Abstract
This article examines the two major projects for transforming the city of Vladivostok during Soviet times. The first was to make it a Stalinist city during the 1930s, and would have resulted in an almost complete reconstruction of the historic Tsarist city into a model of socialist city planning. The second project, beginning in the 1960s and continuing on into the 1980s, did transform the city dramatically according to mature socialist planning guidelines, and succeeded in making the city more livable than at any time in its past. This article compares the two plans and contrasts their successes and failures, their underlying goals and ideologies, and considers what the legacy of the two periods is for today’s post-Soviet city.
