Russia

Housing

Always in short supply in the Soviet era, housing continues to be at a premium in the 1990s. However, the old, state-controlled system has begun giving way to private enterprise and a rudimentary housing market. Despite severe inequalities in housing opportunity and daunting financial disadvantages, many Russians have been able to establish private homes that would have been beyond their reach under the Soviet system. Nevertheless, in 1996 housing subsidies remained a significant drain on the national budget as the state continued the attempt to protect citizens from the inequities of a nascent housing market.