The museum displays the “House Rules” that were kept in many communal apartments. They included general information about the use of one’s housing unit, the procedure for allocating general expenses, as well as information about sanitary and hygienic and fire safety standards. Additionally, they prescribed responsibility for non-compliance with these rules.

Special importance in such documents was attached to the figure of the superintendent, or an authorized representative from the tenants of the apartment, who was supposed to monitor the residents’ adherence to the regulations. His tasks also included collecting utility bills. The superintendent could provide, at the request of the authorities, information about the tenants, for instance, their social status, marital status, and salary.

The image of the superintendent is often found in Bulgakov’s works. For example, in the plays “Bliss” and “Ivan Vasilievich”, Bunsha-Koretskiy’s character is a combination of power and stupidity. One can mention other characters as well: Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy from “The Master and Margarita”, Shvonder from “The Heart of a Dog”, and Anisim Zotikovich Alliluya from “Zoyka’s Apartment”.

In one of the scenes from Bulgakov’s novella “Secret Friend”, he describes a typical conflict between residents of a communal apartment:

The matter was not limited to disputes over electricity. In communal apartments, residents often had different ideas about the rules of using the restroom and kitchen, and about hygiene. Therefore conflicts were common. To resolve and prevent such situations, the government introduced a set of regulations for apartments. Such documents were supposed to regulate the relationship between residents, but in practice the result was often the opposite.

A scene from Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”: