What’s in a queue? Scarce resources and notions of entitlement to public housing in Novosibirsk during Khrushchev’s housing campaign

This article draws on archival sources and interviews to explore a key aspect of Nikita Khrushchev’s housing campaign of the 1950s and 1960s in the Soviet city of Novosibirsk. Alongside the campaign’s massive construction efforts were significant reforms in housing administration, particularly in the management of apartment waiting lists, which form the focus of this article. The analysis reveals local hierarchies of power, need and eligibility, as well as a locally embedded logic shaped by social attitudes and moral economy. By highlighting practices that defy formal institutional boundaries in a setting far from the Soviet centres of power, the article offers a new perspective on the processes and lived experiences of de-Stalinization.