What did a Russian/Soviet village look like in the war years?

[Uriah]

What did a Russian/Soviet village look like in the war years?

 

I love the sense of being there and going places I have never been,  even if just in a game or google earth.

 

I think the developers have done a super job on the the buildings look in a village.  The detail of snow and the wood fences and the water wells are top notch.    But I am just curious,  Is that the way a Russian village looked as far as the placement of buildings and what appears to be blocks and a house with a 'yard' that seems like a quarter acre in size?

 

Rather trivia as this is a flight sim. 

 

Regardless, who ever among the devs have done all this work deserves that some kind of jeep or convertible car be added to the game so we can drive around and look at all the marvelous work done on the buildings and such.

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

We had a thread about this a while back. The type of villages we are seeing are the "kolkhoz" type farms, a type of village specifically set up for regulated collective farming. Each little square was basically like the next one, and the squares were fairly evenly lined up. Here's a shot of a satellite photo the developers posted to show what they are looking to create:

 

[w1tek]

I think the village looks reliably, about my town the old village look like in game with only a few difference

Edited February 8, 2014 by w1tek

[Uriah]

Interesting.  I would not have thought there would have been that many changes from before collectivization until 1943.  America was a departure in that the farm house and buildings were out 'on their own' as opposed to what I know of the German style where all the farmers lived together in town and each morning drove their horses and tractors out to the fields.  I think British model was more like the German model but I have not read anything one way of the other.  I have no clue on other countries.  

 

As far as Soviet Russia is concerned I am surprised at the size of the family house.  I kind of thought the Soviets would have had most people living in apartment building type of housing rather than the more individual plots.   

[DD_Arthur]

Uriah; soviet collectivization of agriculture was an utter disaster from which the Soviet Union never recovered - right up to 1990!  We'll never know the exact figures but around ten million people died as a result of famine and.....terror.  

 

Collectivisation took place at a tremendous pace and by 1941 over 90% of soviet agriculture was encompassed by it.  I think the devs have done a good job on what we've seen so far.

 

Where on earth did you get the idea that German or British farmers all lived together in towns and drove out to their fields in the morning?  I am laugh.

[w1tek]

All families in the rural settings had their small individual plot  of land (approximately 30x 100 meters) where they cultivated some vegetables (potato and others), and also peasants had to work in the kolkhoz (soviet farm), working on the koikhoz paid products. 

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

 the German style where all the farmers lived together in town and each morning drove their horses and tractors out to the fields.  I think British model was more like the German model  

 

The style with the houses of a number of families collected in a village, surrounded by fields hails back to Medieval times. By putting up a wall or at least a palisade, the village becomes a makeshift fortress. This type of villages were common where bandits, wild animals and marauding armies were (and in some places still are) a problem. In less populated areas, and in areas where other considerations were more important, villages/farmland took other forms. I believe the Russians had experienced enough trouble in the past to have a tradition for the Central European style villages, and I would guess the Kolkhoz-villages were an adaptation of the traditional villages to the Communist ideal.

 

Lots of other places had non-village farmland, in Sweden and Norway for example, you will find single farms surrounded by their fields.

[w1tek]

The kolkhoz-villages is not exist, all peasants lived in the same villages in which their  ancestors lived many years ago, when combined several villages - formed collective farm (kolkhoz)  of course I can only write about the locality where I live 

Edited February 9, 2014 by w1tek

[Uriah]

So for the most part the villages of 1943 Russian were pretty much the same as in 1918.  Right?

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

So for the most part the villages of 1943 Russian were pretty much the same as in 1918.  Right?

 

New villages were built to the kolkhoz specification, older villages that were not razed in the revolution or later fighting remained as they were. It was a large effort at agriculturization in the Soviet, so that a lot of land was cutivated and built up kolkhoz ztyle, particularly around Stalingrad. Other parts of Russia saw a less strict line, and some villages still show the line-up of traditional fence lines combined with kolkhoz-style similar sized plots, like this village outside Moscow (modern photo):

 

Edited February 9, 2014 by 79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer

[w1tek]

I never heard about kolhoz stile villages, I think if village was destroyed during the civil war or ww2, the village restored(people who remained alive) at the former place

[w1tek]

Uriah, yes I think the village is almost not changed by 1943, but I cant say exactly, because not studied minutely this question 

Edited February 9, 2014 by w1tek

[andyw248]

If you look at aerials of Russian villages through google or bing maps, specifically in the Volga and Don regions, they show single family houses with small yards, just like in the game.