Communal apartment

Until 1917

The prototypes of communal apartments as a type of housing in which several families live, appeared at the beginning of the XVIII century. The owners of the apartments partitioned the room into several “corners” (often walk-throughs) and rented out the basement. The apartments consisted of 3-6 rooms, with one kitchen (one toilet on the landing), 3-6 families lived in them. Since the beginning of the 19th century, during the era of the industrial revolution in Europe, and then in Russia, there have been cases of collective rental of housing by groups of tenants, connected by personal acquaintance arising from the community of occupations and professions. This practice in Russia of the 1860s was reflected by N. G. Chernyshevsky , who described in the novel “What to do?” A “communal dormitory”, which was created by several young people in a shared apartment from several rooms. Among people in creative professions - especially young artists and sculptors who came to study at the Academy of Arts, schools, etc. - the joint rental of apartments was a common practice.

However, such options for joint hiring, in which residents of communally inhabited housing space would also be tied by common interests, were an exception in Russia until 1917 amid the widespread practice of renting “corners” in industrial centers. At the same time, while relatively higher paid workers and clerks could rent corners in the apartments of multi-story apartment buildings of simplified type on the periphery of the city, the bulk of movers, catalas, crowbars, cabs, diggers were satisfied for these purposes with multi-room wooden barracks on the working outskirts and in the settlements.

As a result, in Petrograd in 1915, an average of 8.7 people lived in each apartment in the city, from the center to the outskirts ^[1] , that is, most of the apartments on the working outskirts of the Russian capital and its main industrial center were communal.

1917-1920

After the revolution of 1917, the term “communal apartment” came into use, but not the very phenomenon of communal settlement, the principle of which the Bolshevik authorities received from the previous system, as a heavy inheritance that they had to fight. Similarly, from pre-revolutionary times the term “housing problem” came to be on the agenda not only in Russia but also in Western Europe. A detailed idea of ​​the essence of this problem and the ways to solve it at the beginning of the 20th century is given by the article “Housing problem” in the Brockhaus Encyclopedia ^[2] .

Before the country accumulated resources in the first five-year plans for the development of mass housing construction as a temporary measure, the so-called “ consolidation ” was carried out in the first years of Soviet power. Simplified ideas about this action are sometimes distorted, starting with statements like "the Bolsheviks took housing from wealthy citizens and settled new people in their apartment." The fact is that not only the middle class and philistinism, but also a certain part of the top officials of the pre-revolutionary Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev and other industrial centers of Russia were not the owners of the apartments, being only their tenants . Therefore, it was impossible to select housing from the overwhelming number of citizens, including the richest. From the legal side, it was enough to change the terms of the lease to settle someone in the corresponding apartment.

The reason for this was the decree of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 20, 1918 "On the abolition of the right of private ownership of real estate in cities." With the abolition of the right of private ownership of housing, residential buildings passed into state ownership and at the disposal of local authorities. Thus, although the housing was "selected", or rather, municipalized, it was not among the tenants of the apartments, but among the private capitalist owners of the apartment buildings and their barracks equivalents. Moreover, in a number of cities, municipalization was carried out even earlier. So, in Moscow, according to the Moscow City Council decisions “on urban real estate” of November 30, December 12, 1917, and January 26, 1918, the right to private ownership of houses was canceled if their value was at least 20 thousand rubles or if the net annual income from hiring exceeded 750 rubles.

In Moscow, the Moscow City Council resolution of July 12, 1918, “On the Distribution of Residential Premises in the City of Moscow,” determined the basic occupancy rate when compiling at the rate of 1 room per 1 adult. The norm was not exhausted by this criterion; a similar standard established by the Petrosoviet read

§2. ... refers to apartments populated according to the apartment compaction rate, that is, one room for each adult, one room for two children and one room for professional studies .

- All of Petrograd in 1923. Division X. Legal information most necessary for the public. - S. 301.

V.I. Lenin raised the issue of seals on the eve of the October Revolution in the article “Will the Bolsheviks Hold State Power?” Written in late September and completed in early October 1917. Thus, her passage often quoted

- “You have room, citizens, in two rooms this winter, and prepare two rooms for two families from the basement to settle in them. For the time being, with the help of engineers (you seem to be an engineer?) We will not build good apartments for everyone, you must make room. Your phone will serve 10 families. This will save 100 hours of work, running around the shops, etc. Then in your family there are two unemployed half-workers who are able to perform light work: a citizen of 55 years and a citizen of 14 years. They will be on duty every day for 3 hours to monitor the correct distribution of products for 10 families and keep records necessary for this ^[3] .

It was, at the time of writing, a hypothetical vision and an imaginary situation, and not an observation of the practice of compaction. Of fundamental importance in this work of Lenin is the correlation of forthcoming seals and even evictions with the case- law of solving housing issues under the “social state” of capitalism:

The state needs to evict a certain family from the apartment and settle another. This makes the capitalist state all the time, and our proletarian or socialist state will do the same.

The capitalist state evicts a family of workers who lost a worker and did not pay. Is a bailiff, a police officer or a police officer, a whole platoon of them. In a working quarter, in order to evict, a detachment of Cossacks is needed. Why? Because the bailiff and the "police" refuse to go without military guard of very great power. They know that the eviction scene causes such fierce anger in the entire surrounding population, in thousands and thousands of people almost desperate, such hatred of the capitalists and the capitalist state that the police officer and platoon can be torn to shreds every minute. Large military forces are needed, several regiments must be brought into a big city without fail from some distant suburbs, so that the life of the urban poor is alien to the soldiers, so that soldiers cannot be "infected" with socialism ^[3] .

In Soviet Russia, the creation of communes and communal apartments was often of a voluntary-compulsory nature ^[4]

The housing stock in Petrograd was divided into equal sections of the area — 20 square arshins (10 m²) for an adult and a child up to two years old and 10 square arshins (5 m²) for a child from two to twelve years old ^[5] . Since 1924, the norm was 16 square arshins (8 m²), regardless of the age of residents ^[6] . If the area exceeded the norm, then new residents were moved into the apartment.

So, by April 1919, the Central Housing Commission of Petrograd moved about 36,000 workers and their families into new apartments ^[7] . In some cases, workers refused to move into new apartments. The reasons for this were: economic considerations (heating costs of large apartments), psychological discomfort in communicating with representatives of other social circles, remoteness from the place of work, inability to maintain a subsidiary farm in the city center (garden, poultry and livestock farming).

The result of these measures was an improvement in the living conditions of the broad masses of workers due to a corresponding deterioration in these conditions for a small percentage of families subjected to “compaction”. In 1922, compared with 1908, among single workers, the proportion of those living in a separate room increased from 29% to 67%, and who occupied more than one room or apartment - from 1% to 10%. Among family workers, the proportion of those who had more than one room or apartment increased from 28% to 64%, those who had one room - from 17% to 33%. In 1908, 52% of working families had less than one room, while in 1922 such families were no longer registered ^[8] .

In post-revolutionary Petrograd, the fact of a physical reduction in housing stock on the outskirts was added to the knot of problems of the “housing problem”: in 1918-1919, due to the devastation, many wooden barrack-type houses on the outskirts were broken for firewood. As a result, by 1920 the total number of apartments in Petrograd was reduced by 8.4% ^[1] . True, this did not cause a crisis of overpopulation, since in those same years the depopulation of Petrograd was proceeding at a faster pace, and obviously empty housing was scrapped. In 1920, the apartment census revealed 55 thousand 139 empty apartments in Petrograd - about one fifth of the total number of about 250 thousand ^[1] . Thus, the scale of subsequent consolidations in the center of Petrograd during the resumption of the influx of labor in the mid-1920s should not be exaggerated. If in 1918, due to the depopulation of working outskirts, the average population of one apartment in Petrograd fell to 5 people. compared with 8.7 people in 1918, then by 1920 this figure reached the level of 2.8 people per apartment, including due to the decompression of barracks and apartment buildings on the outskirts with the simultaneous communal settlement of empty apartments in the center.

Eviction of Licens

According to the Constitution of the USSR 1924-1936 many former home / apartment owners were denied voting and many other rights. Such people were called deprived . In the 1920s - 1930s, deprivation of deprived persons from the apartments of the municipal fund was carried out. Thus, many former apartment owners were even deprived of the rooms that they had left after the seals, and were generally evicted from the apartments and houses that once belonged to them ^{[9] [10]} .

NEP Period

The lack of housing fees led to the fact that the authorities began to experience a shortage of funds for the maintenance of housing stock. During the NEP period, rent and private ownership of housing were partially restored, housing cooperatives were established. Apartment owners lived in one or several rooms, and the rest could be rented out, picking up tenants on the basis of personal sympathy. The rent rate was established for different categories of residents. At this rate, the owner of the apartment paid a fee to the house, the difference between the rent and the rate was his income.

Houses that were not rented and remained at the disposal of local authorities (communal departments), began to be called "communal."

Since 1929, the institution of apartment owners has been canceled and all apartments become communal. The influx of rural population into cities caused by industrialization contributes to the formation of new communal apartments and new seals. So, the sanitary norm in Leningrad was reduced from 13.5 square meters in 1926 to 9 square meters in 1931 .

In 1937, housing associations were abolished, which disposed of about 90% of the housing stock, which was transferred to local councils.

1950s - 1960s

Since the mid -1950s, the political leadership of the USSR began to pursue a new housing policy aimed at the mass construction of individual apartments. According to the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of July 3, 1957 "On the development of housing construction in the USSR", a course was taken towards the family-friendly settlement of comfortable apartments, which was supported by such ideological and scientific points:

• the communal apartment was not a project of the Soviet government, but was a necessary measure to save money during industrialization;
• the settlement of several families in one apartment can no longer dramatically improve the living standards of these families;
• communal apartments - an economically disadvantageous type of housing that does not meet modern requirements;
• the problem of communal apartments can be solved through mass construction using new technologies, as well as improving housing legislation, which would allow the family to improve their living conditions in a separate apartment (partially implemented ^{[11] [12]} ).

An appropriate production base and infrastructure was created: house-building plants , precast concrete plants, and so on. This allowed the introduction of 110 million square meters of housing annually ^[13] . The first house-building plants were created in 1959 in the Glavleningradstroy system, in 1962 they were organized in Moscow and other cities. In particular, during the period 1966-1970 in Leningrad, 942 thousand people received living space, with 809 thousand moving into new homes and 133 thousand gaining space in old houses. However, when settling in new apartments, the “settler” principle (one neighbor to each family) was often applied. By the mid -1980s, the number of communal apartments in the central regions of Leningrad was 40% of their total number. [a source?]

In addition, until the mid-1980s, there was a system of official (departmental) area, which made it difficult to resettle communal apartments.

1990s

Since the beginning of the 1990s , along with a return to a market economy and privatization of housing in large cities, the process of resettlement of communal apartments began.

Realtors began to deal with the resettlement of communal apartments. Peak resettlement in St. Petersburg occurred in 1993. As of 1996 , in St. Petersburg there were 200,025 communal apartments, which accounted for 14% of the total number of housing. They lived 587 099 people.

2000s and 2010s

According to the Housing Committee of St. Petersburg in 2011, about 660,000 people lived in 105,000 communal apartments. The city remains the “communal capital” of the CIS.

On October 17, 2007 in St. Petersburg the Legislative Assembly of the city approved the target program of St. Petersburg "Resettlement of communal apartments in St. Petersburg." ^[14]

In accordance with the Program, a comprehensive approach to the resettlement of communal apartments using various methods of state assistance in improving the living conditions of citizens is provided.

Assistance in improving housing conditions in the framework of the Program is provided to citizens registered as needing housing or registered in need of assistance from St. Petersburg in improving housing conditions.

In accordance with paragraph 4 of the Program, the following main activities are carried out to resettle communal apartments and provide assistance to citizens:

1) provision of citizens - participants of the Program, registered as needing residential premises, residential premises under social rental contracts out of turn;

2) redistribution of residential premises (rooms) in communal apartments and residential premises of the state housing stock of St. Petersburg;

3) the provision of social support measures to citizens participating in the Program at the expense of the budget of St. Petersburg in the form of social benefits for the purchase or construction of residential premises;

4) первоочередное оказание гражданам — участникам Программы видов государственного содействия, предусмотренных целевыми программами Санкт-Петербурга «Развитие долгосрочного жилищного кредитования в Санкт-Петербурге», «Молодёжи — доступное жильё», «Жильё работникам бюджетной сферы» на условиях, определенных указанными целевыми программами Санкт-Петербурга;

5) transfer to citizens participating in the Program under the sale and purchase agreements for vacated residential premises (rooms) in communal apartments on the conditions and in the manner established by the Housing Code of the Russian Federation and the Law of St. Petersburg dated April 5, 2006 No. 169-27 “On Order and the conditions for the sale of residential premises of the State Housing Fund of St. Petersburg ”, using a decreasing coefficient to market value;

6) attracting to the resettlement of communal apartments of legal entities (individuals) - participants of the Program;

7) the provision to citizens - participants of the Program living in communal apartments of free commercial residential premises in these communal apartments under an employment contract on the terms and in the manner established by the Law of St. Petersburg dated March 28, 2007 N 125-27 “On the procedure for providing residential premises of the housing stock for commercial use of St. Petersburg ”.

These activities are carried out by the administrations of the city districts, the Housing Committee of St. Petersburg, GBU "Gorzhilmen" and JSC "St. Petersburg Center for Affordable Housing".

At the same time, at the beginning of the program, the number of communal apartments in St. Petersburg was 116 647. Over the past years, taking into account all mechanisms of assistance, housing conditions were improved for 89 659 families, 39 989 communal apartments were resettled. As of July 1, 2017, the number of communal apartments in the city on the Neva River is 76,658 apartments, in which 245 thousand families live, of which 87 thousand are registered in housing. http://obmencity.ru/state/1093/

The life of several families in one apartment almost always led and leads to quarrels and conflicts. The most resonant crime in recent history, which happened in a communal apartment on household grounds, occurred in May 2015, when a neighboring family — a husband, wife, and their seven-year-old child — was killed due to the fuses removed from the electric meter . ^[15] However, many problems have been and can be resolved with the approach agreed by all residents of the communal apartment. So, in the days of the USSR, public places could be cleaned in turn. The period of duty was determined by mutual agreement. In some apartments, each family was on duty, that is, they carried out routine cleaning for one week, in others - as many weeks as the number of people living in it, etc., and, as a rule, general cleaning was carried out before transferring the queue.

In some apartments, a fixed amount was charged for household appliances (TV, iron, etc.). If the apartment had one common electricity meter, then payments were usually calculated in proportion to the number of residents. In other apartments, in addition to the general meter, there were electric meters for each room. In this case, the calculation of the number of residents was carried out only for the amount attributable to common areas: it was determined as the difference between the readings of the total and all individual meters. There were also apartments where common areas were connected to electricity meters that were separate for each room, and when entering the kitchen, each inhabitant of the other room was obliged to turn on his light bulb, even if the light was already lit by a neighbor (in this case several light bulbs were turned on at the same time, each from its owner).

In some communal apartments, the gas stove burners were distributed between the tenants and could not be occupied without permission.

Many communal apartments remained without repair for a long time.

Although the concept of “communal apartment” arose in the era of the USSR , the residence of several families in one apartment was not an exclusive feature of Soviet society. And now, if the tenant or tenant of a room in an apartment owned by one owner has state registration of a lease for a period of more than one year (according to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), then such an apartment can also be called “communal” for the duration of the contract. An analogue of communal apartments exists in Germany - , when several people (usually students) rent one apartment. The same practice exists in Denmark , the USA and some other countries. Unlike the analogues mentioned above, the specific features of communal apartments in the Soviet era were state ownership , the settlement of such apartments by state bodies according to living space standards, which did not require the mutual consent of the settled families, and the prevailing participation of state bodies in the daily life of residents.

In Hong Kong, there are so-called "cage houses" - apartments in which several people live in each room and share a common kitchen and bathrooms. Residents of such apartments have very little personal space and are forced to separate it with a metal cage. ^[sixteen]

In the United States, communal apartments existed in New York and other port cities during periods of housing shortages caused by the influx of large numbers of immigrants. A model of such an apartment is even presented at the National Museum of American History in Washington.

• In 1918, the film " Seal " was shot according to the script of Lunacharsky .
• In a communal apartment, the action takes place in the play by Mikhail Bulgakov “Zoykina apartment” (1925). In the story " Dog Heart " (1925) describes an attempt to seal. " Bad apartment " can also be called communal.
• In Panteleymon Romanov ’s novel “Comrade Kislyakov” (1930), the life of a communal apartment is described.
• Life in a communal apartment is humorously described by I. Ilf and E. Petrov in the novel "The Golden Calf " (1931), in particular under the name "Crow's Slobodka".
• In the United States in 1939, the movie " Ninochka " was released, in which, in particular, ridiculed the life of Soviet communal apartments.
• Felix Kandel ’s novel “ The Corridor ” (1967-1969) describes life in a Moscow communal apartment ^[17] .
• The films Pokrovsky Gates , The Thief, the play and the film Five Evenings , as well as many others, take place in communal apartments.
• From 1994 to 2002, the heading "Odessa Communal Apartment" was published in the television program of the Gentleman Show . The heading was a sitcom about the life of several families in a communal apartment, the eldest of whom was Odessa Semyon Markovich. According to the plot, the socio-political events of Russia and Ukraine of those years passed through the communal apartment.
• In 1996, the group “ Dune ” released the album “ In the Big City ”, which contained the song “Communal Apartment”.
• The group “ Zero ” has a song “Communal apartments”.
• A lot of poems have been written about communal apartments: “Crying in a communal apartment” ( E. Evtushenko ), “Kommunalka” ( Nikolai Gol and Gennady Grigoryev ), etc.
• In the film “ Hipsters ” (2008), a humorous sketch on the theme of a communal apartment is given.
• The documentary film Kommunalka ( France , 2008), awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Prize in 2009.
• Photoproject of the German photographer Peter Price “Kommunalka”, two books were published, shown at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Leipzig Book Fair ^[18] .
• The heroes of the novel by Aleksandra Marinina "The One Who Knows" live in a four-room communal apartment in Reshchikov Lane (now Kamennaya Sloboda).

• Barack
• Living room
• Khrushchev
• Cohousing

• Communal apartment // Russian Humanitarian Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. P.A. Klubkova et al. - St. Petersburg. : Humanitarian Publishing Center "VLADOS", 2002. - ISBN 5-691-00675-4 . (inaccessible link)
• Gerasimova E. Yu. Soviet communal apartment: historical and sociological analysis (based on the materials of Petrograd-Leningrad, 1917-1991) (abstract of the candidate dissertation)
• Utekhin I. Essays on communal life. - M.: O. G. I. , 2001.
• Chernykh A. I. Housing repartition. The policy of the 20s in the field of housing // Sociological studies. - 1995.— No. 10. - S. 71-78.

• Communal apartments in the encyclopedia of St. Petersburg
• A. Bezzubtsev-Kondakov. Our man in a communal apartment // Ural No. 10, 2005
• Communal apartment. Virtual Museum of Soviet Life (3 hours video interviews, hundreds of photos) // // kommunalka.colgate.edu
• Virtual museum. Communal apartment // kommunalka.spb.ru
• The communal capital of Russia on friendsplace.ru
• Utilities // Radio Liberty , 2002
• Communal apartments are returning // May 2016