Learn Hardcore Russian: Дома у нас живёт маленький хомяк, и хозяйка квартиры разрешает нам держать животных. - At home we have a little hamster, and the landlady allows us to keep animals.

it would sound more like “Inside the house a small hamster lives (with us)”, with a stronger physical/locational flavor. In normal speech about your home and pets, дома is the natural choice.

What is the difference between дома у нас and у нас дома?

Both are grammatically correct and very close in meaning. They both roughly mean “at our place / at our home”.

дома у нас – slightly emphasizes “at home” as opposed to somewhere else (e.g. at work, at school).
у нас дома – slightly emphasizes “at our place (not someone else’s)”.

In many contexts they are interchangeable, and the difference is mainly nuance and rhythm of the sentence:

Дома у нас живёт маленький хомяк. – Neutral, very natural.
У нас дома живёт маленький хомяк. – Also natural, perhaps with a shade of “at our place (as opposed to yours etc.) a little hamster lives”.

For a learner, you can treat them as near-synonyms.

Why do we say у нас живёт маленький хомяк and not just маленький хомяк живёт у нас?

Both are possible Russian sentences, but the word order changes the focus:

У нас живёт маленький хомяк.
Literally: At our place lives a small hamster.
- This is an existential type sentence: “At our place, there exists / lives a hamster.”
- The new information is that there is such a hamster at our place.
Маленький хомяк живёт у нас.
Literally: The small hamster lives at our place.
- Here “маленький хомяк” is more like given/topic information, and you say where he lives.
- This might answer a question like “Where does the small hamster live?”

In the original sentence, we are introducing the fact that there is a hamster at home, so у нас живёт маленький хомяк is more natural.

Why is живёт used here instead of есть, like in у нас есть хомяк?

Russian has two common patterns to express “we have X”:

У нас есть хомяк. – We have a hamster.
- Neutral statement of possession: the fact that we own/possess a hamster.
У нас живёт хомяк. – A hamster lives with us / at our place.
- Emphasizes that the hamster lives at our place, focusing on his residence, not just ownership.

In this sentence, they want to sound a bit more vivid and personal: the hamster lives with us at home, he is part of the household. That’s why живёт is chosen instead of есть.

Why is хомяк in the nominative case and not хомяка?

In у нас живёт маленький хомяк, the subject of the verb живёт (lives) is маленький хомяк. Subjects in Russian take the nominative case, so:

маленький хомяк (nominative singular) = a small hamster.

You would use хомяка (accusative/genitive singular) in other roles, for example:

Мы держим хомяка. – We keep a hamster (we have a hamster as a pet). – direct object → хомяка.
У нас нет хомяка. – We don’t have a hamster. – after нет, genitive → хомяка.

Here, because the hamster is the one who “lives,” he must be nominative: хомяк живёт.

What does хозяйка квартиры mean exactly, and why do we need квартиры?

Хозяйка квартиры literally means “the mistress/owner of the apartment”. In everyday speech it’s often “the landlady”.

хозяйка – female “owner,” “hostess,” “lady of the house”.
квартиры – genitive singular of квартира (apartment).

Russian often uses a pattern: owner + GENITIVE of the thing owned:

хозяйка квартиры – owner of the apartment
владелец машины – owner of the car
директор компании – director of the company

So квартиры is in the genitive to show possession: the apartment’s owner → хозяйка квартиры.

Is хозяйка always female? What would be the male version?

Yes, хозяйка is grammatically and semantically feminine.

The base pair is:

хозяин – male owner/host/landlord
хозяйка – female owner/hostess/landlady

So:

хозяин квартиры – male landlord (owner of the apartment)
хозяйка квартиры – female landlady

In the sentence, хозяйка квартиры clearly indicates a female landlord/owner.

How does the structure разрешает нам держать животных work? Why нам and an infinitive?

This is a very typical Russian construction for “to allow someone to do something”:

разрешать / разрешить + (кому?) в дательном падеже (dative) + (что делать?) инфинитив

разрешает – allows (3rd person singular, imperfective)
нам – to us (dative case of мы)
держать – to keep (infinitive)
животных – animals (direct object of держать)

So literally: “the landlady of the apartment allows to-us to-keep animals.”

Another example of the same pattern:

Учитель разрешил мне выйти. – The teacher allowed me to go out.
- мне – to me (dative)
- выйти – to go out (infinitive)

Dative (нам, мне, ему, детям etc.) marks the person who is allowed to do the action.

Why is разрешает (present, imperfective) used, and not разрешила or разрешит?

Разрешает is:

present tense
imperfective aspect

This combination expresses ongoing, general permission, something that is true regularly, as a rule:

хозяйка квартиры разрешает нам держать животных
→ The landlady allows us to keep animals (in general, that’s her policy).

If you changed it:

разрешила (past, perfective) – she allowed (once / made a single decision)
→ Хозяйка квартиры разрешила нам держать животных.
Sounds like a one-time act of giving permission.
разрешит (future, perfective) – she will allow (once, in the future)
→ Хозяйка квартиры разрешит нам держать животных.

In the original, we are talking about a standing rule, so разрешает is appropriate.

What does держать животных mean here? Does держать literally mean “to hold”?

The basic dictionary meaning of держать is indeed “to hold”, but it has several extended meanings. In the context of animals, держать often means:

“to keep (an animal) at home / on a farm,” “to keep as a pet or livestock.”

So:

держать животных – to keep animals (to have animals living at your place as pets or livestock).

Compare:

держать собаку – to keep a dog (as a pet / guard dog).
держать коров – to keep cows (raise cows).

If you said иметь животных, it’s understandable (and correct), but it sounds more bookish or abstract. Держать животных is the natural phrase for “to keep animals (in your home / yard).”

Why is it животных and not животные?

Животных is the accusative plural form of животные (animals), and because animals are animate nouns, their accusative plural is identical to the genitive plural:

Nominative plural: животные – animals (as subject)
Accusative plural (animate): животных – animals (as object)
Genitive plural: животных

In держать животных, the animals are the direct object of держать, so they must be in the accusative case:

Кого? Что? – животных.

If you used животные, that would be nominative plural, which doesn’t fit here because they are not the subject of the verb.

Why is нам (dative) used instead of мы?

Мы is nominative case – used for the subject of a verb:

Мы держим животных. – We keep animals.

Нам is dative case – used here to mark the person to whom something is allowed:

(Кому?) нам – to us.

In the construction разрешать кому-то что-то делать:

Хозяйка (что делает?) разрешает (кому?) нам (что делать?) держать животных.

So нам is required by the verb разрешать in this meaning (“allow someone to do something”), not мы.

Could the sentence be said without у нас, just Дома живёт маленький хомяк? Would it change the meaning?

Yes, you could say:

Дома живёт маленький хомяк. – At home lives a small hamster.

This is grammatical and understandable, but у нас adds the idea “at our place / with us” and makes “our” participation explicit:

Дома у нас живёт маленький хомяк. – At our place at home, a small hamster lives.

Without у нас, it could in theory be “at home (somewhere) lives a small hamster,” where “home” might be a bit less clearly tied to us. In real conversation, context would usually clarify, but у нас is the natural way to say “at our home, with us.”