There are 'apartments,' and there are 'apartments.'
"Communal apartments, where strangers lived as one big family, shaped many generations of Soviet and Russian citizens, and continue to exist even today.
Communal apartments are a unique Russian phenomenon. They first appeared after the revolution in 1917, when residential real estate became public property.
The authorities began to divide up the apartments of wealthy citizens into smaller units in order to solve the chronic housing shortage …. many peasants were also forced to seek shelter in cities in order to survive as collectivization robbed them of a livelihood. Securing a job at a factory or institution meant that they could get a room in a communal apartment.
An adult was eligible for about 10 square meters, and a child was eligible for five (these regulations changed later). The peasants of yesterday were the new neighbors of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia; kitchen staff started sharing bathrooms with university professors. This lifestyle may not have been easy, but it adhered to the official ideology of Communal apartments .... residential real estate became public property. The authorities began to divide up the apartments of wealthy citizens into smaller units in order to solve the chronic housing shortage brought on by the country’s rapid industrialization, which attracted many people to big cities.
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