I think you guys are probably recollecting two different kinds of buildings. You're probably thinking of one of those huge Khrushchev- or Breznev-era complexes in a dormitory region designed to handle the mass inflow of population to the cities. Dennis is I suspect thinking of either an older (Stalin-era) or newer (post-Gorbachev) neighborhood. Like my old one, which is indeed mostly green, with a big lake.
--- On Tue, 11/4/08, Wendy Lyon <wendy.lyon at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Wendy Lyon <wendy.lyon at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] A scary Halloween with Sarah Palin
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 8:17 AM
> On 04/11/2008, dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org>
> wrote:
> > On Sun, November 2, 2008 2:34 pm, Wendy Lyon wrote:
> >
> > > Have you *seen* the high-rises that ring Moscow?
> >
> > I visited some of those hi-rises, back during the
> Yeltsin years. Quite
> > comfortable, mostly, with lots of green space and
> mass transit.
>
> Well, they must have gone downhill since the Yeltsin years.
> The one I
> stayed in a few years ago (which wasn't Chris's;
> his was indeed much
> nicer) was just awful: tiny, cramped rooms, elevators that
> barely
> worked and reeked of piss, definitely not a lot of green
> space. Mass
> transit, I'll give you.
>
> We actually have a lot of similar buildings here in Dublin.
> They are
> universally agreed to be an experiment that failed and many
> have been
> demolished while others are scheduled to be demolished.
> From what I've
> seen of the ones in Britain they aren't very nice
> either.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk