Residential Development in the Coal Mining Districts of the Kuznetsk Basin in 1930–1932

Abstract

The article features the problem of residential development that migrant workers had to face in the mining districts of the Kuznetsk Basin during the first five-year plan. The author identified the causes of the housing crisis in the early 1930s that forced many independent miners to abandon mining enterprises. The paper describes the agenda taken by the central government authorities of Donbass and Kuzbass in order to provide miners with housing. It focuses on the types of housing in the Kuznetsk Coal Basin according to the method of production and building patterns, including communal houses. Prefabricated standard wooden constructions made it possible to build a lot of houses in a relatively short period of time. The main mistakes included a poor material base, limited workforce, and a shortage of building materials. As a result, the initial construction program was never fulfilled. The research focused on the residential development of the coal mining town of Prokopyevsk, its types of dwellings, the number of citizens involved in mining provided with state-owned housing, and the average housing space per capita. Thanks to the housing commissioned, the housing stock was significantly increased in the coal industry in general, and, more particularly, in the Kuzbassugol coal mining trust. The extensive residential development was not aimed at improving the living conditions of miners and their families but at binding migrants to their mines in order to meet the coal-mining program of the first five-year plans.