Communal apartment

Communal apartments (singular: Russian: коммуналка, коммунальная квартира, kommunalka) appeared in the Soviet Union following the Russian revolution of 1917. Communal apartments emerged as a response to a housing crisis in urban areas - authorities presented them as a product of the “new collective vision of the future”. Between two and seven families typically shared a communal apartment. Each family had its own room, which often served as a living room, dining room, and bedroom for the entire family. All the residents of the entire apartment shared the use of the hallways, kitchen (commonly known as the "communal kitchen"), bathroom and telephone (if any). The communal apartment became the predominant form of housing in the USSR for generations, and examples still exist in "the most fashionable central districts of large Russian cities".

History of the communal apartment

The rise of the communal apartment

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union undertook “intensive industrialization and urbanization,” shifting from eighty percent of the population living in rural villages and towns at the time of the Revolution, to nearly the same percentage living in cities by the 1990s. People were driven from the countryside by poverty, collectivization, and Soviet industrialization campaigns. This exodus put enormous pressure on existing urban housing accommodations. Communal apartments were one answer to the housing crisis, and many considered them a step up from the alternatives of housing communes, hostels and barracks.