Soviet time capsule

This Ukranian website, maintained by the daughter of a scientist working at the Chernobyl nuclear site, shows what the "dead zone" around Chernobyl looks like today.

The Soviets built an entire city, "Pripyat", in 1970 to house the workers. Presumably this was about as good as it got in the old USSR, complete with amusement park. (Makes you wonder if the Soviets had a "Ministry of Fun" which built stuff like this, desperately trying to keep up with the peoples' pent-up demand for the amusement parks, video games and rock music of the decadent West.)

The entire city was evacuated on 27 April 1986, several days after the Chernobyl meltdown, and now it provides a fascinating glimpse at what the workers' paradise looked like. The most notable thing about Pripyat? No houses. Everybody lived in massive apartment blocks, presumably because private land ownership was taboo - and also because it was easier to keep an eye on everyone who lived within.

We complain about suburbs and new housing developments all the time, on the premise that they're evidence of the stifling confirmity thrust upon us by The Man. Well, I grew up in a suburban housing development - Power's Pond in Mt. Pearl, Newfoundland - and I can tell you that no two houses looked alike - except in the areas containing public low-cost housing.

Make of that what you will.

The difference between capitalism and communism is the difference between Three Mile Island, where word of a relatively small radiation leak got out immediately, and Chernobyl, where the government tried to cover up a massive meltdown for days after it happened. The respective death tolls: 0 and over 100,000.

All the free health care in the world didn't even begin to make up for communism's death toll.

(via Frozen in Montreal)

Posted by damian at March 6, 2004 09:50 AM