Housing in Communist economies

sorry, but it's too late. if you are interested continue tomorrow

 

4
My parents also built a cooperative apartment. It was in 1965. Their salary was then 130-140 rubles each. The apartment was a two-room apartment with an area of 40 sq. m., but this is only the area of living rooms, and the total area is approximately 60 meters. Its price was 3,500 rubles, so the cost of one square meter was half of the salary, and not the whole one, as it is written in the topic. Parents paid money for the apartment gradually for 15 years (approximately), the interest was, but very small - 0.5 or 1% per year.

 

5
Apartments were given for free, but had to wait from 5 to 10 years. Although it was different everywhere and depended on how much the organization needed workers. If it was some very necessary specialist, then they could give him an apartment almost immediately. And if, on the contrary, there were many people who wanted to get an apartment, as it was in Moscow, then they waited for 15 and 20 years. The apartment received for free actually became personal property, not state property (although legally it was considered so). They could no longer take it back and evict a person from housing even when he left the organization that allocated him an apartment. If the owner died, then his relatives became the owners and they could sell or exchange the apartment, although in the USSR this was associated with great difficulties. I know of only one case when the apartment was returned to the ownership of the organization after the owners died.

 

6
A lot of families have dachas, about 3/4. They live on them on weekends and during vacations, and pensioners all summer. Previously, fruits and vegetables were usually grown in dachas as an additional free food, but now they are increasingly used only for recreation. The dachas themselves have changed a lot, because in the USSR it was difficult to buy building materials before they were built from what it was possible to get. Now children are demolishing their parents' cottages and building full-fledged houses in their place, with water supply, heating, sewerage. In fact, this is the second country house. These are large two-storey brick cottages. And the richest people generally build villas with an internal garden and a swimming pool.