Belarusian Sanatorium
Location: Jūrmala, Latvia
Completed: 1970s
Architect: Not known
Alternative name: Sanatorium Belorussiya
Genre: Modernist, Soviet architecture, former USSR
During Soviet times, Jūrmala was one of the most desirable places to holiday in the whole of the USSR. It became popular with the communist party elite and top-ranking officials, including Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, and the promise of a vacation in Jūrmala was frequently used to incentivise party members to perform well in their field of work. At its height in the early part of the 1980s, Jūrmala’s prominence as a Soviet spa resort was only outranked by Sochi in southern Russian and Yalta in the Crimea.
The Belarusian Sanatorium was originally constructed for the exclusive use of citizens from the Byelorussian SSR. After the Chernobyl disaster on 26th April 1986, large areas of Belarus were contaminated, and children from affected regions were sent to the sanatorium in a bid to improve their health. More information about the Belarusian Sanatorium.
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