The barrel houses officially called ‘all-metal unified housing block’ were born in the late 1970s. Conceived as a temporary shelter for workers and resistant to the freezing conditions of the Far North. However, they still have their residents today. What do they look like?
The Far North is a resource-rich part of Russia, but characterised by harsh weather conditions. Cold and snowy winters make the region sparsely populated. Its inhabitants are mostly the remnants of former industrial enterprises that provided jobs and earnings higher than the average for the country as a whole. In addition to standard blocks of flats, temporary housing infrastructure was built next to the factories. The barrel houses are an example.
The barrel houses were designed with the Baikal-Amur mainline workers in mind. Their advantage was their lightweight and easily transportable construction. They were built as modular and transported ready to their destination. The rounded shape is no accident. Thanks to the rounded shape, snow did not pile up on the roof, which was important in Siberian snow blizzards. Barrel houses had another advantage – they held heat better, and in frosts as low as -45 degrees Celsius, they provided 16 degrees of warmth inside. Much more than wooden barracks. The barrel houses were designed to be combined into larger units that used a single boiler room.
The production of the houses was handled by the Sokolski wood processing plant. The design of the houses was developed by Alexander Grigorievich Nikulchev and Sergei Viktorovich Kamolovo, based on barrels created for transporting liquids on goods trains. Referred to as ‘tsubiks’, the structures are 2.5m high.
The interior of the facility was divided into several zones and modules leaving the factory had a hallway with a heating boiler and drying room, kitchen, shower, toilet, room-dining room and room with sleeping accommodation. A water tank was often installed in the upper part. The interior was finished with timber framing, designed with rounded walls in mind.
It should be recalled that the barrel houses were built with workers in mind; their inhabitants were to rotate. Four people could live in one module. Over the years, it became apparent that the facilities were the answer to the housing shortage and still have their residents today. No longer contract workers, but long-term tenants. The structures, which are more than 40 years old, are already in a poor state of repair, and their residents would be happy to move to flats offering better conditions. The problem is cost. Barrel house tenants simply cannot afford to move.
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source: Current Time, Andromeda
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