Maya Plisetskaya

Housing was in critical shortage throughout the Soviet Union for its entire history. Part of this was due to the immense destruction wrought by World War II, and part due to the tremendous expansion of the Soviet economy. As a result, most families were crammed together into one or two small rooms in communal apartment buildings.

In this selection from her 2001 autobiography, Maya Plisetskaya, a world-renowned ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet, describes the living conditions in the building where she lived for almost fifty years. As the passage indicates, this building bore more resemblance to a college dormitory than it did to a modern apartment complex.

And so I graduated from the ballet school in 1943, was accepted into the Bolshoi Theater, danced a few noticeable parts, and received my first award. I was given a room 10 meters square...