The most unpleasant was the fear of autumn/winter evenings because you could never know if some drug user unexpectedly shows up or is going to try to hurt you. As a girl, I was afraid. I would run home from my bus stop in the late evenings after my practice. Anete
I would love to live to that moment when friends live in the same stairwell. So, I can go in my slippers and ask for “sugar.” Meanwhile, sometimes there is a product exchange with notes on my staircase. During the apple harvest or gingerbread time. Ieva
My whole childhood, I lived in that kind of house. Childhood was happy and sunny, although that ugly block house system, with its know-it-all and curious neighbors, backyards without trees, and non-written, known to all rules “how to blend in the system and “god forbid you are different” still gives me the creeps. Liga
A block of flats is just a mirror of society. I think that most of us have lived or lived there our whole life, even several generations live in a flat. Evita
Homeless people live between the buildings, and you get to know and learn their names. Even if you know them, you still wonder – why did he light up the garbage bin near the building? Is it to only look at it? Or when your school is in the middle of blockhouses, and a man with a broken heart thinks that the schoolyard is the best place to end his sufferings with a grenade and a gun. Kristaps
People who pee in lifts are a memory. :) Martins
How the novel “Adventure in a yard of a block of flats” gets written. Edmunds
Nibbling of sunflower seeds in the stairwell. Olga
At the darkest hour of the day, my friend and I had to run away from a man who had a gun. Of course, most likely, it was a toy gun, but we ran fast; the fear was real. Linda
The door of a flat on our floor was broken, but nothing was stolen. During Halloween, kids visit you and ask for the candy; on Saturdays you can buy milk and other goodies between the buildings; on Sundays we get offered to buy potatoes. And socially, we try to avoid each other in a truly run-down elevators. Raimonds
We went to a 24-hour booze shop where the same sellers worked, which knew us very well, hoping that they would sell to us this time. Ieva
Kids have their community in the backyard. Nearby some grannies gossip. Ladies are primping themselves at a hairdresser saloon named “Beauty studio.” Men gather in the “Zilais Dimants*” on their way home. But we, from the center – don’t even greet each other. Zane *Blue diamond – a local gambling place.
You could sense filthiness, flirty lust, and tension flowing through everyone who was chilling in the yard on the summer evenings. Anatolijs
Overall, I think blocks of flats are psychologically overwhelming because of their cramped living spaces and yards. Not only due to the size of the flats, but also because of the view. When you look outside the window, most often, you will see a neighbor’s kitchen or a little yard, where old ladies sit and gossip about other old ladies. Psychologically it is hard to grow up differently in such an environment. Beatrise
No one feels more significant or privileged than others. Zane
Rough 90s. Racketeering, explosives in cars, raping in lifts. I was about nine or ten. Once I stepped in the lift to get to the ninth floor to visit my friend, who lived in the next stairwell of the block of flats. And at the last minute, some young man jumps in the lift. We used to call them urlas*. Tracksuit, bald head, semechki**. I pressed the button of the floor I needed. The lift starts to move, but he presses STOP. And looks at me with threatening eyes. I almost peed myself from fear. He will rape me, kill me, mug me. Youngster spits out his semechki and presses the seventh floor. And then says not to press any button before I have found out which floor the fellow traveller needs. Lote *urla – chav ** semechki – flower seeds
Once I noticed a homeless man sleepingbehind a waste line in the stairwell. N
Behind every window, there is a separate life. They are so different but united. Basements and attics have monsters, of course :)) Kika
I wouldn’t choose to live in a block of flats because there are set rules and hierarchies of what you can do and what you can’t. Many people live together, old ladies and gents who like to lord it over everybody. Krista
I can’t isolate myself from society, but I often want to. And it’s inevitable to escape the unwanted neighbour. Not all tenants are tidy, it is, and not everyone has the same idea about it. I can hear what music others are listening and they can hear what I’m listening to. If I listen in silence, then nothing will happen. I don’t like to go up to the third floor after school. Though there is some charm in it – you can smile at someone and say good morning in the stairwell, togetherness with minimal effort (we all know the same door code; most of us all know the feeling of seeing a rundown city through the window) – We all are in this together. Also, I like that everyone has the opportunity to look into each other's box, but there is mutual respect, and everyone only looks in only at their own. Emils
