ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book begins with a description of class processes in the Soviet Union, which forms an important context for understanding contemporary class formation. It examines the classed consequences of the economic and social restructuring and the shifting logic of social differentiation. The book then discusses how tropes of self and morality constitute important symbolic vehicles in drawing class differences, and how emotions are deeply involved in the lived experience of class. It explores how gender, generation and ethnicity/nationality intersect with class, while it discusses 'Sovietness' as a class signifier and the spatial dimension of class inequalities. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought about an unprecedented growth of social inequalities in Russia. Russia's economy began to slowly recover at the end of the 1990s and as a consequence poverty rates declined and living standards gradually began rising.
