My little kvartira

Several people have asked me to describe where I live. And the timing of the question couldn't be any better since I just covered the way things were back in 1995. Except for the removal of the wall-mounted "radio" that you couldn't turn off and which probably was a microphone into your room, the hotel/dormitory I'm in hasn't changed at all since 1995 and, probably not even since the early 1980s when this building was the new beauty on the lane.

The "Chajka," a twelve-story brick affair that is now dwarfed by its neighbors doesn't know if it's a hotel or a dorm. The sign on the outside says "hotel," but since the early 90's they've been converting it into a dormitory. I don't know exactly what that means in terms of the layout of the rooms, but the profile of the inhabitants is mostly college-aged people from all around the world. 

The rooms themselves are just fine and are exactly identical except for the number of bedrooms. Everything branches off of the entryway where you put your shoes, jacket, and such. I also use it to store my bottled water. Off that entryway you have the toilet behind one door and the sink/tub behind another. I have no idea why it's set up that way. Tradition, I guess. Perhaps the Russians are as puzzled by the fact that we poop in the same room where we shower as we are at the fact that you have to change rooms in order to wash your hands after using the toilet.

So, let's wash our hands and head for the kitchen which is also off the entryway. There's a range which, I think I've observed elsewhere, only has one live burner and takes around 20 minutes to boil a cup of water. I've also got a dorm-sized fridge, which is standard in a lot of Russian houses. The windows in my kitchen (as in my bedroom) are a piece of Mondrian art. There are three separate windows in the frame: a big one, a small narrow one, and an even smaller square-shaped one. This small one is called the fortochka and it's almost always cracked open a little bit. It keeps air flowing and in the winter helps regulate temperature (it may also help against the Evil Eye by keeping spirits stirred up, but don't quote me on that).  The windows are all double-something. I don't know what it's called, but when you open the first window, there's another window right behind it. It's like double paned but with a HUGE cushion of air – probably to keep the sub-freezing winters at bay.

The kitchen table is simple, and is the center of domestic life. Lots of beer, vodka, and tea get drunk here. However, since I'm in a semi-leadership position on this trip I don't hang out with the students and don't have hordes of Russian friends to spend my evenings with, so I mostly use my table for holding my groceries.

The only other room in my apartment is the bedroom. It's just two narrow beds and a TV that gets four channels in Russian, plus one fuzzy channel that always plays the Larry King show.

The flooring here looks like wood, but when you enter the apartment on a sunny day, you see the swales in the poorly-laid linoleum. I don't think it's even glued down – it's like old contact paper.

Over the weekend, it was laundry day. There are no laundry facilities here and no such thing as a laundromat, so I do my things by hand in the bathroom sink. Then I drip them dry in the tub, before transferring them to the curved hot water pipe for their final drying. When you're living in a multi-person room here the bathroom is always full of laundry in different stages of cleaning.

As I say, nothing at all has changed in the Chajka since at least 1995.

Here are some snapshots for your entertainment.

This is the Chajka. I'm in the fourth rickey balcony up

Entryway full of warm-weather wear that I haven't needed since it's been in the 80s since I got here.

The weirdly separated bathroom

Forgot to make my bed or fold my clothes. No one told me it was class picture day.

Kitchen window. Please note the fortochka.

My fridge, the Smolensk 3M, cutting edge technology for its time. 

The dish drying cupboard. In the old days, there didn't used to be a solid bottom to the cupboard, just a wire mesh so your dishes dripped dry right into the sink -- and onto your head if you weren't careful. 

My modest kitchen table. Chairs for two, but I use the second one for a footrest.

I told you it was laundry day.

BONUS PICTURE:

This is the neighborhood nuclear plant. Just a couple of miles from the Chajka. If it goes up, don't even bother looking for me, just inhale deeply and commune with my vaporized form.