How livable/unlivable is Russia outside of St Pete, Moscow, and Sochi (black, house)
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Personally, some of the unattractive aspects of Russian cities are the surviving Soviet era apartment blocks which, luckily, are slowly disappearing.
I live in a city in eastern Germany that is loaded with 1950s to 1980s brutalist style architecture apartments and commercial buildings. Chemnitz, known as Karl Marx Stadt in that era, rebuilt after WW2 with mostly square block buildings, including most of downtown.
I live in a 1961 apartment building with 4 levels, no elevator in a 1 bedroom apartment (on the second level). It is solid poured concrete, but the building was refurbished over a decade ago and has thick foam block insulation on the outside walls. It is one of the best apartments I have lived in compared to many others over the past 5 decades. Very quiet, wide open green space on the north and south sides of the building that lets in a lot of light. Living room has a south facing balcony.
In Russia, are the Soviet era apartment buildings ever refurbished and modernized to make them more attractive to new tenants? Or, were they designed with rooms that were too small to make them candidates for refurbishing. Here in Chemnitz, there are a handful of apartment buildings that developers don't seem to want to try and refurbish. Either they were in poor locations, or they were designed with rooms too small for current preferences of most people. They are boarded up with the upper windows broken and looking really bad.
I often wonder the same thing as I have some students from Russia, but most of them live in Moscow or St Petersburg. I do currently have a woman living in Nijni Novgorod though.
But when I ask someone living in St Peterburg or Moscow if they've ever been to Siberia, most of the time the answer is no.
That would still be pretty great to travel to the great white north someday though.
A lot of them are repaired and remodeled. In Belarus it's about every 5 years. The first time I saw my wifes Kruschovsky apartment the neighborhood looked shabby. 2 years later the whole area had been redone and the apt blocks even color coded. Streets were completely redone.
I've seen other examples. I think it depends on the local administrations or in Russia, owners.
I visited Russia in 2012 and then 2016. Russia is ok if you adapt to it.
IF you move there with a North American mindset you will be absolutely miserable. Europeans might have an easier time adapting to Russia than Americans.
Outside Moscow and Pete which is how Russians call St. Petersburgh, Russian cities can be quite hard to adapt if you are not from there. Variables would be weather, months of the year is cold, food, ways of living, architecture (It is all vastly block houses separated by gardens with rather gloomy weather and run down infrastructure).
From my impression there is plenty of natural surroundings, large rivers, nice forests for you to explore. However urban culture is different.
Russians have a rich long old history of their own. They value essence, depth, honesty, my fellow Americans value appearances, showing off - so as an American, Russians will come across as too direct and too harsh. While to Russians, Americans will come across as too vapid, empty headed, unintelligent.
I think both worlds are different but ok in their own ways.
Europeans including the British are more similar to Russians than to Americans in many ways.
Last edited by inbred-anglo; 03-08-2021 at 09:53 AM..
I visited Russia in 2012 and then 2016. Russia is ok if you adapt to it.
IF you move there with a North American mindset you will be absolutely miserable. Europeans might have an easier time adapting to Russia than Americans.
Outside Moscow and Pete which is how Russians call St. Petersburgh, Russian cities can be quite hard to adapt if you are not from there. Variables would be weather, months of the year is cold, food, ways of living, architecture (It is all vastly block houses separated by gardens with rather gloomy weather and run down infrastructure).
From my impression there is plenty of natural surroundings, large rivers, nice forests for you to explore. However urban culture is different.
Russians have a rich long old history of their own. They value essence, depth, honesty, my fellow Americans value appearances, showing off - so as an American, Russians will come across as too direct and too harsh. While to Russians, Americans will come across as too vapid, empty headed, unintelligent.
I think both worlds are different but ok in their own ways.
Europeans including the British are more similar to Russians than to Americans in many ways.
Russian cities have improved a lot since 2012. Which cities other than Moscow and St Petersburg you visited?
I live in a city in eastern Germany that is loaded with 1950s to 1980s brutalist style architecture apartments and commercial buildings. Chemnitz, known as Karl Marx Stadt in that era, rebuilt after WW2 with mostly square block buildings, including most of downtown.
I live in a 1961 apartment building with 4 levels, no elevator in a 1 bedroom apartment (on the second level). It is solid poured concrete, but the building was refurbished over a decade ago and has thick foam block insulation on the outside walls. It is one of the best apartments I have lived in compared to many others over the past 5 decades. Very quiet, wide open green space on the north and south sides of the building that lets in a lot of light. Living room has a south facing balcony.
In Russia, are the Soviet era apartment buildings ever refurbished and modernized to make them more attractive to new tenants? Or, were they designed with rooms that were too small to make them candidates for refurbishing. Here in Chemnitz, there are a handful of apartment buildings that developers don't seem to want to try and refurbish. Either they were in poor locations, or they were designed with rooms too small for current preferences of most people. They are boarded up with the upper windows broken and looking really bad.
RE: the bolded, it depends. Those built during the Khrushchev era are notoriously spartan, with small rooms, low ceilings, very minimalist, you could call them. I've never been in one, but I've heard about them. All the Russian apartments I've been in, no matter the city, are very spacious and light with high ceilings, compared to a lot of average American apartment buildings. They're also very quiet, because of the pre-fab concrete-unit construction. There's no need to refurbish anything.
Some even have a built-in closet that's an actual room with a normal-sized window. That's a real innovation in Soviet architecture: a built-in closet or storage room. I don't know what era those were built in. A friend of mine who had one of those apartments, which counted as a 1-bedroom apt. not counting the closet room, used the closet/storeroom as her bedroom, while her son occupied the main bedroom. It got her privacy, whereas normally, the living room would have served as her bedroom, as is typical.
The other thing I like about apartments in Russia is, that they have a dedicated kitchen, i.e. it's a separate room, unlike newer apartments in the West, including the US, that relegate the kitchen to a small corner of a combination living/dining room. The kitchens are large enough for a table, for informal breakfasting/dining, while for formal dinners, people turn the spacious living room into a dining room. Oh, and another favorite aspect: they all have big claw-foot tubs! HEAVEN! I love to soak in a big tub! And the tub has its own dedicated room. The toilet is separate.
I visited Russia in 2012 and then 2016. Russia is ok if you adapt to it.
IF you move there with a North American mindset you will be absolutely miserable. Europeans might have an easier time adapting to Russia than Americans.
Outside Moscow and Pete which is how Russians call St. Petersburgh, Russian cities can be quite hard to adapt if you are not from there. Variables would be weather, months of the year is cold, food, ways of living, architecture (It is all vastly block houses separated by gardens with rather gloomy weather and run down infrastructure).
From my impression there is plenty of natural surroundings, large rivers, nice forests for you to explore. However urban culture is different.
Russians have a rich long old history of their own. They value essence, depth, honesty, my fellow Americans value appearances, showing off - so as an American, Russians will come across as too direct and too harsh. While to Russians, Americans will come across as too vapid, empty headed, unintelligent.
I think both worlds are different but ok in their own ways.
Europeans including the British are more similar to Russians than to Americans in many ways.
Russians, "harsh"? What were you doing, that you caused them to be harsh? Seriously, I've never run into that, except once, when I was in one of the rickety apartment elevators, and didn't observe the correct button-pushing protocol, so apparently I confused the mechanism, and my fellow passenger berated me. You must have been doing something wrong.
I'd also point out, that there are plenty of American cities, with many months of the year under snow. Denver, anyone? The Upper Midwest and Northeast--Boston? NYC? Although NYC begins to brighten up in April already, while Denver and CO in general are still looking bleak. The food is one thing that makes Russia so enjoyable, IMO (even American ambassadors have said they'll miss the great food when they leave), but if you're the one doing the cooking, it takes a bit to get used to working with their ingredients. Or so it seems. There's more cooking from scratch going on.
Everyone who thinks Russian apartment blocks are grim should visit Ulan Ude, capital of the Buryat Republic, north of Mongolia. Americans LOVE Ulan Ude! Why? For one thing, the architecture is painted in Buddhist colors: maroon and saffron. The unified color scheme is charming and easy on the eyes. And since the 2000's, the well-preserved wooden home district, with it's elaborately-carved "gingerbread" window-treatments has been turned into a shopping sector, shaded by the canopy of hundreds of years old broadleaf trees.
IDK, I find the cities in the hinterlands to be more livable than Moscow and St. Pete's. They're not as sprawling and congested with traffic, for one thing, and not as harshly ultra-urban.
To each their own, I guess.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 03-11-2021 at 09:11 AM..
I'd also point out, that there are plenty of American cities, with many months of the year under snow. Denver, anyone? The Upper Midwest and Northeast--Boston? NYC? Although NYC begins to brighten up in April already, while Denver and CO in general are still looking bleak.
I cannot even comprehend how someone may want to live in places like the Midwest...places like Illinois....horrible.
You could not pay me enough to live in NYC.
I started to travel all across the US to identify a place we will eventually retire with my wife (still long way to go), no way I'm going to stick around in the Northwest (I live in Seattle)
I'm finally coming to the realization that, basically, the only really nice place in the US, weather wise, is Southern California (still the danger of wildfires is there but I like the very Mediterranean feel of the coastal areas).
I would not consider anything north of the 35th parallel worth living, I simply do not want to have to deal even with the occasional snow....I like to drive to the snow when I want, I do not want it to come to me
Because of the lack of significant mountain ranges running east-west to protect from the Arctic, even southern areas as far as Texas can get the occasional freak icestorm, not to mention tornadoes.
The entire Gulf of Mexico area, the South and Florida is pretty much Hurricane Alley.
I do miss Europe this way, way better climate than North America, we may resort to spend 4-5 months out of the year in Southern Europe once we retire.
So, yes, no living in Russia for me...it's beautiful but way too cold.
I cannot even comprehend how someone may want to live in places like the Midwest...places like Illinois....horrible.
You could not pay me enough to live in NYC.
I hear you.
But where I am, further up north Midwest, it's not too bad.
It's actually very nice around here. ( In summer time I mean, in summer))) )
But yes, it's cold and snowy area during winter time.
( Or rather winters are harsh, but the climate is still different somewhat comparably to Russia.)
Quote:
I started to travel all across the US to identify a place we will eventually retire with my wife (still long way to go), no way I'm going to stick around in the Northwest (I live in Seattle)
It used to be my favorite place in the US, but from what I observe lately - it's getting crazy down there.
So can't blame you.
Quote:
I'm finally coming to the realization that, basically, the only really nice place in the US, weather wise, is Southern California (still the danger of wildfires is there but I like the very Mediterranean feel of the coastal areas).
Again - agree. There is certain reminiscence of the coastal area of Italy and "Mediterranean feel" to it, but it's far, far more dangerous in terms of the "nature fury," so I peronally would never consider it for this reason alone.
Unless, of course, you want to end up in one of those disasters.
Quote:
I would not consider anything north of the 35th parallel worth living, I simply do not want to have to deal even with the occasional snow....I like to drive to the snow when I want, I do not want it to come to me
Because of the lack of significant mountain ranges running east-west to protect from the Arctic, even southern areas as far as Texas can get the occasional freak icestorm, not to mention tornadoes.
The entire Gulf of Mexico area, the South and Florida is pretty much Hurricane Alley.
I do miss Europe this way, way better climate than North America, we may resort to spend 4-5 months out of the year in Southern Europe once we retire.
So, yes, no living in Russia for me...it's beautiful but way too cold.
Now you know I guess.
All these breath-taking views of North America have a price to pay.
Last edited by erasure; 03-11-2021 at 01:00 PM..
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