Translated material
Bunks with parking
The basics of planning apartments for 11 square meters. m. were laid in the OGPU
In 1928, the young Soviet architect Lazar Chirikover joined the construction department of the OGPU-NKVD. There, for ten years, he studied the best practices of prominent professionals in the field of stacking people. At the same time, another figure named Naftaly Frenkel, who himself has tasted the air of the working north, scrupulously calculates for the Gulag how many cubic centimeters of air are needed per prisoner. The developments of these two great specialists formed the basis of the idea of physiological minimalism in housing design. How many swings does it take to dry yourself with a towel? What if you're horrified? What if you take a bath? In which opening will the coffin fit? What if sideways? How many, finally, does the average citizen have friends whom he can invite to his birthday party? Five? Great, two will sit on the windowsill!
Similar calculations carried out for the OGPU formed the basis for the design of Khrushchev houses. Having escaped from the latter, we finally forgot about both Lazar Zinovievich and Naftaly Aronovich. They sighed, brushed themselves off, gathered to live on, but no such luck.
Our specialists in the field of stuffing living people into boxes in the most unexpected place surfaced.
Namely - in the plot of "Russia 24" about the appearance in Moscow of new buildings with apartments with an area of 11.6 sq.m. Speaking about such a profitable offer on the housing market, correspondent Zinaida Kurbatova showed the developments of those very pillars of physiological minimalism from the OGPU. Kurbatova would not know them - her grandfather, academician Likhachev, spent time in the Solovetsky camp after Frenkel.
The version of Zinaida Kurbatova is quite plausible: wouldn’t a Moscow developer hire an entire institute and calculate for a year how many centimeters of floor a person needs to stretch his legs to the full length if everyone in the OGPU counted for him? The Nazis, too, did not begin to suffer at one time - they took Soviet developments, and even deeds. Cost optimization.
The box, built in Moscow according to all the laws of physiological minimalism, costs 2.9 million rubles. Or 250 thousand rubles per square meter. And this house is not finished yet. Before us is the apotheosis of Russian downsizing: in order to hide inflation and falling incomes, we have already reduced everything that can be reduced: bread has become 300 gr, butter - 175, milk - 875. Now new buildings are 11.6 sq. .m But near the house there is parking and a kindergarten nearby.
Our people have some flaw. Something bad. Yes, both in Beijing and Shanghai they live in apartments of even 5 sq.m. In London, I was in a separate apartment of 6.5 sq.m. But her owner lived on a refugee allowance and there were no new cars in the courtyard of the house. Apartments of 11 square meters in Russia have not yet been built, but houses with "odnushki" of 25 squares and a "kopeck piece" of 35 have long been available. There has been one like this in our area since the late 2000s, its yard is lined with cars of the last years of production. What are all these owners of new Hondas and even Audis doing in their cubicles? They probably live in the car. This is more important.
What kind of car do you have, everyone sees it, but is the house cramped? Didn't we live in cramped quarters?
Russians do not have a tradition of a comfortable life. There was simply no period in the country when a significant part of the citizens had separate housing. From the point of view of the population, which 100 years ago moved from huts, where ten of them slept side by side, to communal apartments and barracks, throughout the past century it has experienced one continuous improvement in living conditions. And he is still allegedly experiencing it. Many families live in an apartment for three generations, a lot of people live their lives in houses without sewerage and in hostels. For them, a separate 11.6 squares is already an apartment. They are saving up for such an apartment. Communal apartments are being converted into "studios" of 10-15 meters each; they have been sold in St. Petersburg for a long time. They just didn’t think of building new ones, from scratch. Or rather, they did not become impudent enough.
But everything is ahead. There are also unique achievements of London developers at the end of the 19th century. They simply pulled a rope across the room and allowed for one penny to lean on it so as not to fall to the floor in their sleep. Up to ten people can sleep on one rope. This is a note to the owner.