Parks and their creators: parks of culture and recreation in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk through the prism of biographic approach

In the mid-1930s, a course was taken to create parks of culture and recreation (PCiO) in the largest industrial centers. The architects who designed the PCiO in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk used not only their own experience in creating parks in two large cities of the Urals, but also foreign and domestic knowledge in the design of Soviet recreation parks. Moscow and Sverdlovsk architects, formed in different professional environments, were forced to maneuver between public demands, high ideological standards and the possibility of their embodiment in architectural forms. The personal and professional attitudes of architects often came into conflict with the early Soviet reality on the ground. In the second half of the 1930s, architects had the opportunity to evaluate their first results in the field of PCiO construction, as well as summarize the initial experience of designing parks and present it to a professional audience. This period became important for the formation of the theoretical foundations of Soviet landscape architecture, which subsequently allowed us to think about the creation of methodological and organizational and economic centers for the further development of parks of culture and recreation in Soviet cities.