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Communal apartment
Communal apartments (Russian singular: коммунальная квартира, romanized: kommunal'naya kvartira, colloquial: kommunalka) are apartments in which several unrelated persons or families live in isolated living rooms and share common areas such a kitchen, shower, and toilet. When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 after the October Revolution, to cope with the housing shortage, they nationalised luxurious apartment blocks from rich people to make them available to the proletariat.
The term communal apartments emerged specifically in the Soviet Union, kommunalkas became the predominant form of housing for generations. Communal apartments were supposed to be a temporary solution and were in fact phased out in many cities of the country. Due to the Second World War, large population influxes from the countryside and a lack of investment in new housing, kommunalkas still exist in some former Soviet cities, such as Saint Petersburg.
The first communal apartments appeared in the early 18th century, when rental lodging was partitioned by the landlords into "corners", often walk-through tiny dwellings. From the mid-19th century the number of such apartments had drastically increased. Usually they consisted of units with three to six rooms. 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 and harsh collectivization, and pulled to the city by the industrialization of the economy. 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.
Vladimir Lenin conceived the communal apartment and drafted a plan to "expropriate and resettle private apartments" shortly after the October Revolution. His plan inspired many architects to begin communal housing projects, to create a "revolutionary topography." The communal apartment was revolutionary by "uniting different social groups in one physical space." Furthermore, housing belonged to the government and families were allotted an extremely small number of square meters each. At these time a peculiar procedure was introduced called "compaction" ("Уплотнение"): housing norms were introduced, and if an apartment was "underpopulated", other people were assigned to live there.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev's regime "embarked upon a mass housing campaign", to eliminate the persistent housing shortages, and create private apartments for urban residents. This campaign was a response to popular demand for "better living conditions, single-family housing, and greater privacy"; Khrushchev believed that granting the people private apartments would give them greater enthusiasm for the communist system in place and that improving people's attitudes and living conditions would lead to a healthier and more productive workforce. However, the new apartments were built quickly, with an emphasis on quantity over quality, and in underdeveloped neighborhoods, with poor systems of public transportation, making daily life harder for workers. These apartment blocks quickly became called "khrushchyoba", a cross between Khrushchev's name and the Russian term for slums.
Most communal apartments were replaced after the death of Joseph Stalin with Khrushchevkas, in which each family had their own private apartment. This was then followed by Brezhnevkas which were built taller, had larger apartments, and came with heretofore unavailable amenities such as elevators, interior bathrooms, garbage disposals and central heating systems.
Up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all communal apartments were state-owned public housing. With the start of privatization in Russia, such apartments started to gain ownership, often parts of it being privatized by different persons, which often led to litigations and abuse.[citation needed]
A distinct characteristic of Soviet kommunalkas is that the scarcity of housing and obligatory residence registration (propiska) made it virtually impossible for residents to part ways in case of conflict.[citation needed]
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Communal apartment
Communal apartments (Russian singular: коммунальная квартира, romanized: kommunal'naya kvartira, colloquial: kommunalka) are apartments in which several unrelated persons or families live in isolated living rooms and share common areas such a kitchen, shower, and toilet. When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 after the October Revolution, to cope with the housing shortage, they nationalised luxurious apartment blocks from rich people to make them available to the proletariat.
The term communal apartments emerged specifically in the Soviet Union, kommunalkas became the predominant form of housing for generations. Communal apartments were supposed to be a temporary solution and were in fact phased out in many cities of the country. Due to the Second World War, large population influxes from the countryside and a lack of investment in new housing, kommunalkas still exist in some former Soviet cities, such as Saint Petersburg.
The first communal apartments appeared in the early 18th century, when rental lodging was partitioned by the landlords into "corners", often walk-through tiny dwellings. From the mid-19th century the number of such apartments had drastically increased. Usually they consisted of units with three to six rooms. 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 and harsh collectivization, and pulled to the city by the industrialization of the economy. 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.
Vladimir Lenin conceived the communal apartment and drafted a plan to "expropriate and resettle private apartments" shortly after the October Revolution. His plan inspired many architects to begin communal housing projects, to create a "revolutionary topography." The communal apartment was revolutionary by "uniting different social groups in one physical space." Furthermore, housing belonged to the government and families were allotted an extremely small number of square meters each. At these time a peculiar procedure was introduced called "compaction" ("Уплотнение"): housing norms were introduced, and if an apartment was "underpopulated", other people were assigned to live there.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev's regime "embarked upon a mass housing campaign", to eliminate the persistent housing shortages, and create private apartments for urban residents. This campaign was a response to popular demand for "better living conditions, single-family housing, and greater privacy"; Khrushchev believed that granting the people private apartments would give them greater enthusiasm for the communist system in place and that improving people's attitudes and living conditions would lead to a healthier and more productive workforce. However, the new apartments were built quickly, with an emphasis on quantity over quality, and in underdeveloped neighborhoods, with poor systems of public transportation, making daily life harder for workers. These apartment blocks quickly became called "khrushchyoba", a cross between Khrushchev's name and the Russian term for slums.
Most communal apartments were replaced after the death of Joseph Stalin with Khrushchevkas, in which each family had their own private apartment. This was then followed by Brezhnevkas which were built taller, had larger apartments, and came with heretofore unavailable amenities such as elevators, interior bathrooms, garbage disposals and central heating systems.
Up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all communal apartments were state-owned public housing. With the start of privatization in Russia, such apartments started to gain ownership, often parts of it being privatized by different persons, which often led to litigations and abuse.[citation needed]
A distinct characteristic of Soviet kommunalkas is that the scarcity of housing and obligatory residence registration (propiska) made it virtually impossible for residents to part ways in case of conflict.[citation needed]
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