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.[1] When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 after the October Revolution, to cope with the housing shortage, they nationalised luxurious apartment blocks[2] from rich people[3] to make them available to the proletariat.[2]
The term communal apartments emerged specifically in the Soviet Union,[4] kommunalkas became the predominant form of housing for generations.[5] Communal apartments were supposed to be a temporary solution and were in fact phased out in many cities of the country. Due to the outbreak of second world war, to the 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.[2]
- ^ "In St. Petersburg, a stalwart of the 1917 revolution lives on: The communal apartment". Los Angeles Times. 2017-08-11. Retrieved 2023-09-14.
- ^ a b c "Russia: City Anniversary Changes Little For Residents Of Petersburg's 'Kommunalki'". Radio Free Europe.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
rbthwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Saint Petersburg encyclopedia". encspb.ru. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018.
- ^ Utekhin, Ilya. "Communal Living in Russia". Retrieved 2015-04-14.
[...] the kommunalka was a predominant form of housing for generations. By the 1970s, these crowded and uncomfortable apartments began to empty out in a noticeable way. But even now, when their location the most fashionable central districts of large Russian cities make them hot targets for real-estate buyouts, many remain in place, with life ordered in much the same way as it always was.