Changes in urban housing

Question 1

By the end of the 19th century, what percentage of Russians lived in urban areas?

Answer 1

15%

Question 2

By the end of the 19th century, how many cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants?

Answer 2

19

Question 3

After what year did urbanisation rapidly increase?

Answer 3

1897

Question 4

By 1914, what had happened to the populations of the two main cities

Answer 4

Doubled

Question 5

housing under the Tsars

Answer 5

erected cheaply and quickly

poor quality with inadequate drainage, water supplies and sanitation

Question 6

Why was there a housing shortage under the Tsars?

Answer 6

Demand for reasonable accommodation at affordable rents always greater than supply

Question 7

What did the shorting housing under the Tsars lead to?

Answer 7

Overcrowding and the spread of disease

Question 8

Proportion of housing under the Tsars constructed from wood

Answer 8

1/2

Question 9

How many towns had access to electricity, gas, piped water and sewage under the Tsars?

Answer 9

electricity - 74
gas - 35
piped water - 200
sewage system - 38

Question 10

Where was cholera particularly rife?

Answer 10

St Petersburg

Question 11

When was a sewerage system installed under Nicholas II?

Answer 11

1911

Question 12

What did workers live in under the Tsars?

Answer 12

Hastily built wooden barracks

Question 13

Conditions in barracks

Answer 13

overcrowded and unsanitary

Question 14

What did Lenin pass to focus on property?

Answer 14

Decree on Peace Nov 1917

Question 15

What did Decree on Peace say would happen to property?

Answer 15

dwellings in towns and cities were to be wrested from private owners and handed over to the proletariat
redistribution was placed in the hands of the soviets

Question 16

What were some small improvements under Lenin’s Decree on Peace?

Answer 16

Improvements in urban housing eg communal housing, government and families were allotted an extremely small number of square meters each

Question 17

What were a short-term answer to the housing crisis by Lenin?

Answer 17

Communal apartments as many considered them a step up from the alternatives of housing communes, hostels, and barracks

Question 18

What happened to the condition of housing under Stalin?

Answer 18

It deteriorated

Question 19

By the mid 1930s, what % of the population was living in one room shared between 2+ households?

Answer 19

25%

Question 20

% of people living in a bathroom, corridor or hallway

Answer 20

5%

Question 21

What did living space fall to under Stalin?

Answer 21

5.8m squared from 8.5m squared

Question 22

What were the Seven Sisters?

Answer 22

A group of seven skyscrapers in Moscow designed in the Stalinist style. They were built from 1947 to 1953

Question 23

In 1947, 1948, and 1949 respectively, how many square meters of housing did Moscow build?

Answer 23

100,000, 270,000, and 405,000

Question 24

Why were most social projects put on hold under Stalin?

Answer 24

So that attention could be focused on achieving the aims of the five-year plans

Question 25

How many Russians became homeless as a result of WW2?

Answer 25

25 million

Question 26

What caused a massive housing crisis under Stalin?

Answer 26

WW2, problem never solved

Question 27

What did Khrushchev launch?

Answer 27

a huge housing programme in the late 1950s

Question 28

What was Khrushchev’s housing programme known as?

Answer 28

Khrushchyovkas

Question 29

What was the planned shelf life of Khrushchyovkas?

Answer 29

25 years but they still exist today

Question 30

When Khrushchev took power, what was Moscow’s population compared to housing stock?

Answer 30

population twice the housing stock

Question 31

How many storeys were Khrushchyovkas?

Answer 31

5

Question 32

How were Khrushchyovkas planned to alleviate the severe housing crisis exacerbated under Stalin?

Answer 32

Popped up in newly planned microdistricts, designed to house tens of thousands of people

Question 33

Between 1955-64 what happened to housing stock?

Answer 33

Doubled

Question 34

What was abandoned under Khrushchev?

Answer 34

Principles behind communal living

Question 35

What were housing cooperatives under Khrushchev?

Answer 35

organisations formed by employees who belonged to the same work enterprise or professional union given first pickings over new state housing as long as they could meet government set prices

Question 36

Who benefitted most from Khrushchev’s housing programme?

Answer 36

better-off professionals who could afford to pay deposits on new cooperative housing and make loan repayments at reasonable rates of interest