THE Soviet Communists may have done a few things right back in the days when they ruled half the world.
That whole principle of a classless society wasn’t a bad idea, they sure knew how to build a monument, their soldiers always looked smart when they goose-stepped behind a convoy of intercontinental ballistic missiles during a parade, and making sure everyone had a job seemed to work.
But when it came to town planning the Commies were completely clueless.
In the past couple of days I have been travelling through three countries that used to sit behind the Iron Curtain, and the view is always the same as we approach a new city of big town.
The streets of the outer suburbs are lined with high-rise concrete boxes, bland apartment buildings that belong to the Stalinist or Functionalist school of design, with no architectural features other than the uniform rows of windows.
You don’t need much imagination to imagine these places back in the 1960s and 70s when snow covered the ground, old ladies who were rugged up against the cold would trudge home after a long day lined up to buy a few mouldy potatoes, and clapped-out Ladas would sit in the street.
And it’s the same all over this part of the world – from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to Czech, eastern German and Slovakia, one city looks much like the next when you cast an eye over the outer suburbs.
After 1989, when the Lenin’s Lads were banished to the history books and these countries adopted truth, justice and the American way, a new approach to town planning was adopted and the local government tried to pretty up these urban disasters by painting the towers brighter pastel shades.
I’m in Bratislava today, the capital of Slovakia and a city that was basically neglected when this part of the world was known as Czechoslovakia, and this settlement is so small that the Stalinist neighbourhoods are only a stone’s throw from the centre of town.
From a scenic spot in the grounds of Bratislava Castle visitors get a good view of the battery-chicken blocks as they look across the Danube and into Austria.
While these artefacts from Soviet sameness look uninviting, I’m told it’s a very different picture once you step inside.
The locals sign a lease for life when they move into one of these apartments, which lets them do anything they please to the dwelling which includes knocking down a wall, and they take great pride in creating luxurious and unique quarters for themselves.
It’s much easier to do these days, with an Ikea superstore on the outskirts of every city, and one can only imagine how good Communist citizens personalised their homes when the Cold War meant it was hard to secure even a regular supply of toilet paper.