Kyrgyzstan day twelve

Housing

Concrete cubes neatly stacked on top of each other, like a vertical jigsaw puzzle, simple and symmetrical design. Once you see a Soviet-era panel apartment block, you can’t un-see them! They are everywhere in Bishkek, an architectural reminder its Soviet past, and perhaps its legacy? For all the new investment since 1991, with modern apartment blocks and shopping malls, these Khrushchev- and Brezhnev-era buildings remain a key source of housing for the Bishkek population.

A Brezhnev-era panel apartment block – Брежневка

I had no prior knowledge of Soviet architecture. A friend from the language school where I am studying pointed them out to me. Then we went on a guided tour with Bishkek Walks to find out more. It transpires that the enduring popularity of these apartment blocks comes not from their brutalist, minimalist design, but rather from the wider state planning that produced whole micro-district communities around them. In other words, not only did families receive their housing allocation, it came with a school, shops, a hospital, green spaces and all other conveniences, all within walking distance.

Khrushchev-era panel apartment block (three to five storey) – хрущёвка

On the tour, our guide (who grew up in such an apartment in the 1980s) explains that the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic would give you an apartment, the number of rooms based on the size of family, and then you could move into your home and your community. On the one hand, you want for nothing, with all facilities available at your doorstep. Shelter, a roof for you and your family, protection at the basest human level, provided free of charge by the State.

On the other hand, the apartment isn’t exactly the finished article. Windows would help… it turns out that Soviet planning didn’t budget for glass, so that’s on you. And best buy those quickly, as the concrete structures become family-sized refrigerators in the Central Asian winter! From here, you can invest in interior and/or exterior design for as much as your budget would stretch. Our guide points out the iron railings on certain windows, as a popular addition for those who could afford it.

This Khrushchev-era apartment block housed a clinic on the ground floor, hence the striking Soviet mural!

As I walk around the city, passing between brand new apartment blocks and Khrushchev-era micro-districts with crumbling five-storey flats, neither is obviously the better solution. A soulless twenty storey block with all the modern (electronic) conveniences, versus a nostalgic apartment block that proudly maintains its park and shops and school. Earn the money to buy the apartment you wish to own, compared to free and equal shelter at the point of need. The juxtaposition of Soviet and post-Soviet housing is the architectural metaphor for a city faced with its communist history and capitalist future.

1980s micro-districts with modern day cars.

Overall I am totally ignorant as an architect, a structural engineer, a historian. But I can’t help wondering, until society takes the time to reflect on such different architectural styles, whether we might be destined to continue building in a hurry, meeting quotas, without thoughtful consideration for the long-term benefit to our community and to our environment.

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Thanks for reading this post by The young European as a part of a new series on my time in Kyrgyzstan. If you liked it, please do recommend it by giving it some applause (see 👏 on left hand side) and share it with friends & family on social media!