Tsekovo House
The Tsekovo houses (Russian: цеко́вки or аббревиатуры ЦК), from the abbreviation of the Central Committee) are multi-apartment houses for the upper layers of the Soviet leadership, erected from 1963 to 1991, mainly during the reign of Leonid Brezhnev. Apartments in such houses were intended for members of the CPSU Central Committee, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, higher military ranks (marshals, generals).
Tsekovo houses were built on an individual project of brick with reinforced concrete ceilings. The height of the houses was usually 12-14 floors. There were always elevators with mirrors in the houses, spacious lobbies and halls, concierge rooms. The territory of the house was fenced, in some houses underground garages for cars were provided. In fact, the Tsekovo houses were the first experience of erecting club houses with strict selection of tenants, a closed infrastructure used exclusively by the Soviet leadership and their families.
Unlike the Stalinist houses of the “nomenklatura” type, executed in the neo-classical style, the Tsekovo houses looked little different from the usual brick “breeches” and were utilitarian “boxes” in the style of functionalism. The nomenklatura stalinkas were built along central highways and squares, are urban architectural sights, some are monuments of architecture ; Tsekovo houses usually “hid” and did not stand out among the usual buildings.
The apartments in the Tsekovo houses far exceed the standard housing of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and the dimensions of the “chains” exceed the sizes of the Stalinist apartments of the “nomenclature type”. The characteristics of the apartments depended on the rank of their future tenants – for more senior managers more spacious apartments were built. The average total area of a two-room apartment in the “middle class” houses in Tsekovo is 75 m 2, three-room – 105 m 2, four-room – 130 m 2. For senior managers, the area of apartments could exceed 200 m 2. In the apartments of the “Tsekovo houses” there are two spacious bathrooms, a large kitchen, loggias with panoramic windows, workrooms, utility rooms of large area (storerooms, cloakrooms, laundry rooms), maid’s rooms, wide corridors and halls. The height of the ceilings is from 2.9 to 3.2 m.
Tsekovo houses were erected in prestigious areas of cities – in the center or in the middle belt, away from busy highways with a lot of greenery. In Moscow, many Tsekovo houses are located in the west and south-west of the city. The quarters of the houses in the Tsekovo district received the nickname “royal villages”. The most famous “Tsekovo House” is located at: Granatny Pereulok 10. In this house on the 6th floor was built an 8-room apartment for Leonid Brezhnev, but he refused to live in it..
In the 1990s, the houses in Tsekovo were in high demand. Later, the popularity of the Tsekovo houses decreased due to the emergence of new residential complexes of business and premium class, nevertheless, the Tsekovo houses are still valued today thanks to the successful location, high quality of construction and good planning of apartments at the level of the modern business class.
Source from Wikipedia