A question has long lingered in the mind: why does a country that endured for decades still reveal a built environment in provincial towns that feels pre-revolutionary, with temples, mansions, theaters, and shopping centers echoing a distant era? The answer lies in layers of history. Much of what survives as visible heritage in these places owes its existence to the zemstvo, a local self-government body that left a tangible imprint over a fifty-year span. In contrast, brick factory buildings and workers’ settlements, often modeled after British and German precedents, stand out against the concrete façades of many Soviet-era enterprises.
What did the Soviet state prioritize in its construction program? Standardized administrative structures, sand-lime brick barracks, and cultural houses with a Stalinist sweetness of form that sometimes resembled layered cakes. The conversation invites reflection: was the problem a failure of imagination or a different investment priority? It is undeniable that significant building occurred in the USSR—residences, social facilities, industrial facilities—but the overall aesthetic is widely perceived as plain and functional rather than elegant.
The period just after the revolution offered little time for elaborate urban design. Then came a brief, intriguing utopia of construction, punctuated by pockets of constructivist experimentation, such as the so-called township of security guards in Yekaterinburg. After the devastation of the Second World War, aesthetic concerns receded as attention turned to reconstruction. A turning point arrived in 1955, when the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a resolution on eradicating excesses in design and construction. The practical implication was a national tilt toward sober, massive, inexpensive, and plainly typical forms. In large cities, occasional buildings displayed architectural grace, but in smaller towns and provincial settlements, remarkable design often remained elusive.
Guides today encourage looking not only at buildings but at the spaces around them, including thoughtfully composed sculptures. How does a typical provincial town function? At its center sits a square framed by the administration building, and, if the historical core is fortunate, a temple, a handful of old mansions, perhaps a covered market, a fire tower, and several streets that carry the patina of history. The revolutionary period left its marks in brick and stone, followed by rows of microdistricts housing the generations of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev—each era contributing its own layer to the urban story.
A recent visit to Palekh, famed for its lacquer miniatures, provided a concrete example. Palekh began as a center for painting icons, but demand for iconography during the Soviet era was tepid. Artists then shifted to decorative chests and boxes, drawing inspiration from Fedoskino, and the Palekh school gained international recognition for its refinement. Yet beyond the emblematic Exaltation of the Cathedral of the Cross, built in the late eighteenth century with community funding, very little in Palekh looked architecturally remarkable. The visit nonetheless highlighted an ambitious, experimental spirit that persisted despite economic constraints.
Several years ago, the Moscow design bureau Strelka undertook a modernization effort in three towns in the Ivanovo region—Yuryevets, Kineshma, and Palekh. The project aimed to shape public space rather than to plan new development. The result was a visible but modest transformation, constrained by cost and the inertia of large settlements. Palekh stood out as a village where artists live and work, leaving hope for more dramatic changes in the future.
Upon arriving at Palekh, one encounters a grand square surrounding a cathedral, a fountain, and benches set within carefully pruned greenery. A map points visitors toward workshops, a museum, a shop, a cafe, and restrooms. A central park is outlined on the plan, boasting tall lindens, trimmed lawns, children’s playgrounds, and a repurposed Culture House with Scandinavian-style workshops on the periphery. The prevailing sentiment among residents, who feel the city invested 95 million rubles, is that the budget is insufficient for meaningful transformation.
Yet the friction between Strelka’s architectural ambitions and the Palekhans’ practical concerns is evident. Local residents prioritize usability and economy—functional playgrounds, robust trees, and simple, durable surfaces over ornate details. They prefer wide lanterns to deter vandalism and tiling or even brick pathways to improve accessibility, with a strong skepticism toward granite chips that prove hard to maintain. The result is a park that looks impressive, yet its impact on daily life remains mixed. In Palekh, as in many small towns, the goal of public space is assessed through the lens of practicality rather than spectacle.
The deeper question concerns social habits: what do residents actually want from public space after decades of cultural and political shifts? In a place where the public sphere has often revolved around fairs, trades, taverns, and occasional entertainment, the sense of a shared, everyday outdoor life has not naturally persisted. The local anecdote about Ostrovsky’s words—describing a boulevard that is built yet rarely walked—echoes in Palekh and in neighboring towns. Even with new cafes and cultural centers, the habit of gathering in public spaces remains uneven, with life often oriented toward tourism rather than local community use.
In Yuzha, located about 30 kilometers away and recognized as one of the poorer cities in the region, Strelka’s influence did not arrive in full. The central spine of the city is the old textile factory, a red brick monstrosity once owned by the Shuya merchant Asigkrit Balin, towering along the shore of Lake Vazal. Closed since 2009, access to its interior is blocked by high walls. A federal program launched in 2019 aimed to revitalize Lenin Square, the lakefront, and surrounding spaces with piers, benches, bike paths, lighting, greenery, and video surveillance. The plan also called for re-purposing abandoned workshops as spaces for tourism and creative workshops, funded with substantial federal and regional support. In practice, the outcome has been uneven; some improvements exist, but much remains unfinished.
During a summer visit to Yuzha, the fountain and playground at Lenin Square stood out, yet the coastal transformation did not meet expectations. A walk across a bridge revealed a different reality: derelict and overgrown walls, with the waterfront largely inaccessible. The efforts to develop the area had to contend with vandalism, budget constraints, and competing priorities. What remains clear is that gentrification in these spaces is fragile and uneven, with some upgrades persisting while others fade away.
Today, roughly five thousand people call Palekh home, and around twelve thousand reside in Yuzha. For many residents, a fully activated public realm remains elusive. The idea of a maple-lined promenade or a dignity-filled promenade that feels simultaneously alive and manageable is still distant. The money exists in pockets, but the drive to convert plans into sustainable everyday life has not fully materialized.
The Soviet era left a lasting imprint on local initiative and the texture of memory, limiting the sense of beauty and tactile connection to the past. The result is a landscape where abandoned barracks, vacant lots, and neglected industrial zones speak as much as any monument about what happened—before and after. In the last three decades, the deeper realities of daily life have undergone only modest change, as successive generations navigate the same structural forces that shaped them.
The remarks presented here reflect one person’s viewpoint and may diverge from official editorial positions or other perspectives.