Anna, an assistant lawyer, rents a room in a communal apartment.

Sasha, 49, former driver, lives only a paperboard wall away from his former wife, whom he divorced long ago, daughter and granddaughter. Two weeks after this picture was taken, Sasha got drunk and set an accidental fire in his room which killed his friend and severely injured himself.

Andrei and Ksenia share one room with their parents in a large communal apartment.

Street scene in a neighbourhood where most housing is communal.

A toilet in a communal apartment. The so-called "areas of public use" - toilets, kitchens, corridors - are often the worst-maintained in communal housing.

View from a communal apartment onto a typical courtyard in a Soviet-built neighbourhood. Although newly built housing was not designed to accommodate communal flats, lack of housing forced authorities to continue the practice of placing several families in one apartment.

Anastasia, an arist, owns a room in a communal apartment and uses it as a studio.

Interior of a communal apartment. Most communal apartments have been created in Imperial-era residential buidings, many of them have never been renovated since they were built in 19 - early 20 centuries.

Natalia Kulakova lives with her husband and two children in one 20-sq-meter room in a communal apartment. She rents another room in the same apartment to run her private children's early development centre.

Slava plays with his two daughters. Slava, his wife Natalia and their two children live in a 20-sq-meter room in a communal apartment.