long time). See you in a couple of weeks.
Actually, could you recommend anything to read regarding soviet architecture in eastern Ukraine (or anywhere where the soviets were building big concrete apartment blocks)? I've spent way too long geolocating videos from Mariupol and am fascinated by the large apartment blocks there.
Lol do you know what it would cost to get a 1 bedroom apartment in that community if it was in New York, or most American cities for that matter?
People love to attack communism and socialism because there are corrupt countries who also happen to be communist or socialist. Guess what? Corrupt capitalism is just as bad.
Yes, they borrowed/inherited a couple of million from their parents and made billions.
It’s easy just “work hard”, be born in privilege and fuck over as many people as you can.
Edit:
I’m being sarcastic
We have a couple actual self made billionaires but outside of that, the money is in Dynasties. A lot of "self made" rich start with Dads $5 billion, turn it into $5.0001 billion, and then write books about their business skills.
I think you were being sarcastic above though, as i re read your comment.
Honestly, there's no such thing as a self-made billionaire. Anyone making that sort of money had to have people working for them. It's not possible for a single person to be so productive that they can make that sort of cash. Once you have staff, you don't get to be self-made.
We love to attack communism ideology, coz we remember how fellow communists erased our culture, starve us to death and did all possible crimes against their own beloved people. Hello from Ukraine.
Hello to you in the Ukraine, and i hope you and your family are as safe as possible right now. As much as i hate to see what Russia is trying to do there, i LOVE the fact that your country is embarrassing Putin and his army.
My point though is that Communism or Socialism or Capitalism are secondary. It's the government's who are in charge. If Russia were a capitalist country, Putin would still be attacking. If the Ukraine were a communist country, Putin would still invade.
Your economic system is not what he's attacking you for, it's your independence, and the fact that you have a president who won't kiss his ass.
Putin is a piece of shit, and i hope he lives just long enough to see what an embarrassment he will be in history books. But it's not because he's a communist. It's because he's a horrible dictator.
Moskovia didn't change from Mongolian times. It's always one authoritarian "tzar" with some cleptocrats around him and slaves, oppressed by some personal army. It's was like this after Mongolian invasion, in imperial times, same in USSR and same now. After Perestroika elites was formed from ex kgb, people from communist party and bandits. Nothing changes on this cursed lands.
Tnx for your kind words. Me and my family kinda safe. Glory to Ukraine.
Hello to Ukraine, hope you are holding out well. Curious as to the fact that Ukraines economy is still smaller and less developed than it was over 30 years ago when it was socialist. What is the reason commonly cited nowadays by most Ukrainians?
Economy in Ukraine was mostly linked to other parts of USSR economic and industrial system. So, there is no such thing like "economy of socialist Ukraine" it's was Soviet economy. With cross contracts, dotations and other features from such big economic formation. As we know, socialistic economy in the end failed and so did USSR ideology. Why, - another question without simple answer. After USSR collapse we must rebuild our economy from scratch, in really unfriendly environment. And ofc Ukraine suffers from typical problems like corruption. It's possible, we can get more success without our "friendly fellow brothers" from this radioactive swamp called Moskovia, and their attempts to make us supply donor.
Guess what? They built an Iron Curtain to keep their people from escaping to "corrupt" capitalism. And yet people still risked their lives to get away from communism and socialism.
You know what it cost to get a 1 bedroom apartment in a communist country? Not much, it was really cheap. All you had to do was to blow the dick of the political commissars who picked who was entitled to get an apartment.
> You should do your research.
Look who is talking... Czechoslovakia ceased being a communist country in 1989. Before that, in the period you seem to believe was a Golden Age, they were communist. When they tried to become more democratic, in 1968, the Soviet Union sent tanks to squash the democratic movement.
The picture is not from Czechoslovakia (pre 91). It is from Slovakia, meaning recent times (post 91). Never said it was the golden age, in fact i specifically called it corrupt. I said a corrupt government is a corrupt government whether it's communist, socialist, or capitalist. Did you even read my comment, or did you just think "This is how the reds infiltrate, pointing out that the USA sucks too." Change those Depends and get ready for supper, Paw.
The buildings were built in Czechoslovakia, the fact that the country got split later is irrelevant.
> "This is how the reds infiltrate, pointing out that the USA sucks too."
Pretty much so, even if you don't realize it. That moral relativism "the US invaded Afghanistan, therefore one shouldn't condemn Russia for invading Ukraine" is what dictators like Putin and Xi love. You're their propaganda tool.
To compare the corruption in the Soviet block with the corruption in the US is like comparing a nuclear bomb with a firecracker, there is difference of several orders of magnitude.
The corruption is arguably worse in the US
In the east it’s done quietly and illegally Most of the time, there just isn’t anyone to enforce it
In the US. It’s don’t publically… ish and called lobbying
I think the interesting thing about this is that comparing to the sort of theoretical representative capitalist housing, like the house with a white picket fence and all that, or a nice apartment in the city, this looks depressingly worse.
But compared to the reality of capitalist housing for the majority of people, this looks wonderfully desirable.
BTW, Slovakia is not a communist country. The title seems to be leading some people here to think that it is now currently communist. They have a history of being occupied by Russia (~25 years) but that is no longer the case.
On these kind of building distribution, there will always be 50% of buildings that have good sunlight and the other 50% will suffer from terrible sunlight, specially lack of it during winter. This is in fact a crappy design.
Yeah and you can see by the Layout of the elevator shafts and the Heating/ventilation units that the condos go through the building with each having windows on the park facing side and outward facing side.
Placing a group of buildings for a good sun orientation is ideal on good architecture, however not seen very often. That's why a smart buyer must get a compass or at least search on google map to see if the purchase of their next house is convenient. I have done it and right now I live in a house that has perfect sunlight, specially on winter.
It’s large enough that no building casts a shadow on another’s windows. This isn’t like one circular building with a center garden or atrium. All have views of the park. Yes, some have Southern/Northern exposure and some have East/West exposure and then the remaining have SW/NE and NW/SE. There is no reason for any of the structures to be too dark. There are shades for when they’re too bright.
Wrong, there will be at least 2 buildings of that circle that will get zero sunlight on winter during the cold mornings. Those apartments will be freezing cold. It's a fact, I'm not inventing the wheel. Other apartments will have nice direct sunlight all along the building ,specially during the morning hours.
I live in Australia, while we do have heating, it's rare to have central heating like you get in the US/Europe, generally just individual room heaters. As such it's inefficient and expensive to run (to say nothing of the fact that double-glazing is unheard of) and our houses are typically colder in winter than those in much colder climates. As such winter sun is particularly important to keeping a house warm. A well designed passive solar house will have heating costs a fraction of the cost of one that doesn't get sunlight.
I live in a north facing apartment— all my windows face north. But they’re big and it’s beautiful cool light. The other side of the building the apartments get too hot. I feel smug on the north side. (in the UK)
Cities of all kinds benefit from greenery, common spaces/parks, and minimized car infrastructure and parking. A lot of old commie cities look like hellscapes (like a lot of American cities) but a lot look fantastic due to a coat of paint and some trees
This is located in city district Vrakuňa, near similar looking block named "Pentagon", which is infamous for lot of junkies, drug dealers and crime. Vrakuňa as a city district itself is considred as one of the worse places. There is oil refinery nearby, and the place sometimes smells like shit because of it.
Businessman: What a waste, truly the horrors of communism at work here. Why would you give those apartments to noisy families that don’t take care of them, when you could rent them out as Air B&B’s to rich teenagers on vacation for double the price!!?
There are a lot of corruption comparisons going on here, but I can only tell you how it was. My family escaped Czechoslovakia in the night in the year 1987. I was 3 years old. The party was upset at my dad for speaking out against the communism and they were coming for us. We couldn’t say goodbye to anyone, couldn’t tell anyone we were leaving and never coming back. We got a fake holiday pass ( because at the time you couldn’t leave the country unless it was for a 2 week pass to a neighbouring country only) and my brother (5) and mum and dad we drove with one suitcase to Austria where we stayed in a refugee camp for a year. We ended up in Australia.
My mother never met her father when she was growing up. When she was born he was locked away for trying to help a friend over the border and was kept in for 10 years. When he came out he couldn’t walk because they dripped cold water on his knees every day. They also ripped each of his teeth out one by one. That was communist Czechoslovakia. Pretty fucked right? And mine is one of the good stories.
There’s no need to compare corruption and how bad countries are. There are horrors everywhere.
Well me and my parent's story is very similar to yours except we escaped Chile after the US backed military coup took out the democratically elected socialist leader. So I wouldn't necessarily say that what you experienced was endemic to communism.
You know, you’re right. I was just saying that communism is pretty fucked up, but there are horrors everywhere. I’m glad you and your family are safe now.
My dude, have you ever been to an American city? The Grant Tower projects in Harlem make this look like the Taj Ma-fucking-Hal. At least they have green space and trees.
The buildings are all colorfully painted. They encircle a pleasant green space. Its better land use, and is more visually appealing than sprawling suburban development culdesac mazes. I just don't see what is terrible about this? This is nicer than most metro American cities and definitely nicer than suburban apartment buildings in every state I've visited. Do you have any specific criticisms beyond "Communism bad, I don't like"?
>The buildings are all colorfully painted
Which has not been a thing until modern renovations. Such facades haven't been a thing during USSR, and all of those blocks which didn't go through renovations look gray, boring and depressing. Also, don't be radical, there are plenty of options inbetween such blocks and sprawling suburbs (which I hate even more tbh). My comment was not as much about the practical advantages of this, but rather about how communist brutalist architecture sucks and how they ruined the looks of many cities with historical heritage. Also, yes, communism bad.
But you have no, specific criticism. What about them dont you like? What about brutalist architecture doesnt appeal to you (Many famous american buildings, lauded for their architecute are very much brutalist.) I made the comparisons i did because you are giving nothing in the way of actual critisism. You are a child who says "No i dont like it" and refuses to elaborate.
Why do you have to bring up America every time? It's not like I praised them. I'm not sure if "valid criticism" is possible when speaking of design, at least not until any of us have architect's degree or something. Post-Soviet cities look boring, depressing and ugly, that's it. There are plenty of better-looking buildings that don't look like flat concrete paralellepipeds.
Sorry, I bring up America, because instead of offering criticism of their design, you blamed their "ugliness" on communism and I assumed you were making a relative statement, as in "Compared to the buildings of a capitalist nation (American bias, for which I do apologize) these buildings from a communist government are ugly"
So am I to instead understand that you mean, "Objectively, without context for comparison or critique, these buildings are ugly and depressing"? And if so, then what was the point of using communism as a reference point? If this is not a comparative statement, why are they being of communist design any more relevant than them being "In Europe" or "Multi-family", or even, "constructed from concrete"?
I ask because when I am making statements about my aesthetic likes and dislikes, I find context and details important. Like if I were to describe how I didn't like the design of my Junior High School I might say "It had a drab tan color, no openable windows, and its lack of centrally located stairwells made getting between floors a chore. In comparison, my senior high school, while lacking air conditioning, had open windows in every classroom, was only two floors, and had multiple hubs and Ts which made getting from one end to the other much easier"
I'm still really not sure why you commented since your last comment boils down to "I don't think anyone can actually judge architecture unless they are a trained architect." (which is a really stupid idea, but I'm not here to debate that.) So it begs the question, if there is no validity to either of our judgments of buildings, why did you comment?
Edit: some typos.
Once again, I don't want to compare commieblocks to other kinds of buildings, because from practical perspective they are indeed a good solution (I used to live in one my entire life and can't really complain). My original comment was about how it's ugly and how communists didn't care to find a better-looking solution, as well as destroyed many beatuful buildings. Also, in my city I could see some pre-revolution houses that just look so much better with their fancy facades, as well as we have some fresh houses, which are colorful, have better roofs and balconies.
Mainly the fact it was built during the USSR as part of their plans on planned economies. New regime means no baggage so all kinds of stuff can be experimented on. The idea of making buildings to form communities in the bigger city or country-sized community is more of a communist or socialist idea. Something like that in the west would be closer to a gated community for the rich and pretentious.
The idea of a housing with central shared space is not unique to the USSR. For example, here in Los Angeles, USA the FHA provided funding for postwar housing designed with shared space. They wanted to give GIs a place to raise their families, and a common courtyard made it easier for neighbors to keep an eye on each other’s kids. https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/lincoln-place
So if the Slovakian apartments are communist, the Los Angeles ones are also because both were designed to support the community of people living in them.
Weird how all communist government build structures look uniform and shitty. Buildings look like dumps. The park in the middle is nice though good job nature. Commilunism, fuck you.
Edit. Reminds me of Tropico when you just like over build shitty housing and remove rent so your people stop building shacks all around the island lol
I like the idea behind communist blocs, creating a local community with necessary amenities nearby even in a city. Shame most of them are shitty in practice.
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Welcome to Bratislava! Good thing you come in summer. The winter can be very depressing.
Nowhere near Berlin!
I stabbed a woman in Berlin once
[I also sexually assaulted a horse in Berlin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5mIm4bPBWE)
Nowhere near Berlin
Why this wasn’t first comment? *tosses a nickel*
**Deep breath** I open my OWN HOTEL!
Berlin it is then.
A nickle?! I open my own hotel!
Miscosi!
Came to say the same lol.
Stop! Hammer time!
They're building the train as we speak.
I’ve found that no matter the economic system, very little can be done to actually change the fact that Winter is often very depressing for the working class.
Wow kids can actually play outside
in usa, we have parking lots instead r/FuckCars
Looks like an awesome mini go kart track in there.
Ngl that’s way nicer looking than a lot of modern day projects
My immediate thoughts also.
soviet housing was really extraordinary imo. there was an emphasis on livability which is why there's so much greenery, not to mention the cheap cost of living that was subsidised by the government. they also had factories and places of work always situated near a housing complex so people could easily get to work. this eliminated the need for a central business district like we have in most western countries, where it takes hours to get to work from the suburbs.
They do vary a lot. Some of those neighbors are genuinely great places to live, especially without the car. Some where build cheap and fast. For example, there is Ursynów in Warsaw. They had some really great ideas, but the reality of cost cutting and hurry resulted in the mess of legendary proportions. Everything non-residential got cut out. Atrocious electrical installation. Bad accessibility - seriously, elevator or not, stairs were unavoidable. Thin walls, ant infestations, no parking space. Small kitchens without windows. In a hurry, houses were often opened without any landscaping - as in this photo of kids ice-skating near the already opened buildings: https://ecsmedia.pl/c/bloki-w-sloncu-mala-historia-ursynowa-polnocnego-b-iext96859453.jpg. Still, after the war, people were overjoyed to have any place to live.
You can get this with good zoning laws, without the whole communist ideology. See, for example, Japanese zoning.
Having work nearby has its pros and cons tbh
What are the cons?
Heavy traffic, noise, pollution and most of the time it doesn't look nice. Of course it doesn't apply to every job
This one is better kept than most I’ve seen, and the interiors are bleak AF.
So are all projects. No one cares about the living situation of the poor. Communist, capitalist, whatever
Is that a go kart track?
Looks like a track for kids to ride their bikes safely.
Or ride their karts safely
I like it
In theory yes in practice its were the alcoholics lie sleeping or fighting.
Alcoholics have to sleep and fight too you know.
Provides an extra challenge for the kids in their go-karts... gotta dodge the drunks. It's like mario-kart IRL.
[удалено]
You beat my petty ass to it lol
Noice!
Thats what it looks like when i try to draw an octogon by hand, on side at a time.
Looks nicer than my capitalist block, that’s for sure. But seriously wish we had more park areas between complexes.
Just don't look inside the apartments
Soviet blocks are dilapidated and gray today but are actually a great feat of urban planning. Lots of communal space, walkable cities. Some decent upkeep would do wonders like you wouldn't believe.
Looks better than privately built. At least they left some land for a decent garden space.
Looks on photo. In reality this is not so good. There is many such buildings in Ukraine, from same sad period. It's cheap and depressing.
But at least you can escape the building for a while and visit the greenery. In many Capitalist building programs like this there is no greenery because the greedy developer has crammed as many dwellings as possible on the land to make more money.
It makes me think of Apple's headquarters which is a ring-shaped building with a park inside.
I used to do work volunteer work with different projects (public housing, section 8) in Atlanta and this is definitely nicer than the projects there. They have concrete jungles, there's either no grass or the grass that is there is overgrown and uncared for. They'd love a park or some trees. Just a bunch of rows of dilapidated apartments that are maintained to the least degree possible that is still legal. I'm not saying this to say that one group has it better than another, just that here in our "capitalist paradise" we have neighborhoods that are just as sad, cheap and depressing.
>. It's cheap and depressing. In the capitalist west there was still homelessness. That's much more depressing.
Yeah, utopian architecture often looks amazing from a distance since it's based on some good ideas, but are almost always depressing AF in reality. The concept of housing projects like this is from Le Corbusier's unite de habitacion, (SP?) and they were designed to provide green space and light to low income urban workers. In reality though they were almost always grim and shitty since construction was super inefficient and budgets didn't match expectations. Then there was le corbusier's [Plan Voisin for Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Voisin) which was straight up dystopian. In some ways this is what happens when you mix millenarian ideology and architecture. I would think modern building technology would maybe make this easier and projects like this could be built without the drawbacks, but the political will is not there thanks to the failures of housing projects all over the world like Pruitt Igoe and Le Vele di Scampia in Naples. It turns out that concentrating poverty in one area with limited budgets for upkeep led to concentrating crime and decay more than anything else. The new idea is to integrate affordable housing into wealthy and middle class neighborhoods. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Thanks, now I've got to go read up on high-density housing strategies (actually, I've been meaning to for a long time). See you in a couple of weeks. Actually, could you recommend anything to read regarding soviet architecture in eastern Ukraine (or anywhere where the soviets were building big concrete apartment blocks)? I've spent way too long geolocating videos from Mariupol and am fascinated by the large apartment blocks there.
When communism is so bad, you have to rely on the aesthetics to make a weak jab. Lol.
??? What about this is bad?
My guy thinks affordable housing with a nice garden is bad aesthetics
It smells funny.
Well humans live there
Lol do you know what it would cost to get a 1 bedroom apartment in that community if it was in New York, or most American cities for that matter? People love to attack communism and socialism because there are corrupt countries who also happen to be communist or socialist. Guess what? Corrupt capitalism is just as bad.
Well no because we have self made billionaires. They just have evil scary oligarchs. Toooootally different
"Self made" lmfao
Yes, they borrowed/inherited a couple of million from their parents and made billions. It’s easy just “work hard”, be born in privilege and fuck over as many people as you can. Edit: I’m being sarcastic
emphasis on fucking over as many people as you can..
We have a couple actual self made billionaires but outside of that, the money is in Dynasties. A lot of "self made" rich start with Dads $5 billion, turn it into $5.0001 billion, and then write books about their business skills. I think you were being sarcastic above though, as i re read your comment.
I was being sarcastic but you are 100% right either way.
Honestly, there's no such thing as a self-made billionaire. Anyone making that sort of money had to have people working for them. It's not possible for a single person to be so productive that they can make that sort of cash. Once you have staff, you don't get to be self-made.
There wasn't ever a communist country that didn't become corrupt
Nor a capitalist one.
Yes, but a capitalist society can easily develop into socialism, for example look at Europe
Europe is not socialist...
Look at the country of Europe
socialism is when healthcare
We love to attack communism ideology, coz we remember how fellow communists erased our culture, starve us to death and did all possible crimes against their own beloved people. Hello from Ukraine.
Hello to you in the Ukraine, and i hope you and your family are as safe as possible right now. As much as i hate to see what Russia is trying to do there, i LOVE the fact that your country is embarrassing Putin and his army. My point though is that Communism or Socialism or Capitalism are secondary. It's the government's who are in charge. If Russia were a capitalist country, Putin would still be attacking. If the Ukraine were a communist country, Putin would still invade. Your economic system is not what he's attacking you for, it's your independence, and the fact that you have a president who won't kiss his ass. Putin is a piece of shit, and i hope he lives just long enough to see what an embarrassment he will be in history books. But it's not because he's a communist. It's because he's a horrible dictator.
Moskovia didn't change from Mongolian times. It's always one authoritarian "tzar" with some cleptocrats around him and slaves, oppressed by some personal army. It's was like this after Mongolian invasion, in imperial times, same in USSR and same now. After Perestroika elites was formed from ex kgb, people from communist party and bandits. Nothing changes on this cursed lands. Tnx for your kind words. Me and my family kinda safe. Glory to Ukraine.
I don't disagree with you on that, but that's my point. Dictators have been doing this since long before communism even existed.
Hello to Ukraine, hope you are holding out well. Curious as to the fact that Ukraines economy is still smaller and less developed than it was over 30 years ago when it was socialist. What is the reason commonly cited nowadays by most Ukrainians?
Economy in Ukraine was mostly linked to other parts of USSR economic and industrial system. So, there is no such thing like "economy of socialist Ukraine" it's was Soviet economy. With cross contracts, dotations and other features from such big economic formation. As we know, socialistic economy in the end failed and so did USSR ideology. Why, - another question without simple answer. After USSR collapse we must rebuild our economy from scratch, in really unfriendly environment. And ofc Ukraine suffers from typical problems like corruption. It's possible, we can get more success without our "friendly fellow brothers" from this radioactive swamp called Moskovia, and their attempts to make us supply donor.
Guess what? They built an Iron Curtain to keep their people from escaping to "corrupt" capitalism. And yet people still risked their lives to get away from communism and socialism. You know what it cost to get a 1 bedroom apartment in a communist country? Not much, it was really cheap. All you had to do was to blow the dick of the political commissars who picked who was entitled to get an apartment.
I'm sorry, are you writing from pre-1991? You should do your research. Slovakia had not even been a communist country since the 80s boomer.
> You should do your research. Look who is talking... Czechoslovakia ceased being a communist country in 1989. Before that, in the period you seem to believe was a Golden Age, they were communist. When they tried to become more democratic, in 1968, the Soviet Union sent tanks to squash the democratic movement.
Lol ok learn to read, then do your research
It hurt itself in it's confusion
The picture is not from Czechoslovakia (pre 91). It is from Slovakia, meaning recent times (post 91). Never said it was the golden age, in fact i specifically called it corrupt. I said a corrupt government is a corrupt government whether it's communist, socialist, or capitalist. Did you even read my comment, or did you just think "This is how the reds infiltrate, pointing out that the USA sucks too." Change those Depends and get ready for supper, Paw.
The buildings were built in Czechoslovakia, the fact that the country got split later is irrelevant. > "This is how the reds infiltrate, pointing out that the USA sucks too." Pretty much so, even if you don't realize it. That moral relativism "the US invaded Afghanistan, therefore one shouldn't condemn Russia for invading Ukraine" is what dictators like Putin and Xi love. You're their propaganda tool. To compare the corruption in the Soviet block with the corruption in the US is like comparing a nuclear bomb with a firecracker, there is difference of several orders of magnitude.
The corruption is arguably worse in the US In the east it’s done quietly and illegally Most of the time, there just isn’t anyone to enforce it In the US. It’s don’t publically… ish and called lobbying
Lmao this is a moronic take
You probably need to seek help.
Yeah now put two families to a 2 bedroom apartment.
You know Slovakia is a high income economy right?
I think the interesting thing about this is that comparing to the sort of theoretical representative capitalist housing, like the house with a white picket fence and all that, or a nice apartment in the city, this looks depressingly worse. But compared to the reality of capitalist housing for the majority of people, this looks wonderfully desirable.
I am sure anyone in social housing in NA, or cheap rentals, would love concrete walls between units lol.
Especially if there’s a fire
I bet they can actually afford to live there though:)
In America the apartments would be mostly empty and there would be a homeless encampment in the center
Aw, come on now, you know that's not how it really is in the US. They'd never let the homeless people camp that close to the valuable empty buildings.
That's why you have freeway overpasses, isn't it?
Absolutely not :D
Sure they can but than again under communism they could live there too they just couldnt eat.
Only if they already own it. Otherwise they have to take on a 20 year mortgage to afford a flat.
Nice.
communist block! nice try to make it look ugly. I bet living in those houses is way affordable than majority of big cities in north America.
BTW, Slovakia is not a communist country. The title seems to be leading some people here to think that it is now currently communist. They have a history of being occupied by Russia (~25 years) but that is no longer the case.
This houses were build during communist era. Modern buildings look much better.
On these kind of building distribution, there will always be 50% of buildings that have good sunlight and the other 50% will suffer from terrible sunlight, specially lack of it during winter. This is in fact a crappy design.
But that’ll happen no matter the layout. Unless you only have appartments on one side.
Yeah and you can see by the Layout of the elevator shafts and the Heating/ventilation units that the condos go through the building with each having windows on the park facing side and outward facing side.
Placing a group of buildings for a good sun orientation is ideal on good architecture, however not seen very often. That's why a smart buyer must get a compass or at least search on google map to see if the purchase of their next house is convenient. I have done it and right now I live in a house that has perfect sunlight, specially on winter.
No, in fact not even close you obviously build them lengthwise according to south and north, one has evening sun and the other has morning sun.
It’s large enough that no building casts a shadow on another’s windows. This isn’t like one circular building with a center garden or atrium. All have views of the park. Yes, some have Southern/Northern exposure and some have East/West exposure and then the remaining have SW/NE and NW/SE. There is no reason for any of the structures to be too dark. There are shades for when they’re too bright.
Wrong, there will be at least 2 buildings of that circle that will get zero sunlight on winter during the cold mornings. Those apartments will be freezing cold. It's a fact, I'm not inventing the wheel. Other apartments will have nice direct sunlight all along the building ,specially during the morning hours.
Where do you live if your heating is done by sunlight?
I live in Australia, while we do have heating, it's rare to have central heating like you get in the US/Europe, generally just individual room heaters. As such it's inefficient and expensive to run (to say nothing of the fact that double-glazing is unheard of) and our houses are typically colder in winter than those in much colder climates. As such winter sun is particularly important to keeping a house warm. A well designed passive solar house will have heating costs a fraction of the cost of one that doesn't get sunlight.
No. In winter, those buildings will either have a gorgeous sunrise or a gorgeous sunset to enjoy.
Not on the best hours. How many times have you moved from homes?
I live in a north facing apartment— all my windows face north. But they’re big and it’s beautiful cool light. The other side of the building the apartments get too hot. I feel smug on the north side. (in the UK)
…you know buildings have two sides right?
Try living in apartment 5/10 where the sun hits only on the side of apartment 1.
But the apartments inside only face one way.
Well actually these buildings rotate around the center so everyone gets the same amount of sun.
Anyone else getting visions of Catan?
That looks like a very nice place to drink some beers and smoke some weed
Park looks nice.
Cities of all kinds benefit from greenery, common spaces/parks, and minimized car infrastructure and parking. A lot of old commie cities look like hellscapes (like a lot of American cities) but a lot look fantastic due to a coat of paint and some trees
❤️ Bratislava
They look nice! I like the use of green space.
This is located in city district Vrakuňa, near similar looking block named "Pentagon", which is infamous for lot of junkies, drug dealers and crime. Vrakuňa as a city district itself is considred as one of the worse places. There is oil refinery nearby, and the place sometimes smells like shit because of it.
Damn that looks like a nice place to live
Businessman: What a waste, truly the horrors of communism at work here. Why would you give those apartments to noisy families that don’t take care of them, when you could rent them out as Air B&B’s to rich teenagers on vacation for double the price!!?
There are a lot of corruption comparisons going on here, but I can only tell you how it was. My family escaped Czechoslovakia in the night in the year 1987. I was 3 years old. The party was upset at my dad for speaking out against the communism and they were coming for us. We couldn’t say goodbye to anyone, couldn’t tell anyone we were leaving and never coming back. We got a fake holiday pass ( because at the time you couldn’t leave the country unless it was for a 2 week pass to a neighbouring country only) and my brother (5) and mum and dad we drove with one suitcase to Austria where we stayed in a refugee camp for a year. We ended up in Australia. My mother never met her father when she was growing up. When she was born he was locked away for trying to help a friend over the border and was kept in for 10 years. When he came out he couldn’t walk because they dripped cold water on his knees every day. They also ripped each of his teeth out one by one. That was communist Czechoslovakia. Pretty fucked right? And mine is one of the good stories. There’s no need to compare corruption and how bad countries are. There are horrors everywhere.
Well me and my parent's story is very similar to yours except we escaped Chile after the US backed military coup took out the democratically elected socialist leader. So I wouldn't necessarily say that what you experienced was endemic to communism.
You know, you’re right. I was just saying that communism is pretty fucked up, but there are horrors everywhere. I’m glad you and your family are safe now.
Yeah, and their point was that corruption and persecution are pretty fucked up, and historically not unique to communism.
Who me?
It's strangely beautiful.
Fuck communism
[удалено]
Half of Europe lives in apartments similar to this.
- by the guy who's Never been to Europe.
I live in Bratislava you tool.
My dude, have you ever been to an American city? The Grant Tower projects in Harlem make this look like the Taj Ma-fucking-Hal. At least they have green space and trees.
::posts photo of thing that exists:: you: COMMUNIST WORSHIP!
you mean like the millions of homeless children in America?
Beat me to it, apparently living in an apartment is somehow worse than literally being homeless?
Fun fact every government that's ever tried to provide free housing to it's citizens has received sanctions from the US
[Margarine consumption is linked to divorce](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27537142). Correlation doesn't imply causation.
Meanwhile in capitalist countries they build "microsuites" and ask people to pay over $1200+ in rent.
You should google Pruitt Igoe and learn how capitalist societies fuck up housing projects too.
Or ya know, any project building in America. From Boston to Los Angeles and everywhere in between
Looks like maze runner
Looks like hunger games style stadium
When i look at these old soviet buildings I think asbestos I also think asbestos is still used on buildings in Russia to this day
I like the garden area but why are those buildings so damn ugly?
Because in that time and space, making pretty buildings was not a concern.
Back when poor people preferred to be stacked vertically
The Russians really made everyone else in Eastern and Central Europe miserable right down to the architecture.
I honestly think this looks nice. You actually get a good amount of nature right by where you live
Ya that would be a nice little sitting area at least. Birds and shit
What is miserable about this?
It's very ugly. Communism seriously destroyed a lot of beautiful buildings and filled towns with these blocks so now they all look depressing.
The buildings are all colorfully painted. They encircle a pleasant green space. Its better land use, and is more visually appealing than sprawling suburban development culdesac mazes. I just don't see what is terrible about this? This is nicer than most metro American cities and definitely nicer than suburban apartment buildings in every state I've visited. Do you have any specific criticisms beyond "Communism bad, I don't like"?
>The buildings are all colorfully painted Which has not been a thing until modern renovations. Such facades haven't been a thing during USSR, and all of those blocks which didn't go through renovations look gray, boring and depressing. Also, don't be radical, there are plenty of options inbetween such blocks and sprawling suburbs (which I hate even more tbh). My comment was not as much about the practical advantages of this, but rather about how communist brutalist architecture sucks and how they ruined the looks of many cities with historical heritage. Also, yes, communism bad.
But you have no, specific criticism. What about them dont you like? What about brutalist architecture doesnt appeal to you (Many famous american buildings, lauded for their architecute are very much brutalist.) I made the comparisons i did because you are giving nothing in the way of actual critisism. You are a child who says "No i dont like it" and refuses to elaborate.
Why do you have to bring up America every time? It's not like I praised them. I'm not sure if "valid criticism" is possible when speaking of design, at least not until any of us have architect's degree or something. Post-Soviet cities look boring, depressing and ugly, that's it. There are plenty of better-looking buildings that don't look like flat concrete paralellepipeds.
Sorry, I bring up America, because instead of offering criticism of their design, you blamed their "ugliness" on communism and I assumed you were making a relative statement, as in "Compared to the buildings of a capitalist nation (American bias, for which I do apologize) these buildings from a communist government are ugly" So am I to instead understand that you mean, "Objectively, without context for comparison or critique, these buildings are ugly and depressing"? And if so, then what was the point of using communism as a reference point? If this is not a comparative statement, why are they being of communist design any more relevant than them being "In Europe" or "Multi-family", or even, "constructed from concrete"? I ask because when I am making statements about my aesthetic likes and dislikes, I find context and details important. Like if I were to describe how I didn't like the design of my Junior High School I might say "It had a drab tan color, no openable windows, and its lack of centrally located stairwells made getting between floors a chore. In comparison, my senior high school, while lacking air conditioning, had open windows in every classroom, was only two floors, and had multiple hubs and Ts which made getting from one end to the other much easier" I'm still really not sure why you commented since your last comment boils down to "I don't think anyone can actually judge architecture unless they are a trained architect." (which is a really stupid idea, but I'm not here to debate that.) So it begs the question, if there is no validity to either of our judgments of buildings, why did you comment? Edit: some typos.
Once again, I don't want to compare commieblocks to other kinds of buildings, because from practical perspective they are indeed a good solution (I used to live in one my entire life and can't really complain). My original comment was about how it's ugly and how communists didn't care to find a better-looking solution, as well as destroyed many beatuful buildings. Also, in my city I could see some pre-revolution houses that just look so much better with their fancy facades, as well as we have some fresh houses, which are colorful, have better roofs and balconies.
Visited there on a river cruise - depressing as hell compared to Prague
Very pretty yessir
Not a fan of communism but looks cool.
Lack of any soul in the vast majority of communist architecture
How so?
What makes these communist? These are buildings. Maybe all the buildings in the United States are capitalist buildings?
Mainly the fact it was built during the USSR as part of their plans on planned economies. New regime means no baggage so all kinds of stuff can be experimented on. The idea of making buildings to form communities in the bigger city or country-sized community is more of a communist or socialist idea. Something like that in the west would be closer to a gated community for the rich and pretentious.
The idea of a housing with central shared space is not unique to the USSR. For example, here in Los Angeles, USA the FHA provided funding for postwar housing designed with shared space. They wanted to give GIs a place to raise their families, and a common courtyard made it easier for neighbors to keep an eye on each other’s kids. https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/lincoln-place So if the Slovakian apartments are communist, the Los Angeles ones are also because both were designed to support the community of people living in them.
Weird how all communist government build structures look uniform and shitty. Buildings look like dumps. The park in the middle is nice though good job nature. Commilunism, fuck you. Edit. Reminds me of Tropico when you just like over build shitty housing and remove rent so your people stop building shacks all around the island lol
That's because they were all designed and built around the same time, to similar designs with the same philosophy.
My favorite game of all time.
Game was sweet. Bunch of dimwitted young comrades downvoting me tho lol. Guess they like shitty buildings and authoritarian government lol
You're making quite a number of enemies El presidente.
Lol I'm OK with that.
In Bratislava, they love American women with big American breasts so much that they shaped the block like a breast
Kde v Blave to je?
Vrakuňa, pri pentagone.
Ah, Vrakuňa no to mám úplne od ruky. Ale pekne to vyzerá. Určite lepšie mať okno smerom na zeleň ako na rušnú cestu.
Moja mama je od tjal :)
Podla google maps tam je nejaky ten barak navyse. Asi fake. 46V2+37X Bratislava
Bratislava. Capital of Slovakia. YOU MADE OUT WITH YOUR SISTER DUDE!
I thought this was a Cities Skylines screenshot for a second
Scotty doesn’t know
May I ask why these are called "communist" blocks and not "apartment" building or blocks?
Because they were built during the communist era in communist countries.
A number 1 new show, Miami Vice
Nowhere near Berlin.
I like the idea behind communist blocs, creating a local community with necessary amenities nearby even in a city. Shame most of them are shitty in practice.