The 234 Apartment

By Sabra Ayres August, 3, 2017 Ksenia Belayeva and Igor Zaitsev sit at their kitchen inside an apartment they are sharing in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Vasiliy Kolotilov / For The Times) By the time Marina Maslova was born in the six- room communal apartment at 65 Bolshoi Prospect, an entire generation had lived there and come of age since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Maslova still lives in the room where she was born 61 years ago , and she remembers the dozens of families that have walked down its twisting, dark hallways and lived in its crowded rooms during her life. It was here that the guests at her wedding party in the 1970s moved the furniture aside to make room to dance in the 345-square-foot room she shared with her new husband, her parents and her grandmother. And it was here, in a small room just off the kitchen, where a 16-year-old boy hanged himself with his belt in the early 1960s after his parents, with whom he shared the cupboard-size space, disappeared. Both the...

Moving day checklist for college" src="https://www.collegefashion.net/.image/t_share/MTQ5NDY4ODY3NzYzMTE5MTU2/moving-day-checklist-college.png" /> As the new semester rolls in, you've probably got a hundred things to think about. Is your schedule correct? Did you buy everything you needed during that last IKEA trip? Is there time for one last summer celebration before classes begin? And while most of these things work themselves out in due time, you should definitely make a game plan for move in . What's the big deal , you might think. You just wanna put your stuff down, make your bed, and lay on it for the rest of the day.  And while that's definitely okay (you deserve a break for lifting all those boxes!), make sure you at least run through the following moving day checklist for college: 1. Ensure your utilities are set up This seems like a given. But electricity and water don't run themselves!  You don't have to worry about this if you're ...

My three-year-old cat spends most of her time lounging by the window. It faces the high branches of the tree outside our apartment, and she stares intently out at the rusty- red wood thrushes and brown house sparrows that perch there; her eyes dilating when the occasional squirrel rustles the branches.  She’s a seventh-floor housecat who longs for the outdoors. But even if there was a feasible way of letting her go outside, I wouldn’t let her loose on native wildlife on her own (if you’re not familiar with the war being waged between cats and birds, my colleague Rachel Gross has chronicled it in all its gory detail here). So, as a compromise, last year I bought her a leash. After some initial hiccups, we have settled into a rhythm where I buckle her into her harness, scoop her up and carry her down to the soft grass adjacent to a nearby duck pond . There, I let her down, and her whims dictate our path. Often, people stare. Sometimes, they’re walking their dogs: big ones, small one...