He also warned me that some of the babushka's sitting together on benches outside were reporting back directly to the KGB, so keep quiet.
All the window AC's were blowing hot air at our wedding reception held at a local restaurant.
That's some Soviet shit.
Possibly more accurate answer: it depends on what kind of housing people live in, if they have kids, and if they work at home. Most residential houses were built for couples with children, so if someone owns a house and is single and/or childless, they likely have spare bedrooms that serve as a home offices, hobby spaces, or guest bedrooms. People living in apartments usually don't pay for more space than required for their daily needs.
The kitchen was routinely used as a room for two reasons, one that it was obviously a room, the second because it was easy to heat with the stove being right there. A lot of families were using the kitchen as permanent living space, usually relegating the grandparents to that worst room so the young ones could get a decent start in life.
It doesn't seem that crazy that there would be very little space. Visiting parents and/or grandparents probably got the bedroom, some friends the living room.
You were typically allocated spacious 9 square meters (96 sq. ft.) of living space per person, with an additional 18 square meters for the head of the family. So a 4-person family would get about 45 square meters (485 sq. ft.)
And these were _typical_ numbers, not a guarantee. Plenty of families had less space.
I routinely tell her "I want our daughter to have everything you didn't get as a kid".