Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The article is devoted to identifying the level of conveniences and costs of municipal housing that affected the availability of services provided for the production personnel of enterprises in the city of Novosibirsk - the largest industrial center in the Siberian home front. It characterizes the scope and practice of solving the housing problem, which determined the electric, water-supply, sewerage and heating networks coverage of urban housing stock, including the housing at disposal of the local and evacuated factories. In particular, the author marks unevenness and overall insufficient electricity, water, and heating supply, improper disposal of sewerage in houses and hutments based on statistical data of a diversified group of civil and defense enterprises in Novosibirsk. The article shows that all these conveniences were enjoyed mostly by the families of those employees and specialists who belonged to the middle and older generations. Besides, the ratio between the workers’ wages and the cost of beds in factory dormitories, which also included tariffs for public utilities, is estimated. The author considers the practice of benefit payments for these conveniences provided at some enterprises for the low-paid staff. In general, expenses for usage of water supply system, sewerage, central heating and electrical lighting accounted for a very small share of employee average wages. However, cheapness of public utilities was of great importance only for a negligible part of industrial personnel accommodated in the most comfortable, according to wartime standards, dwellings.