Khrushchyovka

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Khrushchyovka are Soviet era apartment blocks. They were designed to be cheaply and quickly built and intended to give every Soviet citizen a home. They were constructed very shoddily. The apartments were small and had low ceilings with poor wiring and plumbing. They were up to five stories tall and had no elevators. They are ubiquitous, and falling apart, across the area of the old Soviet Union. 

I was amused by the East German toy above. It was their version of a sort of Lego blocks, but from the looks of it all you could do with it was to stack square apartments to make Khrushchyovkas. That seems about right.  

Immediately below is what I assume was marketing for the new housing. Following that are some pictures of the interiors of the apartments. They were small and cramped.

   

Drone flight through the Grand Palais

The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées is a historic exhibition hall in Paris. It features extensive glass domed ceilings and elaborate ironwork.

Egads, what an eyesore

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While I was, for no good reason, searching the web for the world's ugliest building I came upon the monstrosity above -- the SBS building in Melbourne's Federation Square. From comments online the whole square is a mess, but the SBS building pretty much takes the cake.

The frightening thought is this apparently went through some sort of a committee to pick the design. What were they thinking?

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