this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
534 points (92.9% liked)
Political Memes
7843 readers
3569 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As someone from a post-soviet country, and had to live in one of those.. there's plenty of reasons to shit on them.
Ok im gonna try typing out some of the observations of living in commie blocks from personal experience as well as some stories from my friends. Im also spoilering it for anyone who doesn't want to read the list.. also also.. not a comprehensive list of everything, just what I can think of on my lunch break
here goes
Just to name a few :3.. im gonna go eat now
The roof. If yours flat. And even modern housing doesn't have two sets of stairs per entrance(?).
Got it. You are talking about very old 4-5 story buildings.
EDIT:
Wierd. It is much easier to get 50%+1 in "small" 60-appartments building, than in same in new housing with over 10k people living in 3708 flats.
Yes. Im talking about commie blocks, glad you noticed :p
9 story and 16 story brezhnevkas are commie blocks too.
Hey there, also lived in commie block (ground floor of the 10 level (+ground) one), wanna add few things!
Also, bonus point for specifically my neighbourhood - it was built on cementary. We had a lot of weird phenomena, I learnt where it was built much later after moving out.
Now, miracle happened as they renovated these! Got proper insulation and paint, and they look nice now. They also moved down some green space outside the circle and made more parking, leaving inner greenery intact.
My small addition to the list is that the surrounding green spaces were usually poorly lit and created lots of opportunities for muggers to hide once it got dark. In winters it gets dark early, so winters were a dangerous time.
Oh, yeah. A lot of bushes also, the tall ones in which you could overall easily hide. Where I lived, these green spaces were also different heights. Now it was somewhat safe where I was (in a "nobody shits in their own nest" way) but I've seen a few folk who upset more difficult people and...yeah. Pretty much nowhere to go safely.
Yep. Despite large buildings, overall density ends up pretty small so you often don't meet a lot of people when on a walk, which increases feelings of danger.
The ants one is real x3.. they were all over the place even on the 4th floor. No cockroaches where I lived but a ton of wasps.. I think the wasps were nesting in the walls
And the whistling windows too hah
We used to have those tiny Egyptian ones, but the heating system was replaced from a nearby industrial one to the central one and they all left because it became too cold for them.
Woah! Thanks for this, interesting hearing a firsthand account. Very similar to trailer park life in the US, in my experience. Public housing/the projects are also similar but I never spent much time in them, strong racial divide in most of the US between trailer parks and projects.
I'm assuming a fair amount of drugs/addiction, small scale petty crime, and domestic violence? Cookouts and parties? Is there pride in being from a commie block? Is there a culture and music? Also, while I'm blasting you with questions, any chance you know a good documentary or book/article?
Drugs I didn't see much of in my town, alcoholism definitely.. though I know that in other areas there are drugs as well.. in terms of crime we mostly got general hooliganism, like throwing firecrackers or graffiti, as well as public drinking, not much theft and the like.. domestic violence was definitely something that happened a fair bit
Not much cookouts and parties in the commie blocks themsleves other than occasional family get togethers for the holidays that get out of hand. Generally in my country we were big on going to the countryside, so over the summer up until night the area would be quiet as everyone would go off to the lakeside to grill
In terms of pride, I wouldn't necessarily say anyone saw anyone any different depending on the housing they were from.. knew lots of people from all walks of life, and in general I don't think there was a major socioeconomic division in that regard :3.. the closest to a commie block culture you could define would be marozai as we called them, more commonly known as gopniks elsewhere - generally people who were low class workers skimming by in the soviet union, mostly categorized now as wearing tracksuits, public drinking and eating sunflower seeds, and usually working some under the table job like refurbishing cars bought from auctions and selling them as new, or working in unlicensed construction, though the majority of people living in commie blocks were just standard families you'd find anywhere. In terms of music around holidays when people would stay out late you'd mostly hear rap.. a lot of russian music too
And no particular documentaries im awere of that specifically talks about life in one of these areas heh