Facing Demolition
After the fall of communism in the early 1990’s, many countries that were part of the Eastern Bloc, managed to catch up the Western world, as well as adapt to it. However, predominantly in smaller countries like the Baltics, these housing blocks remained, due to the countries struggle to catch up to the growth of the Western world’s economy, firstly, these were already existing homes, so the buildings remained to accommodate thousands, the countries used what they had for accommodation (Lieven 2005). Progressively over time, all of the Soviet builds are now at different phases of their lifespan, in a few eastern European cities the brutalist architecture is being celebrated and have become a desired form of accommodation. However, there are a few cases where these blocks face the threat of demolition entirely. In 2017 there was an extensive resettlement program proposed for the residents of first and second generation Krushchyovka apartments, announced by Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin, that would involve demolition of said buildings (Mikhaylyuk 2017). The program expands to countries who were in the former Soviet Union, there were no further details other than the first draft, whether this program will take action, it raised worry for many current residents as there were mixed reactions to the news. Russian journalist: Vitaly Mikhaylyuk, conducted a series of interviews with Moscow residents of a Krushchyovka apartments, there were long term residents who had lived there for nearly 20 years, that wanted to stay there, as their apartment had qualities
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