Housing in Russia

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Housing in Russia reflects the country's history, geography and traditions. According to Russian Public Opinion Research Center 65 percent of Russians live in apartments, 31 percent in a private house and 4 percent in dormitories. [1] The share of Russians who own an apartment or a house is relatively high and amounts to about 54 percent. About 11 percent reside in a rented apartment or house. The rest live with their relatives or friends. [2]

There are several major types of apartment blocks common in Russia. A Khrushchyovka is probably the most popular type. Usually it is a 4 or 5-storied concrete-paneled or brick apartment building with notoriously small apartments, extensively constructed in the 1960s and 1970s to solve the housing problem. Stalin-era buildings ( Stalinka ) from 1930s - 1950s are usually larger and more comfortable, however many of them require major renovation. One more type of apartment blocks is Brezhnevka built mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. Apartments there are a bit larger, and the buildings themselves are 9-16 stories high. Finally, the housing boom in 2000s led to wide-scale construction of new apartment buildings from economy to premium class based both on improved Soviet projects and new original decisions. [3]

A typical Khrushchyovka in Moscow Khrushchevka serii I-464A v Iuzhnom Butovo.png
A typical Khrushchyovka in Moscow

A typical Russian apartment includes a kitchen, a lavatory, sometimes a balcony and from one to three rooms. Unlike many other countries, when Russian people describe an apartment, they count all rooms, not just bedrooms. It's a common practice to have only one lavatory in the apartment, though modern apartments may have more lavatories and rooms.

Private housing boom began in the 1990s and is still going on. Most private houses are built in the suburbs of large cities. Obtaining a building permit is quite easy and the building regulations for private houses are quite liberal. The house must not be higher than 20 meters and must not have more than 3 floors. It should be located at least 5 meters from the plot border. Brick houses are more common in central and southern regions while wooden houses dominate in the north. [4]

There are no legal restrictions on owning a property in Russia for foreign citizens except owning agricultural lands and properties in the state border zone. [5]

As of 2019, an average price for one square meter in a new apartment amounted to 64 thousand rubles. [6]

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative [7] finds that Russia is fulfilling 71.7% of what they should be fulfilling for the right to housing, based on their level of income. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apartment</span> Self-contained housing unit occupying part of a building

An apartment, flat, or unit is a self-contained housing unit that occupies part of a building, generally on a single storey. There are many names for these overall buildings. The housing tenure of apartments also varies considerably, from large-scale public housing, to owner occupancy within what is legally a condominium, to tenants renting from a private landlord.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Condominium</span> Form of ownership of real property

A condominium is an ownership regime in which a building is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owners. These individual units are surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned and managed by the owners of the units. The term can be applied to the building or complex itself, and is sometimes applied to individual units. The term "condominium" is mostly used in the US and Canada, but similar arrangements are used in many other countries under different names.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Studio apartment</span> Type of apartment

A studio apartment, or studio condo also known as a studio flat (UK), self-contained apartment (Nigeria), efficiency apartment, bed-sitter (Kenya), or bachelor apartment, is a small dwelling in which the normal functions of a number of rooms – often the living room, bedroom, and kitchen – are combined into a single room.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Housing cooperative</span> Type of housing development that emphasizes self-governance and quasi-communal living

A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tenement</span> Building shared by multiple dwellings

A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, in Edinburgh, tenements were developed with each apartment treated as a separate house, built on top of each other. Over hundreds of years, custom grew to become law concerning maintenance and repairs, as first formally discussed in Stair's 1681 writings on Scots property law. In Scotland, these are now governed by the Tenements Act, which replaced the old Law of the Tenement and created a new system of common ownership and procedures concerning repairs and maintenance of tenements. Tenements with one- or two-room flats provided popular rented accommodation for workers, but in some inner-city areas, overcrowding and maintenance problems led to shanty towns, which have been cleared and redeveloped. In more affluent areas, tenement flats form spacious privately owned houses, some with up to six bedrooms, which continue to be desirable properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communal apartment</span> Type of living in Russia

Communal apartments are apartments in which several unrelated persons or families live in isolated living rooms and share common areas such a kitchen, shower, and toilet. They generally lack privacy. Up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all communal apartments were state-owned public housing. With the start of privatization in Russia, such apartments started to gain ownership, often parts of it being privatized by different persons, which often led to litigations and abuse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York City Housing Authority</span> Public development corporation responsible for New York Citys public and leased housing

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the United States, it aims to provide decent, affordable housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs of New York City. NYCHA also administers a citywide Section 8 Leased Housing Program in rental apartments. NYCHA developments include single and double family houses, apartment units, singular floors, and shared small building units, and commonly have large income disparities with their respective surrounding neighborhood or community. These developments, particularly those including large-scale apartment buildings, are often referred to in popular culture as "projects."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Housing in Japan</span> Overview of housing in Japan

Housing in Japan includes modern and traditional styles. Two patterns of residences are predominant in contemporary Japan: the single-family detached house and the multiple-unit building, either owned by an individual or corporation and rented as apartments to tenants, or owned by occupants. Additional kinds of housing, especially for unmarried people, include boarding houses, dormitories, and barracks.

Housing in Portugal is generally similar to housing in the rest of Europe. However, some specificities exist. Portugal has the highest rate of rural population in Western Europe, which means that roughly a third of the Portuguese families live in farms or properties outside urban areas. Another characteristic is that most of the urban population is actually suburban. The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto each have over 2 million inhabitants. In these areas, families live in apartment blocs, each apartment usually having two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and one or two bathrooms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apartment hotel</span> Type of serviced apartment complex

An apartment hotel or aparthotel is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can "check out" whenever they wish, subject to the applicable minimum length of stay imposed by the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multifamily residential</span> Type of housing development that emphasizes density and proximity of many neighbors

Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU)) is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other (side-by-side units), or stacked on top of each other (top and bottom units). Common forms include apartment building and condominium, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single building owner. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.

Rent regulation in New York is a means of limiting the amount of rent charged on dwellings. Rent control and rent stabilization are two programs used in parts of New York state. In addition to controlling rent, the system also prescribes rights and obligations for tenants and landlords.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Common area</span> Place in a building designated for all its inhabitants use

A common area is, in real estate or real property law, the "area which is available for use by more than one person..." The common areas are those that are available for common use by all tenants, (or) groups of tenants and their invitees. In Texas and other parts of the United States, it is "An area inside a housing development owned by all residents or by an overall management structure which charges each tenant for maintenance and upkeep."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Belnord</span> Condominium building in Manhattan, New York

The Belnord is a condominium building at 225 West 86th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The 13-story structure was designed by Hiss and Weekes in the Italian Renaissance Revival style and occupies the full block between Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, and 86th and 87th Streets. It was built between 1908 and 1909 by a syndicate of investors as a rental apartment building. The Belnord is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microapartment</span> Type of house

A microapartment, also known as a microflat, is a one-room, self-contained living space, usually purpose built, designed to accommodate a sitting space, sleeping space, bathroom and kitchenette with 14–32 square metres. Unlike a traditional studio flat, residents may also have access to a communal kitchen, communal bathroom/shower, patio and roof garden. The microapartments are often designed for futons, or with pull-down beds, folding desks and tables, and extra-small or hidden appliances. They differ from bedsits, the traditional British bed-sitting room, in that they are self-contained, with their own bathroom, toilet, and kitchenette.

The Wilhelmine Ring is the name for a belt of distinctive multi-occupancy rental housing blocks constructed in the second half of the 19th century around the historic city center of Berlin. It is characterized by a dense settlement pattern with four- to five-story residential buildings with side and rear wings around an inner courtyard. The designation reflects the period of origin of this town planning solution under the German monarchs Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II.

Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as growing crops, minerals or water, and wild animals; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, buildings or housing in general. In terms of law, real relates to land property and is different from personal property while estate means the "interest" a person has in that land property.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cressingham Gardens</span> Housing estate in Lambeth, London

Cressingham Gardens is a council garden estate in Lambeth. It is located on the southern edge of Brockwell Park. It comprises 306 dwellings, a mixture of four, three and two-bedroom houses, and one-bedroom apartments. It was designed at the end of the 1960s by the Lambeth Borough Council Architect Edward Hollamby and second architect Roger Westman, and built at the start of the 1970s. In 2012 Lambeth Council proposed demolishing the estate, to replace the terraced houses by apartment blocks. Most of the apartments would then be for sale to the private sector. The residents, those in Lambeth who wish to prevent the gentrification of the borough, and those who want to conserve what they believe to be important architectural heritage, are campaigning to prevent its demolition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrey Makarov (politician)</span> Russian politician (born 1954)

Andrey Mikhailovich Makarov is a Soviet and Russian lawyer, Russian politician, deputy of the State Duma in 1993-1999 and from 2003 to the present, member of the faction United Russia, TV presenter. One of the authors of the first part of the Taxation in Russia.

Rent control in Massachusetts was a means of limiting the amount of rent charged on dwellings. There have been three instances where rent control was implemented: after World War I, after World War II, and between 1970 and 1994.

References

  1. ВЦИОМ узнал в каких домах живут россияне. Retrieved on 15 October 2020
  2. ВЦИОМ узнал, в каких домах живут россияне. Retrieved on 15 October 2020
  3. Сталинки, брежневки и хрущевки: плюсы и минусы советской застройки / Домклик. Retrieved on 11 May 2023
  4. How to rent / buy a property in Russia / SDV Consulting. Retrieved on 11 May 2023
  5. How to rent / buy a property in Russia / SDV Consulting. Retrieved on 11 May 2023
  6. Средние цены на первичном рынке жилья по Российской Федерации / Росстат. Retrieved on 20 October 2020
  7. "Human Rights Measurement Initiative – The first global initiative to track the human rights performance of countries". humanrightsmeasurement.org. Retrieved 2022-03-04.
  8. "Russian Federation - HRMI Rights Tracker". rightstracker.org. Retrieved 2022-03-04.