"Unformatted" Industrial Zone

An "Unformatted" Industrial Zone

Re-entering the city after the war, the Soviet authorities made efforts to change the way of life here and to lay the foundation of Soviet socialist life. The structure of social and economic life was almost completely transformed, as private property was abolished, the primacy of industrialization was introduced, special "one-party" rules of political behavior were established and a "totalizing" ideological field was created, which tried to generate not only "official," but also subjective significant senses, using both rough and delicate methods. On the one hand, the post-war Soviet Union was already a formed modern state and, in this sense, it had many features inherent to developed Western countries of that time, such as the development of modern industry and the key role of the state in ensuring the basic living standards of citizens. In this sense, the post-war development of Soviet Lviv picked up the baton of the Polish period in many aspects. On the other hand, despite all the common features of the modern state, the Soviet Union tried to keep its own specific socialist line, marking in a special way the peculiarities of production forms, and social, economic, and cultural practices, and ideological and symbolic senses, and the creation of material landscape. Thus, the actual socialist modern space was founded on the development of modernity, which Lviv had to deal with before, as well as on some specific additional meanings.

In the general scheme of Soviet Lviv's development Pidzamche again took a position, which was not very advantageous. The urban fabric was already formed here, and to renew it a lot of resources and effort was required. It was certainly an important industrial area, but with its inherent characteristics, standing in the way of rapid development within the planned evolution of the city. From the socialist government's perspective, food and light industries, which were traditional for Pidzamche, occupied only the second and third places in Lviv's industrial orientation. The first place was given to advanced engineering industry, radio electronics and electrical engineering, which, with few exceptions, were developed in other, more spacious areas. It was partly because of this that Pidzamche, despite its industrial experience, was left out of the leading positions in the industrialization of Lviv. Pidzamche's production facilities performed "minor" tasks and did it well, following well-tested routes and without massive investment. So, from the standpoint of senior officials, there was not much point in building a new socialist space in Pidzamche or planning any radical changes.

As can be understood from "The project of placing the first phase of construction in Lviv" (1960 and 1966), in Soviet Lviv the area of Pidzamche became hostage to its "traditional" industry, which was not large-scale enough to be really and radically modernized, but was still important to fully support and gradually develop "what already exists." Concerning Lviv's industrial areas, it was stated that "industrial enterprises are located mostly without complying with the necessary sanitary distances from homes and have no territorial reserves for development" (Город Львов…, 1966, 8). Of course, this had to do especially with Pidzamche's dense and chaotic housing, which was practically impossible to regulate (Дяк, 2008, 77). In view of this circumstance, Pidzamche was removed from almost all plans of major urban transformation. The district's important place in the urban structure of Lviv was revealed in considerable attention paid to organizing the city's northern outskirts, but outside Pidzamche, on the other side of the Poltva. The northern vicinities (Zamarstyniv, Holosko) were considered a territory not very promising for the development because of "very unfavourable soil conditions of the area with the presence of peat and high groundwater level" (Город Львов…,1960, 65). However, given the proximity to places of public entertainment (a forest near Briukhovychi and  the "700^th anniversary of the city" park which was still in project), convenient connection to the center (through the main routes of vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho and prosp. Chornovola) and, most importantly, the proximity to the northern industrial area, an important place of "working interest," it was decided to create two large housing estates, on vul. 700-richchia Lvova (now prosp. Chornovola) and in the area of the final segment of vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, despite costly engineering works in wet soil (Город Львов…, 1966, 44). In the late 1960s, the development of northern Lviv, leaving aside Pidzamche, focused on new city outskirts separated from the industrial zone by protection green spaces along the Poltva channel which was still open at that time (Город Львов…, 1960, 94).

A radical change in the old space, which represented, in fact, the new socialist space, affected "closer" Pidzamche slightly, although original plans were grander. According to the 1946 first post-war general plan of Lviv, the area just behind the Opera Theatre was to be restructured significantly. It was planned to construct a large square with a monument to Stalin there, framed by new buildings and connected by a straight boulevard with the Vysokyi Zamok (Черкес, 1999). The project, however, appeared to be non-viable. Of the whole complex, only a high-rise apartment building was constructed. In subsequent years the development of this area was nevertheless continued, but on a more modest scale. In 1956 vul. Poltviana (later vul. 700-richchia Lvova, now prosp. Chornovola) was expanded and extended, a few buildings in the Neo-Functionalist style on typical projects being built at its beginning in the 1960s: the hotel "Lviv" (in place of the pl. Zernova square), the cinema "Myr" (partly in pl. Sv. Teodora) and the mini-skyscraper of the Office of Statistics.

While in the terms of urban planning the perspective of Pidzamche in Soviet Lviv was quite minimal, its social space was, however, changed substantially. New factories did not appear there, but the existing facilities and capacities were used, completed, reconstructed and restructured for different functions. However, production practices and social relations inside the factories and plants were constantly transformed. There was a clear formula for "repainting" capitalist production into socialist one. Thus, in 1939  the bourgeois confectionery "Branka" was exemplarily included in the space of the "Soviet civilization" according to the following scheme: "... after the liberation the workers elected the factory workers' control committee, headed by Liudmyla Wisman, and as early as 25 September the factory started to work. Members of workers' control were attached to all departments of the factory, and the committee became the center of the factory's life. (...) The committee was not limited to only control functions and was also engaged in the issues of the workers' welfare and the rise of their cultural level. It was on the initiative of the committee that a nursery and groups for studying the Ukrainian and Russian languages were organized at the factory, etc. " (Історія Львова..., 1956, 225). These initiatives were rather formal and "issued from above," but, gradually, they became essential elements of the workers' life and affected the "deeper" level of everyday life. The rules and practices of incorporating production in the model socialist format were eventually developed and complemented. In the 1950s, to match the status of the "real socialist production," it was necessary for the factories of Pidzamche to support initiatives of their colleagues from other cities (preferably from Moscow or Leningrad) and Soviet republics, to show their own initiatives, to get involved in the socialist competition for the title of the republic's and the Union's leading enterprises, to confer patronage on collective farms, to train their workers as foremost people in industry (Історія Львова, 1956, 238–262; Шумилович). Among Pidzamche's enterprises, the leader in the "introduction of communist labor methods" was the Shoe Factory № 3 (later known as the company "Progress"). There were attempts to fix Pidzamche's "socialistness" in the street landscape: in particular, in 1977 the northern section of Poltviana (later vul. 700-richchia Lvova) was renamed as vul. Ulyanovska, in honor of the socialist competition between Lviv and Ulyanovsk regions.

As part of the "Sovietization" of Pidzamche's space, some key symbolic places of the city were given new interpretation: in Soviet guidebooks, the church of St. Onuphrius was mentioned as the burial place of Ivan Fedorov, the Staryi Rynok (Old Market) square as the place of a strike organized by workers in the 1930s. The Vysokyi Zamok was to be associated not with the mound in honor of the Union of Lublin but with the Cossack siege of the royal castle located there. A TV tower, built on the Vysokyi Zamok in 1957, became an important all-Lviv symbol, which was invariably represented in guidebook narratives as "the old city's new life."

The material space of Pidzamche in Soviet Lviv changed gradually, mainly due to internal processes. In the early postwar years, changes were manifested primarily in the reconstruction of old buildings or assigning them with new functional purposes. One of the first old residential buildings on vul. Khimichna, 22, brought into service in 1951, became home for the Autoloader factory workers after restructuring (Heneha). The situation of the buildings on vul. Ohirkova near the railway station "Pidzamche," where originally various workshops and craft shops were situated, is quite conspicuous. After the Second World War, with the establishment of the Soviet government, the value of the station as an important railway junction increased, while the accompanying infrastructure virtually did not change. The problem of housing became especially acute, and production facilities were adapted for housing. A similar example is mentioned in an interview with the inhabitants of vul. Sheremety (a side street of vul. Zamarstynivska), where, in the early postwar years, a bakery was reorganized into a house where newcomers from the East were settled.

Changes in functional use certainly affected churches and other temples too. The present church of St. Josaphat was used in Soviet times as a film library, and the church of St. Martin belonged to a military electric repair factory and was used for economic purposes as well.

New typical panel houses also appeared in Pidzamche. However, they were chiefly built not in the form of complexes, but separately and in random places. The exception is a small newly-built block at the intersection of vul. Yanky Kupaly and vul. Skhidna, virtually on the outskirts of old Pidzamche. In the early 1960s, it was planned to build seven four-storied buildings there; however, only five three- and four-storied ones were built.

The main driving force of all changes in Pidzamche's urban landscape was the development of industrial objects. The development of factories and plants meant not only the emergence of new production facilities, but also a beautification of the surrounding areas. As Pidzamche residents say in their memoirs, in the 1950s-1960s "all the industrial facilities were built on the grass area. They started to asphalt factory yards, to make sidewalks along the streets, there were beds with beautiful flowers near the buildings." Gradually, benches, green spaces, playgrounds, and lawns appeared on the streets as the places of buildings, destroyed during the war or dismantled for wood, were brought into order.

The development of factories caused the appearance of adjoining objects of communal or cultural significance: children's educational institutions, kindergartens, laundries, clubs, which also meant better conditions of everyday life and deeper penetration of the senses of the "Soviet civilization." Large cinemas were located at the beginning of vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, in the end of ul. Kalinina (now vul. Zamarstynivska) and at the beginning of vul. 700-richchia Lvova (now prosp. Chornovola). Virtually the entire area of Pidzamche was covered by a network of bigger and smaller factory clubs, which mainly attracted local residents as places where films could be watched. Also, there were many groups for children and adults, and even some billiard halls. The largest club of this kind was built by local workers in 1934 as the Community workers' house, reorganized in Soviet times as the Club of the Lviv tram and trolleybus direction (it functioned like this even before the war). An important "Soviet" object in postwar Lviv was also the railway station complex of "Pidzamche." The station directly connected the district and its industry with almost the whole territory of the Union.

The transformation of everyday space, which had to do with Pidzamche's enterprises, not always had a positive impact. In the course of time, the industrial development improved consumer infrastructure, but also narrowed free everyday space significantly. The factories occupied more and more territory whose reserves were limited in Pidzamche. Industrial objects "devoured" whole streets (e.g. vul. Boryslavska (earlier ul. Wilczków) street, which is still mentioned in a sign on one of the walls of the company "Svitoch" (Мельник, 2010, 153). Sometimes objects of this kind surrounded residential houses, creating a "close embrace" (it was what happened to a house on vul. Volynska, which became eventually encircled by the "Moldavvyno" factory, or a residential complex near the tram depot number 2, almost on all sides separated from the neighboring enterprises by a high wall).

In 1960 the authors of "The project of placing the first stage of construction in the city of Lviv in 1959-1965" described the northern area of ​​the city as follows: "The northern part of the city has the worst housing. The streets are narrow, almost unregulated, green spaces are rare. Residential houses are mixed up with industrial enterprises" (Город Львов…, 1966, 14). Eventually, despite all the changes introduced by the Soviet regime, the overall picture did not change. Compared with the rest of the city, Pidzamche continued to remain a neglected, unregulated, marginalized district.

From the memories of Pidzamche residents:

"The [territory around the former] checkpoint was a working district. And the working district had one- or two-room apartments. All the doors faced ... Well, one door faced the staircase, and you had to go up the stairs and come to a round balcony. There were no conveniences there. In the apartments, there was only water. The toilet was on the balcony."

"There were some kind of shabby people there, simpler ones. When you go to the city, they all wear ties there, they're all doctors, you know, say (laughs), gentility. And here, there were working people. In fact, no one from the center came to work here. So, actually, the whole neighbourhood served all factories." 

"Therewere problem people there, very problem people. Well, in what respect? Well, look at my class:  someone's father was imprisoned, someone's mum drank, someone's family had no children at all. There were two extremely poor Jewish families, five children, they were so scrupulous. And it is clear that this is what the general atmosphere was at the [territory around the former] checkpoint. Actually, it was such a poor and criminal one."