Not surprising, really, that "communal" aspects of life in the Soviet Union did not resemble my own communal experience in Western Mass. For Americans in the 60s and beyond, communal households meant working out shared responsibilities, meeting to discuss problems and disagreements, voting on who gets to move in and who doesn't. Those who remember the "Housing Committee" in Bulgakov's novella Heart of a Dog (1920s, first published 1987!) know that the ideal American situation -- rational people, working together deliberately to make a life together -- was not the Soviet experience. From the film "Heart of a Dog": the Housing Committee, Shvonder and Co. Instead, uplotnenie -- literally consolidation or compression -- happened by decree, not by choice. People who had "too much" living space received "neighbors," packed into their former living rooms, dining rooms, etc. I like the Oxford dictionary definition of uplotnen...
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