So, no, it’s not anything political. It’s a cultural thing.

Soviet housing either followed or was contemporary with Le Corbusier’s ideas of affordable ‘habitation units’, the now-famous cookie-cutter blocks with minimal decoration. The OOP is quite correct in calling it leftist, since the purpose was to have lots of cheap housing: the USSR had huge expansion of it during the fifties-seventies, with massive migration from rural areas to cities (following the less-neat redistribution of housing, wooden barracks, and communal living in the thirties).

Can’t say I like the outcome too much, because arguably same population density can be achieved with lower-rising houses, since they don’t require huge areas between them to have any sunlight. Khrushchev-era districts can be much cozier than later ones, since five-storey buildings are placed closer and have trees right outside the windows.

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