What happened to the urban spaces of everyday life when the Soviet Union
collapsed? And how may this change be understood? Based on long-term
qualitative fieldwork in post-Soviet Russia, this study draws upon
time-geographic, social and semiotic theory to formulate a model of how
urban space is formed. Mirrored through the case of Ligovo/Uritsk, a
high-rise residential district situated on the outskirts of
Sankt-Peterburg (St Petersburg), the changing relation between the
lifeworlds of people and the system of governance is highlighted with
regard to the transformation of Soviet and Russian society over the last
decades. The empirical material presented here documents a number of
processes within urban identity formation, spatial representations and
local politics. The resulting findings add both empirically and
theoretically to the knowledge of urban cultural geography in Russia--a
field of research that until recently was closed to Western researchers,
and seems currently to be closing again.The book will be of interest to
researchers with an interest in social, semiotic and geographic theory
as well as to students and researchers of cultural and urban studies,
urban life and Russian affairs. The study could be also helpful to
professionals working in fields related to post-Soviet urban identity,
spatial representations and local politics.