Brezhnevka - Soviet Panel Building That Defined Russia's Modern Identity

You always liked gray colors? You love panels? Khrushchyovka is your favourite building of all time? Fear not, I present to you the ADVANCED version of Khrushchyovka, still gray and ugly, but now it can be up to 25 stories and up to a kilometer long. When Leonid Brezhnev came to power, he decided to build on the work of his predecessor and continue to erect identical panel houses on the whole territory of the Soviet Union. Nowadays a panel Brezhnevka is the most common type of building you can find in Russia. Let's talk about them and about how they were about to build a whole culture of doomers around themselves.

00:00 - Brezhnevka as a background of our everyday life
01:36 - Why USSR needed new buildings in the 60s?
04:55 - Khrushchyovka and Brezhnevka - are there any differences?
07:13 - Common problems with Brezhnevkas
10:25 - Different types of Brezhnevkas

"Brezhnevki" (colloquial, by analogy with Stalinkas and Khrushchevkas) is the name of the series of houses built in the Soviet Union from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, mostly during the era of Leonid Brezhnev. In the late 1950s, ‘One flat per family’ became, by decree, a priority for the communist party and its first secretary, Nikita Khrushchev. Leonid Brezhnev, who came after Khrushchev, disagreed with him on many things. But still decided to continue the practice of building low-cost residential panel buildings on a grand scale. The early "Brezhnevkas" are basically the same Khrushchevkas, made of the same panel blocks, only higher. While Khrushchev buildings had a maximum of 5 stories, under Brezhnev they began to build houses of 9 stories and higher. Buildings were constructed panel by panel out of standard elements manufactured by the factories, The panels would then be transported from the house factories (usually located near the construction sites of the new districts) and assembled in situ. The reason for the launch of the Brezhnevkas was the growth of the population's complaints about the quality of housing in USSR. The delight of getting their own "Khrushchevka" flat gradually dissipated, and eventually a compromise was found - the "Brezhnevka". In fact, "Brezhnevka" is the arithmetic average of two diametrically opposed principles and objectives of urban development: "deteriorated Stalinka" or "improved Khrushchevka". Upgraded variants of the systems developed in the former USSR are still in use, housing millions of urbanites to this day.

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[kennedytheth]

"How to solve housing"
Americans: surburbs that go *W i d e*
Soviets under Brehznev: Ctrl-C Ctrl-V apartments that go *U P*

[filipmarek]

Actually “Breznevkas” and other flats saved us in Czech Republic from a really BIG problem with living. The prices of housing exponentialy grew in early 90’. Only flats like breznevka saved a lot of people from poverty and being on street.

[posysdogovych]

The fact that everything was close to my apartment in Ukraine - restaurants, supermarkets, the post office, etc., is one reason why I miss living there. At my dad's home in America, almost nothing essential is within walking distance. You have to drive 15 minutes to get to the nearest grocery store.

[miyakawaso]

The extraordinary quality of this man's videos versus the relatively low number of views is criminal.

[Redentor]

For a foreign student living in Russia you're doing the god's job. You just not help me understand better the culture but to oddly appreciate things mundane for the russian citizen. Keep it.

[TheBrovin]

I used to live in the Brezhnevka on the far left at 4:11 when I taught English in Russia! Very convenient - School No. 1 is right under the camera, the middle tower houses the post office and a clinic, I could hear the church bells every Wednesday and Sunday as my apartment faced towards the small building between the middle and far left tower (the small building was a very convenient small grocery store) and all transit (bus and tram) were a short 10 minute walk away. As an American, experiencing the convenience of Soviet city planning first hand built such a respect for it across the board. And the apartments, while the blocks are a bit brutalist on the outside (I love brutalist architecture personally but to each their own) inside they are typically quite cozy! Best apartment I’ve ever lived in (and least expensive vs my income by percentage.)

Ulitsa Il’i Mukhachova 230/2, Biysk, Altaiskii Krai 😁 Never would imagine seeing it in stock footage on a YouTube video! Great video btw!

[PaulV.]

I grew up in a Leningrad Brezhnevka with a trash chute. It was a "cooperative building" - the Soviet kind of apartment house where people were buying units with real money instead of getting them for free from the government (yes there used to be such option in the Soviet Union too). That is why such buildings were considered much more prestigious ones than the usual since had more affluent crowd in there. So our trash chute was used with care, we almost never had some garbage outside of it, no rats etc. And under those conditions its a very cool appliance especially in Russian winters when you daily can just go outside your apartment wearing slippers, throw away garbage and come back in a minute instead of putting on all your clothes, taking an elevator, going outside in a snowfall and walking to garbage cans with you trash bag.
TL;DR: Trash chute can be cool or disastrous depending on people who live near by but not as the concept itself.

[bacnguyen]

The KINO music playing in the background is just glorious.

[Mihai-egux]

I remember living in Canada in those small 2-3 floors apartment buildings made of plywood or whatever it is, you could hear the neighbors snoring at night. Not to mention that in case of fire they would burn like a match. Tall concrete apartment buildings were sort of a luxury comparatively as rent was much higher.

[stefangherman]

In Romania, apartament building insulation was an improvment for ugly gray blocks. But they are some colourful blocks and they are ruined by insulation.

[fhs]

Actually, in Mainland China, we have a mixed attitude towards US and HK style.
Before China economic reform, even though we broke up with USSR, our city still pretty looks like USSR's ones. Like where I lives in Beijing, a 50+ years soviet style residential zones, with 5 floors. And every residential district has its own service buildings. Like stores/schools or even place to work. And Beijing has it everywhere from 2rd Ring to 4th Ring.
At the modern Beijing city planning, the most important one 2003 version, the city planners visited HK to see their city planning. HK is the extreme high density planning. 30~50 floors, extreme crowded and centralized city/residential place. Also mainly relies on MTR, a urban rail has peak capacity over 80~130k passengers/h/direction. So we decided to go US way!!! Low density city planning!!! WTF, we have 22 millions people! 3x more than HK!

Just because Beijing has 16k KM^2 space, the city is spreading itself to a monster size. From north part of the urban zones to south part, it takes you 5h of bus ride/3h of driving/2h of subways. Also in 2003 city plans, only 1/10 of car own rates. So we also run out of parking space. Though, our public transport especially the subway and shared bikes runs really good.
I'd rather city goes taller, not wider. Average 4h of commute time per day is unbearable.
For apartment itself, especially for single building that can have lots of apartments in side, like HK's ones. It's so heavily relies on the residents and property management company themselves. I lives in a tower buildings that has 180 apartments, and our residential district has 30+ buildings. We just live together in harmony! Also in HK, a single building may has 200~300 apartments, no sign of any crime or chaos. Though we may not like the place we live in, we at least wont vandalise it.

[takatooooon]

I'm Japanese, but I love the architecture of the former Soviet Union such as Brezhnevka. These buildings give me a nostalgic feeling even though I've never actually lived there. It is a dangerous building that is inorganic, environmentally bad and has low earthquake resistance, but the beauty of the ruins atmosphere by Brezhnevka can be distinguished.

[fgjjdgb]

Of course, a spoiled American does not understand how it is possible to live normally in Khrushchev's apartment, and even to feel nostalgic for such a place of residence. But admit the ring of high-rise buildings is the perfect ready-made fortress when attacked by zombies!

[bippaasama]

Lived in a Brezhnevka all my life, no complaints so far lol

[SMATF]

The U.S. style of sprawling suburbs is extremely inefficient, and it's basically impossible to get anywhere without owning a car. This is not by accident.

[showmytime]

These panel building were a revolution from an engineering point of view. You can get low cost and high quality when most work is done in a factory controlled environment.

Panel buildings were actually built in the West as well, the UK had thousands built in the 50's and 60's, most of them were demolished at the beginning of the 90's.

There is another variance of USSR panel building, mostly found in Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova, panels were used on the outside and as floors but they were "bolted" to a concrete mesh structure which was cast in place. This gave a higher resistance to earthquakes, up to or beyond 7.2 Richter.

[ianperry]

I stayed in a Brezhnevka style flat in Prešov, Slovakia my first time being there. I always hated the way the buildings looked, and still do, but I was surprised at how homey the flat I stayed in was. It was weird being in a really small place at first, but it was still comfortable and I felt like I had plenty of space. I’m sure those families loved how affordable it was to live in them

[TheCommunistColin]

It's interesting that Khrushchevkas and Brezhnevkas are such a symbol of Russian doomer music. Speaking as an American I kind of like the idea of them, a neighborhood where everything is in walking distance and there are social services like schools built into them. Here all we have is isolated suburban sprawl where you can't do shit unless you have a car and gigantic parking lots and shopping malls take up tons of space, or cramped urban living centered around commercialism and gig work instead of being a community with your neighbors. The way architecture and city planning can impact people's mental health and sense of community is fascinating. Thanks for the great video!

[evaungvari]

My mom lives in the same type of house in Hungary. I kinda like it but finding a parking space is very difficult for sure. Especially since we have a kindergarten for a neighbour and all the parents are coming to drop off/collect their kids, all at the same time.
Also, thrash chutes are 100% an abomination 😅

Greetings from Hungary, love your channel! 😊

[iveriendawnlight]

Thank you! I finally know that the building in which I've lived all my life is called a "Brezhnevka" and the mystery of that weird sealed lid near the stairs is solved. It turned out here in Bulgaria the trash chutes were sealed as soon as the building was finished because people knew each other well enough to conclude it was going to end up as a cesspool of filth. There are sinks between the stairs and the trash chute and some of those were still operational when I was a child. They were very convenient for us kids on hot summer days, even though the tap water was often stale and tasted of rust. Now none of them have running water because people would (ab)use them to wash their stuff for semi-free, as the water bill for those sinks was split among all the households in the section. And many would leave the sinks dirty and clogged. It's disgusting how some people would beat their children for leaving a little speck of dirt in their apartments but would litter and trash everything outside.