Hello dear Setarko from Bulgaria. In Sofia we also have Hruschovka style buildings in the Neighborhood "lagera" (Лагера - literary means the camp). I remember back in 2015 when i was working as a loan assistant i went with a client in this neighborhood and an old lady born in 1920's was owner of an apartment from this type. Her children lived abroud and they wanted to get the old laydy with them and to loan the old apartment. It was very tricky apartment for renting becouse it was on good location but on a bit high price for rent. People back almost 10 years ago were used to more luxurious apartments and almost no one wanted to rent this Hruschovka style apartment. I remember how this woman loved her apartment so much and how he treated it with great respect even though her children had even better apartments. In your video you said that this apartments thought to be awful for our standers were something unimaginable for the first people who lived there and was another great step for them. Before those buildings people there lived in baracks and the place was literary called "the camp". I think in those hauses were presented the first communal heating systems in Sofia.
While the Soviet Union has multiple obvious failures housing is not one of them. With half the country destroyed and a huge rural migration even a capitalist Russia would have had a hard time providing good housing to everyone. I don't know about other countries but there was plenty of bad housing or even straight up slums well into the 70s except we had a lower rural migration rate but we had immigration, less kids so smaller families, and less destruction than Russia (WW1 was ten times worse). Huge social housing projects were built to face these challenges, a policy not so different than the USSR giving free appartements that you had to wait 15 years for.
У моих бабушки и дедушки была бесплатная квартира. А когда у них родился второй ребёнок, им дали трёхкомнатную квартиру. У них также была дача, машина и даже велосипед, хотя они были простыми инженерами. Ну, может и не совсем простыми - бабушка строила ядерные шахты.
To be fair engineers are not simple. Those are 2 professionals. They should be able to afford a lavish lifestyle as a duel income couple who both work professional jobs. Gen Z and millennials are fucked but boomers who were both engineers could’ve easily afforded 3 cars, a 4000 square foot home and a lake house in the 90s and 2000s
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se Screw the damn lie that is the "Capitalist Utopia" that is the West!! Well come on someone, SAY IT!! " "How the hell would YOU know? Shut up Ivan, you're just a Communist Shill. How would I know? I'm glad you asked. I KNOW, because I was born, lived in and worked in one of the supposed "Capitalist Utopian Societies", for the last 60yrs of my life, THAT'S why. And what have I got to show for it? Sciatica, Preripheral Neuropathy, Diabetes, Arthritis, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Fatty Liver, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C from a Hospital Blood Transfusion, etc,etc etc. And most, if not ALL of these Diseases and painful conditions, from working for over forty years, as a Metal Fabricator and Boilermaker. And ALL, attributable to the Workplace Negligence of a "certain well known Engineering Firm, for whom I worked for 38yrs of my life, when I should have, COULD HAVE, been chasing my first love, MUSIC!!
Honestly it doesn't sound so bad. I live in the Netherlands, it's becoming increasingly common for young people up until their 30s to live in shared flats because the separate ones are rented out for 1400 euro a month. Average housing is also increasingly more expensive to buy. Our fertility rate is plummeting, partially because of the housing crisis. The elite of our country allow mass migration to make themselves richer, knowing it will affect the housing market, which is already extremely strained due to a combination privatisation and bureaucracy.
Migrants are victims of privatisation too, but it‘s not just their houses, but also their education, water or sometimes their own body that is privatised on their home country. The people exploiting Africa are the same that exploit us in Europe
I have fond memories of the hrushevka in which I grew up in Siberia, the floors were always warm, the balcony doubled as freezer for pelimeni in the winter, we even kept a chicken there during the summer. The pipes leaked and water was the color of rust, but it was cozy. Everything was centralized and winter-proofed. Never heard of pipes bursting because of cold weather until I lived in USA.
@@EbliZ No way, capitalist Russia doesn't care to give people better living conditions as much as socialist Soviet Union did, how could this possibly be?
@@jonseilim4321 No, i pity the russians who voted for Putin. He is taking russia back to USSR times by reducing money for maintanance by 75% the upcoming years. Glorify USSR all you want, that period sucked. Never heard of pipes bursting untill he moved to USA? Hahahah yeah right.
@@jonseilim4321 And btw, 20% of russian still don't have indoor plumbing. Want to know how many still use an outhouse? Rich country with extremely poor people. Next toipic!
Based Video like last time Seporko, I wish India also had free housing during its Socialist Era, My Grandmother got "free' housing inherited from her father by the Steel Company of Tata which allowed her to live freely during her college days, but she had to sell it when she got married. Your story is exceptional indeed.
@@araujofiso you think her owning her home that she worked for is the reason a meth addict is sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles ? I know under Biden and the democrats homelessness due to the rough economy and high home prices has spiked but traditionally in the U.S. 95% of homeless people were drug addicts or mentally ill. Until Biden and the housing bubble we had cheap enough housing 🤷♂️. Also the auto bubble isn’t helping. Now people can’t sleep in their cars because their cars are $1000 a month 🥲
Maybe the question can be settled by understanding that there is a difference between : - a free house (or apartment or whatever) - free housing If there is no private property, you do not own a house. You were not given a free house. BUT If you have a roof over your head, you are housed. You have housing. If you do not pay to live there, you have free housing.
Singapore and China do a thing where “owning a house” is just a 99 year lease. It lasts your entire life, but you don’t pass it down to your children for life.
If you think about it, there's no such thing as truly free housing anywhere in the world. Even in capitalist countries, you have to make constant recurring payments for 30 years to a bank before you truly own the property and even then, if you stop paying property tax long enough, the government will take your house from you and sell it to someone else. I think the question about housing should ultimately be more about accessibility rather than whether it is truly freely owned by an individual or family or not.
@@SeriousPlastiek so what solution would you propose that would not infringe on private property? or would it always require losing some of that? genuine question btw
Completely subjective on my part: but looking around on Google Maps, its surprising to me just how many normal one or two storey wooden or brick houses are still clustered around the cities in the former USSR; personally that's where I'd want to live instead of in an apartment.
Plenty of people prefer a detached house in the suburbs, however the mainetance is much more expensive and you need a car, which is tricky as the current capitalist government keeps huge income inequality, expensive credits and low domestic currency exchange rate. So far from the USSR.
I am happy to live knowing that both of my grandparents were offered a nice apartment in the developing town where I was born in as a result of their great work in their fields of activity and moved away from random Hungarian villages in the mountains. This is what we should do today too.
The important thing is that capitalism worked and today we have millions of homeless people and millions more living in trailers, because they cannot pay a fortune for a tiny house duly inflated by real estate speculation. While the Soviet dictatorial system forced them to have a job and a apartment at a cost of 5% of their monthly salary.
The millions of homeless arnt you average everyday joe. Its mostly addicts and mentally ill ppl. Ppl living in trailers lived in nearly equally sized commie blocks.
As a young person growing up in Canada, I dreamed of moving to the USSR. Never made it. But, these videos that you make are dream fodder and I love what you are doing. Thank you for researching and presenting with also humour. Will be back. :-)
I don't think you would've lasted a week. We lived in one room apartment and had no food and hot water often. And that was Moscow. There's a reason the government was secretive about that life
@@pushista9322 Ah, yes typical deny my experience cause it wasn't "typical" Explain what's typical smh I lived that life, knew how it worked, knew how people lived
@natashka1982 I can’t tell if your username is either because you put those numbers there to reflect your birth year or a quirk of the new UA-cam user interface. Either way between you and the taco and a shank a show and crazy Russian dad also lived in the Soviet Union. Well, at least you allegedly did, you’re the only one talking about no food and water. I’ve lived in three different ex, communist countries: Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern part of Germany. I can’t believe the issues with utilities thing now that that’s limited to current or former socialist places, but the No food thing I find incredibly unlikely.
@@Mortablunt Born and raised in Moscow, in 1982. I jever said we didn't have water, I said we often didn't have hot water. No food- obviously not Holodomor starvation, but the shelves were often empty, often spoiled. I don't care where you lived, you are clearly American so your visits don't count. East Germany was still better than Russia by far. Ukraine was USSR
We dont act as if it is better it simply is better. Most western homeless people aren't simply down on their luck. Most are mentally ill or drug addicts, or both. I have sympathy for these people, but many of them have made poor choices in their lives, which is why they are on the street in the first place. In both the U.S and what was then Soviet Union the mentally ill were put away in asylums keeping them off the streets and drug addiction while still a thing wasn't the epidemic it is today.
Until recent economic changes most homeless people had other reasons to be homeless, not so much any more, though the government can afford to house illegal immigrants, even ones with criminal convictions the rest of the population will just have to suck up their mortgage rates going up massively, also low pay, rarity and loss of employment and massive price rises. Don't expect any relief, the government are short on revenue (usually by a significant amount) and so will whip the horse harder to get it to work. But the news says it's fine so it must be.
What happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. Did the people just automatically own their own Soviet apartment they lived in? Did oligarchs come in and buy them all up and evict people on mass? I know you covered this a bit in this video but maybe consider a follow up video of this video of post Soviet Apartments.
Yeah, I will probably do that. Post-Soviet real estate market was wild for a bit, for example you literally could buy a apartment in central Moscow for 5-10k$ in 1997 and then sell it for 50+k 5 years later or 100k 10 years later. So some people really managed to make a fortune because of this. There were also a lot of fraudulent and semi-criminal schemes to steal apartment. But for 90% of citizens it was a easy as "just privatize the apartment based on the documents you still have from the USSR". So basically you came to a special agency with a Soviet rental contract for your apartment, it was checked and you became a full-fledged landlord. Obviously, it is a very brief summary so maybe I will make a full video out of it some day.
Олигархи сказали нам: "Вы получайте государственные квартиры в свою собственность, а мы, тем временем, получим в свою собственность ваши фабрики, заводы, скважины и колхозы".
Meanwhile, soviet leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Khurschev etc. could have free castle like Kremlin palace and their political adversaries had right to get free gulags in Siberia.
"We still pay taxes" is not an argument supporting your point. The property was built, it did not just appear as if by magic. Government does not create wealth, workers do. Therefore workers paid for the property, "somehow".
He said it in the context of them not getting cheap houses now. This statement would be valid if cheap housing was available in Russia's markets today.
Not that hard actually. 85% population in individual houses/apartments by 1985 means there are also a 15% of population that lived in communalka's and barracks. 15% amounted to ten's of millions of people back then. Some people still do. I remember hearing a number that up 500 thousand residents of St. Petersburg still live in communal housing
Не представляю. Меня, новорождённого, сразу принесли в трёхкомнатную квартиру (stalinka). 1970 год. Моя бабушка, как отличник советского образования, вышла на пенсию в 53 года, чтобы воспитывать моего старшего брата. Потом она воспитывала меня. Как отличник советского образования. Квартира до нашего заселения тоже была коммунальной. Её бывшие жильцы где-то получили отдельные квартиры. Дом постройки 1954 года успел получить капитальный ремонт, по советским правилам, через 20 лет. Газ провели бесплатно, газовую печь тоже поставили бесплатно. Производства Румынии. Жили мы в маленьком промышленном городе на Урале, недалеко от Челябинска.
"classless society" was a goal. Soviets never claimed to have reached communism. They were aiming towards it while fighting the capitalist world. They had a war economy, just like any other country at war. At the end they lost. Soviets couldn't reach communism but eventually AI may bring it, if we don't destroy ourselves using it before that.
@@chrissasin6676 the goal for paying taxes in the ussr is not to be prosperous, it’s to fund the services that people need for the society to survive and grow; like healthcare, education, housing, and other maintenance services.
@@chroma._.5986 so g faceless government bureaucrats are going to spend your money then you?? From 1 dollar of welfare how much a person gets?? Check it out yourself
@@chroma._.5986 In fact paying taxes in USSR was just for to things look normal. But everyone was working and was payed by state. So there were no taxes needed, state could give you just less money and pretend there are no taxes at all :-)
Oh, Come on man, you can't play a few seconds of spokonaya noch' without playing the whole track! Yeah, I get that your video might get a copystrike, but still 😅
Thanks for presenting both sides, but I absolutely prefer the Soviet system. One thing you didn't mention is natural disasters: If you own your own home and a flood comes along, you end up owning nothing. Home ownership also entails all of the risks that come from investment in a dysfunctional economy. There is also the risk of shoddy construction, and the need to maintain the house. Not all people have these skills. Finally, home ownership is not free: One has to pay insurance, interest on a mortgage, and a property tax.
6:14 I remember when the local swimming pool also did public baths! That's something that should be brought back. What do homeless people do to keep themselves clean? The use of a bath or shower is the very least the government should be providing to help them.
Always interesting content on the Soviet Union. I'd like to see a future video on martial arts in the Soviet union along with sports. Sambo and wrestling for example seemed really big as well as weightlifting.
Вы могли получить квартиру если были военным, ученым... вообщем не всякому. Спасибо Хрущеву что расселил людей из коммунальных квартир. Но это жилье сейчас устарело, пора менять...
Why were Dachas promoted over car ownership? How did people even get to their vacation cabins if they didn’t own cars? Why would anyone need a vacation cabin if they can’t even buy a car ?!
Well, because most of the dachas are located close to city centers and you could get to your dacha by train or by bus easily. I mean, that was mostly true for european part of the country, I can imagine car being more essential in Siberia, obviously.
I think it's difficult to say that anything the Soviets did was "better", because the Soviet Union collapsed after only 70 years. It was clearly not built to last. Other countries have experienced worse crises than the USSR did, and they survived while the USSR did not. Regardless of how much people want to daydream, there was a link between the almighty state controlling every aspect of the economy and promising vast social benefits, and the ultimate collapse of the state. It was simply too large of a responsibility for the Soviets to handle.
I have to disagree that other countries have experienced worse than the soviet people, maybe only china as in scale of the dead and the cruelty of the japanese during ww2 but there are no other countries on earth that have suffured this much and survived.
@@chroma._.5986 yes I have and we arent talking about just scale of authorities but cruelty. So yeah there are very few nations that can match the soviet union in suffering.
@@Silver_Prussian There are also very few nations that suffered from its own government so much like USSR. Millions of people died, were transfered to other parts of the country to gulags or just killed because of Stalin. Only China, North Korea and Cambodia were comparable.
So does the US. What’s your point ? Everywhere seems to have a severe housing shortage somehow 🤷♂️. We build enough under free markets in theory but somehow we have a bunch of vacant luxury apartments and unsold new builds while we have a ton of people who can’t afford these properties. Same with China, tons of homeless, tons of spare homes. I don’t know if anywhere has properly managed housing construction and affordable housing in history or if the boomers just stole our futures by stealing all the housing
@@libertatemadvocatus1797 and my point still stands. without socialism, those regions of the world would have worse conditions than African countries do. its so weird when people look at these ex-socialist countries and think: "oh no, these people got free housing, healthcare, education, and a job? i feel so bad for them!"
@@chroma._.5986 I'm willing to beat you're young, likely under 25 and have never met anyone who lived in Communist country. The thing is it isn't free. The money and resources for those projects and services come from somewhere. The housing that got was terrible, the healthcare they got was subpar, the education was okay (the West still had superior education), and the jobs were no more pleasant to work than the ones in Capitalist countries. And much of it wasn't free. You still paid rent and there were constant housing shortages for the life of the Soviet Union. You want to have a Communist style of living. Sure, live with your parents or strangers in a crappy apartment; then when you're in your 30s, go an live in a crappy apartment of your own. I mean, plumbing issues, electrical issues, cockroach and silverfish infestations, paper thin walls, broken elevator, stairs that smell like urine. For true Communist experience. Because that's what those places were and still are like. Also try to stick to a basic diet of potatoes, canned vegetables, and canned fish as much as possible. Try not to eat any exotic fruits like oranges or bananas as they will be too expensive or very rare. Every second week or so; swear off all meat as there aren't any in the stores. For other weeks, don't use any eggs or milk as there are none in the stores. Because that's what it was like. You hear "free" and you're picturing an American middle-class (or even upper middle-class) lifestyle when the poorest people in America often had higher standards of living than the average Soviet citizen.
@@libertatemadvocatus1797 I'm willing to bet that you're a White American who also hasn't met anyone who lived in the Soviet Union and spouts whatever talking points your mommy and daddy told you when you were a kid. None of what you said even counters my argument at all, no shit resources are spent in a society to give people free stuff. No one is talking about choosing a communist lifestyle over the one I have now, everything you described about living in the Soviet Union happens in the US, the RICHEST country on the planet, too.
At around 20:50 it’s showing a new building being built on Alekseyevskaya metro station, which I stayed next to on my visit to Moscow, last year. That building looked nice, and it’s not too far from the center of the city. As a US citizen of several decades, I live in a modest two bedroom suburban apartment made out of 90%+ wood and almost no sound insulation (so I hear all my neighbors’ footsteps and banging). I worked hard for 11 years in order to pay it off, and I don’t feel that it is worth the kind of money I paid or, especially, the kind of money I could sell if now for. I am very much against making citizens pay more than 30% of their income just to be able to live under a secure roof. In my opinion, the quality of average Russian apartment is better than American apartments. Though, of course, many Americans live in their own houses, and those houses, on average, are much better than an average Russian house (many still don’t have indoor plumbing, and are usually in villages with little in the way of conveniences, especially, given that cars are still considered an expensive item to have in Russia). In summary though, I agree with the main premise that having guaranteed (or near guaranteed) housing is better than being worried day to day about being kicked out to the streets. But it needs to be noted that a behavior similar to the one exhibited by American bums (drugs, decrepitude, and criminality) would not have been tolerated in the USSR and should not be tolerated anywhere, including the US. If it takes totalitarian enforcement to get under control, I personally am all for it - as I’d rather walk in safe streets than worry being attacked by an out of control gang of, likely, chocolate persuasion. I have also arrived to the conclusion that non-discrimination rules make it impossible for people to organize themselves into nice and safe communities, and this, coupled with modern governments’ short-term preferences, is what makes housing in the US ever less affordable. In Russia, the problem is still one of short-termism, though knowing how globalized the Western malaise has become, I’d bet that accepting criminality in the name of diversity or some other BS might spread to Russia too, in a couple of decades.
@@burtbacarach5034 There were during the 90's, but recently american has been having it's own period of very high crime. There aren't many chocolates in russia and if they tried to muscle in the domestic groups would probably guest star them in a liveleak video. In America most crime is committed by them despite being a tenth of the population, you not liking it doesn't change the fact.
@@burtbacarach5034 The criminality in even the poorest city in Russia is way lower compared to chicongo or detroit. Further more the criminals in Russia don't have an ethnic vendetta against their victims (taking their frustration for le racist society by killing, robbing and doing nsfw on random vanilla people) to the same degree as in USA and quickly is becoming the norm in many western European countries as well.
@@xsc1000yes. Buying something and paying it off while enjoying it is preferred to living in a military barracks without hot water for 30 years to get a concrete box
The fact that we have to work so hard to have a place of our own and pay so much for goods and services to survive goes to show how little society cares about poverty and wage slaves. Half of my generation still lives with our parents. We exist without our consent. No one chose to be here. Our parents made the decision to bring the unborn to this reality to satisfy their selfish desires of having us in their lives. Therefore, procreation is purely a selfish, narcissistic and immoral act. The unborn be chilling in the void for 13.8 billion years, rent free until now. Stop having kids.
Problem is everyone in America/Canada/Australia/NewWorld all want to own a personal Castle. They all want a 3 or 4 bedroom house with yard, garage, etc. And what was decent back in the 1960's and 70's is now considered a "starter home". The reason no one can afford anything is because its got to big. Buy a Soviet Style apartment and I assure you can afford it even if you only make 30k per year. But no one wants to live in that.
the solution to capitalism is not “stop having kids”. that’s a very kindergartener-level understanding of the world. people are going to have kids regardless of what you say and no matter how hard you try to stop it, maybe you should criticize the system itself instead of this doomerism of anti-procreation.
Coming from a country with a similar housing and political system, and seeing how my parents were, and how they think, i would rather live in a box purchased by myself but free and proud of what i archived on my own than live in a free cage given by the government but with my hands and mouth tied up.
@@englishsteel-nz6im not anymore, rent is skyrocketing in most cities, doctors and engineers in most cities are struggling to save money for retirement, inflation is increasing making people spend more on groceries and gas for their cars that they have to depend on because of lack of public transportation. this happens even in europe and the US. the ussr is not an alternate reality at all, in fact it’s even worse in the global south.
@chroma._.5986 CEOs aren't high performers? Okay lol 😆 Your scenario for most professional class people in a higher bracket is false. I live in expensive Bay Area, CA and live an amazing life on compounded years of what's an ordinary white collar deal here (six figs)and having personally invested in the markets. Nothing special here but have a lot. Your Commie dystopia BS falls on deaf ears.
It does sound alluring when I'm paying $1000 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment built 43 years ago.
These videos give a glimpse into a world I know little to nothing about. Thank you for the interesting, quality content!
Babe wake up, Setarko posted.
Hello dear Setarko from Bulgaria.
In Sofia we also have Hruschovka style buildings in the Neighborhood "lagera" (Лагера - literary means the camp). I remember back in 2015 when i was working as a loan assistant i went with a client in this neighborhood and an old lady born in 1920's was owner of an apartment from this type. Her children lived abroud and they wanted to get the old laydy with them and to loan the old apartment. It was very tricky apartment for renting becouse it was on good location but on a bit high price for rent. People back almost 10 years ago were used to more luxurious apartments and almost no one wanted to rent this Hruschovka style apartment.
I remember how this woman loved her apartment so much and how he treated it with great respect even though her children had even better apartments.
In your video you said that this apartments thought to be awful for our standers were something unimaginable for the first people who lived there and was another great step for them.
Before those buildings people there lived in baracks and the place was literary called "the camp". I think in those hauses were presented the first communal heating systems in Sofia.
While the Soviet Union has multiple obvious failures housing is not one of them. With half the country destroyed and a huge rural migration even a capitalist Russia would have had a hard time providing good housing to everyone.
I don't know about other countries but there was plenty of bad housing or even straight up slums well into the 70s except we had a lower rural migration rate but we had immigration, less kids so smaller families, and less destruction than Russia (WW1 was ten times worse).
Huge social housing projects were built to face these challenges, a policy not so different than the USSR giving free appartements that you had to wait 15 years for.
Well, WE can't do it, and we have all the advantages!
I lost it at the 'free real estate' part. Good job as usual though!
Left ear: hey.
Right ear: it’s
Both ears: FREE REAL ESTATE!
😂😂
У моих бабушки и дедушки была бесплатная квартира. А когда у них родился второй ребёнок, им дали трёхкомнатную квартиру. У них также была дача, машина и даже велосипед, хотя они были простыми инженерами. Ну, может и не совсем простыми - бабушка строила ядерные шахты.
У моих родителей у обоих были доктораты. Мы жили в однокомнатной квартире
To be fair engineers are not simple. Those are 2 professionals. They should be able to afford a lavish lifestyle as a duel income couple who both work professional jobs. Gen Z and millennials are fucked but boomers who were both engineers could’ve easily afforded 3 cars, a 4000 square foot home and a lake house in the 90s and 2000s
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se
Screw the damn lie that is the "Capitalist Utopia" that is the West!!
Well come on someone, SAY IT!! "
"How the hell would YOU know? Shut up Ivan, you're just a Communist Shill. How would I know? I'm glad you asked. I KNOW, because I was born, lived in and worked in one of the supposed "Capitalist Utopian Societies", for the last 60yrs of my life, THAT'S why. And what have I got to show for it?
Sciatica, Preripheral Neuropathy, Diabetes, Arthritis, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Fatty Liver, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C from a Hospital Blood Transfusion, etc,etc etc. And most, if not ALL of these Diseases and painful conditions, from working for over forty years, as a Metal Fabricator and Boilermaker.
And ALL, attributable to the Workplace Negligence of a "certain well known Engineering Firm, for whom I worked for 38yrs of my life, when I should have, COULD HAVE, been chasing my first love, MUSIC!!
Honestly it doesn't sound so bad. I live in the Netherlands, it's becoming increasingly common for young people up until their 30s to live in shared flats because the separate ones are rented out for 1400 euro a month. Average housing is also increasingly more expensive to buy. Our fertility rate is plummeting, partially because of the housing crisis. The elite of our country allow mass migration to make themselves richer, knowing it will affect the housing market, which is already extremely strained due to a combination privatisation and bureaucracy.
Migrants are victims of privatisation too, but it‘s not just their houses, but also their education, water or sometimes their own body that is privatised on their home country. The people exploiting Africa are the same that exploit us in Europe
I have fond memories of the hrushevka in which I grew up in Siberia, the floors were always warm, the balcony doubled as freezer for pelimeni in the winter, we even kept a chicken there during the summer. The pipes leaked and water was the color of rust, but it was cozy. Everything was centralized and winter-proofed. Never heard of pipes bursting because of cold weather until I lived in USA.
But iam sure you heard of pipes bursting in russia this winter? Want to count them?
@@EbliZ No way, capitalist Russia doesn't care to give people better living conditions as much as socialist Soviet Union did, how could this possibly be?
@@EbliZ He shared his personal experiences, but to you Russia must always be hated yeah?
@@jonseilim4321 No, i pity the russians who voted for Putin. He is taking russia back to USSR times by reducing money for maintanance by 75% the upcoming years. Glorify USSR all you want, that period sucked. Never heard of pipes bursting untill he moved to USA? Hahahah yeah right.
@@jonseilim4321 And btw, 20% of russian still don't have indoor plumbing. Want to know how many still use an outhouse? Rich country with extremely poor people. Next toipic!
looking forward to hearing about this topic as it is so often overlooked by UA-cam Soviet historians but is so interesting nonetheless
Based Video like last time Seporko, I wish India also had free housing during its Socialist Era, My Grandmother got "free' housing inherited from her father by the Steel Company of Tata which allowed her to live freely during her college days, but she had to sell it when she got married. Your story is exceptional indeed.
I have my own country house, one car, and a kid. So basically that fits the ideal of the American dream, only thing different is I am divorced.🏡👩👦
Yes, at the expense of millions of homeless people in US.
It wasn’t at the expense of homeless people. A government USDA loan.
You don't know how to interpret the basics of socioeconomics@@lisaconnor4948
@@araujofiso you think her owning her home that she worked for is the reason a meth addict is sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles ? I know under Biden and the democrats homelessness due to the rough economy and high home prices has spiked but traditionally in the U.S. 95% of homeless people were drug addicts or mentally ill. Until Biden and the housing bubble we had cheap enough housing 🤷♂️. Also the auto bubble isn’t helping. Now people can’t sleep in their cars because their cars are $1000 a month 🥲
При Сталине,на семью из 3 человек,квартира от 100 КВ.м!!!Убили Вождя, Хрущев потянул страну в пропасть!!!
Maybe the question can be settled by understanding that there is a difference between :
- a free house (or apartment or whatever)
- free housing
If there is no private property, you do not own a house. You were not given a free house.
BUT
If you have a roof over your head, you are housed. You have housing. If you do not pay to live there, you have free housing.
Singapore and China do a thing where “owning a house” is just a 99 year lease. It lasts your entire life, but you don’t pass it down to your children for life.
If you think about it, there's no such thing as truly free housing anywhere in the world. Even in capitalist countries, you have to make constant recurring payments for 30 years to a bank before you truly own the property and even then, if you stop paying property tax long enough, the government will take your house from you and sell it to someone else. I think the question about housing should ultimately be more about accessibility rather than whether it is truly freely owned by an individual or family or not.
@@sizor3ds that's messed up to be honest if it's the general rule
@@SeriousPlastiek so what solution would you propose that would not infringe on private property? or would it always require losing some of that? genuine question btw
Great content as always!
I imagined myself as Vasya Pupkin. I felt pretty cool.
Completely subjective on my part: but looking around on Google Maps, its surprising to me just how many normal one or two storey wooden or brick houses are still clustered around the cities in the former USSR; personally that's where I'd want to live instead of in an apartment.
There's zero infrastructure there. Nobody lives in the villages because of that. We didn't have stores or running water.
Plenty of people prefer a detached house in the suburbs, however the mainetance is much more expensive and you need a car, which is tricky as the current capitalist government keeps huge income inequality, expensive credits and low domestic currency exchange rate. So far from the USSR.
@@pushista9322 you clearly have never lived in those conditions
Khrushchev being the sun from teletubbies in the thumbnail is the funniest thing I've seen in a while.
Finally someone appreciates my artistic genius!
I am happy to live knowing that both of my grandparents were offered a nice apartment in the developing town where I was born in as a result of their great work in their fields of activity and moved away from random Hungarian villages in the mountains. This is what we should do today too.
:D :D :D
But the village is cozy tho. Cities are like hives and city people act like npc bug people.
@@constantinethecataphract5949 no they dont, touch grass
Please do a VDNH park video
The important thing is that capitalism worked and today we have millions of homeless people and millions more living in trailers, because they cannot pay a fortune for a tiny house duly inflated by real estate speculation. While the Soviet dictatorial system forced them to have a job and a apartment at a cost of 5% of their monthly salary.
The millions of homeless arnt you average everyday joe. Its mostly addicts and mentally ill ppl. Ppl living in trailers lived in nearly equally sized commie blocks.
@@homieinthesky8919is that the kind of myths americans tell themselves? go outside and wake up, wagie.
One toilet for 30 people
Who cleaned it?
At least you know had to do it 1/30th of the time
As a young person growing up in Canada, I dreamed of moving to the USSR. Never made it. But, these videos that you make are dream fodder and I love what you are doing. Thank you for researching and presenting with also humour. Will be back. :-)
I don't think you would've lasted a week. We lived in one room apartment and had no food and hot water often. And that was Moscow. There's a reason the government was secretive about that life
@@natashka1982 What you describe couldn't have been a common experience, not after the country was rebuilt after WWII
@@pushista9322 Ah, yes typical deny my experience cause it wasn't "typical" Explain what's typical smh I lived that life, knew how it worked, knew how people lived
@natashka1982
I can’t tell if your username is either because you put those numbers there to reflect your birth year or a quirk of the new UA-cam user interface.
Either way between you and the taco and a shank a show and crazy Russian dad also lived in the Soviet Union. Well, at least you allegedly did, you’re the only one talking about no food and water.
I’ve lived in three different ex, communist countries: Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern part of Germany. I can’t believe the issues with utilities thing now that that’s limited to current or former socialist places, but the No food thing I find incredibly unlikely.
@@Mortablunt Born and raised in Moscow, in 1982. I jever said we didn't have water, I said we often didn't have hot water. No food- obviously not Holodomor starvation, but the shelves were often empty, often spoiled. I don't care where you lived, you are clearly American so your visits don't count. East Germany was still better than Russia by far. Ukraine was USSR
We act as if our system is better while having millions of homeless people.
soviets criminalized homelessness and street begging so a lot of them were simply put to slave labour camps
We dont act as if it is better it simply is better. Most western homeless people aren't simply down on their luck. Most are mentally ill or drug addicts, or both. I have sympathy for these people, but many of them have made poor choices in their lives, which is why they are on the street in the first place. In both the U.S and what was then Soviet Union the mentally ill were put away in asylums keeping them off the streets and drug addiction while still a thing wasn't the epidemic it is today.
@@Nick-xt2dxWhy aren't they doing that anymore?
@@Nick-xt2dxthank you for sharing truth. Truth is elegantly simple ❤️❤️
Until recent economic changes most homeless people had other reasons to be homeless, not so much any more, though the government can afford to house illegal immigrants, even ones with criminal convictions the rest of the population will just have to suck up their mortgage rates going up massively, also low pay, rarity and loss of employment and massive price rises. Don't expect any relief, the government are short on revenue (usually by a significant amount) and so will whip the horse harder to get it to work. But the news says it's fine so it must be.
What happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. Did the people just automatically own their own Soviet apartment they lived in? Did oligarchs come in and buy them all up and evict people on mass? I know you covered this a bit in this video but maybe consider a follow up video of this video of post Soviet Apartments.
Yeah, I will probably do that. Post-Soviet real estate market was wild for a bit, for example you literally could buy a apartment in central Moscow for 5-10k$ in 1997 and then sell it for 50+k 5 years later or 100k 10 years later. So some people really managed to make a fortune because of this. There were also a lot of fraudulent and semi-criminal schemes to steal apartment. But for 90% of citizens it was a easy as "just privatize the apartment based on the documents you still have from the USSR". So basically you came to a special agency with a Soviet rental contract for your apartment, it was checked and you became a full-fledged landlord.
Obviously, it is a very brief summary so maybe I will make a full video out of it some day.
Sounds like an interesting video. Have a good rest of your day@@Setarko
Олигархи сказали нам: "Вы получайте государственные квартиры в свою собственность, а мы, тем временем, получим в свою собственность ваши фабрики, заводы, скважины и колхозы".
Meanwhile, soviet leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Khurschev etc. could have free castle like Kremlin palace and their political adversaries had right to get free gulags in Siberia.
blah blah blah american propaganda i learned from mommy and daddy 😂😂
@@chroma._.5986 he's correct lol
"We still pay taxes" is not an argument supporting your point.
The property was built, it did not just appear as if by magic. Government does not create wealth, workers do. Therefore workers paid for the property, "somehow".
He said it in the context of them not getting cheap houses now. This statement would be valid if cheap housing was available in Russia's markets today.
Imagine being so low on the social totem pole in a "classless society" that you spent the entire Soviet Union stuck in a barracks, ouch!
Not that hard actually. 85% population in individual houses/apartments by 1985 means there are also a 15% of population that lived in communalka's and barracks.
15% amounted to ten's of millions of people back then.
Some people still do. I remember hearing a number that up 500 thousand residents of St. Petersburg still live in communal housing
Не представляю. Меня, новорождённого, сразу принесли в трёхкомнатную квартиру (stalinka). 1970 год. Моя бабушка, как отличник советского образования, вышла на пенсию в 53 года, чтобы воспитывать моего старшего брата. Потом она воспитывала меня. Как отличник советского образования. Квартира до нашего заселения тоже была коммунальной. Её бывшие жильцы где-то получили отдельные квартиры. Дом постройки 1954 года успел получить капитальный ремонт, по советским правилам, через 20 лет. Газ провели бесплатно, газовую печь тоже поставили бесплатно. Производства Румынии. Жили мы в маленьком промышленном городе на Урале, недалеко от Челябинска.
"classless society" was a goal. Soviets never claimed to have reached communism. They were aiming towards it while fighting the capitalist world. They had a war economy, just like any other country at war. At the end they lost. Soviets couldn't reach communism but eventually AI may bring it, if we don't destroy ourselves using it before that.
25-35% of ussr people had 'dacha's'' , where on earth did you buy your cannabis? even if you put commas there I would doubt it
Where is the pig?!
have you ever used kino music for the background?
In this very video!
@@Setarkonot a Pack of Cigarettes
Volunteer for Chernobyl clean up
Who paid for free housing, ??
americans when they realize taxes benefit society: 😨😰😨😰😨😱😱😱😨😰😨😱
@@chroma._.5986 you can’t tax yourself into prosperity. ! Or you have one example in human history
@@chrissasin6676 the goal for paying taxes in the ussr is not to be prosperous, it’s to fund the services that people need for the society to survive and grow; like healthcare, education, housing, and other maintenance services.
@@chroma._.5986 so g faceless government bureaucrats are going to spend your money then you?? From 1 dollar of welfare how much a person gets?? Check it out yourself
@@chroma._.5986 In fact paying taxes in USSR was just for to things look normal. But everyone was working and was payed by state. So there were no taxes needed, state could give you just less money and pretend there are no taxes at all :-)
Oh, Come on man, you can't play a few seconds of spokonaya noch' without playing the whole track! Yeah, I get that your video might get a copystrike, but still 😅
11:52 looks a lot like Borat
Thanks for presenting both sides, but I absolutely prefer the Soviet system. One thing you didn't mention is natural disasters: If you own your own home and a flood comes along, you end up owning nothing. Home ownership also entails all of the risks that come from investment in a dysfunctional economy. There is also the risk of shoddy construction, and the need to maintain the house. Not all people have these skills. Finally, home ownership is not free: One has to pay insurance, interest on a mortgage, and a property tax.
For a system built on the principle of equality, there sure were a lot of exceptions. 😅😂
who said communism was about equality?
@@chroma._.5986 what is it about then?
6:14 I remember when the local swimming pool also did public baths! That's something that should be brought back. What do homeless people do to keep themselves clean? The use of a bath or shower is the very least the government should be providing to help them.
Always interesting content on the Soviet Union. I'd like to see a future video on martial arts in the Soviet union along with sports. Sambo and wrestling for example seemed really big as well as weightlifting.
I love soviet history bad it is such a bad time in history, There are of course some good things but very interesting!
Sounds like an imperfect system that had its merits and flaws, but it's better than mass homelessness.
everyone would have a house if they werent all poor because of money printing
Вы могли получить квартиру если были военным, ученым... вообщем не всякому. Спасибо Хрущеву что расселил людей из коммунальных квартир. Но это жилье сейчас устарело, пора менять...
A house is not private property, it's personal property.
Why were Dachas promoted over car ownership? How did people even get to their vacation cabins if they didn’t own cars? Why would anyone need a vacation cabin if they can’t even buy a car ?!
Well, because most of the dachas are located close to city centers and you could get to your dacha by train or by bus easily. I mean, that was mostly true for european part of the country, I can imagine car being more essential in Siberia, obviously.
Awesome Soviet apartments!
I think it's difficult to say that anything the Soviets did was "better", because the Soviet Union collapsed after only 70 years. It was clearly not built to last. Other countries have experienced worse crises than the USSR did, and they survived while the USSR did not. Regardless of how much people want to daydream, there was a link between the almighty state controlling every aspect of the economy and promising vast social benefits, and the ultimate collapse of the state. It was simply too large of a responsibility for the Soviets to handle.
I have to disagree that other countries have experienced worse than the soviet people, maybe only china as in scale of the dead and the cruelty of the japanese during ww2 but there are no other countries on earth that have suffured this much and survived.
@@Silver_Prussianireland? india? literally any country that got bombed or colonized by europe? have you read your history?
@@chroma._.5986 yes I have and we arent talking about just scale of authorities but cruelty. So yeah there are very few nations that can match the soviet union in suffering.
Countries don't suddenly collapse. And definitely not in such a short time. Even Roman Empire didn't just suddenly get destroyed on it's own.
@@Silver_Prussian There are also very few nations that suffered from its own government so much like USSR. Millions of people died, were transfered to other parts of the country to gulags or just killed because of Stalin. Only China, North Korea and Cambodia were comparable.
Мне кажется, или названием видео Сетарко сделал отсылку на анекдот про мгимо финишд?
The Soviet Union had a severe housing shortage every year of its existence.
So does the US. What’s your point ? Everywhere seems to have a severe housing shortage somehow 🤷♂️. We build enough under free markets in theory but somehow we have a bunch of vacant luxury apartments and unsold new builds while we have a ton of people who can’t afford these properties. Same with China, tons of homeless, tons of spare homes. I don’t know if anywhere has properly managed housing construction and affordable housing in history or if the boomers just stole our futures by stealing all the housing
Awful living standards but it’s better than nothing.
they’re actually really good for a country that never benefitted from colonization at all
@@chroma._.5986
Eastern Europe and Central Asia would like a word with you.
@@libertatemadvocatus1797 and my point still stands. without socialism, those regions of the world would have worse conditions than African countries do. its so weird when people look at these ex-socialist countries and think: "oh no, these people got free housing, healthcare, education, and a job? i feel so bad for them!"
@@chroma._.5986
I'm willing to beat you're young, likely under 25 and have never met anyone who lived in Communist country.
The thing is it isn't free. The money and resources for those projects and services come from somewhere.
The housing that got was terrible, the healthcare they got was subpar, the education was okay (the West still had superior education), and the jobs were no more pleasant to work than the ones in Capitalist countries.
And much of it wasn't free. You still paid rent and there were constant housing shortages for the life of the Soviet Union.
You want to have a Communist style of living. Sure, live with your parents or strangers in a crappy apartment; then when you're in your 30s, go an live in a crappy apartment of your own. I mean, plumbing issues, electrical issues, cockroach and silverfish infestations, paper thin walls, broken elevator, stairs that smell like urine. For true Communist experience. Because that's what those places were and still are like.
Also try to stick to a basic diet of potatoes, canned vegetables, and canned fish as much as possible. Try not to eat any exotic fruits like oranges or bananas as they will be too expensive or very rare. Every second week or so; swear off all meat as there aren't any in the stores. For other weeks, don't use any eggs or milk as there are none in the stores.
Because that's what it was like. You hear "free" and you're picturing an American middle-class (or even upper middle-class) lifestyle when the poorest people in America often had higher standards of living than the average Soviet citizen.
@@libertatemadvocatus1797 I'm willing to bet that you're a White American who also hasn't met anyone who lived in the Soviet Union and spouts whatever talking points your mommy and daddy told you when you were a kid. None of what you said even counters my argument at all, no shit resources are spent in a society to give people free stuff. No one is talking about choosing a communist lifestyle over the one I have now, everything you described about living in the Soviet Union happens in the US, the RICHEST country on the planet, too.
And still...USSR collapsed! 😊
and still… you’re broke and work 12 hours a day! 😊
Good stuff
At around 20:50 it’s showing a new building being built on Alekseyevskaya metro station, which I stayed next to on my visit to Moscow, last year. That building looked nice, and it’s not too far from the center of the city.
As a US citizen of several decades, I live in a modest two bedroom suburban apartment made out of 90%+ wood and almost no sound insulation (so I hear all my neighbors’ footsteps and banging). I worked hard for 11 years in order to pay it off, and I don’t feel that it is worth the kind of money I paid or, especially, the kind of money I could sell if now for. I am very much against making citizens pay more than 30% of their income just to be able to live under a secure roof.
In my opinion, the quality of average Russian apartment is better than American apartments.
Though, of course, many Americans live in their own houses, and those houses, on average, are much better than an average Russian house (many still don’t have indoor plumbing, and are usually in villages with little in the way of conveniences, especially, given that cars are still considered an expensive item to have in Russia).
In summary though, I agree with the main premise that having guaranteed (or near guaranteed) housing is better than being worried day to day about being kicked out to the streets. But it needs to be noted that a behavior similar to the one exhibited by American bums (drugs, decrepitude, and criminality) would not have been tolerated in the USSR and should not be tolerated anywhere, including the US. If it takes totalitarian enforcement to get under control, I personally am all for it - as I’d rather walk in safe streets than worry being attacked by an out of control gang of, likely, chocolate persuasion.
I have also arrived to the conclusion that non-discrimination rules make it impossible for people to organize themselves into nice and safe communities, and this, coupled with modern governments’ short-term preferences, is what makes housing in the US ever less affordable. In Russia, the problem is still one of short-termism, though knowing how globalized the Western malaise has become, I’d bet that accepting criminality in the name of diversity or some other BS might spread to Russia too, in a couple of decades.
Good thing there are no gangs in Russia huh?Chocolate or otherwise.Jesus dude...
@@burtbacarach5034 There were during the 90's, but recently american has been having it's own period of very high crime. There aren't many chocolates in russia and if they tried to muscle in the domestic groups would probably guest star them in a liveleak video. In America most crime is committed by them despite being a tenth of the population, you not liking it doesn't change the fact.
@@burtbacarach5034
The criminality in even the poorest city in Russia is way lower compared to chicongo or detroit. Further more the criminals in Russia don't have an ethnic vendetta against their victims (taking their frustration for le racist society by killing, robbing and doing nsfw on random vanilla people) to the same degree as in USA and quickly is becoming the norm in many western European countries as well.
@@constantinethecataphract5949 Are you living in western Europe or US or are you just repeating Kremlins propaganda?
@@xsc1000 i live in Greece but i've seen and heard horror stories.
Interesting!
Waiting 30 years for home or paying for 30 years for a home 🤔
What is better ?
Ofc paying, because you live in your home from the beginning.
@@xsc1000 Ofc?
@@avus-kw2f213 Of course.
@@avus-kw2f213 I'm guessing "of course?"
@@xsc1000yes. Buying something and paying it off while enjoying it is preferred to living in a military barracks without hot water for 30 years to get a concrete box
6:55
17:50
Today I realized I'm living the Soviet dream private two bedroom apartment and my own vehicle. Always look at the positive
The fact that we have to work so hard to have a place of our own and pay so much for goods and services to survive goes to show how little society cares about poverty and wage slaves. Half of my generation still lives with our parents. We exist without our consent. No one chose to be here. Our parents made the decision to bring the unborn to this reality to satisfy their selfish desires of having us in their lives. Therefore, procreation is purely a selfish, narcissistic and immoral act. The unborn be chilling in the void for 13.8 billion years, rent free until now. Stop having kids.
You should start by ending your own suffering first, don't you think?
Sounds like you picked the wrong parents.I’m sorry
Problem is everyone in America/Canada/Australia/NewWorld all want to own a personal Castle. They all want a 3 or 4 bedroom house with yard, garage, etc. And what was decent back in the 1960's and 70's is now considered a "starter home". The reason no one can afford anything is because its got to big. Buy a Soviet Style apartment and I assure you can afford it even if you only make 30k per year. But no one wants to live in that.
the solution to capitalism is not “stop having kids”. that’s a very kindergartener-level understanding of the world. people are going to have kids regardless of what you say and no matter how hard you try to stop it, maybe you should criticize the system itself instead of this doomerism of anti-procreation.
@@chroma._.5986 People have stopped having kids, and it's a very very bad thing.
Comrade.
Coming from a country with a similar housing and political system, and seeing how my parents were, and how they think, i would rather live in a box purchased by myself but free and proud of what i archived on my own than live in a free cage given by the government but with my hands and mouth tied up.
so you would rather live under communism? cool.
Imagine being a higher performer in society and getting very little for it lol... such a fascinating alternate reality the USSR was.
that’s what happens to this day, dude.
@chroma._.5986 high performer in the US/Western Europe? You get a lot lol
@@englishsteel-nz6im not anymore, rent is skyrocketing in most cities, doctors and engineers in most cities are struggling to save money for retirement, inflation is increasing making people spend more on groceries and gas for their cars that they have to depend on because of lack of public transportation. this happens even in europe and the US. the ussr is not an alternate reality at all, in fact it’s even worse in the global south.
@@englishsteel-nz6im and by high performer, i hope you don’t mean celebrities and CEOs, those people do not perform high at all.
@chroma._.5986 CEOs aren't high performers? Okay lol 😆
Your scenario for most professional class people in a higher bracket is false.
I live in expensive Bay Area, CA and live an amazing life on compounded years of what's an ordinary white collar deal here (six figs)and having personally invested in the markets.
Nothing special here but have a lot.
Your Commie dystopia BS falls on deaf ears.