In the USSR, you usually don't have a spare guest room. An unmarried young man would be lucky to live in a separate apartment; otherwise, it is usually just a bed in a dormitory. At best, it is a one-room (12-20 m2) apartment with a kitchen (10 m2). A hotel is too expensive, so you put your guests into your bed, a folding chair, or a folding cot and go to the kitchen to sleep on a mattress. There were families of 4-5 people who lived in such apartments permanently.
To be fair it says "In a nearby apartment packed with guests" - if your house is oversubscribed, the host gets the worst accommodations is pretty common worldwide - "He had a horrible thought that the cakes might run short, and then he—as the host: he knew his duty and stuck to it however painful—he might have to go without."
"...her fiancé Serhiy Lobanov was asleep on a mattress in the kitchen."
That's some Soviet shit.
In the USSR, you usually don't have a spare guest room. An unmarried young man would be lucky to live in a separate apartment; otherwise, it is usually just a bed in a dormitory. At best, it is a one-room (12-20 m2) apartment with a kitchen (10 m2). A hotel is too expensive, so you put your guests into your bed, a folding chair, or a folding cot and go to the kitchen to sleep on a mattress. There were families of 4-5 people who lived in such apartments permanently.
To be fair it says "In a nearby apartment packed with guests" - if your house is oversubscribed, the host gets the worst accommodations is pretty common worldwide - "He had a horrible thought that the cakes might run short, and then he—as the host: he knew his duty and stuck to it however painful—he might have to go without."