While some housing estates in Central and Eastern Europe are being renovated or demolished, their original residents remain undaunted. They have lived through the buildings' golden years and darker times; they are the estates.

Prefabricated panel constructions quickly and efficiently provided new homes for expanding city populations after World War II. In the late 1950s, ‘One flat per family’ became, by decree, a priority for Nikita Khrushchev.

Like other Soviet-era monotowns (or Моногород), Norilsk was designed around a single industry in a remote part of the Soviet Union.