Sotsgorod: A Brief Introduction to Soviet Urban Planning

Utopian visions confronted pragmatic realities across the Soviet Union's eighty years of existence, as the USSR designed and built cities they hoped would transform their people from a nation of peasants into model socialist proletarians. In this video, we review the history of Soviet urban planning from the 1917 Revolution all the way to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, and discuss the core principles used to design Soviet neighborhoods, towns, and cities.

This video is licensed under Creative Commons--you are free to share, reproduce, and modify it as long as you attribute the original work and do not use the product for commercial gain.

[onyno]

befor watching i must say THANK U so much for making this video as an eastern european i always find it annoying how westerners say our cities look depresion while posting just winter photos, of course it's gonna look depressing since the trees are naked in the winter, theres plenty of vegetation here and it look beautiful espacialy in the spring when all the trees have flowers

[newpractice]

I learned a lot from this. the noise reduction thing is just unreal.

[Randomaited]

Having visited both the US and many former Eastern Bloc countries, and trying to get round their respective cities on foot, I'd much rather live in any Eastern Bloc city than the automotive hellscape of Americana

[beepbop]

Planning to build some communist/post communist cities in Cities Skylines, this is very helpful, thank you!

[Priyo]

This is lovely. I wonder how many of those ideas could be adopted for theoretical eco-cities of the modern era, with an entirely new planning and architecture system.

[crabqueenleah]

Great video. I myself live in a khrushchyovka in one of the mentioned cities, and I can confirm the accuracy of everything you said (as far as I know, anyway). What the "shock transition" to capitalism in the 90s did to Polish urban planning is fucking disastrous, and we are still desperately trying to recover from it (or, in some cases, doubling down on destroying livable, green spaces). We need help.
Also, sidenote, great Polish pronunciation! You don't sound exactly like a native speaker, but it's damn near close. You obviously put effort into it, and that's just cool af, especially since non-Polish people wouldn't even notice you butcher it if you didn't care not to.

[rianraleigh]

Thank you for the video! A minor additional point I consider interesting is how cold war era fears of nuclear attack influenced city planning in soviet times: since sometime around late 50s regulations were enacted that required buildings to be constructed with wide enough spacing in between them so in case one of them collapsed, debris won't cause the collapse of neighboring buildings. This regulation resulted in a very wide gaps between tall structures and it is clearly visible if you compare soviet city blocks from 40s and say, 60s or 70s. I suspect something similar was in place with Polish and other eastern European cities as well. You have mentioned how concerns about nuclear war affected suburban planning in the US, so I thought it's curios to compare)

[WesleyWagumba]

Planning to build up a beautiful socialist town in my country. This is exactly what I need in terms of understanding the task at hand.

[leftlane]

i didn’t realize how interesting urban planning is! i’ve watched almost all the vids on your channel today. thank u 😊

[declan]

So 100 years ago the Soviets already had a better understanding of urban planning than Americans do now? Turns out space travel wasn't the only thing they were better at.

[calebjacobs]

I absolutely love your videos, it's such a niche mixture but very much needed. Thank you!

[georgeaird]

13:45 Those "desolate" areas look just like any council estate here in the UK

[gmowoman]

I love these videos. The style reminds me of something a teacher would play on a VHS tape in middle school except actually good.

[hoxhacat]

"Communist era"

Communism involves a stateless, classless, moneyless society with the means of production held in common, a lack of commodity production which refers to producing things to be sold, a gift economy, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" as Marx had worded it, the "withering away of state" as Engels had worded, to achieve a "Communist-Society" as Marx had called it. The nations which you most likely refer to as "Communist" are/were only Socialist and thus merely in the transitory stage between Capitalism and Communism. Socialism has done many good things improved literacy, education, healthcare, rights for minorities, rights for women, standards of living, qualities of life, caloric intake, lifespan, etc. They have also turned feudal backwaters into economic superpowers such as in the Soviet Union's case. According to a study called "Capitalism, Socialism and the Physical Quality of Life" by H. Waitzkin and S. Cereseto PhD published by the World Bank, given equal levels of economic development, Socialist nations had higher standards of living than Capitalist nations, also according to that same study, given equal levels of economic development, Socialist nations had higher levels of caloric intake than Capitalist ones, meaning contrary to popular belief, people in Socialist nations actually ate more food. That study can be found on various .gov and .org sites and has PDFs for you to download, if you want to read it. All of this information can be found from various other sources as well, physical and digital. Socialism had also turns nations into military superpowers such as in the Soviet Union's case. Planned economies are actually proven to be more efficient than markets such as in the case of Project CyberSyn where they used a computer planned economy, this was decades ago in Chile, think about what modern computers with modern computing capabilities could do! The reason for some Socialist nations having bad economies is NOT a fault of Socialism, it is often caused by economic embargoes, sanctions and other methods of destabilizing their economies caused by the United States, or the loss of some of the nations' biggest trade partners such as the DPRK(North Korea)'s economy ranking after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Communism isn't somebody's dream coming to fruition, it's the inevitable historical stage and a result of the resolution of class antagonisms and conflicts within society, you don't understand it, if you were born in Vietnam for example, you probably would because they teach you dialectical materialism and Marxism-Leninism from Kindergarten to secondary school. You see, the state only exists as a result of class antagonisms and conflicts and serves whichever class wields political power, under capitalism, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois class do, under socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat (working class), the workers do. All class society is dictatorship, capitalism is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not dictatorships within the absolute, liberal sense, but class dictatorships. The class that holds political power serves their interests and represses the opposing classes, Stalin explained it best, read some theory lib: "Hence the three main aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

1) The utilisation of the rule of the proletariat for the suppression of the exploiters, for the defence of the country, for the consolidation of the ties with the proletarians of other lands, and for the development and victory of the revolution in all countries.

2) The utilisation of the rule of the proletariat in order to detach the labouring and exploited masses once and for all from the bourgeoisie, to consolidate the alliance of the proletariat with these masses, to draw these masses into the work of socialist construction, and to ensure the state leadership of these masses by the proletariat.

3) The utilisation of the rule of the proletariat for the organisation of socialism, for the abolition of classes, for the transition to a society without classes, to a socialist society.

The proletarian dictatorship is a combination of all these three aspects. No single one of these aspects can be advanced as the sole characteristic feature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the other hand, in the circumstances of capitalist encirclement, the absence of even one of these features is sufficient for the dictatorship of the proletariat to cease being a dictatorship. Therefore, not one of these three aspects can be omitted without running the risk of distorting the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only all these three aspects taken together give us the complete and finished concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

[nukelewman]

Damn. One again socialist planning proves its effectiveness over whatever the capitalists have going on. American cites are a NIGHTMARE, trust me.

[americanoptout]

Another excellent video. The commentary on Poland was excellent, brings a fresh new perspective on why cities like Warsaw and Wrocław are immensely manageable from a tourism and quality of life perspective. Would love to see an episode of “dictator-built” cities such as modern Bucharest or modern Athens!

[kompshi]

this is an amazing video and very nice description. these designs of microrayon have been built with great practical function use and financial prudence. though there are some who criticise this, i for one found them to be very helpful and as a long term solution to the housing problem that existied in eastern europe.

[mitchellbrecht]

Damn, seeing this and then comparing it to how cities are "planned" in the modern US (ie. put industrial/polluting parts of city near the poor and minority neighborhoods and pretend they don't exist) really got me thinking that we live in the worst timeline.

[lano_lunaire]

Had an internship a few years back in Dresden (eastern getmany) and saw lots of blocks and giant avenues that i didnt understood at the time (im french). Then i played the stalker games, and remembered the architecture in dayz and other games... Now it all make sense, thank you for making a digestable doc about it!

[_FaUlti_]

I want to thank you for sitting down and going over the books, covering important parts of how and why it happened in that way. This analysis helped me direct myself towards a better idea.
I appreaciate the effort a lot. Thank you, once again.