ABSTRACT

The housing shortages have traditionally been described by foreign and Soviet observers in terms of the low average norm of living space per person, measured in square metres. Communal flats, where bathroom, cooking facilities and landings (if not living-rooms) were shared by a number of households, were extremely common. Waiting lists were known to be long, although official statistical data was unavailable. The lack of information on the growth in the number of households made it impossible to match the impressive annual increments in the housing stock against new household formation, a much more important statistic than the annual number of registered marriages.