It is a sad but accurate fact about Moscow that almost all communal hallways in housing blocks smell bad. N suggested rotting potatoes as a description, to which I would add top notes of stale air, chemical paint and very elderly dust. This is not just in the more poorly built apartments; N lives in one of the Stalinist skyscrapers, built originally for the Soviet elite. And I recently had the honour of visiting the flat of Nikita Khruchshev's family on Tverskaya, which was very beautiful inside, but still had a relatively shabby communal staircase and hallway - and that smell.
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