SOVIET MONOPROFILE CITIES: THE STORY BEHIND AND KEY FEATURES

Abstract

The paper features the reasons, as well as the fundamental principles that led to the mass phenomenon of single-industry industrial cities – first, during the first (Stalin) wave of industrialization in the USSR, and then, during the second (Khrushchev) wave of Soviet industrialization. The goal is to prove that this type of settlements is a unique phenomenon, because the economic and political system was unique: they emerged within the framework of strictly specific programs for the implementation of industrial, resettlement, town-planning, housing, and migration policies. Moreover, the Soviet urbanization in itself was a very specific phenomenon of completely artificial nature, since there was nothing natural in settlements erected by order around newlybuilt industrial enterprises. The research employs the methods of comparative and critical analysis. The field of application is the Russian history, the history of Soviet urban planning, political science, and municipal government. Conclusions: Soviet mono-profile cities were the brainchild of the socio-political, industrial, economic, and command-administrative system shaped by the Soviet government. In the period of industrialization, they functioned as production and technological centers, as well as administrative and territorial areas, acting as key nuclei of the settlement system, and later in the 1970s, as elements of community systems within agglomerations.

Keywords

• monoprofile city
• industrialization
• city-forming enterprise
• resettlement
• forced migrations