10 Interesting Facts About Khrushchyovkas

It's hard to imagine that soon they won't be around anymore—at least in Moscow. They're disappearing, and with them a huge chunk of our lives: green courtyards with grandmothers by the entrances, tables where people played chess and dominoes as the warm days arrived. Our life without them will never be the same again. As we say goodbye to five-story buildings forever, let's remember how they came into being.

1. They Are Not Ours

The eternal French, as a classic once said. After the war, Raymond Camus, the creator of panel housing, visited the USSR three times. The company Camus was bought and its production scheme for mass housing was adapted by Soviet architects.

Living unit of Le Corbusier in MarseilleLiving unit of Le Corbusier in Marseille

2. They Exist Not Only in France

Do these identical houses remind you of anything? Japan! Districts of cheap social housing, which began to be built in the 1950s when residents of war-damaged homes had to be relocated urgently.

Japanese mass housing districts – danchi

3. Stalin's Architect Invented Them

The first experimental mass housing was built in 1948 in the Sokolinaya Gora area and on Khoroshevskoye Shosse. The buildings were four-storied and had a metal frame, from which they later decided to abandon—load-bearing panels were cheaper.

First four-story building on Sokolinaya Gora

4. They Were Built Very Quickly

On average, it took only 12 days to build a house. Some builders even set records: for example, one Leningrad brigade completed construction in just five days.

5. They Will Be Sung About, Even When Gone

Happy people moving into newly built apartments became heroes of the operetta 'Moscow, Cheremushki' by Dmitri Shostakovich. The great composer wrote it in 1958, and it was immediately staged in Moscow, Bratislava, and Prague.

6. Khrushchyovka Was Designed by a Stalin-Era Architect

One of the first to develop the idea of five-story buildings was Boris Iofan, author of the House on the Embankment, and Vasily Lagutenko was responsible for its implementation. Grandpa of 'Mumiy Trolly' became the author of the first mass series K-7.

7. A Tenth of All Housing Will Have to Be Demolished

In the USSR, about 290 million square meters of housing were built in khrushchyovkas, which makes up nearly 10 percent of the country's total housing stock.

8. Why Five Floors?

Five floors is the maximum according to medical norms for a house without an elevator. According to legend, Khrushchev, signing documents, muttered: 'Let them walk.' Another version says that he himself, upon arriving at the construction site, never climbed to the fifth floor.

9. They Lived Modestly

In a documentary film from the 1960s, the main architect of Moscow Joseph Lovyko assured future new residents that 14 square meters (the area of the common room in a two-room flat) was enough space to accommodate furniture for a family of four.

10. They Could Have Lasted Another Half Century...

How did the myth come about that the calculated lifespan of five-story buildings is 25 years? This isn't tracked in regulations. It's not factored into structural calculations either. Research on large-panel structures shows they are designed to last no less than 100 years...

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