Black Sea Currents

THEME SECTION

Black Sea Currents

Edited by Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja Introduction Th e Black Sea as region and horizon

Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja

Abstract: Th e introduction fi rst outlines diff erent perspectives on the Black Sea: in history, as a site of imperial confl icts and a buff er zone; in area studies, as a “region”; and in anthropology, as a sea crisscrossed by migration, cultural infl uences, alternative visions, and oft en a mutual turning of backs. We then discuss the Black Sea in the context of maritime ethnography and the study of ports, “hero cities”, pipelines, and political crises. Th e following sections consider Smith’s notion of the “territorialization of memory” in relation to histories of exile and the more recent interactions brought about by migration and trade. In the concluding section we discuss how the Black Sea has appeared as a “horizon” and imaginary of the beyond for the peoples living around its shores. Keywords: maritime ethnography, regional study, Russia, trade, Turkey, Ukraine

Th e Black Sea has long been described as a place non-NATO member states were key adversaries of mixed cultures and allegiances.1 For centuries but sometimes also temporary allies.2 a playground and a battlefi eld of the Russian Th ere is no single geopolitical defi nition of and Ottoman Empires, as well as a buff er zone the Black Sea region. It ranges from a core com- between their successor states, it was a crucible prising the six coastal states (Russia, Ukraine, for cosmopolitan practices (Ascherson 2007; Turkey, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Romania) to the King 2011; Humphrey and Skvirskaja 2012). A so-called wider Black Sea region, which also good example is the continuing presence in Is- includes some of their neighbors—Albania, tanbul of the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Greece, Serbia, Church—the ecumenical or “Roman” patriarch- and Montenegro. Th e region is also envisioned ate of Constantinople. Yet the Black Sea has at diff erently by the diff erently positioned political times hampered instead of facilitated the move- powers. Th us, whereas for Turkey it is the zone ment of people, goods, ideas, and imaginaries. that connects the Caspian, the Aegean, and the Like Braudel’s (1986) Mediterranean, the Black Mediterranean Seas, for the United States it is Sea in the longue durée could be seen not as a the area “stretching from the Caspian Sea to the single sea but a “complex of seas”, where Chris- Black Sea to the Baltic Sea” (Baran 2008: 87). tian and Muslim civilizations, later socialist and Th e recognition of “subjective” visions in de- nonsocialist regimes, and currently NATO and lineating regions has become commonplace in

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 70 (2014): 3–11 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2014.700101 4 | Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja scholarly literature. King (2008), for instance, our conceptualization of regions: “[W]e can only writes that the key means of conceptualiz- recognize the region through understanding ing a “genuine” region is not a set of objective the specifi c localities and movements between traits, but the region’s self-conscious attempts them, and we understand the localities and to be(come) one. Th ese attempts are usually movements better as components of a regional manifest in a number of projects aiming at co- system” (2007: xiv). We also implicitly acknowl- operation and region building. “In the end,” as edge the legacy of regional analyses in anthro- King puts it, “regions exist where politicians pology (infl uenced by Skinner’s [1964–1965] and strategists say they exist” (ibid.: 3)—they work) that focus on the ways in which regions are “imagined” by elites, in much the same way are created through processes of social interac- as Benedict Anderson’s nations (2006). Since tion rather than on a priori criteria and existing the end of the Cold War (and the Soviet Union political units. Th us, the Black Sea region is a in 1991), there has indeed been no shortage of fi eld of research where habitual disciplinary international initiatives to achieve regionalism boundaries that separate the post-Soviet, the and greater integration—from the Black Sea Middle Eastern, and Eastern European societies Economic Cooperation (BSEC) forum to the are blurred and overlap. project of the Black Sea Ring Highway.3 Yet, At present, the anthropological literature on if we consider the academic construction of the Black Sea is relatively sparse and confi ned “geographies of knowing and geographies of mainly to individual countries (e.g., Pelkmans ignorance,” the Black Sea region can be seen 2006; Ghodsee 2005). By contrast, the rich his- as one of those that did not make it as a world tory of the anthropology of the Mediterranean area, because it lacked its own single center of exemplifi es a great range of approaches and state formation and was politically ambiguous highlights controversies surrounding the idea (Schendel 2002: 647). of Mediterranean distinctiveness and unity Th is section aims to start to redress this sit- (see Gilmore 1982), which might fruitfully in- uation by studying anthropologically the idea form the study of the Black Sea region. What of the Black Sea as a common region. It is an comes to the fore is scholarly recognition that attempt to refl ect both evolving geopolitical re- the “unity” of the Mediterranean does not stem alities in the redrawing of regional boundaries from a list of shared traits or identical cultural and conceptual areas of research within our patterns (be it the “honor and shame complex”, discipline. Th e articles raise questions of how the evil eye, or peripheral positioning). Instead, the Black Sea should be seen today—which as Gilmore argues (ibid.: 200), a similar, some- themes and ethnographic emphases should be times contradictory, dynamic “fi t” among such foregrounded in regional study—looking not traits in the lives of actual communities may in- so much at grand geopolitical visions but rather dicate regional distinctiveness. trying to understand the interactions, move- Th e Black Sea has played diff erent roles for ments, and imaginaries of the people living the surrounding communities, and it has some- around it, while keeping a watchful eye on inter- times illuminated the “incommensurability” linking local histories. Does geographical prox- of their ideologies and cultures. A recent such imity to the Black Sea and the partial removal scenario can be identifi ed with the Cold War, of former political divides generate certain sim- which established the Black Sea as a barrier be- ilarities, or must these peoples be understood tween diff erent cultural/imperial/political tra- as engaging with one another mainly through ditions. It became a frontier of the Cold War, a mutual turning of backs, diff erence, comple- and its ports and ships became repositories of mentarity, or even enmity? the “territorialization” of national memories. In posing questions in this way, we draw on Although the Cold War is now over, lingering what Lambek calls “the hermeneutic spiral” in barriers and resistance to cultural or political Introduction: Th e Black Sea as region and horizon | 5 integration remain to be investigated (discussed to bear the name of the admiral and the ideas he further below), as well as the emergence of dy- represented. Th e fi rst ship named aft er him was namic processes of regional mixing and new an armored cruiser built in 1883, serving both economic interdependencies. Taken as a whole, in the Baltic and in the Far East. Aft er World the contributions to this special section, written War II, a German passenger liner turned hos- before the annexation of Crimea by Russia and pital ship, the Berlin, having been mined and civil unrest in Ukraine, scrutinize cross–Black beached, was taken over by the Soviets, refi tted, Sea mediations that can broadly be designated and renamed Admiral Nakhimov. Th is ship was as fl ows of people (labor migrants, small-scale to be the pride of the Black Sea passenger fl eet, traders and sex workers, transnational entre- serving the Odessa–Batumi line from the 1950s preneurs and sailors, repatriates and refugees) onward. But later, disaster struck. In August or, among less mobile actors, as imaginaries of 1986, with 1,234 people on board, a freighter a better life, or alien lifestyles and authoritarian, rammed her two miles off Novorossiisk, and oppressive regimes. well over 400 people lost their lives.4 In all, there have been six ships named Admiral Nakhimov, some of them concurrently, of which one is still Maritime ethnography active with the Russian Northern Fleet. Th us, some ships become mobile vessels for the pres- Maritime and terrestrial histories have always ence of a “myth”; such ships are active joggers been entangled. Whether the sea works as a of memories in their ceaseless comings and go- border or a bridge between diff erent cultures ings, and in principle are containers of moral and locales depends on particular historical cir- qualities. cumstances, but it is never “a neutral blank en- Th e maritime world encompasses not only vironment, an empty space or a liminal period” ships, but also shores, ports, and naval bases (Phelan 2007: 5). Yet, in anthropologies of Black (see Humphrey, this issue). A key example is Sea locales we only rarely fi nd analyses of lives Sevastopol, whose signifi cance as a naval base oriented toward the sea (Knudsen 2006) or ex- has been a constant amid the dramatic changes periences of the sea and seaborne sociality. We in the political status of Crimea. It seemed to suggest that maritime ethnography or the eth- matter little when Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, nography of seafaring should have a place in transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian Republic the study of the Black Sea region. Let us briefl y within the USSR. But when Ukraine became illustrate what kind of themes can be pursued in an independent country in 1991, the naval base maritime ethnography. at Sevastopol remained the headquarters of the In the Soviet Union, Sevastopol was perhaps Russian Black Sea Fleet and immediately be- the most poignant of all “hero cities”, since it came a subject of controversy. In March 2014, it both became the main naval base in the Black was the mayor of Sevastopol who, in reaction to Sea and commemorated the brave fi ght of Rus- the overturning of the Ukrainian government, sians—and ultimately their defeat—against the was in the forefront in declaring unilaterally a British and French in the Crimean War in 1854– wish to join the Russian Federation; the Russian 1855. Th e city became the site of the immensely population was supportive of this, and within popular story of Admiral Pavel Nakhimov, one a few days Crimea was annexed by means of of its defenders in the Crimean War and hero a referendum. In these events Admiral Nakhi- of a battle against the Turks, who was said to mov acquired even more charisma than before: have behaved with humanism to his sailors, and according to some recent blogs he was sent by hence became suitable for later transforma- God and is the “soul” of Sevastopol;5 the city’s tion into a Soviet-style “friend of the people” main square, avenue, and greatest monument— (Plokhy 2000: 376). A succession of ships was all named aft er Nakhimov—were the sites cho- 6 | Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja sen for demonstrations of allegiance to Russia. gift ed, captured, bought and sold, or decom- Although the articles in this section were writ- missioned—can tell us about ongoing changes ten before these events, we note here how the in regional links, local economies, and power popular history of a maritime hero—Admiral struggles. Th e decline of the once numerous Nakhimov, who was so devoted to life at sea fi shing and passenger fl eets with bases in Rus- that he did not even marry—can become a sia and Ukraine is a case in point. In the 1990s weather vane of political opinion. Th e great ad- and 2000s, the port of Odessa, for instance, had miral switched from being an actor in common a regular ferry connection with Istanbul trans- imperial and class struggles (“victor against the porting “suitcase traders”, working girls, small Turks”, “friend of working seamen”) and hence entrepreneurs, migrant workers, and tourists. a unifying fi gure for the all the various popula- Th e veteran ferry working the Odessa–Istanbul tions of the Soviet coast to become a symbol of line was the Caledonia. Built in France in 1973, in Russia’s right to Crimea, which implicitly pre- the 1990s the Caledonia also worked the Odessa– cludes him appearing as a Ukrainian, Jewish, Haifa route, transporting Jewish emigrants or Tatar hero (it seems he was of Jewish origin, from Odessa. Th is route ended when the fl ow although this is now disputed; see note 5). of emigrants decreased and they were no lon- If the reverberations of maritime histories ger interested in taking their entire household’s are felt on land, the reverse is also true. Russia’s belongings with them. On the Istanbul–Odessa new de facto sovereignty in Crimea, although it route, until approximately 2006, the ship was also is not currently recognized as legitimate by any used by Turkish authorities to transport deported of the other Black Sea countries, will change illegal migrants from all over the former USSR the balance of naval fi repower vis-à-vis Turkey (mainly women) back to Odessa. Th is practice (Socor 2014) and seems certain to place the ex- ended when, as a member of the crew told us, isting maritime demarcation lines, continental Turkey had to behave in a “civilized manner” in shelf rights, and economic zones in the Black order to improve its chances of EU membership. Sea in question (see Humphrey, this issue, for a In the 1900s and 2000s the Odessa–Istan- discussion of the earlier situation). Th is in turn bul route was in demand and used to “import” may aff ect the fate of Gazprom’s South Stream goods in both directions (oft en undeclared) un- gas pipeline, which is due to be built deep in til its last days, but the Caledonia was grounded the seabed, traversing Ukraine’s exclusive eco- in 2010, shortly aft er the presidential elections nomic zone for much of its length (Socor 2008); in Ukraine. Th e offi cial explanation for the ship’s the project is intended to tie many European abrupt decommissioning, published on the web - economies to Russian supplies, but changing site of the owner (the Ukrferry company), is that maritime jurisdictions may be a factor in the the Caledonia was no longer fully booked.6 Th ere disputes arising in 2014 between Russia and the were also, however, stories in circulation in European Union (EU). As Andrew Barry (2013) Odessa telling that the Caledonia was left to rust has documented for pipelines in the Caucasus, in a dry dock because of the company’s disputes political disputes concern not material objects over its control with new politicians in power in in isolation but the complexes of laws, informa- Ukraine. Th e Ukrferry company, with its Turk- tion, origins, impact, and social connections in ish and Georgian contacts and interests, was too which they are entangled. In this respect, the “international” to have its ship simply expropri- Black Sea is not just a space to be crossed but ated, but not strong enough to prevent it from also a complicated entanglement in its own right. being “grounded”. In 2014, there is still no ferry On the sea itself, tracing the routes and fol- connection between Odessa and Istanbul. lowing the fate of ships as if they were “persons” Just as the passenger fl eet has been greatly re- endowed with individual biographies—to be duced for Black Sea destinations, so the fi shing Introduction: Th e Black Sea as region and horizon | 7 fl eets of Ukraine and Russia have experienced Exile and the “territorialization similar decline and shrinkage. Not only has the of memory” mobility of fi shermen been constrained by new national borders, but also the lack of investment Anthony Smith has written about the “territori- in new technology, shadowy privatization prac- alization of memory” (1996: 453), especially na- tices, and the subsequent sale of the Soviet fl eet tional and ethnic memory. Th is is a process that have been detrimental to the development of one can clearly see at work around the Black Sea seafaring in the Black Sea. Knudsen and Toje coast. It is present in the biographies of ships, (2008: 20) estimate that the Black Sea fi shing the monuments erected at harbors, the legends fl eets of Russia and Ukraine fell from about 230 associated with ports, and so forth, as well as in vessels in the 1980s to about 110 in 2004. the histories of coastal groups. In other words, Th e post-Soviet economic decline of fi shing while the Black Sea has alternately brought the and passenger fl eets means that the majority of populations of the region into close contact and Ukrainian and Russian sailors who live on the kept them apart, it has always formed a kind of Black Sea shores (Odessa and Sevastopol still framework for imagination and a repository have numerous colleges and academies that train of ethnic and national memory. And perhaps future sailors) are now being employed by for- nothing can convey more clearly the precarious eign companies and do not work in the Black Sea. nature of regional coexistence and the imagi- Th ese new employment opportunities, off ered nation of “otherness” than the narratives and by various crewing agencies, are not without experiences of uprooted people, exiled and per- risk. In some situations, Ukrainian and Russian secuted minorities. fi shermen and seafarers have been identifi ed by Imperial Russia and the USSR, not unlike the international agencies (for example, the Interna- Ottoman Empire and republican Turkey, have a tional Organization for Migration, or IOM) as long history of moving people around. Vouti- “traffi cked people”, that is, people traffi cked for ra’s article in this issue discusses the repercus- forced labor in breach of their contracts. “Slave sions of Soviet resettlement policies in Crimea, ships” not only navigate in distant seas under where whole ethnic groups—the Greeks and exotic fl ags, but may also be Russian or Turkish the Tatars—were classifi ed as “enemies of the (Surtees 2012), refl ecting new maritime prac- people” and exiled to other parts of the USSR. tices and common abuses in the industry. For both groups, the Black Sea shores are laden Humhprey’s contribution, the only one in with memories and mark their ancestral ter- this special section to deal specifi cally with the ritories; both groups have returned to Crimea sea, examines the practices and subjectivities of to fi nd their “homes” occupied by new inhab- Black Sea sailors of the merchant fl eet during itants. As Voutira points out, it is the religious the Cold War. It discusses how seamen devel- affi liation of the returnees, rather than their past oped their own “ocean geographies” and at- “political sins”, that has infl uenced the responses tributed diff erent values to diverse seas and the of the local, predominantly Slav and Christian ports at their edge. Th e article thus illustrates population. Th us, the Orthodox Greeks have how an “open expanse” (the sea) could become enjoyed a “smoother” return to Crimea than the striated by the invisible, but real, boundaries Muslim Tatars. Although returnee Tatars fi nd of Cold War fronts. At the same time, seas (as new “friends” across the Black Sea in Turkey as well as parts of seas, coasts, straits, and ports) well as among Turkish migrants in Ukraine (see were subject to the “territorialization of mem- Skvirskaja, this issue), in Crimea their return ory”, when they were identifi ed with historical has mainly provoked sharp new divides and an- events, and more recent narratives of betrayal, tagonism, exacerbated by the annexation of the exile, and migration. peninsula by Russia in 2014. 8 | Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja

New intersections of trade and migration gion. Aft er the “trader tourism” stage, women featured prominently in the migratory fl ows. Since antiquity, the Black Sea has been an im- “When there were no more spades to sell,” Kat- portant economic region, both in terms of local kevich (2004), an Odessan journalist, writes and long-distance trade, the latter linking Per- humorously, “cheap labor and love were off ered sia, Central Asia, Constantinople, and the West instead.” (Ascherson 2007). By the time of the collapse of Th e theme of female migration from the im- the Russian and Ottoman Empires in the early poverished postsocialist states features prom- twentieth century, it was a transit nexus of global inently in academic writings and in the mass east-west and north-south trade routes (Braudel media. Th e topic was also discussed in Focaal’s 1986: 110–113; King 2008: 5–9). At present, its 2004 special section “Sexual Encounters, Mi- signifi cance as a global transit zone is mainly gration and Desire in Post-socialist Context(s),” maintained by the oil and gas pipelines routes edited by Judy Whitehead and Hülya Demird- (and projects) connecting Europe, Russia, Cen- irek. Focusing on the migration of post-Soviet tral Asia, and the Middle East, but as mentioned women to Turkey, it challenged victim images earlier, these links, along with the previous in- of post-Soviet female migrants and sex workers, creasingly intensive ties of commerce and mi- pointing to the complex nature of the “transna- gration, are now subject to political negotiation tional social spaces” in which female migrants and the attendant economic uncertainty. operate as well as the “messiness” and “fuzzi- Burgeoning cross-border small-scale trade ness of the category of prostitution” (2004: 8). in recent years has helped revitalize old com- In Turkey, it is argued, many women migrants mercial routes and create new ones. In the late combine sex work (or monetized relations with 1980s, buses and trains moved socialist subjects men) with other occupations, are emotionally across borders in pursuit of cheap consumer engaged with their sponsors, or are simultane- goods and new contacts. Th ese early fl ows were ously building their own small businesses. Th e oft en organized as tourist groups equipped with category “sex work” itself is too narrow to “un- group visas and assisted by travel guides, who derstand the complexity of … young women’s also functioned as intermediaries between the lives” (ibid.: 9) and “the fuzzy boundaries be- “tourists” and customs offi cials. For the whole tween gift and commodity, desire and economic Black Sea region, Turkey, and Istanbul in partic- calculation” (ibid.) that are present in female ular, became a main destination of “trader tour- migrants’ narratives. ism” (see Hann and Hann 1992; Konstantinov While there are now several ethnographies 1996; Konstantinov et al. 1998). Th e Soviets, of post-Soviet female migration that add valu- who had little money to invest in the cross-bor- able insights to the body of interdisciplinary der trade with Turkey, created their fi rst profi ts literature on the subject of “Natashas” (as “Rus- by selling Soviet ironware (nails, spades, irons, sian” or former Soviet women migrants are col- etc.) on the streets of Istanbul and other coastal lectively known) and their movement across the towns (Katkevich 2004). Black Sea,8 it is remarkable that men embarking “Trader tourism” paved the way to the mass on somewhat similar practices (or at least en- “suitcase” or “shuttle trade” that quickly estab- tertaining the idea) and the fl ows of male Turk- lished new regional hubs of diff erent scales (e.g., ish migrants in the opposite direction have not Laileli district in Istanbul, the Russian market been properly incorporated into the regional in Trabzon, the Seventh-Kilometer Market in picture. In this respect, this special section at- Odessa, Ukraine), most of which are still ac- tempts to rectify a “female bias”. Frederiksen’s tive today. It encouraged people to overcome article discusses young unemployed Georgian their ideological and racial inhibitions7 and men in the seaport of Batumi who hope to be set in motion processes of migration in the re- able to migrate and improve their economic op- Introduction: Th e Black Sea as region and horizon | 9 portunities through romantic relationships with fi cial discourses, as illustrated by Humphrey’s Russian women whom they seek online. Geor- article in the case of Russian seamen during gian men had a reputation for sexual prowess the Cold War period. But, especially these days, and entrepreneurial spirit in Soviet times, and “sea horizons” are much more urgently created some young men today are, apparently, success- by ordinary people on their own account—in fully capitalizing on this image using the me- relation to their economic needs and their pro- dium of Internet chat rooms. jected images (sometimes illusory) of a better Th e article by Skvirskaja analyzes, in turn, a life. Such a process is patchy, and it can result Turkish migration to Odessa that is represented in some parts of the Black Sea coast being virtu- mainly by men. Th e largest open-air market in ally blanked out from certain perspectives, such Ukraine—called the Seventh-Kilometer Mar- as Bulgaria and Romania, which are seen as “of ket—started its expansion with Turkish goods, no interest” to the young people of Batumi (see and Turkish nationals have been present as stall Frederiksen, this issue). Other places seem to owners (and sellers) at the market from the very glow with promise and excitement across the beginning. In the course of trade and migration, waters. Batumi itself, which not so long ago ex- Turks have established various links with locals, emplifi ed post-Soviet ruination, today aspires to marrying Ukrainian women and discovering the title of the Las Vegas of the Black Sea, at- commonalities with Turkic-speaking Gagauz, tracting tourists and Turkish gamblers in droves Meskhetian Turks, and Tatars, whom they oft en (see McGuinness 2012). Th e “horizons” are not seek out as employees and friends. Skvirskaja only mental images; they also actively draw uses the notion of “multiple alliances” to high- people to start some endeavor or make a move light the strategic nature of new engagements, (or, alternatively, to stay at home). Th us is the in an economic environment characterized by Black Sea a variable, but powerful, presence in opaque state regulations, that simultaneously the changing social formations around it. “integrate” newcomers into localities and create distance vis-à-vis the locals (for instance, via marriages and cooperation with Turkic-speaking Acknowledgments minorities). While the migratory aspirations of Georgian men and the movements of Turkish Th e project that led to this special section was men to post-Soviet Black Sea locales are less generously supported by the AHRC program “visible” and less controversial (as far as ideas of Migration, Diaspora and Identity (2006–2009), national honor are concerned) than female mi- designed by Professor Kim Knott, and by the gration, they are equally important in extending Newton Trust, Trinity College, Cambridge regional ties and creating new practices. (2009–2010).

Concluding remarks: Th e Black Sea Caroline Humphrey has worked in the USSR/ as a “horizon” Russia, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Nepal, and India. Her research interests include socialist Th is themed section envisages the Black Sea as and postsocialist society, religion, ritual, econ- a “horizon”, an imaginary of the beyond, enter- omy, history, and the contemporary transforma- tained by the various peoples living around the tions of cities. Until 2010 she was Sigrid Rausing sea and traveling across it. Th e sea thus engen- Professor of Collaborative Anthropology at the ders diff erent mediations, whether it is imag- University of Cambridge and she is currently ined as a connecting or—on the contrary—a director of research at the University of Cam- separating realm. Undoubtedly, these horizons bridge. Her major publications include: Karl have been infl uenced by state practices and of- Marx Collective: Economy, Society and Religion 10 | Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja

in a Siberian Collective Farm (1983); Shamans themselves to interacting with Roma on shop- and Elders: Experience, Knowledge and Power ping trips and trading with Turks, their histori- among the Daur Mongols (1996); Th e Unmaking cal oppressors. of Soviet Life (2002); and A Monastery in Time: 8. See also Yukseker (2004), Uygun (2004), Keough Th e Making of Mongolian Buddhism (2013). (2006), and Humphrey and Skvirskaja (2008). Email: [email protected]

Vera Skvirskaja has worked on kinship, new References economic forms, and religious change in in- digenous Siberia. She has also worked on post- Anderson, Benedict. [1983] 2006. Imagined Com- socialist migration, urban coexistence, and cos- munities: Refl ections on the Origin and Spread of mopolitanism in Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Her Nationalism. London: Verso. research interests include economic anthro- Ascherson, Neal. 2007. Black Sea: Th e birthplace of pology, and her new projects focus on urban civilization and barbarism. London: Vintage. markets, merchant cultures, trading diasporas, Baran, Zeyno. 2008. Turkey and the wider Black and the politics of value. She is a coeditor of Sea region. In Daniel Hamilton and Gerhard Mangott, eds., Th e wider Black Sea region in Post-cosmopolitan Cities (2012). the 21st century: Strategic, economic and energy Email: [email protected] perspectives, pp. 87–102. Washington DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations. Barry, Andrew. 2013. Material politics: Disputes Notes along the pipeline. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Braudel, Fernand. 1986. Th e Mediterranean and 1. Th is special section developed out of the inter- the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II. national, interdisciplinary workshop Black Sea London: Fontana Press. Cities: State Practices, Co-existence and Migra- Ghodsee, Kristen. 2005. Th e red Riviera: Gender, tion organized in Cambridge on 6–7 November tourism, and postsocialism on the Black Sea. 2009. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2. For an overview of the shift ing relations be- Gilmore, David. 1982. Anthropology of the Medi- tween post-Soviet Russia and Turkey, includ- terranean area. Annual Review of Anthropology ing their temporary alliance as “an axis of the 11: 175–205. excluded” in Eurasia, see, for instance, Winrow Hann, Chris, and Ildiko Hann. 1992. Samovars and (2009). sex on Turkey’s Russian markets. Anthropology 3. Some other important initiatives are the Black Today 8(4): 3–6. Sea Border Coordination and Information Cen- Humphrey, Caroline, and Vera Skvirskaja. 2008. tre (BSEC, based in Burgas, Bulgaria), dealing “Russians” in Istanbul: Between necessity and with information sharing about illegal maritime freedom. In M. Sully, ed., Black Sea calling, pp. activities, and the Black Sea Naval Cooperation 48–55. Vienna: Favorita Papers Special Edition, Task Force (BLACKSEAFOR), the regional se- Diplomatische Akadaemie Wien. curity framework also responsible for preven- Humphrey, Caroline, and Vera Skvirskaja, eds. 2012. tion of terrorism and organized crime. Post-cosmopolitan cities: Explorations of urban 4. http://admiral-nakhimov.net.ru/ (accessed 16 coexistence. Oxford and New York: Berghahn June 2014). Books. 5. Pupkova (2012); see also: http://subscribe Katkevich, Vladimir. 2004. Стамбул до и после .ru/group/razumno-o-svoem-i-nabolevshem/ челночного нашествия. Зеркало недели: 5658783/ Украина. http://gazeta.zn.ua/SOCIETY/stambul 6. http://www.ukrferry.com/vessels/vessel-caledo _do_i_posle_chelnochnogo_nashestviya.html nia (accessed 18 December 2013). (accessed 14 June 2014). 7. Konstantinov, Kressel, and Th uen (1998) write Keough, Leyla. 2006. Globalizing “postsocialism”: about Bulgarian traders who had to reconcile Mobile mothers and neoliberalism on the Introduction: Th e Black Sea as region and horizon | 11

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