Russian Towns, Cities / Urban Development

Werewolf wrote:
I don't have really the time to google for anything that would cover up the facade of a building with the concept art what it is gonna look like, because that is really really rare in Germany and only some prestige construction companies do that for very few fancy projects.

But overall, yes some fabric with usually some logos, telephone numbers to hire the construction company and maybe sponsors is all that you will see in 99% of the time. Some times a small sign that says what is being constructed and the time window along with some company's website to rent/buy newly build apartments or working space like offices. The Russian approach is alot better as it hides the ugly construction site and doesn't lower the beauty of the city or local area. I have lived more than 12 years in Munich and the city center was and is still under construction all those years. China would have finished all projects within a 2-3 years for a fraction of the costs. Hell, any non EU country would have finished the projects within an acceptable time window. The corruption here is annoying and massive.

Munich from my childhood at the end of 80's, early 90's used to be so much better than what it is now. Uberexpensive and crowded. It was still ok until 2010 or so, but took a dive after that. I didn't visit since 2019, but i can imagine that Germany was not fun during covid.
Btw, problems with construction corruption in Muncih is not of a new date. It used to be bad already in the middle, end of '90s.

As part of the Cultural Code Festival in Balashikha, artists from 10 countries have created more than 40 murals.

There's the Lakhta-3 project as well, the one in the middle in this render



Well don't know about the Lakhta-3, but that the Lakhta-2 render was updated was surprising enough. Guess Gazprom still has the money to spend

They should just use their money to build that Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. Have they even filled the first building to capacity?

You wouldn't believe how much money Gazprom spends irrationally. Aside from this vanity project there was more in the past. I hope that they will not build this nonsense.

They should use that money to expand Turkstream and connect the Yamal pipelines to the Power of Siberia
so all that gas that was going to Germany can be rerouted to China, then eventually India and the rest of East/South-East Asia. Vanity projects like Lakhta should be put on the back-burner.

I can see the value in vanity projects. Vanity has a value all of its own

Don't believe me? Check out Dubai's popularity. Including now as a financial centre; it's eclipsing London as an off-shore capital.
And heck, check out St. Petersburg itself, it was also a vanity project for a few small centuries

SO if they have the money, and the construction industry is hungry for orders, then why not build this hulk. It's an investment like any other; except more into the city itself than towards future sales.
And hey the first Lakhta Centre I'm not sure if is even occupied yet, but we can figure that out later.

Main thing is that money isn't more urgently needed for other things. And if it isn't then I'm impressed.

Some photos of the winners of the ArchiWood 2022 Award in Russia. If you are thinking where to go for a rest - these are pretty good options.






https://tourism.arhiwood.com/prize/vote/luchshiy-bystrovozvodimyy-otel-iz-dereva/











https://tourism.arhiwood.com/prize/vote/luchshiy-otel-iz-dereva/

Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk oblast, Ural region. Some changes over the past 12 years:

135km outside Moscow lies the quaint little (pop ~20k) town of Zaraysk, founded all the way back in 1146 AD.

It has a little Kremlin fortress (built around 1530), several old churches, picturesque streets, classic old Russian houses and so on. It all became quite dilapitated in the 1980s-1990s unfortunately, but major efforts were launched recently to restore it and freshen it up.



Results of the ongoing work can be seen already:















Just a little random thing.

A quite interesting observation emerges when we watch this "10 year change" vids.

As I watched them for a while, a thing struck me.

There is an obvious increase not only in the infrastructure quality but the quality of this infrastructure - if you know what I mean.

Things are being erected or modernized not only to resolve principal human issues but being made to look good. Mass usage of marble or other rather expensive natural materials. Those things are getting more and more expensive, only to look better and better.

I find this kind of thing interesting, re above.

There are many hundreds of similar small cities/towns in Russia that are currently undergoing massive facelifts. Many have really risen from the ashes in recent years.

But on Twitter you still see those trolls post the same decade-old picture of some street in Vorkuta for the 1000th time as an example of how "everything outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg is complete shit", "Russia/Putin doesn't care about anything except a few central areas" etc.

I find it funny. I mean, it has been patently false for 20 years - all large cities have seen enormous work done. First of all the millioniki of course, but also all sub-million ones.

And now it's beginning to show even in smallish towns that few have ever heard of.

But even in ten years you will be able to look to some half-abandoned Arctic mining town to provide some bad photos, I guess. Oh well.

One of the most popular "meme" photos is this one, from Arkhangelsk in the far north:


It's a section of the Avenue of Soviet Cosmonauts, infamous for being neglected (Arkhangelsk has also seen enormous facelifts in recent years, but this particular stretch of road hasn't, funny if you pop down on Yandex street view right where that shot was made and turn 180, it's a 180).

However, this little stretch is now also under heavy redevelopment:
https://29.ru/text/transport/2022/12/14/71897225/

So that meme photo will soon be outdated (it technically is already, they tore down the uninhabitated dilapitated buildings a while back, but the roadwork is ongoing).

I will remind you of the agitprop around the Lachta Tower.
When they have deliberately made photos with a skyscraper, while located at the old dacha district that was abandoned for decades as already bought and waiting for the district development to be abolished.
Yet they could achieve a cadre with falling-off wooden houses and a "Gazprom Penis" in the background to deliver the message

That Lakhta/Olgino thing is so stupid. That's prime real estate right there, and indeed you see plenty of fresh high-end villas in the same area.

The reason some houses look like complete trash is usually because the owners neglected it to live elsewhere and want to sell the plot, but the property is hella pricey and the additional cost for a prospective new owner to tear stuff down and build a brand new house is also quite large. That scares off a lot of buyers and the ruins just remain.

Until some big company (or the state or local govt) just buys everyone out and builds something else, which tends to happen in the end.

It's a similar story with the many run down apartment buildings. Tenants were granted private ownership when communism fell, and their properties are worth something, it might be their biggest asset, but often hard/impossible to sell. And nobody has the right to evict them even if the building is almost falling apart. So you get this catch-22 kinda issue.

Hence the drama ten or so years ago when the Moscow government really wanted to get rid of some absolutely unmaintainable, near-unlivable eyesores, and relocate folks to new-built apartments. Protests occured etc. And win-win for western propaganda! Russians are protesting, great! Russia is full of people living in terrible premises, great! News!

I think that situation was solved after a while though.

A quite interesting observation emerges when we watch this "10 year change" vids.

As I watched them for a while, a thing struck me.

There is an obvious increase not only in the infrastructure quality but the quality of this infrastructure - if you know what I mean.

Things are being erected or modernized not only to resolve principal human issues but being made to look good. Mass usage of marble or other rather expensive natural materials. Those things are getting more and more expensive, only to look better and better.

Basically all the surviving buildings from the Tsarist era, and all the good-looking buildings from the Soviet-era - were the 'high quality infrastructure' and expensive show-case buildings of their day. They were mostly made from stone or other high-quality materials. Trade houses, banks, famous universities, hotels, elite housing, noble's estates, official government agencies, theaters in large cities, railway stations, and so on.

Because in the Tsarist-era, most of the day-to-day buildings, whether private homes or schools or whatever; were made out of wood. Few of those buildings survive to this day. For much of the Soviet-era even, they were relying on building wooden buildings for many things, especially in the villages and smaller settlements but not only, until mass construction with concrete took off beginning from the 60s.
This is why Arkhangelsk for example looks like shit today. Not so much because the buildings were objectively ugly when they were actually built; many weren't - but because this city is famous for its wooden architecture on the one hand since way back in the Tsarist epoch, and because many day to day buildings were built from wood there even during the Soviet era; which no-one bothered to fund the upkeep and maintenance of over the last 30 years. So of course it all looks half-dilapidated; wooden buildings are demanding.
There are still some unlucky people there who live in 1950s wooden barrack buildings which were originally erected to house workers or families not for long. They basically live in 3rd world conditions by now. The government program to resettle them won't be concluded for another 6-7 years.

And this syndrome affects many northern cities. In Yakutsk they have 2-3 surviving buildings from the Tsarist-era; a church, what's today the geographical museum and the former treasury building.. and 1-2 wooden surviving buildings of historical significance that they desperately try to preserve, even in the face of a fire which destroyed most of one of them a few years back. That's pretty much it. The rest of the city dates from the 60s onward, it's all Soviet-era concrete, or ugly glass 90s-2000s construction, giving the impression of a city which dates back only several decades. But in fact it's a lot older, it's main problem was that it was almost exclusively built out of wood and very little of it has survived.

I hardly get a point bro.
(yes I get it but it is sarcasm)
Show me the historical architecture of Scandinavia.
All of it.

All that yapping about "lack of heritage as there was none" is as much stupid as the author.
Aside of a single cases or Roman architecture or basilicas that were built for 100 years by generations, most of the monumental Euro infrastructure was created in the 17/19CET. Colonial slavery period, when Europe was supplied with a blooded wealth.
Now that is all gone.
The used-to-be great monuments of European rule are perishing.
The once wealthiest place on the planet - Venice - is occupied by Chinese tourists.
Genua's main arteries are full of urine that is flooding down to the sea - all done by narco gangs occupying the places where Columbus walked once.