An old work friend who grew up in the USSR then immigrated to the US after an exchange student program told me about growing up in those kinds of apartments.
His take was essentially: "it's everything you needed, but we didn't have private bathrooms or kitchens."
He also fondly recalled the guy who came once a week or so with the truck of fermented juice of some kind to sell (or maybe give, I can't remember) to all the local kids.
I've been in Eastern European commie blocks that have private baths and kitchens. Seen them in Soviet films too. So I guess this must have been an older building.
i've seen batshit layouts in older apartments. the older, the weirder. they dont make any sense with the way we live now. the first mass built apartments that had layouts i'd consider good for today's living were panel flats (plattenbau) built in the 70s. all the stuff built in the 50s-60s have to have walls moved, rooms redrawn to be any good. i actually have no idea what kind of houses they built in the late 40s/early50s here, they're probably even weirder.
I lived in a subdivided brownstone where my studio apartment was what had been the living room. It had no bathroom originally so they turned the Harry Potter under stairs closet into the tiniest bathroom ever. And there was not actual shower, they just put water proof panels on a little outcove in the wall and put a shower head in.
this was incredibly common in all of europe until surprisingly late. you can still see how they added the toilet later in lots of apartments in budapest. i think paris had apartments like this until like the 70s?
might be why it's more common to have the toilet in a separate small room, instead of in the bathroom. the bathroom came inside the house first, then later the toilet. IIRC people who were used to shitting outside their home were leery of the idea because it seemed unhygienic to have the place you shit inside your home.
OTOH, our communist-built apartments all had toilets inside, i think. the ones that needed retrofitting were older buildings.
yeah, that's common too, and it's a tragedy. but the new trend is to put the shitter in the bathroom, which is also awful, with shitwater flying everywhere when you flush.
seriously someone needs to invent a negative pressure toliet lid or something. not sure if a rubber seal would be good there would need to be a vent somewhere to allow air in but not out
probably bathtubs you can shower in. shower stalls were not a thing i saw in homes as a child, only in like pool change rooms, summer camps, that sort of thing.
note that this is early 90s hungary, i have no idea what the shower/bath situation looked like elsewhere
I lived in places like that here in Argentina built in the same time period, (some way earlier, some waay later), "conventillos" they are called here but work exactly the same as hostels. They are built for landlords to rent, instead of subdivided apartments.
An old work friend who grew up in the USSR then immigrated to the US after an exchange student program told me about growing up in those kinds of apartments.
His take was essentially: "it's everything you needed, but we didn't have private bathrooms or kitchens."
He also fondly recalled the guy who came once a week or so with the truck of fermented juice of some kind to sell (or maybe give, I can't remember) to all the local kids.
I've been in Eastern European commie blocks that have private baths and kitchens. Seen them in Soviet films too. So I guess this must have been an older building.
i've seen batshit layouts in older apartments. the older, the weirder. they dont make any sense with the way we live now. the first mass built apartments that had layouts i'd consider good for today's living were panel flats (plattenbau) built in the 70s. all the stuff built in the 50s-60s have to have walls moved, rooms redrawn to be any good. i actually have no idea what kind of houses they built in the late 40s/early50s here, they're probably even weirder.
I lived in a subdivided brownstone where my studio apartment was what had been the living room. It had no bathroom originally so they turned the Harry Potter under stairs closet into the tiniest bathroom ever. And there was not actual shower, they just put water proof panels on a little outcove in the wall and put a shower head in.
yeah, a lot of large old flats got subdivided here too, they can be very strange and hard to live in
ok what the fuck were the architects thinking with this
this was incredibly common in all of europe until surprisingly late. you can still see how they added the toilet later in lots of apartments in budapest. i think paris had apartments like this until like the 70s?
might be why it's more common to have the toilet in a separate small room, instead of in the bathroom. the bathroom came inside the house first, then later the toilet. IIRC people who were used to shitting outside their home were leery of the idea because it seemed unhygienic to have the place you shit inside your home.
OTOH, our communist-built apartments all had toilets inside, i think. the ones that needed retrofitting were older buildings.
Also, you know what struck me as extremely unhygienic the time I went to France? Having no place to wash your hands in the small shitting rooms.
yeah, that's common too, and it's a tragedy. but the new trend is to put the shitter in the bathroom, which is also awful, with shitwater flying everywhere when you flush.
Do toilets not have lids in Europe?
of course they do. people dont always put them down, and also, even with the lid down, toilets spit shitwater. dont be fooled.
seriously someone needs to invent a negative pressure toliet lid or something. not sure if a rubber seal would be good there would need to be a vent somewhere to allow air in but not out
yeah,
fine, ok, but those apartments had showers right?
probably bathtubs you can shower in. shower stalls were not a thing i saw in homes as a child, only in like pool change rooms, summer camps, that sort of thing.
note that this is early 90s hungary, i have no idea what the shower/bath situation looked like elsewhere
by private do they mean en suite? I find it hard to believe they didn't have kitchens
Old pre-war buildings usually had communal kitchens.
but that's communism!
I don't think I could hack it not just leaving dirty dishes after I cook something until that evening/next morning. They need to soak!
But consider: if you volunteer to do the cooking someone else will have to do the washing up
you wouldn't last with my wife then. 🙄
Yes, I mean en suite. The bathrooms and kitchens were communal. According to him if you weren't there at meal time you didn't eat.
I lived in places like that here in Argentina built in the same time period, (some way earlier, some waay later), "conventillos" they are called here but work exactly the same as hostels. They are built for landlords to rent, instead of subdivided apartments.
This is also my mother's experience of Communist Poland, but the apartment was cramped and there was no fermented juice guy
Lmao