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. They generally lack privacy. 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.

Communal apartments became widespread in the Soviet Union following the October Revolution of 1917. The term communal apartments is a term that emerged specifically during the Soviet Union. The concept of communal apartments grew in Russia and the Soviet Union as a response to a housing crisis in urban areas; authorities presented them as the product of the "new collective vision of the future."

Several families typically shared a communal apartment and common areas. Each family typically had only one room, which usually served as a living room, dining room, and bedroom for the entire family at the same time. All the residents of the building shared the use of the hallways, kitchen (commonly known as the "communal kitchen"), bathroom and (rarely) telephone. The communal apartment became the predominant form of housing in the Soviet Union for generations, and examples still exist in "the most fashionable central districts of large Russian cities", such as Saint Petersburg.

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. Today in Russia, Soviet-style apartment blocks are still built and are termed "Novostroika"; they are often painted colorfully and have all modern amenities.

Communal living continues to exist in other countries today, such as several students living as roommates in a rented shared apartment. However, the 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.