Quote Originally Posted by bad manners
The reason is simple: an average "big house in America" is made of something hardly distinguishable from paper affixed to a fragile framework. Houses are not built like that in Russia or anywhere in Europe.
As an engineer working on construction projects in Russia, I would object to the standard of building in Russia being compared to that of the rest of Europe. The quality of construction works in Russia is frankly shameful, and I'm talking about new buildings as well as old.

At first this comes as a surprise given the number of 'GOSTs' and 'SNiPs' and other statutory codes which need to be followed during the engineering. However the emphasis is all about having the right paperwork in place rather than designing decent buildings and employing competent contractors with the necessary equipment and skills for the physical execution of the works.

You would not believe the number of public bodies which are needed to certify a building design. Elsewhere in Europe, if you have planning permission to build something, then although you must follow the local rules the actual risk of the building standing-up or falling-down remains with you as the designer throughout its life. Here in Russia, the attempt is still being made to shift this responsibility onto the state, so everything must be reviewed and signed and countersigned and counter-counter signed, and this process is incredibly long-winded simply because there also appears to be a culture in Russia where no-one wants to accept this responsibility.

As an example, I saw a simple report dated Mar 2003 which had nine countersignatures, and the last was dated October 2003. So this process took seven months just to get through a few basic formalities - in the rest of Europe, this could have been done in a few days if someone had walked the document around (and it would only have needed two or three signatures !)

There's also no driving force to get works completed. I've been in St P on and off for around 10 months, and the central section of Sredny Prospect on Vasilyevsky Island has been closed all that time, and for some time beforehand, for a simple reconstruction of a few hundred metres of roads and tramways, work that would have taken no more than a month or so anywhere else. And looking at the lack of progress, I can see it's still at least one year away from completion. I'm assured this is not due to budget constraints, and that the city of St P actually returned a budget surplus last year. A budget surplus (!!!) - in a city with an infrastructure in such a poor condition as this simply beggars belief.

The temptation is to think that all of this bureaucracy, and taking one's time with dozens of reviews at every stage etc, would actually result in better control and safer, higher-quality construction. However, in reality the exact opposite is true. Buildings are poorly designed, extremely poorly built and finished, and there's also a high human cost. There is no safety culture here at all, avoidable accidents and injuries are commonplace and human life appears to be very cheap on construction sites.

So, I'm not an American, but give me a US building from '....paper affixed to a fragile framework.....' anytime. Chances are it will have been properly designed, built to a high standard and that no-one was killed during its construction.