ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Soviet-era secret cities, jurisdictions made media scarce by security restrictions limiting the media documentation of everyday life. It discusses two photography projects that document contemporary images of former cold war-era secret cities. While Gregor Sailer’s photographs depict secret cities devoid of human subjects, others collaboratively produced by Sergey Novikov and former secret city citizens satirically re-stage their memories of a media scarce life. While subtly critical of media scarce policies in secret cities, Novikov’s photos also highlight how they were embraced by many residents. Media scarcity, in other words, sheltered residents from the many harsh realities of Soviet life. Since media use was highly regulated in secret cities, their use easily identified non-residents, amplifying the economic and social security experienced by secret city citizenry. Novikov’s collaborative project highlights the xenophobia and the economic and environmental toxicity of secret cities after the fall of the Soviet Union. Such cities would later continue to remain relatively media scarce as they shifted from one economic model to the next, experimenting with secretive health care research, and then tax-free zones that actively recruited money laundering enterprises.
