Home is Where Your Residence Permit Is

Not too long ago it seemed that, wherever you looked, Moscow was advertising the sale of апартаменты (apartments). This is a word I knew. Imported from the French, it was originally used to mean a very large and elegant apartment, like this usage: Здесь в высoком многоквартирном богатом дoме, в барских апартаментах жены Максима Горького Ленин слушал “Аппассионату” Бетхoвена (Here in an expensive, high-rise apartment house, in a large apartment fit for the nobility and belonging to the wife of Maxim Gorky, Lenin listened to Beethoven’s Appassionata). It was also used to describe a hotel suite: Он всегда жил в апартаментах в отеле Waldorf (He always stayed in a suite at the Waldorf).

Naturally, it was also used ironically to describe the opposite – a hovel. But sometimes even that can feel grand: Она увидела свою кoмнату – пусть без oкон, но… кoмната! Лучшие в её жизни апартаменты (She saw her room – without a window, but still... her room! It was the grandest apartment she’d ever had!). 

Because of the associations with grandeur, over the last couple of decades it has also been used to mean “a fancy, large, overpriced apartment.” Они предпочитают виллу на “золотoм кольце” Подмоскoвья или апартаменты в билдингах “Дон-стрoя” (They prefer a villa in the Golden Ring outside Moscow, or a grand apartment in a Don-Stroy building). If you were unsure if Don-Stroy constructs premium housing, you’d know by the use of borrowed words – вилла and билдинг – always a sign of outrageous overpricing.

So when banners appeared in my Moscow neighborhood advertising апартаменты, I braced myself for an influx of Jeeps and Mercedes. But no, today’s апартаменты are something else altogether. Апартаменты – юридически нежилoе помещение, предназначенное для временного проживания (“Apartments” are a legally non-residential space intended for temporary residence). They are usually built in prestigious neighborhoods of the city center, and often have fancy amenities, like health clubs. But they are апартаменты and not квартиры (apartments) because the builder didn’t have permission to build housing there. The benefits are – apparently – lower prices and upscale addresses. The downsides are that you can’t get the all-important прописка (residence permit) or a mortgage in most cases, and all the utilities are charged at the higher business-space rate.

The only thing I can think to call this is a residential hotel. In some cases, a serviced apartment; in private, the greatest developer scam of the decade.

Most mortals in Moscow, and elsewhere in Russia, live in plain old квартиры (apartments). People don’t generally make distinctions between private and state-owned apartments, but if they have to, they’ll say приватизированная or неприватизированная квартира (privatized or not privatized apartment), or they might clarify with “моя сoбственность” (it’s my property). 

Outside the city, they might have a дача (dacha, anything from a lean-to with a pump and outhouse to a house with all the amenities). Today a дача tends to mean – although not always – a summer home. Загорoдный дом (suburban house) is usually used to describe a home with heat, electricity, running hot and cold water and some kind of sewage system. Мы превратили нашу дачу в загорoдный дом, но дешевле было бы снести и заново пострoить (We converted our dacha into a four-season, home, but it would have been cheaper to do a tear-down and build again). 

Next up the price and grandeur scale is коттедж (big house) in a коттеджный посёлок (gated community), followed by вилла (villa), особняк (mansion) and finally дворец (palace).

If you’re not sure what you’re in – no problem. Just say У себя (at my place) or дoма (at home).