Who were the Barrel houses built for in the USSR??
Many people from the Soviet Union have heard about the unusual Barrel houses. And residents of Omsk can still observe an entire neighbourhood in the old Kirovsk built out of such buildings. It is not clear why such houses were built, but architects and engineers of that time saw their practical value. Tank houses do not look ordinary or even strange to some people, and certainly not many people nowadays would think of using them as a home.
In Soviet times, the military and people living in the far north thought differently. The working name of the tank houses is Cylindrical Unified Blocks-CUB . The idea of creating this type of housing came from the need to develop the north. Given the harsh climate and extreme frosts the main problem was to provide people working in that region with warm and, what is important, safe houses. The polar explorers' housing also had to be durable and mobile.