Russia's Horror Housing: St. Petersburg’s Soviet Communal Flats | Brothels, Bugs and Despair ENG SUB

Russia is full of communal flats: they're places where several families have to share their living space with remnants of historic epochs and bed bugs. Communal apartments have been a home to millions of people ever since the USSR, and their existence tracks back even further, to the times of Peter the Great.

Saint Petersburg is considered the capital of Russian communal housing: the Revolution didn’t change it, neither did the Civil War and Perestroika. I visited Russia’s cultural capital to see the luxurious houses of Bak and Nikonov and touch the mysteries hidden in the long corridors and shared kitchens and bathrooms. Watch my new video to see how it all really looks on the inside.

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Hey guys! My name is Ilya, I am a Russian journalist and a founder of various urban beautification projects in Moscow and across Russia. There is nothing in the world that I love more than traveling. On this channel I will do my best to give you an unbiased overview of life in different places around the globe. Subscribe to the channel not to miss my new videos.

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Welcome to Russia’s cultural capital
00:02:02 What is a communal flat?
00:03:20 What to expect when renting a communal flat
00:05:15 Sergey Dovlatov’s apartment
00:06:40 Elements of the Soviet décor in the interior
00:08:12 Kitchen: the heart of a communal flat
00:08:51 “You had to go to the toilet with your own toilet seat”
00:12:28 Historical house of Julian Bak
00:17:49 A brothel inside of a communal flat
00:19:23 Renovations of the house of Bak
00:22:22 The capital of communal housing: why St. Petersburg?
00:25:26 “Dear neighbors! Caution: homeless people are using our bathroom”
00:28:00 “There’s nothing to steal, we’re all poor”
00:30:32 16 rooms in one communal flat!
00:33:07 Vasilyevsky Island: St. Petersburg’s largest communal flat
00:34:12 Breathing new life into the old design of a communal flat
00:37:29 Apartment in the house of Nikolai Nikonov
00:40:19 Quarrels and conflicts of the residents of communal flats
00:44:09 How people renovate communal flats
00:49:45 Tatiana Putilova's revenue house
00:53:07 Soul Kitchen, a co-living in the house of Lipin
00:58:52 Communal household rules
01:00:49 Afterword