A New Town on the Volga

Evgenii Ruzhnikov, A New Town on the Volga. May 22, 1969

A relatively rare instance of a Soviet architect publishing in a western (British) architectural journal, this article emphasizes the rationality and all-embracing quality of the planning that went into designing the new town of Togliatti. Note, however, the acknowledgement that "standard projects … sometimes fall short of requirements, which lends a dreary, monotonous look to some of the towns."

A new town, incorporating the latest in Soviet town planning, is being built in the middle reaches of the River Volga 500 miles south-west of Moscow. It is slated for fast growth, even by standards in the USSR where new cities are mushrooming. Its population is expected to rise to 390,000 by 1975 and to half a million before the century is out.

The town is called Togliatti, and it owes its rapid development to the Volzhsky auto works which is being built there with the aid of the Italian FIAT firm. This is the second year that work has been going on round the clock. The plant's full capacity is 660,000 cars a year, and production is due to start this year.

The town is situated on the flat northern bank of a huge artificial lake formed by the dam of the Volzhskaya power station. The new town will incorporate the small town of Stavropol which will be given a face-lift. The old town is located four miles to the east of the new construction site with the dividing area occupied by a forest which is to remain as a recreation area of the people of Togliatti.

About 20,000 acres of more convenient land have been set aside for the purpose of construction. The town's location allows for virtually unlimited growth in the westward and northern directions.

What are the principles that are being implemented in the layout of Togliatti, reflecting the present state of Soviet town building?

The new town is planned, not in isolation, but as part of an articulated settlement system. It is a feature of present-day USSR that its main developing areas come under so-called regional planning projects. Several factors determined the structure of Togliatti, such as the proximity of the regional centre, the city of Kuibyshev (population one million) and several smaller towns (Syzran and Mekeles), and of course, of the 2,300,000kW Volzhskaya power station, which provides a rich source of power. Togliatti was also planned with an eye to cooperation between its industries in the area, all the more so because motor routes, railways and waterways run close by.

All this predetermined the town's division in several functional zones: industry, transport, residence, recreation, and scientific and educational establishments.

Beaches, a yachting club, stadiums and promenades are to be constructed along the lake shores or nearby.

Separated from the residential areas by a mile-wide tree plantation, the industrial zone will consist of two complexes, the first including the motor works, a thermal power station and building materials industries; the second zone embraces the local industries and warehouses. The project provides for maximum cooperation between the town's enterprises, especially as regards engineering equipment, transport, power supply, and storage facilities.

The area immediately adjacent to the dividing green belt will be occupied by scientific, technical and educational establishments connected with the motor works. Plots have also been reserved for other research centres and higher educational establishments. On the green belt itself there will be a tree nursery which will provide seedlings for the boulevards and gardens.

A sad fact about modern cities is that they are usually split into two hostile camps: the people and the transport. To reconcile them, the builders of Togliatti are trying to devise a rational system of streets and set up such transport routes that no one will have to travel more than 30 minutes in one direction. A network of lengthwise and crosswise arterial roads and pedestrian boulevards is being built. Wide use is made of flyovers and underpasses and also of underground parking spaces. Expressways will bypass residential areas and will be paralleled by transport streets of local significance.

The project envisages the bus as the main type of town transport. Express bus lines will carry the bulk (up to 70 per cent) of all the passengers from the residential areas to the factories and back. At the same time it was assumed in planning traffic that there would be 200 cars per thousand of the population in Togliatti.

The town will have an external transport complex, comprising bus and railway terminals and a helicopter landing pad. The river port in the older part of the city is under reconstruction. The residential section is divided into four areas. Two of them are intended for employees of the motor works, the third for the people employed at industries and offices of the now existing part of the town, and the fourth is to form a reserve for future building and settlement.

The average size of such an area is 2.2 x 1.5 miles. Transport roads with a spacing between them of 0.6 miles subdivide the four areas into residential districts. Four to six districts of some 200 acres and a population of 42,000 each are included in an area.

The districts, in their turn, are split into several large blocks, which are called micro-districts. In Togliatti, as in many other new towns, the micro-districts are composed of several 'habitation groups' of 2,000 to 4,000 inhabitants. The three to five housing blocks which form such a group are usually placed around a 3.5-5 acre courtyard and separated from the street fumes, noise and dust by a green barrier.

Because of harsh winter winds blowing from the Volga, the courtyards are made semi-enclosed, with kindergartens and crèches occupying the best-protected places. Such a solution has been prompted, among other things, by the experience of the Arctic city of Norilsk, where frequent snowstorms made enclosed courtyards a necessity. To protect Togliatti from the wind it is also planned to plant dense rows of trees along the banks of the lake.

The height of the apartment buildings in Togliatti will vary from five to 16 storeys. An analysis of several variants has shown that about 75 per cent of the buildings shown have five storeys, 20 per cent nine to 12 storeys, and 5 per cent 16 storeys. In the future the buildings will become higher. It goes without saying that the town is to be constructed of standard apartment buildings. Parts of them are manufactured at factories and assembled at construction sites with the help of machines.

As standard designs in the USSR usually consist of a series of buildings of varying height and length, construction of new towns involves, not simply the erection of individual houses, but the creation of whole ensembles. Unfortunately, standard projects are not always properly used and sometimes fall short of requirements, which lends a dreary, monotonous look to some of the towns. However, it is by no means an inevitable consequence of industrialisation and standardisation of construction, as is shown by quite a few instances of excellent standard-built residential blocks in Moscow, Kiev, Vilnius, Novosibirsk, and other cities.

The term 'dwelling' has long ceased to mean just the apartment and is now associated with a whole complex of services and amenities. It would be safe to say that the ideas of such complexes are the strong point of Soviet urbanism.

The main achievement in this area is the setting up of a graded system of services -- from the micro-district to the city level, with the amenities grouped according to the size of the serviced territory. True, sometimes the construction of the service buildings lags behind the erection of the houses. To prevent this, Togliatti planners are setting up all these facilities before the dwellings, so that the new residents will have everything at hand from the start.

The first stage of this system is made up of day-to-day amenities, which are not further than 400-500 yd from the houses. They are schools, crèches and kindergartens, also small shops, repair shops, beauty salons and barber shops, laundries, cafés and post offices and savings banks ...

The second stage is the district trade and sports facilities which cater to the population within a radius of 1,000-1,200 yd. In Togliatti such centres are to be used by some 80,000 people each.

The third stage is formed of district amenities that are used from time to time, such as cinemas, libraries and clubs and also the district administrative organs. Next come the specialised centres such as the Yong Pioneer Palace, large hospital and university compound.

And finally, there is the town centre, which in Togliatti is formed by two 320 ft-wide esplanade boulevards crossing the residential district form north to south and from west to east. The meridional boulevard will be flanked by a drama theatre, a centre to house the unions of professional workers, a large cinema and a circus. Not far from the lake the boulevard approaches the sports centre, which will include a stadium and a covered arena. Nearby a 22-storey hotel is being built.

The east-west boulevard will accommodate shops and public and administrative buildings. The main square is to be at the crossing of the boulevards. Facing it will be the Town Council, the motor workers' Palace of Culture, a concert hall, a library and a shopping mall.

A similar scheme, only on a smaller scale, has been adopted for district centres of the town. Situated on the esplanades will be district sports complexes.

Special attention is paid to the plan of the first-priority district, which is to be completed by 1971. The district is planned as a structurally complete part of the town with a well-developed centre, full-fledged cultural amenities and services. It will have about 40,000 flats and will include the greater part of the town centre and the most picturesque part of the embankment, commanding a view of the lake and the Zhiguli hills on the opposite bank.

In the town centre top priority is given to the building of shops and a wide-screen cinema, while administrative buildings will be built in the final stages of construction.

Someone once said that the architect creates a person's mood. Looking at the project of Togliatti, one gets the impression that the design group led by Soviet architects Boris Rubanenko and Vassily Shkvarikov have done a great deal to brighten the mood of the town inhabitants.

Source: Yevgeni Ruzhnikov, Soviet architect, "A New Town on the Volga," The Architect & Building News, 22 May 1969.