Russian buildings unpainted?

[atomicfloozy]

I'm building a Russian village for my campaign & most of the buildings are wooden. Whenever I watch color film or find rare color pictures of Russian rural villages, none of the buildings are painted, was that the norm?

I do remember growing up in the 50s that the poorer parts of my home town had lots of houses badly in need of paint due to the desert sand storms

Was there a shortage of paint in rural Russia during the 30s & 40s?.

[easyeight]

That's pretty much what my research has shown also. House paint for rural villages was not a priority for the Soviet government, so things tended towards weather-aged wood. I think the only buildings that may have some paint would be important ones (like Churches, when Stalin stopped persecuting them in the later 1930s and even enlisted them as allies against the Nazis), or perhaps if someone did get or make paint, they would only have enough to paint accents like doors and window frames.