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Primus stove

Before apartments had central gas (or electricity), many Muscovites cooked on primus stoves, which used kerosine or cooking oil and worked something like a Coleman stove, with a burner atop a tank.

This primus stove, in Bulgakov's Apartment on Sadovaya, is from the same period as those encountered in the novel

graffiti on the wall in Bulgakov's apartment shows Begemot holding a primus