Meeting-places of Transformation Urban Identity, Spatial Representations and Local Politics in St Petersburg, Russia Thomas Borén Department of Human Geography Stockholm University 2005 Abstract This study develops a model for understanding spatial change and the construction of space as a meeting-place, and then employs it to show an otherwise little-known picture of (sub-)urban Russia and its trans- formation from Soviet times to today. The model is based on time- geographic ideas of time-space as a limited resource in which forces of various kinds struggle for access and form space in interaction with each other. Drawing on cultural semiotics and the concepts of lifeworld and system, the study highlights the social side of these space-forming forces. Based on long-term fieldwork (participant observation) in Ligovo/Uritsk, a high-rise residential district developed around 1970 and situated on the outskirts of Sankt-Peterburg (St Petersburg), the empirical material concerns processes of urban identity, spatial representations and local politics. The study ex- plicates three codes used to form the image of the city that all relate to its pre-Revolutionary history, two textual strategies of juxta- position in creating the genius loci of a place, and a discussion of what I call Soviet “stiff landscape” in relation to Soviet mental and ordinary maps of the urban landscape. Moreover, the study shows that the newly implemented self-governing municipalities have not realized their potential as political actors in forming local space, which raises questions about the democratisation of urban space. Finally, the study argues that the model that guides the research is a tool that facilitates the application of the world-view of time-geography and the epistemology of the landscape of courses in concrete research. The study ends with an attempt to generalise spatial change in four types. Keywords: Time-space, lifeworld, Hägerstrand, Habermas, Lotman, participant observation, post-Soviet transformation, time-geography, cultural geography, cultural semiotics, urban studies, everyday life, Soviet cartography, local self-government, Ligovo, Uritsk, Krasnosel’skii raion. © Copyright The Author and the Dept of Human Geography, 2005. All rights reserved. Department of Human Geography Stockholm University S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden ISBN 91-7155-042-9 ISSN 0349-7003 Printed by Intellecta DocuSys AB, Nacka, Sweden 2005. Cover illustration: Russia and Sankt-Peterburg, spaces of transformation. Contents List of Figures__________________________________________________7 List of Abbreviations ____________________________________________9 Note on Transliteration and Russian words __________________________10 Preface and Acknowledgements___________________________________11 1 Modelling time-space – urban meeting-places ____________________15 Point of departure – landscapes of courses _______________________18 Introducing a model for spatial change__________________________20 Total action-space__________________________________________24 Real and actual action-spaces: system and lifeworld _______________25 Disposition of the thesis _____________________________________30 2 The cultural geography of Russia ______________________________34 The cultural turn ___________________________________________35 Lifeworlds and semiotics ____________________________________37 The cultural turn – revisited __________________________________40 On post-modernism and the subject as “wide-awake” ______________43 On the concept of practice ___________________________________45 Soviet and post-Soviet geography – a cultural turn? _______________48 Symbolic landscapes of the Moscow-Tartu School ________________51 Conclusions_______________________________________________56 3 Taming the hermeneutic animal – field method ___________________57 The (empirical) bodily imperative _____________________________59 Inside – outside____________________________________________62 Critique and the taming of the hermeneutic animal ________________65 The city as field _______________________________________65 Theoretical interpretation _______________________________66 Logical inference and generalisability______________________68 Ethics ___________________________________________________70 The position of the researcher as a foreigner _____________________73 Funnels, serendipity and abduction_____________________________80 Conclusions_______________________________________________83 3 4 A Soviet type high-rise housing district ________________________ 85 Ligovo – a background _____________________________________ 85 (War) history inscribed in public space_________________________ 89 Thinking big – planning big _________________________________ 92 The pustyr’, and the houses__________________________________ 96 The greenery, the benches and other spatial details _______________ 99 A spal’nyi raion?_________________________________________ 103 Conclusions_____________________________________________ 106 5 Symbolic landscapes and Ligovo’s genius loci__________________ 108 Rozhkov’s history of Ligovo _______________________________ 111 The artificial spatial language of Sankt-Peterburg as text__________ 115 Location and status __________________________________ 116 Cultural heritage context (persons) – the Heroes____________ 117 Stories of modernisation – Ligovo’s main functions_________ 120 Time-spatial strategies of continuity – the creation of continuity____ 122 Juxtaposition in space over time ________________________ 122 Juxtaposition of Ligovo with Sankt-Peterburg _____________ 125 Triangulating the results ___________________________________ 127 Anti-codes ______________________________________________ 131 Conclusions_____________________________________________ 132 6 Secret space, mental maps and stiff landscapes _________________ 135 The semiotics of maps_____________________________________ 135 Soviet maps_____________________________________________ 137 Historical maps _____________________________________ 139 City maps__________________________________________ 140 Maps of Ligovo__________________________________________ 144 End note on Soviet maps___________________________________ 147 The Soviet fear of accurate information _______________________ 151 Maps, people and the stiff landscape _________________________ 152 Conclusions_____________________________________________ 154 7 Political structure and communication ________________________ 156 The new local democracy – introduction ______________________ 157 Soviet and post-Soviet political structures _____________________ 160 Munitsipal’nyi okrug No 40 “Uritsk” _________________________ 165 The Municipal Council and its influence ______________________ 170 Direct impact on the place _____________________________ 171 Financial and organisational help _______________________ 172 Control and safety measures ___________________________ 173 Finances, plans and problems __________________________ 173 4 Local media _____________________________________________175 The media situation in Ligovo _______________________________176 The local TV-channel ______________________________________177 Local TV as a political tool at the local level ____________________180 Conclusions______________________________________________183 8 Ligovo essays of Sankt-Peterburg – Conclusions_________________186 The double hermeneutic circle _______________________________187 Theoretical assessment – the first hermeneutic circle _________188 Empirical assessment – the second hermeneutic circle ________189 Generalising spatial change – looking forward___________________193 Lines, instead of fields_________________________________195 Appendix A: Issues of local self-government________________________199 Appendix B: The Municipal Council ______________________________201 Age, sex, profession and education among the deputies____________201 Local connection and earlier political experience of the deputies ____203 References___________________________________________________206 Bibliography _____________________________________________206 Maps and atlases __________________________________________220 Films __________________________________________________221 Homepages ______________________________________________221 5 6 List of Figures 1.1. Model of scale-sensitive space construction. 1.2. Time-spatial connections between system and lifeworld. 1.3. Cars on a lawn in Ligovo. 4.1. Map of Ligovo and Krasnosel’skii raion in Sankt-Peterburg. 4.2. Historical Ligovo, wooden houses at Nikolaevskaia Street. 4.3. A war monument to Alexander V. German, who has given his name to one of the main streets of Ligovo. 4.4. A war monument to mark the front. 4.5. Berezovaia Alleia Slavy in Ligovo. 4.6. Map of Ligovo. 4.7. Polezhaevskii Park. 4.8. The “Rubezh” cinema. 4.9. The building of the administration of Krasnosel’skii raion. 4.10. View of Ligovo from a 14-storey house, the Gulf of Finland in the background. 4.11. Façade with ”freezers”, glassed-in balconies, flower-boxes, antennas and satellite dishes. 4.12. The greenery as a mix of planned and spontaneous plantation, and a football ground. 4.13. An extreme example of the “wild” character of the greenery in the yards. 4.14. View over a yard, to the left is a school located in-between the houses. 4.15. A post-Soviet shopping centre, a Soviet shopping centre in the back. 4.16. The market at Ligovo train station. 4.17. Small scale traders outside Dom Tkanei. 6.1. Social composition of population of city of Kazan in the 1970s.