The Apartment

Illustrations and text follow the story of a six-room Moscow apartment throughout the twentieth century and the family living there, as their personal upheavals and accomplishments reflect events in Russia and the wider world.

The Muromtsevs have moved into their new apartment. They came in October 1902 with all their belongings: furniture, pots, pans, books, toys, and other family treasures. Though the apartment is new to them in the early 1900s, generation after generation of Muromtsevs will live there for the next century.

Things will change as the years go by. Some of the objects in the apartment will be passed down from one family member to the next. Some will disappear as the time passes. Other lodgers will move in with the Muromtsevs. The children will grow up to have families of their own, and their children will ask what it was like to live in Russia long ago.

The Apartment: A Century of Russian History shows the monumental changes that Russia experienced from 1902 to 2002, including the Bolshevik Revolution, two World Wars, the rise of the USSR, the Cold War, the launching of Sputnik, and the eventual fall of the USSR to be replaced by the Russian Federation. Step inside this Russian apartment to discover one hundred years of Russian history and see how the Muromtsevs and their country change with the times!