Majority of pre-revolutionary buildings stays present in the largest cities of Russian empire.

Total floor area of preserved buildings

Saint-Petersburg (46 mln m²)
Moscow (21 mln m²)
Nizhny Novgorod (2,5 mln m²)
Samara (2,3 mln m²)
Rostov-on-Don (2 mln m²)
Astrakhan (1,9 mln m²)
Saratov (1,7 mln m²)
Kazan (1,7 mln m²)

In St. Petersburg, every 6th square meter of real estate was constructed before 1917.

In Astrakhan and Vladikavkaz, it's almost every tenth square meter.

Share of pre-revolutionary buildings

Saint-Petersburg (17%)
Astrakhan (8%)
Vladikavkaz (8%)
Kaliningrad (6%) **
Tomsk (5%)
Taganrog (5%)
Kostroma (5%)
Rostov-on-Don (4%)
Saratov (4%)

** The pre-revolutionary development in Kaliningrad refers to everything constructed before the end of the First World War and the revolution in Germany.

You can still feel the spirit of pre-revolutionary Russia most strongly in places where the urban environment has been preserved the most, rather than individual buildings.

The number of buildings within a radius of 100 meters from which 75% of the constructions were built before 1917.

Saint-Peterburg (11 000)
Moscow (4500)
Nizhny Novgorod (900)
Samara (600)
Astrakhan (500)
Kaliningrad (400)
Kazan (400)
Yaroslavl (350)
Tula (300)

A few years after the 1917 revolution, the era of the Soviet city began in Russia. In the 1920s, mass housing construction had not yet started due to economic reasons, but architecture in the style of constructivism was taking place in the capitals and growing industrial centers. Constructivism was gaining popularity in Europe after World War I, especially in the USSR and Germany.

Ivanovo and Yekaterinburg took the third and fifth places in the ranking - cities whose avant-garde heritage is attracting increasing tourist interest nowadays. Kaliningrad remains in fourth place, where active housing construction took place during the Weimar Republic years. Nizhny Novgorod, ranked seventh, is known for its large worker settlements that emerged during this period.

Total floor area of preserved buildings

Moscow (7,6 mln m²)
Saint-Petersburg (1,8 mln m²)
Ivanovo (900 K m²)
Kaliningrad (810 K m²)
Yekaterinburg (800 K m²)
Rostov-on-Don (670 K m²)
Nizhny Novgorod (660 K m²)

It is important to remember that the values provided do not reflect the actual volume of construction in these years, as the data show the number of preserved buildings. At the same time, the number of subsequently demolished buildings is unknown.

Post-revolutionary development still accounts for a significant share only in two cities: Ivanovo and Kaliningrad. Next is Taganrog, where in the 1920s, numerous individual estate houses appeared, followed by Moscow and Rostov-on-Don.

Share of floor area of 1920s buildings

Kaliningrad (4%)
Ivanovo (4%)
Taganrog (2%)
Moscow (1,5%)
Rostov-on-Don (1,5%)

During this decade, architecture in cities saw a return to classical motifs, marking the transformation of the avant-garde into a post-constructivist style and the Empire style during Stalin's rule. During these years, the most buildings were erected in Moscow, where the reconstruction of the city center began, as well as in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod – a major industrial center of the USSR in the 1930s. Novosibirsk appears on the diagrams for the first time, as its active growth began precisely during this period of history.

A considerable portion of these buildings in non-capital cities is comprised not only of beautiful buildings but also of wooden one- and two-story residential barracks.


Total floor area

Moscow (18 mln m²)
Saint-Petersburg (7,8 mln m²)
Nizhny Novgorod (4,6 mln m²)
Novosibirsk (1,8 mln m²)
Yekaterinburg (1,3 mln m²)
Samara (1,3 mln m²)

Early Stalinist architecture still largely defines the appearance of the city centers of Nizhny Novgorod (more than 5%), Arkhangelsk, Ivanovo, Ulan-Ude, Moscow, and Murmansk. In Taganrog, in the 1930s, estate-style houses were still being actively constructed.

Share of 1930s buildings

Nizhny Novgorod (6%)
Arkhangelsk (5%)
Ulan-Ude(4%)
Taganrog (4%)
Ivanovo (4%)
Murmansk (3%)
Moscow (3%)
Saint-Petersburg (3%)

Late Stalinist architecture constitutes more than 10% of the buildings in Magnitogorsk and Nizhny Tagil – major industrial centers in the Urals. Also in the top ten are Volgograd, Novokuznetsk, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Ivanovo, Petrozavodsk, Bryansk, and Kemerovo.


Share of buildings from 1940 to 1956

Magnitogorsk (11%)
Nizhny Tagil (10,5%)
Volgograd (10%)
Novokuznetsk (8%)
Samara (7%)
Chelyabinsk (6%)
Ivanovo (6%)
Petrozavodsk (6%)
Bryansk (6%)
Kemerovo (6%)
Taganrog (6%)
Voronezh (6%)

Over the 26-year period (1930-1956), the largest amount of Stalinist architecture in Russia can be found in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Perm, Chelyabinsk, and Omsk. This era came to an end with the adoption of the decree "On the Elimination of Excesses in Design and Construction" in 1955.

The next era, the Khrushchev era, gave Russian cities a type of building whose name is known to every inhabitant of the country from childhood - Khrushchevkas. As expected, there are the most of such buildings in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Among the top five leaders are also Nizhny Novgorod (where the Gorky method – people's construction – originated in 1957), Perm, and Yekaterinburg. Today, Khrushchyovka construction occupies the largest share in cities whose industrial power grew in the 1960s - in Novokuznetsk, Volgograd, Tula, and Nizhny Tagil.


Share of buildings from 1957 to 1964

Novokuznetsk (17%)
Volgograd (15%)
Tula (14%)
Nizhny Tagil (14%)
Murmansk (12%)
Magnitogorsk (12%)
Sterlitamak (12%)
Kemerovo (12%)

By the 1970s, the construction of multi-story buildings began. More than half of all construction in Murmansk consists of buildings from 1965 to 1985. A very high proportion is also found in Kurgan, Naberezhnye Chelny, Togliatti (both major late Soviet centers of automobile manufacturing, where a new modernist city-megadistrict emerged), Volzhsky, Arkhangelsk, Nizhny Tagil, and Vladimir.


Share of buildings from 1965 to 1985

Murmansk (54%)
Kurgan (46%)
Naberezhnye Chelny (45%)
Volzhsky (44%)
Arkhangelsk (42%)
Nizhny Tagil (41%)
Vladimir (40%)
Cherepovets (39%)

Post-Soviet construction, as expected, makes up gigantic shares in the mentioned cities. Particularly noteworthy are the cities where two out of three or every second square meter of real estate was built after 1991.

Share of buildings from 1991 to 2020

Krasnodar (75%)
Khimki (70%)
Balashikha (69%)
Sochi (68%)
Tyumen (66%)
Makhachkala (66%)
Stavropol (66%)
Yakutsk (64%)
Surgut (63%)
Novorossiysk (59%)
Kaliningrad (55%)
Podolsk (54%)
Kazan (54%)
Belgorod (52%)
Novosibirsk (51%)

Throughout this time, we've been looking at figures on urban development without distinguishing between types of buildings. This raises the question: in what types of buildings do most Russians live?

The majority of Russians live in multi-apartment buildings, the distribution of which by periods differs little from the overall figures for all buildings.

At the same time, there is an interesting exception of pre-revolutionary buildings. Almost every fifth square meter in the multi-apartment buildings of St. Petersburg was constructed before 1917. Such indicators are not even close in any other city in Russia (in Moscow, it's just slightly over one percent). In Astrakhan, Rostov-on-Don, and Vladikavkaz, almost 5% of housing is from the pre-revolutionary period. In Kaliningrad, the pre-war German residential stock (before 1945) collectively makes up more than 10%.
Share of living pre-revolutionary stock in total living floor area

Saint-Petersburg (17%)
Astrakhan (4%)
Rostov-on-Don (4%)
Vladikavkaz (4%)
Kaliningrad (3%)
Kostroma (3%)
Tomsk (3%)
Tambov (3%)
Makhachkala (2,5%)
Saratov (2,5%)
Chita (2,5%)
Samara (2,5%)

Our data is open and available for viewing on a map or for download. We hope that it will be useful to a wide audience and that many interesting insights can be catched from it, despite the presence of some inaccuracies.

The analysis in this article represents a preliminary examination, just an attempt to explore the dataset. It has its limitations and issues, which I have described in more detail in the article about the entire process of collection and processing.

I would be happy to receive comments and feedback!