Elena Goukassian
A few months ago, news broke
in Russia that the government planned to raze almost 8,000 apartment
buildings in Moscow and relocate their residents into newer structures.
Although the plan sounds like both a logistical and a social disaster,
not to mention a mass infringement on the individual rights of the
city’s residents, I must admit that my first reaction was (almost
embarrassingly) to take the side of the authorities.
The apartment
buildings in question are those hideous concrete structures that sprang
up like mushrooms in the postwar period across the whole of communist
Eastern Europe. I thought people might be happy to see these eyesores —
and the memories of the Khrushchev era and the dystopian realities of
communism that went with them — finally meet their demise. I grew up in a
family from Sofia, Bulgaria and Yerevan, Armenia; I’ve heard my fair
share of complaints about these behemoths. Having lived my early
childhood and several extended stays in Sofia inside a one-room
apartment in one of these buildings, I’ve also experienced them
first-hand.
