Generations of women in Russia live in a much closer proximity as compared to women in America. Grandmothers share apartments with mothers and daughters, and often granddaughters. I grew up in a typical household where in a three-room apartment lived my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, my aunt, my sister, and later my cousin. There were also four dogs (the number varied), cats, rats, and cockroaches. Though cockroaches weren't pets. Rather, they considered themselves the apartment owners, walking around freely and escaping every kind of poison the women in my household tried on them.