Factory town: to the problem of developing a general layout of Stalinsk of 1936

Among the cities of the Soviet epoch a special place is occupied by the industrial towns-novostroiki (new-builts), one of which is Novo-Kuznetsk-Stalinsk. The study of Stalinsk general layout of 1936 was caused by the fact that research works on Stalinsk history traditionally consider the plan of 1931 developed by E. May. However, the image ofStalinsk - the town of «socialism show-window» - is created by the plan of 1936. It took one year according to E.May's plan to build the town. In 1932, according to the resolution of RSFSR Council of Peoples Commissars of August 1, 1932, Kuznetskstroj, as the town's construction company, was ordered to develop a new general layout of Stalinsk. The problems of developing a new plan were to choose the design organization and to estimate the projected population. As a result, it was possible to start working out the general layout two years later and with the assistance of RSFSR Council of Peoples Commissars. According to the project, Stalinsk was to be a compact town consisting of 4 districts and 2 companion-towns on the right bank of the Tom River. The requirement of a «healthy» town was met because residential area was planned in the South-Nagorny district, as the most environmentally friendly. In the general layout of 1936, Stalinsk was designed as «the town for the factory». For this reason, the suggestion of the chief architect of Stalinsk N. V. Flizel to expand the list of the planned higher educational institutions was rejected. The main goal of «a factory city» was to produce skilful specialists for the factory, and a metallurgical and a pedagogical higher institution were sufficient for solving this task. The project of Stalinsk general layout was approved by RSFSR Council of Peoples Commissars on June 22, 1936. However, two years later the plan was seriously changed: the territory of the Southern district was planned for constructing houses of the private sector, and the town spread towards the Moss bog. The reason for the changes was the coal deposit discovered on the South-Nagorny territory. The change of the direction of construction led to actual refusal to build a convenient and non-polluted town. As a whole, the general layout of Stalinsk of 1936 was developed in the logic of «a factory town», a town, which lives and develops only in the absolute dominance of manufacture. In this sense the plan of 1936 was a logic continuation of E. May's plan of 1931

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