As a continuation of my experience of my Russsia vacation, I'll post it here for those who are interested. My previous comments can be found in this previous post.
Architecture:.
Moscow is a beautiful city, particularly at night. In Soviet times, it has been described as a city of gloom of doom. With its reconstruction, it is transforming itself in the city center into a beautiful city. New facades of marble and multicolored pastel plaster are transforming the Soviet drab buildings into very colorful and modern exteriors, all with up lights and downlights. The public building remodel is funded by taxes, while the private buildings paid by it's owners. There are also numerous new modern construction and older amazing pre-Soviet buildings all getting cleaned up. Cranes and construction everywhere. Lighting of all central Moscow bridges buildimgs, and numerous cathedrals make a night cruise on the Moscow river one of the prettiest sights and city I have ever seen. Parts are Disneyland-ish.
No houses are allowed to be built in Moscow, at least the central area. Can only see apartments and rarely a fee very old pre-Soviet mansions. Apartment complexes are what the residences are. There are newly built apartments, and Soviet era apartments. Stalin time apartments are attractive, well built with tall ceilings, large rooms, and high ceilings. Brezhnev and Kruszchev era apartments are plain unattractive boxes, with very small rooms and low ceilings and poorly built (per our guide). The Soviets provided apartments according to family size and type and location of work. Every family had an apartment. I'm sure there was not equality in those assignments, and it apparently could take years to finally get one. When the Soviet Union collapsed, they tenants and their descendents were granted title to those apartments. Now, youth have to rent or purchase an apartment, or live with the parents. A family is prohibited from selling an apartment unless they own more than one, which makes the supply very low and costly for youth. As mentioned before, Moscow is now the most expensive city to live in the world because of the housing costs for youth. Those citizens previously granted apartments by the Soviets pay only about $20/year for some kind of fee. Everyone has to pay for utilities now.
The central city banned any buildings over 6 stories to keep the skyline more attractive and blocked out by skyscrapers, essentially the same as DC. There are some new modern skyscrapers at the commerce center, but that is a specialized zone.
Architecture:.
Moscow is a beautiful city, particularly at night. In Soviet times, it has been described as a city of gloom of doom. With its reconstruction, it is transforming itself in the city center into a beautiful city. New facades of marble and multicolored pastel plaster are transforming the Soviet drab buildings into very colorful and modern exteriors, all with up lights and downlights. The public building remodel is funded by taxes, while the private buildings paid by it's owners. There are also numerous new modern construction and older amazing pre-Soviet buildings all getting cleaned up. Cranes and construction everywhere. Lighting of all central Moscow bridges buildimgs, and numerous cathedrals make a night cruise on the Moscow river one of the prettiest sights and city I have ever seen. Parts are Disneyland-ish.
No houses are allowed to be built in Moscow, at least the central area. Can only see apartments and rarely a fee very old pre-Soviet mansions. Apartment complexes are what the residences are. There are newly built apartments, and Soviet era apartments. Stalin time apartments are attractive, well built with tall ceilings, large rooms, and high ceilings. Brezhnev and Kruszchev era apartments are plain unattractive boxes, with very small rooms and low ceilings and poorly built (per our guide). The Soviets provided apartments according to family size and type and location of work. Every family had an apartment. I'm sure there was not equality in those assignments, and it apparently could take years to finally get one. When the Soviet Union collapsed, they tenants and their descendents were granted title to those apartments. Now, youth have to rent or purchase an apartment, or live with the parents. A family is prohibited from selling an apartment unless they own more than one, which makes the supply very low and costly for youth. As mentioned before, Moscow is now the most expensive city to live in the world because of the housing costs for youth. Those citizens previously granted apartments by the Soviets pay only about $20/year for some kind of fee. Everyone has to pay for utilities now.
The central city banned any buildings over 6 stories to keep the skyline more attractive and blocked out by skyscrapers, essentially the same as DC. There are some new modern skyscrapers at the commerce center, but that is a specialized zone.
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