In Saint Petersburg in Russia, there still exists communal apartments, vestiges of the Soviet system. People from all backgrounds and social classes are gathered together here, due to circumstance. They form a cross-section of Russian society grouped together in the same place. Kommunalka is a-slice-of-life portrait of a communal apartment in Sovetskaya Street.
In this apartment, there lives 26-year-old Natasha, a child of the Perestroika, a beautiful and sensual young woman, liberated, emancipated, and independent. Although without particular hopes or illusions, she still holds onto her dreams. Around Natacha, we find the apartment's other inhabitants: Svetla and Nicolas, both retired and without a dime; Valodia, Natacha's friend; Rostilov, a poet and painter; Irina, an elderly woman who is unable to come to terms with the death of her son in Afghanistan; Tatiana, who buys, one by one, the vacant rooms and who is the "landlady" of the apartment; Sacha, a failed actor; two little girls and a dancer; Youri, a student.
The intertwined fates of these people joined together in this enclosed environment become the theater of human passion.