ABSTRACT
The four cities in our study were chosen to represent contrasting aspects of urban life in the former USSR.1 Our research focused on the wider results of the overarching socialist system’s collapse by considering not the metropolitan centre (Moscow), but pivotal points of the provincial structure. For this reason, we chose cities in the Central Asian provinces in order to examine the links between the engine of modernisation, ‘the city’, and the diverse cultures, societies and religions of these former socialist spaces. As a comparative project, our studies aimed to contrast cities of different scale and economic prosperity, from the flourishing cities of Almaty and Astana to the socially and economically depressed Buryat city of Ulan-Ude, and to encompass cities of varied political status.2 One further key point of contrast is the juxtaposition of cities located in Islamic (Tashkent, Almaty and Astana) and Buddhist (Ulan-Ude) regions. Similarly, as this was a collaborative project involving researchers from the Anglo-American, Soviet and post-Soviet traditions, the range of concerns is varied, as well as the analytical styles. It is hoped that this eclectic approach will convey to the reader the broad range of approaches that have been brought to bear on these post-Soviet Asian cities and thereby provide the possibility to begin to establish a common horizon of research topics and approaches.
