IIRC, Saint-Petersburg is one of the most expensive places to live, less than Moscow but about like Paris and London. OK my info is >5yrs old. But still. Hell yeah, that's a helluva good deal.
@@MyPartytime69 Before the pandemic this apartment cost would cost 190$ +50 dollars water gas electricity but prices got lower because everyone is leaving city to their hometowns or to parents. And also the Russian curency fell a bit.
As American to be honest I would not mind living in one of these apartments. For a single person it is honestly all I would personally need. You could easily clean it up a bit and make it look pretty nice. Sure as shit beats being homeless as well. Thanks for showing us your home. Cheers!
I’m an American who has lived in many such apartments when I lived in Ukraine for years. These apartments are concrete prison cells. No human should live like that. The typical American home is like paradise compared to these apartments
@@yeboscrebo4451 atleast not cardboard boxes. In america most walls are made of cardboard. Basically it doesn't take alot to break a wall. But in russia you will never break a wall because it's concrete. 👍🏻
@@JK-ml2rc Most walls here are not made of cardboard. Most walls here are made of wood framing and layers of insulation and drywall. When I lived in apartment complexes in Ukraine, cockroaches from the neighbors would crawl through the cracks in the concrete into my apartment. It was absolutely disgusting.
$12.50 for rubber gloves, $8.00 for a nice bucket, $14.00 for scrub brushes, $7.50 for TSP (sugar soap), $60.00 for paint, $15.00 for new curtains. Yep, I'd live there.
The apartments in Soviet Union mostly were given for free. My mom was a teacher in the college, and when i was 5 years old she got a free two bedroom apartment from her job. The way you live and keep your place clean and tidy is only your problem!!!
In the occupied countries, which were not officially part of the Soviet Union - i.e., the Baltic states, apartments were mostly given for free to Russian citizens, not locals - Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians (which were considered "second class" citizens at the time of occupation). This has created a situation in the Baltic states where many locals still do not own their own housing, and are forced to rent, often from Russian citizens or their children.
Being given does not mean you owned it, could sell it and move on. Dont live in a farrytale socialist utopia. Also if you graduated your school the government told you where to go... in big cities where young people wanted to live you did not get apartment that easily at all but government said you need Hinsdale County, Colorado and teach there and you will get apartment and you will not get job anywhere else then would you like it? @@JoaoSantos-ur1gg
I've lived in worse....in Canada. No plumbing. Drew water from a mountain spring. Had an outhouse. Small gas stove for heat. Minimal electricity, 2 bare bulbs and 2 outlets. Roof leaked, plastic covered broken windows. Your apt is a palace!
New Brunswick. NB is the poorest Canadian province. Lots of 'working poor' people. The northern portion of the Appalachian mountain range runs through NB. The poverty stricken live in the hills or the hood. Even though I'm not poor any longer, I prefer the hills.
You bring childhood memory to me, I'm not Russian, but i was living with a Russian community in my country , bcz of them I learned simplicity, efficiency and adaptation to hardship . Russian are humble and friendly.
I feel the same way, in my neighbourhood there were Russian-Germans who came back to Germany in the 90s. We even had two Russian shops in the district town where you could buy furniture and wallpaper from the Soviet era and the flats looked quite similar in style, which also reminded me a lot of my childhood.
Oh man, it reminded me when I was little, I left USSR in 1990 to Australia. Me and my parents lived in an exactly the same apartment. Great video!! Bring it on!!!!
@@electrogestapo only netflix? Our decadent homeland is a free country and so we have Netflix, Amazon, Hbo, and Hulu....subscription because we want to be able to choose. Yes, all at the same time.
short answer: yes. long answer: also yes. i live in a 24 m² aparment and i pay 300€/month (germany). this place just needs to be scrubbed and new wallpaper and you're golden.
Exactly what I was looking for! I was born in 1982 so this is a trip to see post cards in the era of my first memories! But my family was in West Germany and dad was in US Army in those times, but I always wondered what life was like on the other side of the wall, I have a little idea now...but I imagine the building looked a little bit newer than it's now current state, thanks Sergey!
to be honest it needs simple inside renovation like cleaning all walls and ceiling, paint it with nice color or use wallpapers on walls, so fix and cleaning in bathroom, maybe change to modern heating system, new radiators and its pretty good to live, for whole house they need to make few renovations too with roof and balcony, with walls from outside heating leakages
I doubt you can even rent a room for less than 400$ in Toronto... The prices are crazy. As a student I have to live with my parents because living on campus is unaffordable.
@@michaelsemyanovsky9638 pff. 60% of my friends in Russia living with their parents till 30-40 y.o., some start renting after second kid in family as it's hell experience to live 5-6 people on 45-50 sq.m.
Now in Belgrade you can not find apartment with 30-40 square meters on some districts 10-15 kilometres far from center for less then 150 euros or 170-180 dollars.
Also our payments are about 400 euros per mounts, so almost half of your payment goes to paying rent. Not to mension that you need taxes, 150 euros in average. So you have 100 euros left for food, clothes and alot more. So we live much harder then other European countries.
Don't forget that you can hear Everything, literally, one of your neighbour decides, how great it would be to put some cables in the wall at 5 AM. So he starts making tons of noise you can't sleep, also no A/C. Heat sucks. Everyone knows you, so if you do something, they will know. Atleast this is the case in hungary
IceCrystal 009 OP lives in the US and the walls there are made of carboard, you can punch a hole in them, so I don't think it's any worse. To me, personally, the most annoying is when neighbours decide everyone needs to hear them fuck.
I had an office in the USA that had an echo and was definitely not soundproof, so we put a carpet on the wall and it really did soundproof the office 👍🏼❤️
$150/mo? That's my electric bill. Those kitchen floor tiles? My basement in British Columbia, Canada has those exact same tiles. I don't know what it is about 50+ year old buildings and those tiles, but they're EVERYWHERE.
My first flat 32 square metres in an old building from 1880 on the 3rd floor (4th floor for Americans), 54 stairs up, was similarly cheap and at least as noisy as a Soviet flat. Last renovated in 1982. When trucks drove through the street without permission (was forbidden), the glasses in my kitchen cupboard shook. I moved out seven years ago, nowadays the same flat costs almost twice as much rent and all they did was slap new paint on the wall and write "renovated" in the ad and idiots fall for it.
You're hilarious, lol. It's actually a good place for that amount of money, now I know that I can afford something like that if my dream of living in Russia comes true. Greetings from Mexico komrade.
I’ve lived in a 1 bedroom Chicago apartment with three others for $800 a month. By the time my family said “f this place we can do better” there was a giant hole in our bathroom ceiling, rotting wood, mold, cockroaches everywhere, the toilet had been ripped out for some reason, it just got worse. Our landlord demanded money plus some... and we just left. It was hell on earth. For $135 a month for this? And barely those problems..... I wouldn’t complain. But reading some of the comments it seems like $135 was a chunk of money taken out of peoples’ wages?
The ruble unfortunately does not have the same buying power of the US dollar. however. The Russian economy is very different from the US, and the function of the ruble has different value depending on what its spent towards.
Can you afford to buy some paint, and maybe some new curtains and Wallpaper?! I don't know what they allow you to do to a 'Rental', if anything, but surely you can buy some Curtains and clean it up a bit.
Very interesting and informative. Great job! I watch a lot of Bald and Bankrupt on RUclips and you might find his content interesting too. Love the gas mask!
I lived in a post soviet flat from 7 to 18 y old. For that price, and with my current salary? Sure ye! I would save up for land im Bułgaria in 1-2 years lol Now im in UK and live in about 26m2 flat for 540 British pounds for rent, 140 tax, and on top of.it.i have electricity and water to pay..... At least 800 a month in winter!!!
@@GM-xo7yy the £140 is what is called Council Tax and is a once per year payment. It is used by the local council authority to pay for street cleaning, refuse collection, sewage disposal etc.
it needs an upgrade that is all, in spain at the same year or time in history i do think you will find very similar construction if you were poor or working class,
I've spent my childhood in Eastern Poland in a single family house. Brick built, 1 floor (although 'sticking out' above the ground. The cellar was both partially under and above the ground so the ground floor was kinda on the 1st floor). My parents had it built somewhere in the 70s. I can see many similarities: telephone plugs, antresola, radiators, carpets everywhere and the immortal doorbell that will outlive us all. Despite the fact that it wasn't state built, it has plenty architectural designs similar to that shown apartment. I find that quite interesting. This video really was like a trip down the memory lane.
That is how my grandparent's house in the village looks like, if not even worse. Though they haven't lived there since 1982 where the construction company where my grandpa used to work gave him an apartment.
Huh. We just moved in a soviet style apartment. A little bit of tlc and they are better than new ones. I can t punch through a wall and wave to my neighbour...
That apartment could be so much nicer with very little effort. Stresses me out that the wallpaper is flaking, paints chipped, plaster is cracked, and nothings been done about it 😂 bruh that's gotta be some $20 fixes
Russian people are resilient and that's too be admired, but there are many people who have a little more luxury than this living in St Petersburg. I like the Russians especially the ones that are hardworking class decent people ❤️✌️
Yes, I would... looks about as nice as the apartment I pay 900 dollars a month for. And I live in Memphis, TN. USA. which is a not so great, crime is sky high kind of city. Things are getting more and more expensive here.
Any shelter that you can sleep in safely and stay warm out of the elements is a good deal at $150. But most of your issues seem to be cosmetic. Buy the supplies and fix it up. If your landlord won't you still have to live there and look at it. So quit complaining and fix what you don't like about it. If you don't know how, there are plenty of RUclips videos that teach you how to do almost anything. At the very least you can do a better paint job than that.
Though my childhood apartment was nicer due to my mother's obsessive cleaning, I stayed in a rental for 3 years in Bucharest exactly like this one. Horrible, horrible place, but living alone in a 2 room apartment with my own bathroom and kitchen for 100 euros per month was heaven. That place got me out of my college dormitory where I shared a room with 5 other guys. This kind of places are like gold to poor students.
This is better than the bedsits and flats that were in Earl’s Court in the 70s. Looks fine to me, you just have to clean, furnish and do a few repairs..like anybody else does.
Reminds me of 1970's Odessa. This guy has some high connections to get an apartment for himself, the four of us had a16 sq.m. room, but if we stayed in Russia, we had only 22 years left , in our waiting line for an apartment. Of coures we paid a lot less rent, it was about $12.50 every 3month plus water and electricity and gas another $5.00 every 3 month and after a 6 year wait the plumbers came to fix and renovate the bathroom. the 200 year old apartments we lived in required renovations every 50 years or so.
If the alternative is a blanket in the park in a Russian winter, this is just fine. Two blankets and outside looks better. Around here if I were that desperate around here I would get arrested to avoid sleeping outside in the winter or any other season.
Croatian here, 7:36 I used to have that EXACT lamp in my house before renovating it. Funny thing is, it's not a flat, it's a one-family private house. I guess the communist style spread in rural areas aswell.
I could live there but I would have to get 3 gallons of paint and paint from top to bottom and go somewhere else to take a bath. or tear that tub out of there. LOL
I love it! Minimalist, simple, and modest! Definitely would live in one, preferably a Brezhnevka and not a Khrushchevka, but either one yes I would love it! Just for the nostalgia! And the price is the best part!
I like your apartment. The heating system is great! Also, the bigger a place is, the more there is to clean and more utilities to pay. I think the price is great!
9:06 i love that phone socket, they are so easy to connect, it dosent give me so much problems, my home phone is a soviet made vef ta 68 with that plug, that is still working since 1976, voice is clear and it it's easy to fix
I would live there. I live in a similar size apartment in Minnesota and pay $1,050 per month. With some cleaning, scraping and painting your place could look nice.
It will be a nice & cozy apartment if you clean it up, maybe renovate a bit. Don't know how I end up here but I don't regret, quite entertaining. I like ur accent. Best wishes...
That carpet is way to much nice for that apartment😅 If I had to, I would live there, but I would clean it first and paint the walls. Maybe bought some cheap ikea furniture and its done😅
Humor is seeing western commenters saying, 'should clean, paint, fix, repair'...to 'make it look nice'...but they don't have a clue (never met a Russian that wouldn't work hard)...the problem is like in some parts of the U.S., you first have to spend money (your money, or put in request to get approved from state) to get the items listed...then you do the work...looks like a modern home to westerners, right? Within a few days or weeks, local supervisor comes by and re-assess your rent...it is no longer $135 a month...it is now $550 a month! (some parts of the U.S. are like this in regards to property tax...as viewed by aerial photos or on-site tax assessor, looks nice, you get appraised for a $200,000 property that you have to now pay tax on, based on percentage of assessed value...yearly. So, you let the paint peel off, you let the weeds grow outside, install your own potholes in the driveway...and you get assessed at maybe 1/4 of this amount)...same principle...
It may not look like much but it is better than alotta places honestly. Plus I love the aesthetic although it does need some new wallpaper lol. But grreat vid nice of you to post and share history.
That's really crazy to pays such a Price, but then again, i live in Canada. This appartement is ok for one person. My appartement is a bit bigger than that.
135$+40$(water, gas, electricity) Would you live in this apartment in Saint-Petersburg?
If it's in a central location, absolutely!
@@enriquemaldonado6426 It's not the center but not the outskirts as well. And 12 minutes walk from metro
IIRC, Saint-Petersburg is one of the most expensive places to live, less than Moscow but about like Paris and London. OK my info is >5yrs old. But still. Hell yeah, that's a helluva good deal.
@@CrazyRussianSergey I think, still worth it!
@@MyPartytime69 Before the pandemic this apartment cost would cost 190$ +50 dollars water gas electricity but prices got lower because everyone is leaving city to their hometowns or to parents. And also the Russian curency fell a bit.
Why does this video seem like it's satire but not at the same time?
I was wondering that !! lol .
I though so to...
It is not. I was born in the SU and this is how most of the people lived and still do, at least in Russia. In other countries they went long way...
I was wondering the exact same thing!!
Does feel like satire, for sure. IDK,, I liked it.
The rug really does tie the room together.
Duuude🤪.don't urinate on the carpet Mr lebowski
I assume the purpose is insulation, besides decoration
It's a pretty rug!
Vic, how delightful!
As American to be honest I would not mind living in one of these apartments. For a single person it is honestly all I would personally need. You could easily clean it up a bit and make it look pretty nice. Sure as shit beats being homeless as well. Thanks for showing us your home. Cheers!
I'm an American to.. I'd live here..In fact lived in a hotel room with a similar layout.
Gopniks live in these kinds of areas so.........
I’m an American who has lived in many such apartments when I lived in Ukraine for years. These apartments are concrete prison cells. No human should live like that. The typical American home is like paradise compared to these apartments
@@yeboscrebo4451 atleast not cardboard boxes. In america most walls are made of cardboard. Basically it doesn't take alot to break a wall. But in russia you will never break a wall because it's concrete. 👍🏻
@@JK-ml2rc Most walls here are not made of cardboard. Most walls here are made of wood framing and layers of insulation and drywall. When I lived in apartment complexes in Ukraine, cockroaches from the neighbors would crawl through the cracks in the concrete into my apartment. It was absolutely disgusting.
"Soviet clocks which are stuck on the exact time when Soviet Union collapsed." LMAO
I don't remember that. he forgot that Soviet Union wasn't only russia .
$12.50 for rubber gloves, $8.00 for a nice bucket, $14.00 for scrub brushes, $7.50 for TSP (sugar soap), $60.00 for paint, $15.00 for new curtains. Yep, I'd live there.
Don’t forget extra noise insulation!
@@henrykwieniawski7233 If you can survive a college dorm room you can survive this.
It would be even cheaper to commit a crime, plead guilty and get thrown in jail.
@@floxy20 And that sounds like a lot more fun,...?
where the fuck are you buying a pair of gloves for 12 quid, 14 for some brushes?
The apartments in Soviet Union mostly were given for free. My mom was a teacher in the college, and when i was 5 years old she got a free two bedroom apartment from her job. The way you live and keep your place clean and tidy is only your problem!!!
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. He needs to clean and repaint, but it's not a bad apartment.
If only teachers were able to afford two-bedroom apartments in most capitalist countries.
In the occupied countries, which were not officially part of the Soviet Union - i.e., the Baltic states, apartments were mostly given for free to Russian citizens, not locals - Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians (which were considered "second class" citizens at the time of occupation). This has created a situation in the Baltic states where many locals still do not own their own housing, and are forced to rent, often from Russian citizens or their children.
@@andrejsb.8184 What a bullshit, I can say quiet an opposite. The nationals always had a priorities.
Being given does not mean you owned it, could sell it and move on. Dont live in a farrytale socialist utopia. Also if you graduated your school the government told you where to go... in big cities where young people wanted to live you did not get apartment that easily at all but government said you need Hinsdale County, Colorado and teach there and you will get apartment and you will not get job anywhere else then would you like it? @@JoaoSantos-ur1gg
I've lived in worse....in Canada. No plumbing. Drew water from a mountain spring. Had an outhouse. Small gas stove for heat. Minimal electricity, 2 bare bulbs and 2 outlets. Roof leaked, plastic covered broken windows. Your apt is a palace!
Sounds like rural Ontario in the middle of muddy bush.
@@INTEGRITY273 Ontario?! That's where the fancy folk live! I'm from the backwoods of NB.
@@icouldjustscream Sounds like you don’t travel.
Where in Canada is this? And when?
Sounds a bit more like parts of rural Appalachia
New Brunswick. NB is the poorest Canadian province. Lots of 'working poor' people. The northern portion of the Appalachian mountain range runs through NB. The poverty stricken live in the hills or the hood. Even though I'm not poor any longer, I prefer the hills.
You bring childhood memory to me, I'm not Russian, but i was living with a Russian community in my country , bcz of them I learned simplicity, efficiency and adaptation to hardship . Russian are humble and friendly.
I feel the same way, in my neighbourhood there were Russian-Germans who came back to Germany in the 90s. We even had two Russian shops in the district town where you could buy furniture and wallpaper from the Soviet era and the flats looked quite similar in style, which also reminded me a lot of my childhood.
sure they are until drink vodka
@@MRRED7777
I've had soooooo much fun and have gotten in soooo much trouble from drinking too much vodka..
@@eastfrisian_88
I'm actually friends with a few German-Russians..And my crush we've been friends for years she's German-Ukranian from Canada..
And we're both poor asf, and hate Capitalism lol
Oh man, it reminded me when I was little, I left USSR in 1990 to Australia. Me and my parents lived in an exactly the same apartment. Great video!! Bring it on!!!!
"They cannot invade us because of our power plags"
Where can we plug our iPhones, huh? This is crazy, lets go home to our decadent western homeland and watch Netflix.
@@electrogestapo only netflix? Our decadent homeland is a free country and so we have Netflix, Amazon, Hbo, and Hulu....subscription because we want to be able to choose. Yes, all at the same time.
@@electrogestapo Don't speak of things you know NOTHING OF!!!! At least we have Freedom. Well, we did until "China Joe" got in!!!!
@@electrogestapo A phone charges has 4mm2 pins,so it will fit in old russian sockets.
@@libertygiveme1987 Comrade Biden will have us in high rises in the suburbs in our own Soviet apt soon.
And I remember how many interesting newspapers we found during the renovation of my parents` apartment 😀
Soviet apartments are the keepers of history!
I'm 23rd subscriber of your chanel i watched all video your new video is holiday picnic and fist video is tea in Russia in easy Russian chanel
@@omeshwarmishra3231 it's so nice, thank you very much! 💙😊
short answer: yes. long answer: also yes. i live in a 24 m² aparment and i pay 300€/month (germany). this place just needs to be scrubbed and new wallpaper and you're golden.
yes, it had no repairs, everything is breaking apart. Would have been much better when it was constructed
Not bad for $150. I've seen worse in San Francisco for 10x as much. Could be nice with a little fixing up.
yes, it had no repairs, everything is breaking apart. Would have been much better when it was constructed
Exactly what I was looking for! I was born in 1982 so this is a trip to see post cards in the era of my first memories! But my family was in West Germany and dad was in US Army in those times, but I always wondered what life was like on the other side of the wall, I have a little idea now...but I imagine the building looked a little bit newer than it's now current state, thanks Sergey!
This apartment must be so pretty and modern and clean when it was new..
This just needs cleaning to make it more like a home,many people sleeping under cardboard would like an apartment like this.
Yes.. some cleaning, bleaching, some paint... strip off old paint etc... it would look a lot better.
to be honest it needs simple inside renovation like cleaning all walls and ceiling, paint it with nice color or use wallpapers on walls, so fix and cleaning in bathroom, maybe change to modern heating system, new radiators and its pretty good to live, for whole house they need to make few renovations too with roof and balcony, with walls from outside heating leakages
Please clean your vent covers. get a rag or napkin, wet it and then rub the metal until the 30 years of dirt comes off.
I second that. I care about Sergei's health so I'm replying in order to boost your comment.
@@ckpemac5268 Agree. :)
My dad paid $10 a month for a place in Belgrade in the 80s. He’s paying more than 100x that amount rent in Toronto now. It’s crazy.
I doubt you can even rent a room for less than 400$ in Toronto... The prices are crazy. As a student I have to live with my parents because living on campus is unaffordable.
@@michaelsemyanovsky9638 pff. 60% of my friends in Russia living with their parents till 30-40 y.o., some start renting after second kid in family as it's hell experience to live 5-6 people on 45-50 sq.m.
Now in Belgrade you can not find apartment with 30-40 square meters on some districts 10-15 kilometres far from center for less then 150 euros or 170-180 dollars.
Also our payments are about 400 euros per mounts, so almost half of your payment goes to paying rent. Not to mension that you need taxes, 150 euros in average. So you have 100 euros left for food, clothes and alot more. So we live much harder then other European countries.
So,go back to Belgrade........
I wouldn't mind living there especially with that kind of price? I used to live in 28 sq m apartment in Seattle and I was paying $850/month.
jp man yeah, but think of the salary you made in Seattle vs here. You have to look at your buying power vs cost of living, not just the rent price
Basically this place with you russian wage would probably take the same % of you income or more as your apartment does in Seattle.
Don't forget that you can hear Everything, literally, one of your neighbour decides, how great it would be to put some cables in the wall at 5 AM. So he starts making tons of noise you can't sleep, also no A/C. Heat sucks. Everyone knows you, so if you do something, they will know. Atleast this is the case in hungary
IceCrystal 009 OP lives in the US and the walls there are made of carboard, you can punch a hole in them, so I don't think it's any worse. To me, personally, the most annoying is when neighbours decide everyone needs to hear them fuck.
jp man
Maybe safer to live in a country stronger than USA. Things are not so good at this time.
Humorous, honest, and informative. Thanks! 😊
Beautiful! I really hope these apartments are preserved as a time capsule to look back on history.
I have 100 years old house in the village. Will go there to film one day
These things are NOT beautiful. Compared to western standards, these apartments are like smelly prison cells
Thanks for this, really detailed and authentic.
This is great! :) Very interesting and I love the humor, the big window, the cats, etc :)
You are funny
"So talk to each other" ha ha ha. Yes it would be wonderful to even see St Petersburg!
Love your "Soviet kitsch" tour and humor! Yes, I would rename myself Natasha and be very mysterious and live in this cute apartment circa 1960s.
I had an office in the USA that had an echo and was definitely not soundproof, so we put a carpet on the wall and it really did soundproof the office 👍🏼❤️
Thanks for allowing us into your apartment it looks comfortable and cozy. Your english is very good. Thanks
what?like yeah his english is good,but apartment is horrible!!who would live here? WHO!even for a free,NO
$150/mo? That's my electric bill.
Those kitchen floor tiles? My basement in British Columbia, Canada has those exact same tiles. I don't know what it is about 50+ year old buildings and those tiles, but they're EVERYWHERE.
Bald and bankrupt would approve how Soviet this apt is
except that, it's falling apart and in need of some serious cleaning, it looks was livable in those days.
My first flat 32 square metres in an old building from 1880 on the 3rd floor (4th floor for Americans), 54 stairs up, was similarly cheap and at least as noisy as a Soviet flat. Last renovated in 1982. When trucks drove through the street without permission (was forbidden), the glasses in my kitchen cupboard shook. I moved out seven years ago, nowadays the same flat costs almost twice as much rent and all they did was slap new paint on the wall and write "renovated" in the ad and idiots fall for it.
Has this place been cleaned since Soviet times? Yikes!
My previous apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria looked like that. Actually, your apartment has much more furniture than where I lived.
You're hilarious, lol. It's actually a good place for that amount of money, now I know that I can afford something like that if my dream of living in Russia comes true. Greetings from Mexico komrade.
Gracias!
Similar to my $585 American studio apartment. No pigeons shitting on me lol.
If I had a budget to do some redecorating I would live there. Love the heating system.
I’ve lived in a 1 bedroom Chicago apartment with three others for $800 a month. By the time my family said “f this place we can do better” there was a giant hole in our bathroom ceiling, rotting wood, mold, cockroaches everywhere, the toilet had been ripped out for some reason, it just got worse. Our landlord demanded money plus some... and we just left. It was hell on earth. For $135 a month for this? And barely those problems..... I wouldn’t complain. But reading some of the comments it seems like $135 was a chunk of money taken out of peoples’ wages?
The ruble unfortunately does not have the same buying power of the US dollar. however. The Russian economy is very different from the US, and the function of the ruble has different value depending on what its spent towards.
The slums in Chicago are slums for the same reason that Soviet Russia was a giant slum
You can be happy with this place and the price. People in many countries has not such chance.
Americans: That apartment is a joke! Way too small!
Also Americans: Have you seen our new tiny house?
Im not Russian but this apartment reminds me of my grandmother's house, nostalgia made me smile :')
It has it's charm. Stuff can be fixed with cheap solution.
To be honest I like the challenge of low cost improvements.
Can you afford to buy some paint, and maybe some new curtains and Wallpaper?! I don't know what they allow you to do to a 'Rental', if anything, but surely you can buy some Curtains and clean it up a bit.
Looks better than the apartments I can't afford over here! 😅
Greetings from the Netherlands.
TY. 6:19 Wondering if that is a "Khrushchyovka" type building.
Very interesting and informative. Great job! I watch a lot of Bald and Bankrupt on RUclips and you might find his content interesting too. Love the gas mask!
Haha. Thanks! I watch Bald since I went to Belarus in May 2019 and he was there and I found his channel. Maybe my favorite youtuber right now
Mine too! Even though his uploads have become less frequent this year because of the "global situation".
I lived in a post soviet flat from 7 to 18 y old. For that price, and with my current salary? Sure ye! I would save up for land im Bułgaria in 1-2 years lol
Now im in UK and live in about 26m2 flat for 540 British pounds for rent, 140 tax, and on top of.it.i have electricity and water to pay..... At least 800 a month in winter!!!
British govt taxes you on renting an apartment? I've heard their taxes are insane.
@@GM-xo7yy the £140 is what is called Council Tax and is a once per year payment. It is used by the
local council authority to pay for street cleaning, refuse collection, sewage disposal etc.
SPB? You can get rid of the old postcards and build on this (for so low money in an amazing city).
Looks similar to my current apartment. Yes, I could live there (after a little cleaning).
it needs an upgrade that is all, in spain at the same year or time in history i do think you will find very similar construction if you were poor or working class,
I've spent my childhood in Eastern Poland in a single family house. Brick built, 1 floor (although 'sticking out' above the ground. The cellar was both partially under and above the ground so the ground floor was kinda on the 1st floor). My parents had it built somewhere in the 70s. I can see many similarities: telephone plugs, antresola, radiators, carpets everywhere and the immortal doorbell that will outlive us all.
Despite the fact that it wasn't state built, it has plenty architectural designs similar to that shown apartment. I find that quite interesting. This video really was like a trip down the memory lane.
Get rid of the wallpaper and really scrub the place. Put down some hardwood floors, and re-tile the bathroom, and it's ok.
yes, it had no repairs, everything is breaking apart. Would have been much better when it was constructed
That is how my grandparent's house in the village looks like, if not even worse. Though they haven't lived there since 1982 where the construction company where my grandpa used to work gave him an apartment.
Huh. We just moved in a soviet style apartment. A little bit of tlc and they are better than new ones. I can t punch through a wall and wave to my neighbour...
That apartment could be so much nicer with very little effort. Stresses me out that the wallpaper is flaking, paints chipped, plaster is cracked, and nothings been done about it 😂 bruh that's gotta be some $20 fixes
Very informative tour. I enjoyed it. Love the carpet!
From my mid to late teens I lived in a camper. This is a step up from that, so yes, I would live here.
Very interesting. A lot nicer than some of the dumps I have lived in.
That apartment would be $800 a month in my town.... except it'd have been torn down years ago
Countless Americans would *_LOVE_* to have apartments available at this price.
man, all those orange stains are OIL
you can tell a babushka cookt a lot of soup in there
borscht is in the air
Lovely apt. Enduring hardship is good for your character.
Russian people are resilient and that's too be admired, but there are many people who have a little more luxury than this living in St Petersburg. I like the Russians especially the ones that are hardworking class decent people ❤️✌️
Yes, I would... looks about as nice as the apartment I pay 900 dollars a month for. And I live in Memphis, TN. USA. which is a not so great, crime is sky high kind of city. Things are getting more and more expensive here.
Any shelter that you can sleep in safely and stay warm out of the elements is a good deal at $150. But most of your issues seem to be cosmetic. Buy the supplies and fix it up. If your landlord won't you still have to live there and look at it. So quit complaining and fix what you don't like about it. If you don't know how, there are plenty of RUclips videos that teach you how to do almost anything. At the very least you can do a better paint job than that.
i really love that groovy soviet postcard! awesome video.
Thanks!
Ohh Andrew! Thank you! I see you liked this old video!
what shocks most is the horrible state of neglect and decay
Though my childhood apartment was nicer due to my mother's obsessive cleaning, I stayed in a rental for 3 years in Bucharest exactly like this one. Horrible, horrible place, but living alone in a 2 room apartment with my own bathroom and kitchen for 100 euros per month was heaven. That place got me out of my college dormitory where I shared a room with 5 other guys. This kind of places are like gold to poor students.
Мне нравится чувство юмора )
This is better than the bedsits and flats that were in Earl’s Court in the 70s. Looks fine to me, you just have to clean, furnish and do a few repairs..like anybody else does.
Is always good to have a sense of humor in such situations! 😂
ah common it's a good apartment, have you seen new jork standard worker apartment's
Reminds me of 1970's Odessa. This guy has some high connections to get an apartment for himself, the four of us had a16 sq.m. room, but if we stayed in Russia, we had only 22 years left , in our waiting line for an apartment. Of coures we paid a lot less rent, it was about $12.50 every 3month plus water and electricity and gas another $5.00 every 3 month and after a 6 year wait the plumbers came to fix and renovate the bathroom. the 200 year old apartments we lived in required renovations every 50 years or so.
Looks great if you cleaned and painted!
If the alternative is a blanket in the park in a Russian winter, this is just fine. Two blankets and outside looks better.
Around here if I were that desperate around here I would get arrested to avoid sleeping outside in the winter or any other season.
Croatian here, 7:36 I used to have that EXACT lamp in my house before renovating it. Funny thing is, it's not a flat, it's a one-family private house. I guess the communist style spread in rural areas aswell.
I could live there but I would have to get 3 gallons of paint and paint from top to bottom and go somewhere else to take a bath. or tear that tub out of there. LOL
I found the Soviet electric meter at 3:04 most impressive.
I spent Childhood in one of these in the 90
Omg you are so funny!! I love how weverything is Soviet.....Soviet lamp, Soviet clock, Soviet toilet paper holder...
I love it! Minimalist, simple, and modest! Definitely would live in one, preferably a Brezhnevka and not a Khrushchevka, but either one yes I would love it! Just for the nostalgia! And the price is the best part!
I like your apartment. The heating system is great! Also, the bigger a place is, the more there is to clean and more utilities to pay. I think the price is great!
I live a what they call studio flat in Leeds UK. I pay £400 a month plus utilities and council tax
Yeah I'd share that apartment with you Sergey. No worries!
Your carpets are really beautiful.
I will clean them in a snow soon!
9:06 i love that phone socket, they are so easy to connect, it dosent give me so much problems, my home phone is a soviet made vef ta 68 with that plug, that is still working since 1976, voice is clear and it it's easy to fix
Fine sandpaper on porcelain baths to get rid of the rust mate, works a treat.
I would live there. I live in a similar size apartment in Minnesota and pay $1,050 per month. With some cleaning, scraping and painting your place could look nice.
It will be a nice & cozy apartment if you clean it up, maybe renovate a bit. Don't know how I end up here but I don't regret, quite entertaining. I like ur accent. Best wishes...
For 150€ in Portugal you get a shared bedroom with 4 other people in an apartment not much better than that one.
The Soviet era heating was great whereas in U.K. old people die in their homes from the cold or just manage to heat one room.
That carpet is way to much nice for that apartment😅 If I had to, I would live there, but I would clean it first and paint the walls. Maybe bought some cheap ikea furniture and its done😅
Humor is seeing western commenters saying, 'should clean, paint, fix, repair'...to 'make it look nice'...but they don't have a clue (never met a Russian that wouldn't work hard)...the problem is like in some parts of the U.S., you first have to spend money (your money, or put in request to get approved from state) to get the items listed...then you do the work...looks like a modern home to westerners, right? Within a few days or weeks, local supervisor comes by and re-assess your rent...it is no longer $135 a month...it is now $550 a month! (some parts of the U.S. are like this in regards to property tax...as viewed by aerial photos or on-site tax assessor, looks nice, you get appraised for a $200,000 property that you have to now pay tax on, based on percentage of assessed value...yearly. So, you let the paint peel off, you let the weeds grow outside, install your own potholes in the driveway...and you get assessed at maybe 1/4 of this amount)...same principle...
Wow! Thank you for sharing that info.
Maybe, lots of cleaning and some paint and flooring it could be livable. I guess we are spoiled here in America. I would love to visit St Petersburg.
The memories... Looks like an old Hungarian house /apartment. Mine looked like this when I moved in.
It may not look like much but it is better than alotta places honestly. Plus I love the aesthetic although it does need some new wallpaper lol. But grreat vid nice of you to post and share history.
For us this is new wallpaper. It can serve for another 50 years dont worry
Thanks for sharing with us Sergey!
Size of this flat would be 5000 dollars in New York city
Because people want to live in nyc. Also, russians earn way less.
@Hartwig Flögh because stockholm is waaaay smaller than nyc.
That's really crazy to pays such a Price, but then again, i live in Canada. This appartement is ok for one person. My appartement is a bit bigger than that.
Reminds me of my childhood Yugoslavian apartment.
Your dead pan jokes are too funny. Enjoyed the soviet apartment tour.
You could use some wire mesh to prevent pigeons from coming in, it would still allow for airflow.