This is not true. There was a whole institute doing industrial design: the Soviet Scientific Research Institute of Industrial Aesthetics [1].
That institute was also publishing a monthly "Technical Aesthetics" magazine from 1964 to 1992.
Ok,fair enough, looks like they were taking it more serious than I ever thought.
It's quite interesting that they called it Industrial Aesthetics.
Also,the Russian Wikipedia article is extremely detail on what was going on there:
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%...
Oh heck, I've seen pics of the PT minivan back in the 90s, in the stash of either ‘Tech for the Youth’ or ‘Science and Life’. Its look has stuck with me as the embodiment of Soviet retrofuturism, which is what I actually remember as daring Soviet tech design.
I kept wondering a bit if RAF-2203 took some cues from the PT. Other RAF minivans seem to be obviously inspired by VW Type 2.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNIITE