Why after the blockade of Leningrad in the city there was an apartment confusion and a shortage of housing

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

During the war, when even human life ceases to be valued, what can we say about such nonsense as property. Even if we are talking about an apartment, even if an apartment is in Leningrad. The confusion that arose in the besieged city with housing, when he began to return to life again, gave rise to a lot of controversy. People who lost their homes often moved into empty apartments, and then the real owners returned. Often, house management independently decided where and in what apartment those who returned home after the blockade was lifted.

The writer who was to become famous and famous - Viktor Astafiev went to the front one of the first, and as a volunteer. Only women remained at home - mother, elder sister and niece. At that time, no one had any idea that the share of these three women would be tested no less than Victor himself.

After it became known that Leningrad was surrounded by the Germans, Afanasyev lost contact with his family. Only from the military report did he find out what was happening in the city, where his close women remained. When, after the war, he returned to the apartment in which he lived, it turned out that there were strangers living there. He barely made it to his hometown, because his hometown had changed beyond recognition.

The door was opened by an unfamiliar girl who, seeing the stranger, called her mother, a strange woman came out. The confused Victor barely said: "I am Astafiev, is my mother at home?" The woman answered him that the Astafievs no longer live here. However, the former owner of the apartment was allowed inside, fed with dinner and told about how the city lives now. The woman and her daughter were displaced, they found an empty apartment and occupied themselves - there was simply nowhere to go - their house was destroyed during the bombing. The house management allowed them to stay. Now Astafyev himself was superfluous here …

The writer had no choice but to contact the house management for assistance in finding housing.

Decrease in housing stock

The blockade and war caused enormous damage to the city, a third of the housing stock was destroyed, more than 800 buildings that belonged to industrial enterprises, most of the medical institutions, half of the schools. Light, heat and water were extremely limited resources.

Konstantin Govorushkin, a veteran of the Kirovsky plant, said in his memoirs that by the end of the blockade it was already clear that in a few days the enemy would be pushed back from the approaches to the city. Therefore, the workers began to actively restore production. Just before the start of the war, the stamp shop was rebuilt, later the equipment for safety was taken out beyond the Urals, and by the end of the blockade they began to be brought back.

Each machine was expensive and they were taken care of like the apple of an eye, out of 2, 5 thousand machines that were not taken to evacuation, only 500 remained intact. Among them was the "Linder" - the only one of its kind, by the way, of German production. They treated him with particular care, but as soon as they brought him to the shop, they began shelling from the air. The guys, instead of scattering, rushed to defend the brought machine, the shell hit right into the stamp shop, leaving a huge funnel. When the shelling ended, the workers concluded, they say, well, thanks, but you won't have to dig a hole for the foundation.

This situation largely characterizes the general mood that reigned in the destroyed city. The desire of people to return to normal life again was enormous, and it gave strength to live and work with tripled energy. People of all specialties, after their main job, put things in order in the city, participated in construction sites, dismantled rubble, and simply planted flowers!

Meanwhile, there was an acute shortage of housing in the city, and it was not only the shelling that was to blame. Left without utilities, the townspeople had to somehow warm up in winter, cook on something, since there was no heating, no gas, or electricity. The siege troops were dismantling wooden houses for firewood, which is why many returning from evacuation had nowhere to go.

To a peaceful life

in 1944 more than 400 thousand people returned to the city, and in 1945 more than 550 thousand. However, nothing happened uncontrollably. The NKVD officers kept the situation under control, allowing the return of specialists who were summoned to work at the enterprise, or those townspeople whose housing was preserved and this was confirmed. With the rest, the issue was resolved individually, because the sudden flow of immigrants can have a detrimental effect on the situation in the city, which has just begun to recover.

However, the restoration of the housing stock went by leaps and bounds, only in 44-45 years Leningraders on their own were able to restore more than one and a half million square meters of housing, two hundred schools, dozens of kindergartens. However, there was another problem - the apartments continued to be heated with stoves.

At the same time, the trial of embrasures began, this happened after the war, in 1946. This is evidenced by newspaper archives, in which they write that the embrasure along Vladimirsky Prospekt and the barricades in the Kirovsky district have been dismantled. The captured Germans also took part in the work. Everyone knew about this, because they had to literally work side by side with those against whom they had recently fought.

However, the construction was only the tip of the iceberg, because building materials were needed, and all production was in a forced stop. Already in 1943, a decision was made to create a plant for the production of building materials. By this time, out of 17 brick factories in Leningrad, 15 were not working. Despite all attempts to resume the activity of factories and factories, mainly what was under the rubble of destroyed buildings was used for the construction and repair of buildings.

In the footsteps of city commissions

In May 1945, after the war was officially over, a commission was held in Leningrad to determine the damage caused and outline the scope of work. It was this commission that ruled that the long absence of heating and water had a detrimental effect on plumbing and heating systems, literally making them unusable. There was almost complete destruction of a cultural enterprise.

More than two hundred stone houses, almost 2 thousand wooden houses were completely destroyed, 6, 5 thousand stone and 700 wooden ohms were damaged. Almost 10 thousand wooden houses were dismantled for firewood. If we translate these numbers into people who once lived here, even taking into account the fact that many simply did not live to see the Victory, then hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless.

Even during the siege of the city, residents were in constant fear of losing their homes, constant shelling and bombing, fires destroyed one house after another. During the next raid, fleeing to the nearest bomb shelter, residents could not know if they could return to the house or to its ruins. It is clear that in such conditions, no one especially watched over who and where lived and on what basis did it.

Families often moved to other people's apartments, which survived, but their owners did not. As a rule, this was done without any permission, without permission. Sometimes it was agreed with the local authorities, but more often it happened forcedly and everyone understood it.

The townspeople unauthorizedly changed the heating system, simply because there was no other way out. There was no need to wait for any help from utilities, whose work was paralyzed. Posters were hung around the city urging people to prepare for the second war winter on their own, namely to install a stove (made of bricks obtained from destroyed houses), clean the chimney, close up cracks, insert windows and glass. It was recommended to wrap the pipes with paper or tow so that they would not burst from frost. Moreover, such appeals were presented as a civic duty and obligation.

In the roofers, women and children

Restoration work in Leningrad was carried out constantly, the so-called patch repairs were carried out regularly, after each shelling they tried to quickly repair the roof so that there were no leaks - they would further destroy the already decreasing housing stock. There was no need to even think about attracting skilled workers or even adult men to such work - the city was full of only old people, women and children. This work fell on the shoulders of teenage boys and women. Real teams of roofers were created from boys of 14-15 years old.

Despite the fact that the restoration work in Leningrad was carried out in conditions of constant shelling, and it often happened that the newly renovated building was again destroyed after the bombing, the Leningraders did not give up. By the winter of 1943-44, most houses already had their own plumbing, and the power supply system was adjusted.

In cramped quarters and a little offended

In the first months after the end of the war, it was possible to enter the city only with passes. To enter the city, you had to be able to prove that your relatives were waiting for you there or at work. This was done due to the catastrophic shortage of housing. For a long time, many evacuees did not have the opportunity to return, since the large losses of the housing stock, the war and the front line that was nearby, the consequences of the blockade - all this made the city very difficult for life, even taking into account the military conditions in which the whole country was located.

Realizing that the homes of those who were evacuated to distant areas are already occupied, the authorities make such an ambiguous decision to restrict entry to their hometown. Housing was reserved for the military, according to a government decree, as well as for scientists and artists who were in the occupation. They could return without restrictions.

In addition, the restriction of entry into the city gave time to somewhere to restore the housing stock, somewhere to resolve the issue of placing those returning in manual mode. The latter meant the use of the reserves of the available living space. The norms of housing and sanitary requirements were even revised. So, if earlier one person should have had 9 square meters of housing, then in 1944 this standard was reduced to 6 square meters. The surplus, however, had to be withdrawn.

How to remove "extra" square meters? Of course, by adding new tenants to the apartment. It was not accepted to object. So, if, for example, a family of 4 lived in a standard kopeck piece of 42-45 square meters, then one more family could well be added to them. Although even at this time Leningrad was considered a city of communal apartments and there was already a shortage of housing in it.

The communal apartments were almost a symbol of Leningrad, a city that overnight became a place of attraction for a huge number of people. The elegance of creative Petersburg coexisted with the spirit of the socialist revolution. There are still a lot of communal apartments created in elegant houses and huge apartments of the nobility, from which the communists took away their homes and adapted it for the needs of the working class. Such a combination of the incongruous, when dozens of strangers huddled in a building of classical architecture with huge ceilings and graceful windows, has become habitual.

Therefore, the situation that arose in the city after the lifting of the blockade, with housing, when families lived in communal apartments, did not surprise anyone, rather it was in the spirit of the times and especially the city. Indeed, immediately after the overthrow of the tsar in St. Petersburg, the housing issue arose sharply, the villagers strove to the cities, young people went there for new perspectives and the construction of socialism. In addition, after general collectivization, the standard of living in the villages has declined markedly.

The renaming of the city to Leningrad only increased its attractiveness in the eyes of internal migrants, who saw it as a hotbed of the socialist revolution and went there to build socialism. Once large apartments of nobles became communal apartments, most often one family lived in one room, and the total number of rooms in the apartment was from three to ten.

General Soviet problem

The situation with housing in Leningrad after the blockade, on the one hand, escalated due to the fact that many residential buildings were destroyed, on the other hand, on the contrary, the population decreased significantly during the blockade. Therefore, it can be argued that the state of affairs has not changed significantly. Rather, it was a confusion over property issues that could be resolved relatively painlessly. In addition, in the post-revolutionary period, there was an acute shortage of housing in almost all cities.

Immediately after the revolution, the population poured into the cities. So, in a little over ten years, starting in 1926, 18.5 million inhabitants of villages and villages left for the cities. At that time, the term "self-sealing" was introduced, in other words, housing was less comfortable, but for everyone. However, especially diligent communists could be “rewarded” with large and spacious apartments. In the same Leningrad, after 1935, many good-quality apartments were vacated, whose former owners were repressed, almost all of their living space was distributed to the NKVD officers.

It is likely that in the country of the Soviets they planned to solve this issue, but the war changed plans. The life of the country was literally divided into before and after, migration flows changed, the number of population decreased - people died in the war. But the enterprises needed workers, so the cities were populated again as densely as possible.

Of course, the urban population was replenished at the expense of the rural population, because for the government, industry was much more important than agriculture. This was most noticeable in Leningrad, after the end of the blockade, the city experienced a hunger in specialists and personnel, whom they decided to recruit from all over the country: 30 thousand production workers and 18 thousand rural youth came to raise the industry of Leningrad.

The arrived specialists settled in empty houses (and where else?), However, over time, those who had to leave their houses and soldiers, after demobilization, also returned. All of them found that the best apartments were already occupied by visiting workers, who, of course, seized the opportunity, chose the best options for themselves.

Those who returned from the evacuation and did not find their home were queuing up for housing, there were thousands of such families. However, Leningraders strenuously built new and restored destroyed houses. It bore fruit. If by the end of the war there were 1.2 million people in the city, then by 1959 it returned to the pre-war 2.9 million people, and then exceeded them - in 1967, already 3.3 million people lived in Leningrad.