Three cases explored within the ‘Integrated Action Approach’ subproject, Narva in Estonia, Daugavpils in Latvia, and Gyumri in Armenia, show different ways of dealing with Soviet residential legacies. Narva and Daugavpils share the same Baltic and EU context yet follow distinct paths in managing their housing estates. Gyumri, shaped by Soviet planning but devastated by the 1988 earthquake, adds the perspective of post-disaster heritage. Together, the cases highlight both the common imprint of the Soviet period, and the diverse risks and strategies cities face today.
Fig.01. Case studies location
Narva (Estonia)
Narva, Estonia’s third largest and easternmost city on the border with Russia, embodies the profound shifts of post-Soviet urban transformation. Once a showcase industrial frontier of the Soviet Union, rebuilt after the devastation of World War II almost entirely with standardized housing estates, Narva became after 1991 a European Union border city facing Russia, grappling with the challenges of deindustrialization, depopulation, and integration into Estonia and the EU.
Narva’s demographic profile is distinctive: its population peaked at 84,975 inhabitants in 1989 but has since declined to 52,495 (2025), losing more than 1% of its population annually due to low birth rates, high mortality, and out-migration of younger cohorts. The city is overwhelmingly Russian speaking, with more than 80% identifying as Russian and only a small Estonian minority. Citizenship remains a sensitive issue: while naturalization has progressed, a substantial share of residents still holds Russian passports or remain stateless, limiting their political integration and reinforcing Narva’s ambiguous position between two states.
Economically, Narva has struggled since the collapse of its Soviet industrial base. The closure of the Kreenholm textile giant in 2010 symbolized the broader deindustrialization, while the oil-shale power plants nearby, though still operating, are shrinking under Estonia’s green transition. Unemployment remains higher than the national average, and new investments have been modest, despite efforts to attract business through EU cohesion funds and proposals for a special economic zone.
Narva’s built environment is dominated by Soviet mass housing: around 95% of dwellings are in prefabricated apartment blocks from the 1950s–1980s. Many are now beyond their design lifespan, requiring costly renovation. Yet financial insecurity and mistrust have slowed uptake of state and EU support schemes, leaving large parts of the housing stock in poor condition. Current initiatives aim to modernize this heritage while selectively reconstructing fragments of Narva’s lost baroque core, seeking both functional improvement and symbolic renewal.
As a city literally on Europe’s edge, Narva’s trajectory illustrates the tensions of post-Soviet borderlands: between East and West, decline and resilience, Soviet legacies and European futures.
Fig.02. Phases of housing renovation. Narva, Estonia. Photo by Elena Batunova 2025.
Daugavpils (Latvia)
Daugavpils, Latvia’s second-largest city, lies in the country’s southeastern Latgale region and has 78,112 inhabitants (2025). Historically, it developed as a major industrial and military centre under the Russian Empire, continued to grow during the interwar period of independent Latvia, and was later reshaped as an economic centre of the Soviet Union. The city was heavily destroyed during World War II, losing much of its historic fabric and population. In the aftermath, Soviet authorities prioritized rapid reconstruction through industrial expansion and standardized mass housing, seeing Daugavpils both as a regional production hub and as a showcase of modern socialist urbanism. Major factories in chemicals, rail engineering, and metalworking anchored this transformation, while vast microrayons of prefabricated apartment blocks replaced much of the lost built environment. By 1989, the city’s population had more than doubled compared to prewar levels, reaching 126,7 thousand inhabitants.
Since independence in 1991, Daugavpils has undergone sharp deindustrialization and demographic decline. The closure of the chemical fibre plant and downsizing of other industries triggered massive out-migration, particularly of younger cohorts: the city lost about 38% of its population. The city has also aged rapidly, with shrinking tax revenues straining municipal services. Its demographic profile remains distinctive: nearly half of residents identify as Russian, alongside Poles, Belarusians, and Latvians.
Economically, Daugavpils has struggled to replace its Soviet-era base. Unemployment and low wages remain persistent, despite the creation of the Latgale Special Economic Zone and EU-funded programs to attract investment. New enterprises exist but have not matched past industrial capacity, reinforcing Daugavpils’s position as a peripheral city within Latvia.
The built environment is dominated by Soviet mass housing, with large microrayons such as Ķīmija, Jaunbūve, and Jaunā Forštate. Most apartment blocks are structurally sound but energy-inefficient and increasingly obsolete. Comprehensive renovation has been slow, hindered by fragmented ownership, financial insecurity, and residents’ reluctance to take loans, leaving most of the stock in deteriorating condition. Local and national programs seek to mobilize EU funding for large-scale upgrades, but uptake remains low.
As a city at the margins of both Latvia and the EU, Daugavpils exemplifies the challenges of post-Soviet cities: balancing economic fragility, ethnic diversity, and the vast Soviet housing legacy with the need for resilience, sustainability, and integration into European policy frameworks.
Fig.03. Authentic Soviet-era residential area. Daugavpils, Latvia. Photo by Elena Batunova 2025
Gyumri (Armenia)
Gyumri, Armenia’s second city and the capital of Shirak province on the high Shirak Plateau near the closed border with Turkey, reflects the contradictions of Soviet urbanization, disaster, and post-Soviet transition. Known as Alexandropol in the Russian imperial period and Leninakan in Soviet times, it grew into an industrial centre with extensive microrayons and standardized housing. The 7 December 1988 Spitak earthquake shattered this model: thousands died, roughly half of the housing stock failed, and factories collapsed. Recovery and shelter became defining policy challenges of the independence era. The city’s post-disaster reconstruction, launched by the Soviet government, was left unfinished as the Soviet Union itself collapsed, creating the next external shock for Gyumri. Soon after, the outbreak of conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and the ensuing economic and energy blockade further deepened the city’s crisis, leaving residents to face winters without heating and industries without power.
Demographically, Gyumri has halved in size since the late 1980s, from over 200,000 to roughly 119,900 (2025), driven by quake losses, deindustrialization, and sustained out-migration (including seasonal labour mobility to Russia). Aging, poverty, and a diminished share of youth shape the social profile, even as a strong local identity, craft traditions, and cultural life persist.
Economically, the Soviet textile-machine-food complex never fully recovered. The contemporary economy relies on small trade and services, remittances, nascent IT/creative initiatives (e.g., technology and youth centres), and slowly expanding tourism tied to heritage. Unemployment remains above national averages; policy responses combine SME support, airport route expansion, and attempts at investment incentives and green-city upgrades.
Gyumri’s built environment is a layered palimpsest. The protected 19th-century Kumayri district with low-rise tufa architecture anchors identity and tourism. Around it, Soviet estates and post-quake infill illustrate uneven reconstruction: new blocks and restored landmarks sit alongside vacant lots, unfinished frames, and a residual archipelago of metal-container “domik” areas, now in final phases of phase-out. Many multi-family buildings remain energy-inefficient and seismically vulnerable; condominium under-capacity and household poverty hinder maintenance and retrofitting despite state and donor programs.
As Armenia’s cultural heartland and a frontier city at Europe’s edge, Gyumri encapsulates the tensions between loss and renewal, heritage and safety, and central promises and local capacities. Its trajectory—completing resettlement, securing safer housing, and leveraging crafts, culture, and tech for jobs—makes Gyumri a critical case for understanding how Soviet residential heritage can be stabilized and repurposed under conditions of long recovery and persistent shrinkage.
Fig.04. Unfinished reinforcement of the Soviet residential building, started after the 1988 Spitak earthquake and stopped after the collapse of the USSR. Photo by Elena Batunova 2025