Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, nearly all of the housing stock of urban areas was owned by the state. Indeed, private property was prohibited in urban areas, and in rural areas the size of private homes was strictly limited. High-rise apartment buildings with a very unpretentious architecture made up the bulk of the stock. Local authorities were responsible for renting arrangements, and in “company towns” the management of state enterprises was given this responsibility. Rental payments were kept extremely low and, in most cases, were not enough to pay maintenance costs. Deterioration of housing was rapid and vandalism widespread. In addition, many apartments were shared by tenants, with joint-access kitchens and bathrooms, and the space of the average apartment in Russia was about one-third to one-half the size of those found in western Europe.

The housing sector underwent vigorous privatization in the 1990s, and there was a decline in state-supported construction. Many renters were offered title to their units for free, though many older Russians decided to forego the necessary paperwork and continued to rent. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s more than half of Russia’s housing was privately owned, with the remainder administered by municipal authorities. Conditions improved considerably in owner-occupied housing, as the owners in apartment buildings were able to ensure the enforcement of maintenance rules, but public housing, owing to a lack of funds from local authorities, continued to deteriorate.

In the 1990s many of the housing shortages characteristic of the Soviet period disappeared, and the floor space of homes per person steadily increased, largely the result of a construction boom for private homes. For example, the construction of private housing tripled in urban areas and nearly doubled in the rural areas. However, there were sharp declines in the construction of public housing, particularly in rural areas.

Education

Education in the Soviet Union was highly centralized, with the state owning and operating nearly every school. The curriculum was rigid, and the system aimed to indoctrinate students in the communist system. As with many aspects of the Soviet system, schools were often forced to operate in crowded facilities and with limited resources. With democratization there was widespread support for educational reforms. In 1992 the federal government passed legislation enabling regions where non-Russians predominated to exercise some degree of autonomy in education; still, diplomas can be conferred only in the Russian, Bashkir, and Tatar languages, and the federal government has responsibility for designing and distributing textbooks, licensing teachers, and setting the requirements for instruction in the Russian language, sciences, and mathematics. School finance and the humanities, history, and social science curricula are entrusted to regional authorities.

Preschool education in Russia is very well developed; some four-fifths of children aged 3 to 6 attend crèches (day nurseries) or kindergartens. Schooling is compulsory for nine years. It starts from age 7 (in some areas from 6) and leads to a basic general education certificate. An additional two or three years of schooling are required for the secondary-level certificate, and some seven-eighths of Russian students continue their education past this level. Non-Russian schoolchildren are taught in their own language, but Russian is a compulsory subject at the secondary level.

Admission to an institute of higher education is selective and highly competitive: first-degree courses usually take five years. Higher education is conducted almost entirely in Russian, although there are a few institutions, mainly in the minority republics, where the local language is also used.

Russia’s oldest university is Moscow State University, which was founded in 1755. Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, Russian universities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kazan produced world-class scholars, notably the mathematician Nikolay Lobachevsky and the chemist Dmitry Mendeleyev. Although universities suffered severely during the purges of the Stalinist regime, a number have continued to provide high-quality education, particularly in the sciences. In addition to Moscow State University, the most important institutions include St. Petersburg State University (founded 1819) and Novosibirsk State University (1959).

Since the demise of the Soviet Union, the quantity and diversity of universities and institutes have undergone unprecedented expansion. In 1991 the country had some 500 institutions of higher education, all of which were controlled by the state. By the beginning of the 21st century, the number of state schools had increased by nearly one-fifth, though many suffered from inadequate state funding, dated equipment, and overcrowding. The state schools were joined by more than 300 private colleges and universities. which were all established after 1994. Licensed by the state, these schools generally enjoyed better funding than the state schools; however, they were very costly and served mainly Russia’s new middle class.