Tag #113714 - Interview #95476 (Dobrina Rivkind)

We graduated from First Medical Institute named after Academician Pavlov. My sister set up a family and I lived behind a screen in the same room. Later I left for the North to work and I set up a family of my own there. Thus three families were registered in that room: our parents, my sister with her family and child, who lived there; and me with my husband and child, who lived in the North. But everybody had a „home”: the room. In a communal apartment each family has a room of its own. There is one kitchen, one toilet and one bathroom for all. There are two gas stoves in the kitchen and each family has its own table and a place with shelves for dishes. When fridges appeared, every family kept a fridge in its own room.  Every family has its own burner on the stove. Toilet, corridor and kitchen are cleaned by families in turn. There are several doorbells at the apartment entrance door, each leading in each family’s room. Sometimes the neighbors agreed on how many rings for each family, for instance, one ring – to the first room, two rings – to the second room and so on. Certainly it was not easy to live in such an apartment, everyone having his/her own temper and personality. However, we were friends with some neighbors; though with some of them we never had any relations except for neighbor ones.