When the water heater in the apartment shown in Tour 3 is out of service, water for washing and laundry is heated in a bucket on the stove. Two families cook on this stove. See the clip "Cooking Saltimbocca," Tour 3, 2007.

When: 2007

Where: In the kitchen of a large communal apartment in a central neighborhood in St. Petersburg. We see this apartment in Tour 3.

What: In the clip "A New Shower" (Tour 3) we hear about boiling laundry. In the Soviet period, when washing machines were not available, people often boiled their laundry. In the 1980s and 1990s, washing machines began to appear in communal apartments, but even tenants who owned them sometimes continued boiling diapers, sheets, and pillow cases. This was done in metal buckets or large cooking pots on the kitchen stoves. The water that is being warmed in the bucket in this photograph might also be intended for bathing; at the time, the water heater was out of order.

The same stove is shown in the photograph "Half-cleaned stove."