Even Putin Cannot Interfere in the Architecture of Moscow City

OUR HOMES ARE VERY SPACIOUS

My First Job in Moscow was a Building Renovation Job:

When I first came to Moscow, the company I started working for had taken a renovation job in a building, so it was written as repair works in the contract. The year is 1995. But what we actually did was beyond repair. The thick outer brick walls of the building would be left and repaired, all other interior floors including the roof would be dismantled, and the building would be rebuilt with reinforced concrete floor slabs by making the necessary reinforced concrete column beam system from scratch. The old attic was empty. In addition, this place was to be built as an attic and used as a residence.

The building was a very old building and the floors were made of wood. It was very difficult to remove the thick, round wooden logs that supported the floors.

The reinforced concrete project was being prepared in Turkey at that time. Russian architects, on the other hand, prepared the principle project, gave it to the reinforced concrete designer, and were also preparing the detailed project. In the project, there would be a bank and various shops on the ground floor at the entrance level of the street, but the upper floors would be planned as residences.

The project was in the center of the city. Right next to the Kropotkinskaya metro exit. But we were staying at the camp, close to the ring road, in the prefabricated construction site facilities that were set up on time for a big project that the company had previously completed and had not yet been dismantled.

Since we were working every day, the days were only going in the morning between the construction site and the camp, and returning in the evening, I did not even have the opportunity to visit the city properly. Since I didn't speak Russian at that time, I preferred to rest in the camp on the days we were off. I'm talking about the first months I came to Moscow. We had everything in the camp, although the rooms were small, they were furnished with the maximum possible comfort, such as a bed, a closet, a desk. There is a big hall where we ate, and there is a TV showing Turkish channels, pool tables on one side, everything has been thought of to relieve the tiredness of the day. That's why I had not seen the interior of Russian houses yet in those days.

Not Houses, Apartments with Small Rooms:

Finally, the detailed architectural project came and I was very surprised when I examined it. The architect envisioned the flats from only small rooms, some with one room, some with two rooms, with a small kitchen, bathroom and toilet, a project with a total flat area not exceeding 25-35 m2 for single-rooms and 40-50 m2 for double-rooms. had prepared. There was not even a three-room apartment, let alone the living room.

Our employer, who was dealing with forestry, was building one half of the building for the state. This half will be allocated to artists, painters and sculptors. In this part, the situation was even worse. There is only one room, the kitchen is on one side of this room, the bathroom and toilet are also tiny, a maximum flat area of ​​20-25 m2. It was then that I saw the studio type apartment for the first time.

Yes, I experienced it myself when I left the camp and settled in the house. None of them have a living room, most of them do not have a balcony, only small small rooms, tiny, tiny, everywhere tiny, cramped. If a guest comes, you have to host them in the kitchen. Usually, a small table and stools placed in the corner in the kitchen are the only places to sit. Rooms are bedrooms. The days pass in the rooms. This situation has created a different culture. People perceive them better when they see them with their eyes.

Installation Systems in Russian Constructions:

We live very luxuriously in our country. More precisely, we do not have a clear standard, some of us live in spacious flats, and some of us live in a basement flat two or three floors below the coal mine. But there is a living room in almost every house where you can sit and watch TV together in the evenings. This is our culture.

Anyway, back to work. While dismantling the building, I was surprised by the existing heating system. The heating system was installed as a one-pipe system, a single-pipe entering and exiting the radiator, and continuing to the lower floor, there were no valves in the radiators. The system was circulating in itself, with different pipe thicknesses and different types of radiators, they distributed the heat evenly everywhere. When I was dismantling the old boiler room, I was surprised to see that there was no pump in the system. I had to disassemble everything one by one to understand how this system works. Since it was a central heating system, there was no boiler, I understood that, there were only two pipes for input and output, and valves. There was no pump, nothing electrical. When I removed the pipes, I saw that instead of the pump, a conical end like an adjustable hose end was attached to the inlet pipe to water the garden, the hot water circulation of the whole building was solved with the water gushing from this conical end. By calculating, of course, using the correct diameters. Hydraulics is a separate branch with us. Calculating the flow of water is not that easy, there are a lot of integral formulas.

We then installed a two-pipe heating system with a pump and a boiler room with heat exchanger as we know it, the usual heating system with valves on the radiators. Who will solve the hydraulic calculation for the building and prepare a single-pipe project so that it will be economical, we cannot even find an engineer who can do this calculation in Turkey, right?

But when the plumbing projects came, I was surprised once again. There were two hot water pipes, I immediately understood the reason, it was logical, the hot water was circulating to the apartments, when I turned on the fountain, the hot water flowed instantly. Since I'm a civil engineer, I wasn't that familiar with mechanical projects back then. When I came, our site supervisor went on leave to Turkey and left everything to me alone. A brand new culture, different engineering solutions, everything is surprising at first.

In most of our houses, you wait for a while for the hot water, first it runs cold for a while, then it gradually warms up. As far as I know, we also have a circulation line in newly built buildings, as far as I know, in old houses that I mentioned, if there is a central boiler room in old houses, hot water should always be delayed like this. If there is a water heater in the house, it will heat up faster, but it will still be a little delayed. Now, combi boilers are installed in old houses, I don't know if this problem remains. When I was little, there was no hot water system, there were wood-burning bath boilers under it, you would turn on the stove and wait until it warmed up. Besides, the stove would heat the bathroom, the bathroom would be warm. The situation has not changed in the houses with stoves, in our many distant cities and villages.

Even Battery Systems Are Different From Us:

One thing that caught my attention in the project was that a single, rotating tap with a long end was attached to both the tub and the sink in the bathroom. For some reason, we call it battery, the Russians have a more correct name in their own language, they call it "mixer". It's more logical. This faucet was also interesting to me. Instead of attaching a separate faucet to the sink and a separate faucet to the tub, the single rotating tap serves both. The sink and the tub are side by side, of course.

We met with the Russian architect later when the architectural works started, he started to come and go to the construction site, he was checking the works. As per the rules, the employer makes a separate contract with the project manager for field control. We got along well, the head was human, I was speaking in my half Russian back then, in his half English language. We worked together for a long time until the end of the project. Our friendship continued in the following years. You learned well, he was saying Russian in your last days. Unfortunately he is now deceased.

In our conversations, I asked these questions in my mind, why do they use a single battery in the bathroom, for example, he said it says so in the norms, the norms were from the time of large-scale housing construction with the state program, Nikita Khrushchev was one of the heads of state in the Soviet period, as they defined, the party secretary. Moscow is covered with 5-storey buildings built at that time. All typical, similar to each other. In order to give everyone a house where they can live at that time, a state program was prepared, they calculated the cost of each nail and wrote it to the norms. But I said that you are making the hot water line with a circulation pipe, when I asked if that is not comfort, those who write the norms know it, and he said that it is required by the norm.

They also foresee human needs in the norms, and the buildings to be economical. Now they are changing the old norms, they have adapted to the capitalist world order for a while, now they have ignored the economy in the norms. The effect of the capitalist order on the search for a consumer society also recurred in Russia.

Even Putin Cannot Interfere in the Architecture of the City:

I am not an architect, but I love architecture, we had a good conversation with him about Russian architecture, and I learned a lot of information. For example, drawing the exterior view of the building from the street in perspective and processing it on a photograph taken from that point and getting approval from the city architect were the prerequisites of the project. Every city has a city architect. Even Putin cannot interfere with Moscow's, probably not himself. It was necessary to make these perspective images from several points, especially from squares and road intersections. The city architect was looking at the harmony of the new building with the surrounding buildings, whether the number of floors of the building is appropriate, and its harmony with the city. If the new building you built in Moscow covers any historical or important building, the city architect may sometimes even want fewer floors on that side of the new building, but he approves. It was then that I understood why it was such a beautiful city. I commemorate the deceased with respect.

Yes, what is the situation with us? It seems that we have failed in the class in terms of city architecture, and we live much more spaciously and luxuriously in the apartments we live in. We live in two-bedroom and one living room flats of minimum 75-80 m2, or three-room and one-room flats of 90-100 m2. All are wide. Heating is now with a combi boiler in most of the big cities. I don't know if there are any houses with fuel-oil or coal-fired boilers. Maybe it would be too economical for us to put a single faucet in the bathroom like the Russians, but at least I wanted to know that our houses are very large and spacious.

Moscow was established in an area as big as a quarter of Istanbul:

Not only in Russia, but in many other countries, in France, England, Germany, Japan, China, Korea, I think in many other countries people live in very small houses. It is both cheaper to heat and the cost of construction. Saving both on the area the building sits on, and because more people are fit into a smaller area than ours, saving on the size of the city, saving on its streets and streets.

Sometimes we talk with friends, how do 13 million people fit in a circle with a diameter of 40 km. Istanbul is 16 million but it is almost 270 km from one end to the other, let's say it is 135 km at half the density. Maybe it is a little narrower in width, it is in the Bosphorus, 35 km, that is, we have settled in a much larger area than Moscow. Small residences are probably an important factor in Moscow being a smaller settlement. Even though its settlement is smaller, Moscow is a greener city than Istanbul, with plenty of forests and parks.

I would like to say their rents are low, but even though the flats are small, their rents are very high, and it probably varies according to the purchasing power of each country.

Housing prices and rents have increased a lot in our country recently, because of the high cost of living and inflation in the country. Also, the wrong policy, the house price limit that was raised to distribute citizenship was also a factor. But as I said, we live in really spacious houses.

The State Should Have a Housing Policy in Turkey:

I think it is possible to deal with this issue as a state policy and to build much more affordable housing for those in need, at least with low income levels.

It doesn't matter if the houses are small, it is also experienced in the small house, I have experienced it myself over the years, you get used to it. It is enough to have a house to live like a human, it is enough to have water, hot water, electricity, natural gas and heating.

In addition, these infrastructures, which are the basic conditions of living like a human, should be cheap, and if necessary, they should be cheap with government support. Let there be central heating, hot water from the central system. Everyone has the right to have a roof over their head.

It is written in our constitution that we are a social state, article 2 of the Constitution, I think it should be the main duty of the state to ensure this. Instead of giving loans with installments that cannot be paid, the government should think about how to build more affordable housing, we all need to think together.

I think the one who makes that promise wins the election. Sorry, this was promised before, right, one of our prime ministers said, vote for this sister, you have two keys in your pocket. I think one of the keys was for the car and the other for the apartment. Let's say he tried to do something with good intentions. I guess his vision wasn't enough. I will not comment.

Conclusion:

Anyway, our main subject is the need for housing, how can we provide a house where everyone can lay their heads, we had to think about it all together, something is being done, but it is very insufficient. The subject turns into a rent issue, we are in the business of building luxury residences. We should do the maximum we can by keeping the need in mind, not for the sake of rent, but for people, as a social state. It's not too late yet.

If Russia was such a cold country, life is so hard, and managed to find a way with only its own resources when it was such a cold country, life was so hard, when its doors were closed with the whole world, when it was fried in its own oil, we are famous for its construction companies, intelligent, hardworking, As a nation of high character and such a large country, such a large economy, we can do quite well.

As long as the responsible staff in the administration are aware that they are sitting in those seats to serve the public. Instead of dealing with other things, let them come up with ideas and find a solution to the housing problem.

I say that an idea is an idea. If anyone wants an idea, this is the solution, small but cheap housing, by planning correctly, by the state, with a state organization.

That's about it for now. If anyone has any other ideas for a solution, I'd be happy to listen.

Love and regards from Moscow.