THE BALTIC PEARL IN THE WINDOW TO EUROPE:
ST. PETERSBURG'S CHINESE QUARTER
by
MEGAN LORI DIXON
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Geography
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
December 2008
11
University of Oregon Graduate School
Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by:
Megan Dixon
Title:
"The Baltic Pearl in the Window to Europe: St. Petersburg's Chinese Quarter"
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Geography by:
Alexander Murphy, Co-Chairperson, Geography
Susan Hardwick, Co-Chairperson, Geography
Lise Nelson, Member, Geography
Jeffrey Hanes, Outside Member, History
and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the
Graduate School for the University of Oregon.
December 13, 2008
Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of
Oregon Libraries.
© 2008 Megan Lori Dixon
111
in the Department of Geography
Megan Lori Dixon
An Abstract of the Dissertation of
for the degree of
to be taken
IV
Doctor of Philosophy
December 2008
Title: THE BALTIC PEARL IN THE WINDOW TO EUROPE: ST. PETERSBURG'S
CHINESE QUARTER
Approved:
Dr. Alexander B. Murphy
Approved: _
Dr. Susan W. Hardwick
In 2005 ground was broken for the largest foreign investment project in St.
Petersburg, Russia, since the end of the Soviet era. The so-called Baltic Pearl
development will occupy over 200 hectares (495 acres) to the southwest of the city's port
area; it will contain housing as well as commercial and recreational objects. Financed by
a consortium of firms based in Shanghai, China, the project reflects growing political
cooperation between the Russian and Chinese governments; it also parallels an increase
in economic partnership, including the growing use of Chinese labor. However, the
project's apparent success in drawing Russia and China closer masks social processes at
the scale of the city, where local resistance has shadowed its progress. Some city
residents have expressed alarm over the Baltic Pearl because they associate it with
rumors of a Chinatown inhabited by poor labor migrants; others, already resentful about
vbeing left behind in the economic transformation, associate the project with the city
administration's neglect of their needs. A closer examination of the Baltic Pearl reveals
some of the forces shaping xenophobia and claims of dispossession in the city today and
provides a more nuanced picture of the prospects for Sino-Russian cooperation.
Applying the lens of a socio-spatial paradigm rooted in Henri Lefebvre's The
Production ofSpace, the study analyzes the spatial ideas and assumptions sunounding
the vision and plan for the Baltic Pearl. The role played by the dvor (courtyard) in
negotiations over the project's form between Chinese and Russian officials, planners, and
architects highlights contrasting views of residential space. Local protest and support for
the quarter as articulated in newspaper articles, blogs, a survey, and interviews reveal
what is at stake in the transition. Finally, individual nanatives of experience in the city as
recounted in a survey and interviews show possible spaces of cooperation between
Chinese and Russians.
The analysis delineates factors in St. Petersburg's struggle to adapt to global
pressures related to economic restructuring and migration streams, and to become a truly
"world city." It also demonstrates the need to incorporate information gained at finer
scales into analysis of urban development.
VI
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Megan Lori Dixon
PLACE OF BIRTH: Seattle, Washington
DATE OF BIRTH: January 3,1969
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Rice University
DEGREES AWARDED:
Doctor of Philosophy in Geography, 2008, University of Oregon.
Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literature, 1999,
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Bachelor of Arts in Russian, 1991, Rice University.
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Cultural Geography
Urban Geography
Russian Society and Culture
GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Foundation (Tokyo Foundation), Fellows
Mobility Program, January 2008 (Peking University, Beijing), 2007.
OUS-SYLFF Graduate Fellowship for International Research 2006-2007,
University of Oregon, 2006.
National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award
(#0623599), "The Baltic Pearl in the Window to Europe," 2006.
Society of Woman Geographers Evelyn Pruitt Research Fellowship, 2006.
Dissertation Enhancement Award - Russian, Central Eurasia and Eastern Europe
Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers, 2006.
Vll
Summer Research Award, Center on Diversity and Community, University of
Oregon, 2005.
PUBLICATIONS:
Dixon, M. Gazprom vs. the Skyline: Spatial displacement and social contention in
St. Petersburg. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
(Forthcoming)
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have a village of people to thank. Professor Susan Hardwick made me feel that
anything is possible when I first sat in her office in summer 2002, and Professor Alexander
Murphy has repeatedly helped me gain deeper insight into the topics that interest me. I also
thank the other members of my committee: Professor Lise Nelson has encouraged me to
confront challenging ideas from the beginning of my time in the department; Professor Jeff
Hanes joined the project when it was underway and still found ways to introduce helpfUl
questions. I would also like to thank Professor Nico Larco for helping me to decipher the
fascinating connections between the Baltic Pearl and issues in international architecture and
for including me in stimulating workshop conversations about the study of "place."
Thanks are due also to the members of a reading group on territoriality started by
Professor Shaul Cohen. Our discussions provided intellectual companionship and a broader
context for my interest in contention over urban space. The Department of Geography has
provided a supportive and inspiring environment for study, from weekly Teas to many
friendships with other graduate students. Special mention is due to Leslie McLees for
making the completion of my manuscript possible at a distance.
I would like to thank the Depmtment of Geography at the S1. Petersburg State
University for sponsoring my research visit to S1. Petersburg. In particular, I would like to
thank Professor Konstantin Axenov for acquainting me with important contacts. I would
also like to thank the Center for Independent Sociological Research for intellectual support.
I could not have completed my research without the longstanding friendship of my Russian
IX
host mothers, Valentina Kaniukova, Liudmila Batlan, and Galina Borisovskaia. I thank
Professor Tianxin Zhang at Peking University for sponsoring my research visit to Beijing.
For generously hosting me in Beijing, I thank Newell and Myrle Bossart; for kindly hosting
me in Shanghai and for making my city tours possible, I thank Michelle Larson. For their
example of dedicated, rigorous scholarship I would like to thank my advisers at the
University of Wisconsin: Judith Kornblatt, Halina Filipowicz, and David Bethea.
My thanks go to Jacob Bartruff in the IT lab of the Department of Geography for
converting essential cartographic data during a computer platform change. I am grateful to
Yifang Zhang for translation of my interview and survey forms into Chinese, and for
translation of the results back into English.
My research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science
Foundation, DDRI Number 0623599; by an Evelyn Pruitt Fellowship from the Society of
Woman Geographers; by a Graduate Fellowship for International Research and a Fellows
Mobility Program grant from the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Foundation; by a
Summer Research Grant from the University of Oregon Center on Diversity and
Community; and by summer research grants from the University of Oregon Department of
Geography.
For their cheerful support of my decision to visit Russia in 1989 and of all my
projects since, I am deeply grateful to my parents, Bill and Margie Dixon. Thanks also go
to Carol and Brad Knickerbocker for taking an interest and asking such good questions. I
give special thanks to my husband Scott Knickerbocker-for coming to St. Petersburg, for
listening, and for waiting so patiently.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
x
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1
Elaboration of the Initial Questions 5
Chapter Summary 10
II. THE BROADER SPATIAL CONTEXT OF POST-SOVIET
ST. PETERSBURG....................................................................................... 12
Chapter Summary 15
Context at the "Privileged Scale" 16
Russia's Spatial Transformation 17
Urban Megaprojects .. 24
Sino-Russian Relations 28
Chinatowns, Labor Deficit, and Investment Conditions 35
"Chinese" Space 35
Migration and Labor Shortages 37
Strategic Investors in Russian Space 38
Contemporary Shifts on the Horizon 39
Petersburg as "Space of Representation" for Cultural Europe....... 40
Petersburg as "Space of Representation" for Russian State Spatial
Practices............................................................................................... 42
The Inherited Built Environment of Leningrad 44
Existing Policies for the Built Environment 46
A Geographer-Planner's Insights 50
Conclusion.................................................................................................... 54
III. EXPANDING SPATIAL ANALYSIS WITH 'SOCIO-SPATIAL
PARADIGM' 57
A Story of Shifting Sense of Place................................................................ 57
Socio-Spatial Paradigm: Capturing the Multiplicity of Spatial
Experience 62
Xl
Chapter Page
Socio-Spatial Paradigm: Using Scale to Calibrate, Not to Govern,
Analysis 66
Methods 70
Important Concepts in Cultural Geography that Influenced Socio-Spatial
Paradigm................................................................................................... 75
Place 75
Examining Differentiated Practices Through Spatial Models.. 79
Space and Power 83
Space as Precursor of Action: Scott and Metis 85
Lefebvre 87
Lefebvre's Trialectics 90
Lefebvre and Differentiation 95
Articulating a Socio-Spatial Paradigm 96
Brief Examples ." 99
IV. THE BALTIC PEARL AS SPATIAL CATALYST 104
Background of the Baltic Pearl 105
Site Details 106
Influences on the Form and Purpose of the Baltic Pearl 115
Sources for the Baltic Pearl Vision 120
Matvienko's Speeches 121
Baltic Pearl Design Books 122
The Baltic Pearl as a Spatial Practice 125
Socio-Spatial Precedents from Shanghai 125
Transportation Routes as Spatial Practice 127
Megaprojects as Spatial Practice and Spaces of Representation 130
Megaprojects as Spaces of Representation in St. Petersburg 131
The Baltic Pearl Self-Identified as a Locomotive Project 133
The Role of the Baltic Pearl as a Megaproject 135
Courtyards 144
Matvienko's Interpretation of Courtyards 148
xu
Chapter Page
Humanistic Urbanism in the Courtyards of the Baltic Pearl 152
Invocation of Courtyards by Architects and Planners 158
Conclusion 168
V. SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF XENOPHOBIC DISCOURSES 171
Methodological Notes . 173
Context for Protest Against the Baltic Pearl................................................ 174
Media Presentation of the Baltic Pearl 174
Resident Activism and the Spaces of its Representation 191
City Governor Matvienko on the Proper Placement of Resident
Activism 192
Forum Views on Civil Society....... 194
Anti-Chinese Prejudice 197
Spatial References in the Forum Entries 197
Interview Comments on Other Urban Prejudices 204
The Struggle between "Soviet" and "Post-Soviet" 212
Invocations of History in the Forum 212
Expectations for the Baltic Pearl: Between Central Planning and
Market Development........................................................................... 214
Expectations for the Baltic Pearl: Service to the Collective vs.
Promotion of Creativity 215
Conclusion.................................................................................................... 223
Reconsidering Xenophobia 223
Methodological Qualifications 227
VI. ADOPTING THE SPATIAL NARRATIVES OF ST. PETERSBURG 232
Methods 233
Contention over the Spatial Components of the City................................... 235
Evidence for Meetings in Space Between Russians and Chinese 241
Evidence for Spatial Concentrations of Chinese 244
Interviewee Summary 244
Xlll
Chapter Page
Analysis of Adaptation through Spaces of Representation and Spatial
Practices 251
Spaces of Representation for the Petersburg Spirit 254
The Syntax of Travel as Spatial Practice 262
Conclusion.. 277
Struggling Over Conceptions of "The City": New vs. Old 280
Svetlana about Pik; Ivan about Symbolic Spaces.... 282
VII. CONCLUSION: HYBRID SPACES AND DIVERSITy............................... 286
Reading the Baltic Pearl Across Scale 286
The Socio-Spatial Paradigm and Othering 293
Challenges to a New Socio-Spatial Paradigm ., 295
The Chinese Attempt to Create Hybrid Space 301
New Spatial Understanding of "Russia" 309
BIBLIOGRAPHY 314
XIV
LIST OF MAPS
Map Page
2.1 The Baltic Pearl relative to the historic center 13
4.1 The Baltic Pearl in relation to other large urban development projects 107
4.2 Matisov Canal area in 1993 (above) and 2005, showing added land 108
4.3 St. Petersburg's shore along the Gulf of Finland 109
4.4 Image from the 2005 design book depicting water transport.. 110
4.5 Image from the 2005 design book depicting the city's development 110
4.6 European Union plans to extend a highway network into Russia 128
4.7 Map of ports in Eurasia 128
4.8 Map of major city projects on the east side of the city.............................. 132
4.9 Map of major city projects on the west side of the city............................. 132
5.1 The Baltic Pearl with the monorail route 183
6.1 Chinese restaurants in central St. Petersburg .. 245
6.2 Concentration of Chinese focus group students 246
6.3 Location of Chinese and Russian interviewee residences 247
6.4 Chinese routes categorized by mode of mobility........... 248
6.5 Russian routes cateogorized by mode of mobility..................................... 248
6.6 Recreational walking routes of Rita and Liza 268
6.7 Routes of Chinese interviewees color-coded by interviewee 268
6.8 Routes of Russian interviewees color-coded by interviewee 269
6.9 Rita's routes to and from work 274
6.10 Boris's routes to and from work 274
6.11 Liudmila's route to and from work 275
xv
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
5.1 Summary of Russian interviewees' position on the Baltic Pearl 205
6.1 In what circumstances do you meet with Chinese people? 242
6.2 Jobs reporting contact with Chinese in St. Petersburg 243
6.3 Summary of Chinese interviewees' opinion about Baltic Pearl 250
6.4 Summary of Russian interviewees' opinion about Baltic Pearl 250
XVI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustration Page
4.1 The Baltic Pearl business center, with units under construction 114
4.2 A scale model of the proposed Baltic Pearl design 114
4.3 Greenery in courtyards 146
4.4 Courtyards as depicted in the scale model of the Baltic Pearl 164
1CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Accepting that any observation suffers from the
personal qualities of the observer, that is, that it
reflects in part more the observer's own psychic
condition than the condition of the contemplated
reality, I suggest that one should take everything
that follows with a dose of sarcasm-if not with
complete disbelief. Nevertheless, the one thing
that the observer can assert in his justification is
that he, in his turn, possesses a specific degree of
reality, yielding perhaps in quantity-but not in
quality-to the observed object.
Joseph Brodsky
Journey to Istanbul
In Russia, one set of societal assumptions seems to be waning as another takes
shape. This process is particularly visible in cities, where entry into the global economy
has dramatically altered the life of the elites as well as the ordinary residents.
What is the best way to study this transformation? This dissertation chooses to
examine the shift in assumptions through questions related to the conception of urban
space, employing primarily ethnographic methods among actors involved in negotiations
over the meaning and use of space at a variety of scales in the city of 51. Petersburg.
The specific empirical focus of the study confronts two important questions
simultaneously, and was chosen for this reason. While there are many situations that
could productively represent the disruptions in prior societal assumptions and their
manifestation on city landscapes, one project offers a heightened opportunity not only to
2examine the disruptions but also to place the changes in a broader framework of
globalization: this is a development project outside St. Petersburg financed by a
consortium of firms based in Shanghai, China, called the Baltic Pearl. Promotion of the
project by the city administration and protest against it by many residents raises the two
ultimately intersecting issues. On one hand, the Baltic Pearl is one of many planned
"urban glamour zones" that signal the entry into Russian space of international economic,
architectural, and social modes which threaten persistent longstanding assumptions about
the connection between definitions of the "urban" and local collective values. On the
other hand, the Baltic Pearl signals growing economic ties between Russia and China and
the probable increase in the city's Chinese population; this will force yet another
reexamination of the "urban" through confrontation with the implications of migration.
Both issues touch on St. Petersburg's-and by extension Russia's-capacity to adapt to
globalizing markets for capital, labor, and identity. The two questions thus are:
• What do reactions to the Baltic Pearl project as a globally networked urban node
tell us about this adaptive capacity?
• What do reactions to the Baltic Pearl as a phenomenon of "Chinese" entry into
Russia tell us about this adaptive capacity?
Focused on close examination of negotiations over the form and purpose of the Baltic
Pearl, these questions permit exploration through the same lens of the related themes of
resident protest over changing land use practices and resident anxiety about the changes
that migrants are bringing to urban life-that is, of dispossession and xenophobia. Both
themes are related closely to the weak economic position of many of Russia's citizens,
although they tend to elicit opposite reactions from observers: we sympathize with those
3who are losing their place, while we criticize those who are not making room for
newcomers.
In spite of worries about overemphasis on the "local," a truly insightful evaluation
of the intersection between these two questions must be built on evidence gathered at a
scale far "below" geopolitics. In focusing on microscale phenomena in order to address
these two questions, the study aims not to privilege the local per se or one group of
"locals" in particular, but rather to confront a larger question about how information
gathered at this scale can inform our readings of phenomena at scales that are more
privileged in discussions of world city status, geopolitics, or Kremlin-watching.
Exploration of this case study joins the discussion of the problem of "locality studies"
(Massey 1994).
On one hand, the study avoids a recent warning about excessive sympathy for
local dispositions in calls for a "right to the city" (Purcell 2006). Detailed attention to the
nature of local dispositions combined with the same attention to the dispositions of new
arrivals avoids the "local trap" that Purcell warns about (Purcell 2006, 1925ff.), in which
the researcher adopts the position of those he studies.
The effort rather is to work against a certain lens that operates-perhaps
particularly in Russia-in order to reduce the salience of phenomena that exist outside
the visible power structure. In a talk given in Moscow in November 2004, independent
cultural geographer Vladimir Kaganskii briefly described a micro-level process taking
place around Russian cities: urban people are acquiring new dachas and are engaging in
hobby gardening. Kaganskii regrets that "as with all real processes, this completely fails
4to attract the attention of the experts, because the experts are occupied, in the main, with
commentary on the authorities" (2004). J To a certain extent, I see the focus of my
research as on processes that fail to attract the attention of the experts, or even fail to
meet statistical criteria for significance. Yet I observed them, they exist, and they deserve
analysis.
Kaganskii in the same talk called for extensive fieldwork to discover what is
happening below the surface of usual observations in Russia (2004); in May 2007 he
repeated this call, adding "just not through massive surveying; you won't capture
anything in a large mass" (2007). This need for close observation of phenomena in
contemporary Russian life that fall into new categories is restated by Glazychev (2005).
In the epigraph, the reader should not focus on Brodsky's recommendation to
approach his travel notes from Istanbul with sarcasm, but should admit the author's
irreducible possession of reality. In the attempt to capture significant features of Russia's
current transformation, voices that speak about transformations in the conception of space
from the scale of local park to Northern European region offer evidence that is equal in
value, if not in volume, to what we can learn via study of the Kremlin, political parties, or
measures of city rankings. The hope is that such a study can contribute to making those
broad interpretations more nuanced. While the geopolitical scale often seems to trump the
scale of the city or of everyday life, this probably still happens because of an
epistemological orientation to this scale. We can only begin to change our epistemology
if we begin to articulate more meaningful ways of capturing knowledge of processes at
I All translations from the Russian are mine, including scholarly texts, newspapers, blogs, and interviews.
5different scales. Thus, even though the renewed focus on nation-states since 9/11 seems
to contradict the multiplication of lower-scale studies of globalization processes, we must
remember that these other processes have not disappeared-they have merely been
masked to our view by the hypnotic effects of geopolitical posturing.
Elaboration of the Initial Questions
Underlying the notion of a city's capacity to adapt to globalizing markets is the
assumption that a city can best do this by achieving a global "urbanity" that bears certain
characteristics. Beyond simply becoming a "world city" measured in financial terms, a
successful city achieves a cultural and political worldliness that promotes flexibility and
economic productivity.
For Ulf Hannerz, this can be described as the city's capacity to provide spaces of
opportunity, or to become a heterogenetic node of anonymous culture and wealth; this
allows the city to generate sources of new culture. In Hannerz' s reading, the migrant
groups which a city must accept are transnational business elites, Third World
populations (i.e. labor migrants), specialists in expressive activities, and tourists (1993,
68). In the case of 51. Petersburg, this can be rephrased as a test of whether the Russian
city can allow Chinese migrants as equal partners in reconceiving and re-"enacting" the
city.
Blair Ruble essentially frames a similar aspect of "urbanity" when he describes a
city's need for the capacity to create "diversity capital" (2005). His study of new migrant
impacts on Kyiv, Washington, and Montreal recognizes that a complex synergy occurs
between prior residents and new arrivals, and also asserts that a city benefits most from
6its migrants when it allows "the arrival of migrant communities [to] transform urban
social, economic, and governance systems rather than strengthen existing power
relationships" (2005, 7). He defines as "pragmatic pluralism" the practice of cooperation
between different groups that "ignores questions of virtue and community"-that is, that
does not insist on assimilation of alTivals into a assumed pre-existing cultural entity but
rather constitutes a "middle ground" of "urban social sustainability" which presupposes
"the emergence and maintenance of 'policies and institutions that have the overall effect
of integrating diverse groups and cultural practices in a just and equitable fashion'"
(Ruble 2005, 81). Ruble emphasizes study of the political process.
Scholars concerned with the capacity of a city to provide politically equitable
public space (such as Purcell 2003; Mitchell 2003; see also Chapter V) share a vision of
urbanity in the tradition of Sennett and Habermas. Tajbakhsh describes the underlying
component of this modern city as "radical democratic ideas [that] are clearly inspired by
[the] goal of openness to the voice, dignity, and autonomy of the other, of not decrying
the fact that there are more questions than answers" (2001, 162). Many scholars discuss
this issue precisely in the context of immigration of ethnic Others (e.g. Ash and Thrift
2002; Watson 2006), but in fact many cities desperately need a more equitable sharing of
power in urban space among their ostensibly Same-As residents as well as among
newcomers.
7Moving towards an analysis ofspace
St. Petersburg is confronting the need to become more heterogenetic-to create
diversity capital-and to grow in radical democracy. How is the city both enabling and
resisting this process? And what factors help to explain the cooperation and resistance?
In approaching these issues through cultural geography, I reframe these scholars'
questions: Does St. Petersburg have the capacity to let its spaces become heterogenetic to
the point of being used for divergent practices by different groups, or to the point of
allowing new groups to redefine important spaces or uses for existing spaces? Are there
spaces that permit a "middle ground" to emerge, or that allow incoming migrants to
transform them? What is the constitution of spaces that are open to the autonomy of the
other? While not asserting that answers to these questions will solve the respective issues,
I do assert that they can offer insight into the two main questions about the Baltic Pearl
raised above.
Further, the diverse ethnographic basis for this study allows me to reframe the
definition of migrant, allowing me to knit the two questions together even more tightly.
"Chinese" are migrants of various kinds-investors, students, entrepreneurs, laborers.
But "Russians" are migrants, too; both groups are caught up in a multi-scaled global
reorganization of space that is nevertheless perceptible to different degrees depending on
an observer's location. As Sassen wrote provocatively in her influential study, "we are
still using the language of immigration to describe the process" of the transnationalization
of labor (1998, 15). She adds,
What we still nan-ate in the language of immigration and ethnicity, I would argue,
is actually a series of processes having to do with the globalization of economic
------------_.._.._----- ----
8activity, of cultural activity, of identity formation. Too often immigration and
ethnicity are constituted as otherness. Understanding them as a set of processes
whereby global elements are localized, international labor markets are constituted,
and cultures from all over the world are de- and reterritorialized, puts them right
there at the center with the internationalization of capital as a fundamental aspect
of globalization. (1998, 15)
While I err on the side of naming "immigration and ethnicity" as otherness in this study
due to the dominance of this orientation in Russian society, I adopt as one of the goals of
this study the achievement of a new "language" to describe the processes to which Sassen
refers. As described further below, a careful consideration of how space may be used and
conceived will ground this attempt. I suggest that Russian residents in S1. Petersburg who
were among my interviewees are involuntary migrants into a new globalized world,
rather as a prominent S1. Petersburg writer described his own sensation in 1991 of
completing a Journey from Leningrad to St. Petersburg (Kuraev 1996). Based on
Sassen's principles, one could also argue that labor becomes transnationalized not only
through the arrival of new groups called "migrants" but also the local restructuring of
labor roles to more resemble a global hierarchy; for Russia we might think here of the
rise of managers, or "menejery." This restructuring is also often accompanied by social
polarization among the prior residents even before "labor migrants" arrive.
Tajbakhsh reinforces Sassen's assertion and suggests its extension into analysis of
urban space:
continued global immigration flows have created a heightened degree of cultural,
ethnic, and linguistic pluralism among the identities of the city's inhabitants. In
conjunction with vastly expanded communication technologies and media, this
has led to intensified exposure to other cultural identities, resulting in conflict,
mutual influence and interpenetration, or forms of accommodation. This is not a
wholly new phenomenon. It is an acceleration of dynamics that have
------------------
9
characterized much of modem history, but we do need new ways of understanding
it.
. .. the transformation of urban space [which he discusses for the United States]
means that the relevant spaces within which individuals create meaning and that
structure their world are more numerous, fluid, and overlapping than in the past.
(2001, 163; emphasis added)
As described in Chapter II, the methodology of the empirical section of this study aimed
to capture thick descriptions of "the relevant spaces within which individuals create
meaning and that structure their world," assuming that "mutual influence and
interpenetration" take place during meetings between city residents in these spaces.
However, this study also hopes to treat "conflict" honestly; thus, as well as making space
for and giving voice to the comments of Chinese migrants to St. Petersburg, it articulates
locals' description of "relevant spaces" as an active, dynamic factor in accommodation as
well as resistance to newcomers. Placed into the context of higher-scale processes, as
outlined in Chapter I, such descriptions offer considerable information about these
"relevant spaces" and, by extension, about St. Petersburg's capacity to adapt to
globalization.
I initially set out to do two different research projects simultaneously: one about
the post-Soviet transformation in conceptions of space per se, and one based around the
Baltic Pearl about the post-Soviet reaction to a new migration stream, i.e. Chinese.
Principally, though, I saw the second project as embedded in and surrounded by the first
one. I did not want to do research on transnational identity; I wanted to focus on
perception of space and modes of capturing that perception. So a project focused on the
Baltic Pearl became a project about how soliciting spatial perceptions from a new
10
"migrant" group of residents-simultaneously insiders and outsiders-could introduce
new insights into an examination of post-Soviet space.
Chapter Summary
Chapter II lays out the context essential for an understanding of the case study
chapters. The first part sketches St. Petersburg's history and the crossroads at which the
city finds itself. This part is followed by three sections that provide essential factual
information and theoretical context for the study at the "privileged scales" of geopolitics
and global urban development. The first section summarizes relevant contextual literature
on the post-Soviet transformation. The second section summarizes work on urban mega-
projects. The third section outlines what we currently know about Sino-Russian
geopolitical relations as a frame for city-to-city relations.
Chapter III develops the theoretical model which I propose in order to interpret
data gathered at different scales in chapters 3-5. It lays out the design and goals of
ethnographic interviews and mapping, and develops the model for spatial analysis at
various scales based on a discussion of "legibility" that draws on the work of several
scholars and a new analysis of Lefebvre's Production ofSpace.
Chapter IV analyzes texts relating to the Baltic Pearl; the design books produced
for investors and city advisory committees; and numerous interviews with city planners,
architects, and Baltic Pearl employees. It examines the different vocabularies of legibility
used by those closely involved in conceiving and building a transforming city and show
the Baltic Pearl caught in the confrontation between different actors within St.
Petersburg.
11
Chapter V analyzes over 1500 entries on a Nevastroyka chatroom covering the
Baltic Pearl development; a survey of 350 city residents in districts adjoining the project
site; protests against a wide range of construction in the city; interviews touching on
issues of ethnicity and space; and participant observation with three groups of protesters
at demonstrations and city hearings. Protests over large urban renewal projects are
framed as a struggle over legibility that pits resident needs and visions against the
transformation of St. Petersburg into a symbolic landscape for attracting international
capital and a transportation node at the international scale.
Chapter VI makes use of extensive ethnographic interviews and a classic
geographical subject-mapping approach to create an individual-scale angle on
transnational adaptation. Paired Russian and Chinese resident interviews produced maps
of urban legibility at the individual scale as well as commentary on the legibility (and
usability) of the city as a whole.
Chapter VII concludes by addressing the contradictions and complementarity
between the data gathered at different scales and offering a summary of new avenues for
research and interpretation suggested by the work as a whole.
-------- ---- ------ ----
12
CHAPTER II
THE BROADER SPATIAL CONTEXT OF POST-SOVIET ST. PETERSBURG
In June 2006, high-level government representatives from Russia and China broke
ground for a massive construction project in St. Petersburg financed by five firms from
Shanghai, China, called the "Baltic Pearl." The plan for a 205 hectare multi-use district is
projected to include more than one million square meters of housing, 400-800 thousand
square meters of retail and office space, parks and schools (see Map 2.1). According to
reports, this is the largest single investment project that Chinese firms have initiated
outside the borders of China, totaling at least 1.25 billion dollars-the first installment in
a reported 30 billion dollars of investment planned over the next five years. The project
has already drawn St. Petersburg into the international circles of architectural design
competition, and signals its increased prominence within Russia and in northwest Europe
as a transportation hub and terminus for oil exports. Some observers feel that the
Petersburg administration offered the land for the "Chinese quarter" in a kind of
geopolitical exchange-for Chinese investment in improvements to the Moscow-
Petersburg highway and railroad infrastructure, or to sweeten conditions for Russian
delivery of oil to China (Zasul'kin 2005).
The Baltic Pearl embodies Russia's confrontation with the globalizing pressures
of new economic processes and new migration streams. The aim of the case study
presented here is to develop a way of studying this confrontation through the spatial
wRing Road
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Baltic Pearl
ap 2.1. The Baltic Pearl relative to the historic center, including the boundary of the Historical Preservation Zone.
14
diversity impelled by globalization-both of different types of discrete expanses (such as
mall spaces) and different smaller forms that occupy space (such as architectural forms).
Russian residents of St. Petersburg are objects of economic dispossession, while Chinese
residents are objects of xenophobic reactions to their presence. However, these two
groups (ostensibly) share the same urban spaces. This fact allowed consideration of the
ways in which the same site could be the site of dispossession for Russians and exclusion
for Chinese; it also allowed exploration of the ways in which Russians and Chinese could
come to share narratives and practices for the same space.
The study treated both Chinese and Russian respondents as inhabitants of St.
Petersburg, with equivalent abilities to judge the city's success as an "urban"
phenomenon. Using qualitative methods and spatial analysis, I conducted in-depth study
of the attitudes of and interactions between city institutions and average residents in order
to generate new conceptual categories for evaluating Russia's current and future
development. I posed questions focused on the microscale interactions of city residents
with the urban environment, such as: How do different individuals and groups in Russia
(and in China) see and describe the elements of a new spatial diversity? How
understandable is it for them? What vocabularies do they use to describe it? And what
results when different understandings of the same material spaces have to overlap and
coexist? Study of the negotiations that take place over "new" spaces helps to reveal the
outlines of contrasting spatial assumptions that operate in the efforts of different groups,
and thus helps to explain the prospects for future cooperation or misunderstanding.
15
Chapter Summary
While phenomena at fine scales must be studied in order to grasp important
elements of this development, certainly there is a larger context. There are factors
affecting St. Petersburg's growth, both those remaining from the Soviet era and those
resulting from new economic pressures. There are also factors operating at broader scales
involving global economic forces, allegedly essential infrastructure projects, and state-to-
state relations. This scale of the context is of course essential, and the first part of this
chapter outlines three important issues that affect the Baltic Pearl.
The first of these is Russia's transformation-its confrontation with globalization
and the resulting policy steps to place itself politically and economically vis-a-vis the
United States, Europe, its former Central Asian republics, and its erstwhile rival China.
Second is the trend to create urban mega-projects as an economic motor for a city, related
to Putin's desire to raise St. Petersburg's profile and the associated need that the Russian
economy has as a whole to make better use of this neglected port city with the potential
for bridging infrastructural connections to prosperous Scandinavia, the Baltics and
Central (and thence Western) Europe. Third is the trend to cooperate at a geopolitical
level more closely with China over the past several years, especially marked by the
formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001, and the contradictory rise
in xenophobia which has marked much of the post-Soviet period.
Frequently it is assumed that information gathered at these "privileged scales"
exhausts what we need to know in order to understand a broad trend in geopolitics or
socioeconomic change. The role played in the ongoing broad transformation by the issues
16
of dispossession and xenophobia-both significant "spoilers" for the success of all grand
plans-cannot be captured at this scale. A Russian scholar of Chinese migration helps to
explain why: Vilia Gel/bras notes a disjuncture between the attitudes of the national
governments and the reality "on the ground" for populations trying to adapt to each other:
The federal authorities have concentrated their attention on political relations with
the PRC, on the development of "mega-projects." Together with the Chinese side
they have declared the need for cooperation of separate territorial-administrative
entities, both countries' firms, but have in sum done nothing to facilitate essential
conditions at the microlevel for productive economic interaction between
independent subjects of the two countries, for the civilized entrepreneurial activity
of the population. (2001, 110; emphas is added)
Gel/bras's observation supports this study's rationale for examining phenomena at the
"microlevel." In order to set the stage for a finer-scaled analysis of why Russian residents
feel either dispossessed or xenophobic and how this affects Chinese migrants, the second
part of the chapter sketches out the recent history of St. Petersburg including relevant
commentary on the built environment. The chapter concludes with excerpts from an
interview with a transportation planner that demonstrate some points of connection
between the three broader "prestige scale" issues and the reality of urban life on the
ground in that transforming city.
Context at the "Privileged Scale"
In order to understand the impact of the Baltic Pearl on microscale processes in
St. Petersburg, it is important to establish how it fits into the wider scale of St.
Petersburg's and Russia's development. First, I discuss literature on Russia's
transformation, including the theoretical issues of regionalism and Soviet vs. post-Soviet
space. Then, I review literature on urban mega-projects, particularly in Europe and North
17
America which have been the focus area of most Western-based scholars, but also in
China. Finally, I review literature on what we currently know about Sino-Russian
relations, and the issues raised for concepts of space at varying scales.
Russia's spatial transformation
Transition to where?
The end of the Soviet Union as a political entity provoked considerable
discussion. Some observers acclaimed this positively as "the end of history" (Fukuyama
1992) and announced that all formerly communist countries would now commence a
"transition" to a market system. Other observers, chiefly on the left, began to insist on
"path dependency" related to the historical legacy of communism, and to caution that this
transition would not happen either as quickly as expected or in the way that was expected
(Pickles and Smith 1998; Segbers 2001). (The left had for a long time been evaluating the
Russian system in particular based on expectations for a "real" Marxist economy, and
Russia fell short for various reasons but not usually for the real ones; see Lefebvre
[1974], Brenner [2004].) Russian scholars and commentators began to react with
impatience to the idea that their economic destiny was predetermined, protesting that they
might take a third way; nationalist writers claimed that Russia could unite with China
against the capitalist West and form an anti-globalization coalition (Dugin 2004). Sykora
(2008) insightfully points out that most of the former Soviet bloc made a systemic change
that certainly took those economies out of their previous form depending on central
planning, and suggests the word "transformation" instead of transition in order to capture
the remaining degree of uncertainty (which is rather low for most Central European
18
countries, especially those with existing or impending EU membership). He recommends
a more flexible understanding of "path dependency," which includes the formation of
new path dependencies created by current choices (not only negative Soviet legacies) that
will determine the outcome of ongoing changes.
As a result of these debates during the 1990s, an important tendency affecting
Russia's spatial organization was substantially overlooked. Numerous articles at that time
linked the market transition (an economic decentralization) to a parallel decentralization
of government; scholars considered links between sections of the Russian Federation and
nearby countries, and studied the impact on regional economies of growing political
independence. Yet while Boris Yeltsin had famously told the federal subjects to "take all
the power you can" in his struggle to weaken Mikhail Gorbachev, the result of the
decentralization that ensued alarmed many observers in the state apparatus and
sometimes in the private sector. The disorganization and low social and economic
indicators of Yeltsin's tenure as president discredited many of the phenomena taking
place in the 1990s, including political decentralization; for some, the dissolution of the
Soviet Union itself came to be seen as a conspiracy induced by the West (some even
accused Gorbachev of planning it, in spite of its being partially a ploy by Russian
Federation President Yeltsin to reduce USSR Communist Party General Secretary
Gorbachev's leverage against him).
Studies such as those by Turovskii (2003) and Petrov (2003) suggest a growing
regionalism and lack of interest in nationalism, but by the time they were published, these
phenomena were already being reversed. The political governance reforms that have
19
taken place over the years of Putin's terms have focused on returning power to the federal
center and consolidating it there. Gel'man (2007) even uses the word "unification" to
clarify this goal. The unification of power into one "vertical" structure has parallels in the
unification of space. The situation thus resembles in some ways the type of
homogenization of "global spaces" discussed in the West, but has specific Russian
characteristics associated with arrangement of power and the (lack of) potential for public
discussion or for elected officials to affect the process of decision-making.
Studies published at the end of the 1990s or early 2000s that were more alert to
persistent mechanisms of the organization of Russian space provide still-useful
frameworks for understanding what is happening now. For instance, in the same
collection as the essay by Turovskii mentioned above, Manakov notes several persistent
qualities:
Aspatialness is the particularly weakened reaction of Russian culture to
geographic space, in part to distance, borders and place. However, L.V.
Smirniagin, who proposed using this term in relation to Russian culture,
emphasizes the especially large role played by administrative boundaries in
Russian space. In his opinion, in connection with the fact that Russian culture has
a highly weakened ability to self-organize in space, 'it must perforce depend for
this on the help of the state with its network of administrative-territorial
divisions.' (Smirniagin 1999, cited in Manakov 2003)
Kaganskii provides an analysis of Soviet space and its structure that for its time was
prescient (2001). He noted of general Soviet space that "it is almost impossible to put
down roots [in it]" (2001,143); Glazychev adds that "in the symbolic world of the
Country of the Soviets there were no other points [of meaning]."
The conventionality (adjusted for time zone) and uniform burden of the parades
and demonstrations evoked the uniformity of the spatial structure of city centers
independent of their size. (2005, 131)
20
That is, there was only one place (Moscow), where everything happened; all other places
only repeated the same actions and participated in the same spatiality, were essentially in
the forcefield of all Moscow's spatial solutions. Most of the sustained discussions of the
lack of "ability to self-organize in space" proposed in these discussions usually focuses
on the meso-scale, where true "regions" are unable to form on the expanse of the Russian
polity. I Thus, it is important to discuss instances of "self-organization" when they occur
at any scale; it is all the more crucial to understand the persistent forms of socio-spatial
consciousness at subregional scales, for example in St. Petersburg, and later to ask
whether they are transferable.2
Arguably, such concentrations of identity alternative to that proposed by the
central state must occur in material places where the environment provides the material
for constructing resistance (Scott 1998; see Chapter III). A certain amount of evidence
suggests that areas far from Moscow often provided this opportunity during the Soviet
period, but the opportunities were narrow in scope. Cities would seem to have this
potential, but cities also face increasing pressure from the centralized state to do the work
of connecting that state to global processes.
1 In fact, using the word "region" in Russian is deceptive because the term refers to the political-
administrative divisions into oblasts, okrugs, and respubliki, many of which have differing political
constitutions; Axenov uses the literal translation "federal subjects," which refers to these political subunits.
Beyond terms such as Siberia and the Far East, scholars argue that Russia does not yet have self-organizing
unique regions (Kaganskii 2007; Glazychev 2005).
2 Not necessarily transferable for political reasons, but simply for the sake of healthy spatial development in
Russia as a whole (Kaganskii 2007). Also note that in this context the concerns of Massey about locality
studies (1994,2007) are well taken, but possibly not as relevant to the post-Soviet situation where, as
Kaganskii implies, all of the real and truly catalyzing processes are currently taking place, beneath the
radar scope of the "experts" (2007 or 2004).
21
Trends in post-Soviet space
In fact, Russia/Moscow/the Kremlin may increasingly resist the idea that the
Soviet Union should necessarily have dissolved, but it recognizes the economic
exigencies of globalization. The challenge of how to prepare Russian space for this
challenge looms large in discussions at all levels. Here, of course, the crucial question is
whether to focus on isolated points on the Russian expanse that are more amenable to
development and adaptation to globalization, or whether to try to spread development
(and its benefits) evenly across the entire country.
This issue has been discussed thoroughly for Western Europe by Brenner (2002),
where the conclusion can be generally summed up in this way: Western European states
blunted the socialist-inspired political resistance nascent in the twentieth century by
offering the sop of socio-economic development evenly distributed across space, co-
opting local governments and workers' movements. In the new era of globalization, states
have retreated from these efforts and now focus their energies on isolated sites which
Brenner calls "premium networked spaces" (citing Graham 2000; Brenner 2004, 244; see
discussion of "urban megaprojects" below). As Brenner puts it, "Global restructuring has
entailed the systematic destabilization of inherited national political geographies and the
construction of new scalar configurations" (2004, 174). But what is the "inherited
national political geography" in Russia?
In the Soviet Union, while similar debates took place in the 1920s, the general
consensus is that policies succeeded to a certain mechanical degree in spreading new
cities evenly across the country's expanses, and economic plans attempted to equalize
22
well-being across widely divergent republics. However, Kaganskii also notes the stark
contrast between centers and peripheries at any scale, with Moscow as the primary Center
(2001,2004); residents of the "socialist" USSR would have been grateful for a modicum
of the capitalist socio-economic-development sop that Brenner critiques in Western
Europe. The fact is that "premium networked spaces" have developed in Europe, but
there was a concurrent development of horizontal connections between places at various
scales that did not occur in the Soviet Union. Brenner worries that in post-1970s Europe
there occurred "an increasing functional disarticulation of major urban areas from their
peripheries and from other marginalized areas within the same national territory" (2004,
190), and while this may not have been ideal in European space, the Russian case is
arguably even more drastic. Kaganskii maintains his major critique of a lack of horizontal
connections between points in Russian space and the stubbornly-maintained (by the
Kremlin) primacy of the connection between everywhere and Moscow (2007); as
Vendina summarizes his thesis, "Contemporary Russian space has inherited the
fundamental particularities of Soviet organization of space, which was characterized...
by the domination of 'vertical, hierarchical, power relations' over 'horizontal, territorial,
everyday (obydennye)' relations" (2005a, 310).
Vendina proposes an approach that seems to privilege globalization and to retreat
from the philosophy of spreading the state's efforts evenly across space. She writes,
In a 'compressing' world, where distances play an ever lesser role, the importance
of the evenness of the exploitation [of space] recedes into the background, giving
place to connectivity.... To avoid [problems], it is essential to concentrate
resources in the actual already established centers or aureoles of influence, and
not fling them towards potential centers for the sake of even exploitation of space.
(2005a, 330)
23
Some might argue that it is wishful thinking to hope for connectivity in the face of
aggressive state control of the media and public space, but both scholars see potential for
spontaneous spatial development in phenomena that they sense below the state's radar.
The basis for Vendina's argument for accepting "archipelagoes of globalization" is the
gradual development of ties not merely between Moscow and a range of locations, but
also cross-border ties (between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, or between towns in the
Russian Far East and northeastern China); she also sees promise in the rise of secondary
cities in the "federal subjects," often the economic engines that can connect to the global
economy and provide some political competition to the nominal capitals ("oblast center,"
etc.). Ultimately, these alternate nodes can promote the development of polycentrism
instead of the Soviet hyper-centralization, a healthy condition for Russia's economy.
(Kaganskii has an extended passage on this phenomenon in a talk that he gave in
Moscow [2004].) In the cases of Brenner (and Harvey, below), the critique of point
development contains a critique of the state's focus on isolated sites; in Vendina's
endorsement of point development, the subtext is in fact processes that will escape the
state's overt control once entrained. Further, Vendina is arguing for the very survival of
Russia as an economically healthy entity, and thus she sees a need to support the
"strongest focal points in Russian space" that can sustain direct contact with globalization
and provide a web of connections to which other sites can link.
The Baltic Pearl is a project that will create a direct link with globalization in the
forms of external investment, international architectural currents, and possibly migration;
Vendina's is an argument that probably has cities other than Moscow and Petersburg in
24
view, but can still raise important questions about Petersburg and these projects. Will the
Baltic Pearl ultimately promote the kind of polycentrism for which Vendina hopes?
Gauging whether or not such projects can promote that kind of change in the structure of
Russian space is a research agenda for the future.
Urban megaprojects
While Vendina and Kaganskii hope for polycentrism, it is important to remember
that an even-more-common mechanism for, as Vendina has it, "concentrat[ing] resources
in the actual already established centers or aureoles of influence" is urban megaprojects.
Since the Baltic Pearl is itself an urban megaproject and occurs in the context of the
growing resort to these projects to increase Petersburg's status, it is essential to consider
what scholars have established about this phenomenon.
Harvey (2001) links urban megaprojects with the shift from urban
"managerialism" to "entrepreneurialism," perceiving the growth in this governance trend
at an early date. The contrast in emphasis that he perceived between the two approaches
is that between "political economy of place" (entrepreneurialism) and "political economy
of territory" (managerialism), where the latter intends "primarily to improve conditions of
living or working within a particular jurisdiction," that is, spread over a larger area. By
contrast, entrepreneurial projects that focus on isolated places "have the habit of
becoming such a focus of public and political attention that they divert concern and even
resources from the broader problems that may beset the region or tenitory as a whole"
(2001, 353). Thus, what Harvey sees is the "repetitive and serial reproduction of certain
--------
25
patterns of development. .. at the expense of local collective consumption for the working
class and poor" (2001, 358).
This "repetitive and serial reproduction of certain patterns of development" is also
formed by the "premium networked spaces" that Brenner and Graham noted, including
stadiums as well as "skyscrapers, conference centres, hotels and luxury shopping streets"
(Saito 2003, 292). Newman and Thornley (1996) note the way that such projects were
increasingly used in Europe in order to promote cities in an interurban competition for
capital investment, the Olympic Games (Newman 2007), and their population's loyalties.
The general consensus at first was that such projects were an example of local sites
taking on responsibility for economic improvement (e.g. Vicario et al. 2003); or a case of
a local growth machine (see e.g. Logan and Molotch 1987) getting away from the state,
constructing spaces that escaped the state's influence and connected directly to a global
city network (note the parallel in sanguine enthusiasm to the rash of regionalism in
Russian studies).
In the 2000s, numerous scholars have pointed out that urban megaprojects can
actually fit quite closely into the project of a national state to increase its own
competitiveness and prestige; in particular, scholars looking at China have made this
point frequently (Gu & Tang 2002; Wu 2003; for Japan see Saito 2003). Discussing
megaprojects in several Asian cities, Marshall calls them "global urban projects [,] very
large and expensive urban projects at the forefront of a nation's development agenda."
His further comments resonate directly with Harvey's concerns and speak to Vendina's
hopes:
26
These projects are produced with the purpose of enabling a stronger
interrelationship with the global economy. As such, they have a very specific role
to play. Because of this these projects do not represent broad visions of what a
contemporary urbanity might be.... [They] represent relatively narrow visions ....
There is a rather particular environment that is deemed appropriate to attract and
keep the global elite and it should come as no surprise that these spaces are indeed
remarkably alike. (Marshall 2003, 3)
Certainly some scholars have perceived the need of the Russian authorities to "perform"
a visual similarity with world cities and spaces of economic success, even as the specific
content of the sites created raise questions about the substance of their commitment to the
principles that operate behind economic practices that produce profit (Sidorov 2000;
Pagonis and Thornley 2000). Wu (2003) also perceives a mechanical driver behind the
state's support of isolated spectacular projects, though; for former Second World
countries such as Russia and China, "the only way to catch up with advanced nations is
through state-backed strategic intervention to overcome the constraints of development"
(1681).
In his study of urban megaprojects in Shanghai and Vancouver, Olds (2001) notes
of the Pudong development in Shanghai that it was regarded as a national development
zone, not just a municipal one (193), because it was seen precisely (as Marshall
describes) as a vehicle for connecting to the global economy. It was treated as empty
space, perhaps a hint that the national state tends to erase prior historical signification
from a site targeted for development (in the case of Pudong, farms; in the case of St.
Petersburg, Finnish villages). Further, he notes the concept in Chinese of "zhongdian
chengshi" or key point cities (2001, 198) which become, in Harvey's words, "landing
strips" for foreign capital. This raises several questions about the Baltic Pearl
27
development: how "national" is the chosen site itself for either China or Russia? What
sorts of promises does it hold for actually locating increased global connections or for
helping Petersburg to gain an international presence? How great a role do conversations
play about how the Baltic Pearl will integrate with the rest of the city's space, or does it
seem adequate that it relate to a global space? And in each case, of what do the integrated
connections consist?
Although Harvey phrases the problems resulting from urban megaprojects as
losing sight of "local collective consumption for the working class and poor" (2001,360),
a more basic problem that must be isolated (and that he must perceive somewhere!) is the
construction of justifications for privileging the body of the state over the individual
bodies of citizens-that is, what images are used, embedded in what scales and contexts,
to persuade people that the national scale of economic ambition trumps their daily scaled
experience of individual success? Such large projects are always promised to bring
broader benefits (Crot 2006). In a case where an urban megaproject coincides with such a
dramatic transition in socio-spatial norms as is taking place in St. Petersburg, what
elements of the process can be isolated for further analysis?
If municipalities and regions have been gradually deprived of all political and
economic autonomy, and such autonomy is seen as threatening, how will a self-contained
project such as the Baltic Pearl affect the surrounding space?
28
Sino-Russian relations
The Baltic Pearl offers an excellent empirical example for examining the state of
Sino-Russian relations at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In addition to the
aspects already indicated above, the project allows us to observe how this cooperation
plays out "on the ground." That is: where in space is the connection between Russia and
China enacted?
The most familiar aspect of the rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing is
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a treaty group that unites Russia, China,
Kazakhstan, Kirgizia and Tadjikistan. The original document, the "Russian-Chinese
Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Co-operation" was signed by Jiang
Zemin and Vladimir Putin in Moscow on July 16, 2001. One Russian commentator
(Gusev 2007) suggests that the main rhetorical reason given for the SCO is defense
against Islamic-based terrorism that has supposedly arisen in Central Asia (including
among the Uighurs in western China and Muslims in south central Russia). There is some
thought that in the post-9/11 era Russia and China are seeking to present a unified front
against the Western groupings that link the EU and the U.S.
There is some disagreement among scholars of Sino-Chinese relations about
whether closer relations with China are a good idea. Galenovich (2003) claims that the
SCO treaty was initiated by Jiang, but in further discussion complains that it is not a
treaty of alliance, just of "friendship between peoples" (instead of between "states";
2003,342-352) and expresses considerable reservations about the transparency of
China's goals. Rakhmanin (2002) by contrast supports strongly the idea of China as the
29
chief geopolitical partner for Russia, suggesting that they have "almost identical interests
in foreign policy" (2002, 389) and should stand against "thoughtless Atlantic passions"
(2002, 396).
A sketch of relations between "Russia" and "China" in the twentieth century
shows why there is some room for multiplicity in evaluations of their friendship.
Chinese migration to Tsarist and Soviet Russia.
The topic of Chinese migration to Russia has its roots in the complicated ethnic
and territorial interactions in what is today the Russian Far East, particularly around what
Russians call the Amur River and the Maritime Province area.
Russian explorations of the eastern part of the Eurasian continent brought
explorers into contact with Manchu and Han peoples in the 17th century. Native peoples,
Manchu, and Han Chinese were living in the area just north of the Amur River when
Russians arrived; the relationship of these inhabitants to the imperial center of Beijing
was peripheral and was constituted through tithes and taxing rather than strict border
control. Thus, this area was loosely controlled, and in subsequent history went back and
forth between "Russia" and "China." The consolidation of certain of these territories as
"Russia" from roughly 1689 to 1909 redefined "Chinese" migration into them, since in
fact the Yongzheng Emperor banned outward migration per se of Chinese until 1893
(Saveliev 2002). There was an oscillation in Russian attitudes to previously settled
Manchu, Daurian, and Han Chinese and to additional labor migration that occurred as
Russian authorities developed cities and trade infrastructure, including the railroads.
30
Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891, and unskilled Chinese
labor came to work on it. A large number of Russian peasants flowed into the Russian
Far East from 1900-1914 as part of Petr Stolypin's program for land reform and far
eastern development, based partly on the work of the Committee for Populating the Far
East, established in 1909. As the idea of the Russian state developed in the Far East,
anxiety grew that a large Chinese presence in what became the "border" regions would
threaten control over these territories, and thus the unity of the Russian state. Early
anxiety about Chinese migration into Russia is reflected in the limitation on Chinese
residence permits to Smolensk, Murmansk, Riga, Novgorod, Karelia, St. Petersburg, and
Moscow.
After the victory of the Chinese Communist Party over its rivals for governmental
power in 1949, Mao Tse Dong visited Joseph Stalin in Moscow. Two months of talks
culminated in several years of exchanging students and experts (Galenovich 2003).
"During the years of cooperation [1951-1962], about 38,000 Chinese citizens studied or
did internships in Soviet tertiary institutions, research and planning institutes, enterprises
and construction sites" (Larin 2003, 153). A large number of China's best students (more
than 11,000) came to study engineering and other industry-related topics, creating a
cadre of Russian speakers in China. Thousands of Soviet experts in industry, dam
building, and infrastructure also spent years in various parts of China in the early 1950s,
helping the new Chinese Communist government to develop its economic base. Still,
apart from a focus on educated migrants and political rhetoric, anxiety remained. From
1950-1955 there were roughly 350,000 Chinese in Russia who came to solve the post-war
31
labor shortage (Saveliev 2002). In 1954 Khrushchev even formulated a plan to invite up
to one million workers into the USSR to work on lumber processing, but this plan was
reversed due to fears of a Chinese takeover in the Far East (Larin 2003, 154).
In 1959, the Soviet leadership and Mao quarreled over communist ideology.
Chinese were deported from Russia in mass numbers, and Mao instituted a ban on out-
migration which lasted through the 1970s. In 1959, about 26,000 Chinese were left in
Russia. Throughout the period from 1960-1980 there were minimal numbers of Chinese
in the Soviet Union, including the Russian Federal Republic. In 1989, there were
reportedly 11,335 Chinese living in the Russian part of the USSR, of whom only 3700
still spoke Chinese as their first language (Larin 2003). Thus the phenomenon of large
numbers of Chinese migrants which followed in the 1990s surprised many Russians, for
whom Chinese had become exotic.
Chinese migration to the Russian Federation
After Mao Tse Dong's death in 1978, the stigma attached to emigration was
reversed (Nyiri 2002). A new Chinese law in 1985 liberalized travel abroad. From 1986
onward, after Gorbachev had made an agreement for work visas, roughly 20 000 Chinese
contract laborers were invited to Russia yearly. In 1992, Russia and China even agreed on
visa-free travel between the two countries, but the numbers of migrants were so high that
the Russian government pulled back from this agreement and reinstituted visa-based
travel in 1993. Yet the numbers of Chinese crossing the border to engage in trade in the
Russian Far East and Siberia was in many cases exceeded by the numbers of Russians
32
crossing the border into China in order to buy cheap goods for resale in Russia (Larin
2003).
The main sources of recent Chinese migration are concentrated in the four
northeast provinces which lie closest to the Russan Far East: Heilongjiang, Jilin,
Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia; the overwhelming percentage of migrants to Irkutsk,
Khabarovsk and Vladivostok have come from here (Gel/bras 2004). Urban areas in the
Far East are the main destinations, but Moscow also has a large Chinese community. In
St. Petersburg, more than two thirds of the 8000 Chinese are students.
Anxiety over political control of the Far East has resurfaced in the post-1990
period, mostly in the western part of the country. Residents along the Russian-Chinese
border tend to recognize the economic necessity of Chinese labor and trade. At the
Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in April 2008, regional
scholars asserted that migration numbers are exaggerated by local politicians who seek
more attention from Moscow and thus warn of millions of illegal Chinese migrants (N.
Ryzhova, T. Troyakova). Examination of border control records show that 99% of
Chinese entering Russia return to China (Primorsky Krai 1998 [Larin 2003]), but those
who see Chinese migration as a threat argue that the decreasing population of the eastern
areas-so far from the political center of Russia and so poorly served by decaying
transportation infrasttucture and expensive overland travel-will not be able to sustain
Russian control of the area, and that China will accomplish a slow takeover, first
economically and then politically. There is an associated perception that China would
33
like to control the extraction of Russia's natural resources, including natural gas and
timber, rather than pay for them.
Developments since 1990
Although the sca marks a new chapter in Sino-Russian relations, considerable
groundwork had been laid for this cooperation in the 1990s. In 1991, Gorbachev signed
an agreement with the Chinese government moving the two countries towards a final
agreement about the eastern border, which had remained in dispute (further negotiations
in 2000 and 2005 completed the agreement). In 1996, Boris Yeltsin traveled to Beijing to
meet with Jiang Zemin where the two leaders signed the Joint Declaration on the
Guidelines for Mutual Relations between the People's Republic of China and the Russian
Federation. In 1997, prime ministers Li Peng and Chernomyrdin signed an agreement
about regular meetings between the two countries' heads, which took place five times
before 2000; these meetings also established a basis for cooperation in trade, although
friction over financial aspects, such as banking regulations, remained (Rakhmanin 2002,
371-373). The Chinese government sought cooperation with the Russian government for
natural resource projects, achieving the promise to construct "a pipeline from the
Kovyktin condensed gas source in the Irkutsk oblast to [Shandong Province in] China"
(Rakhmanin 2002,377). In 1999, Chinese government officials signed agreements about
acquiring real estate in Moscow for a Chinese business center. 3
3 This is probably the Huamin Park project northeast of Moscow near the Botanical Garden and exhibition
center. In spite of controversy, this project seems to be going forward. Although this project also seems to
have government support, no text relating to it ever mentions the Baltic Pearl project in St. Petersburg, and
public statements call it, too, the "largest Chinese investment project" in Russia.
34
Along with the SCQ treaty in 2001, the two governments formed the "Russian-
Chinese Committee on Friendship, Peace and Development." Conditions for the
migration of Chinese capital into Russia have been sought actively. In June 2004, the first
Russian-Chinese Investment Forum was held in Khabarovsk, where agreements for
several investment projects were signed; the second was held in S1. Petersburg in June
2005, during which the Baltic Pearl consortium signed another agreement for the
development of their 180-hectare site southwest of the city. A third forum was organized
in Shanghai and Beijing in November 2006, and some meetings with Chinese contacts
were part of an Economic Forum held in Sochi in September 2007. Russian Minister of
Finance German Gref has noted that Russia must move away from trade based on
commodity exports and must develop export of value-added products and Russian
technological expertise to Chinese industry. These policies, however, focus on financial
flows and not on the flows of human labor.
At the 2005 forum, Finance Minister German Gref emphasized the need for
cooperation between the two countries. As reported online by InvestMarke1.ru on June 9,
in his speech at that meeting Gref asserted an important role for S1. Petersburg in
channeling Chinese investment: "[This city] should facilitate the widening geography of
Chinese investment not only in the regions of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, but also
the European part of Russia." He expressed the hope that Russia could expand its exports
of expertise and products in the area of technology, transport, and telecommunications, as
well as metallurgy; he also suggested that China should hire Russians as subcontractors
to help rebuild factories originally built in China with the help of Soviet Russian experts.
35
However, he foresaw obstacles to the flow of mutual direct investment; he acknowledged
that corruption and administrative barriers created problems for all investors in Russia
(St. Petersburg Times, 6/10/05).
Some Chinese investors see Russia as an attractive destination because its
economic regulations are not yet as strict or thorough as in the West; since the
competition is lower, Chinese can attain a higher status more quickly (Li, interview,
2008). Many have opened Chinese restaurants in the cities (there are reputedly more than
200 in St. Petersburg). Many may have other business interests as well, such as importing
Chinese consumer goods and construction materials.
Chinatowns, Labor Deficit, and Investment Conditions
Three important issues complete the context for the Baltic Pearl as it represents
Sino-Russian relations and as it enters into Russian space. These are: attitudes to
concentrations of Chinese and to enclaves in general; the issue of Russia demographic
decline, labor deficits, and migration; and local investment policies that promote the in-
migration of capital.
"Chinese" space
There are rarely concentrated neighborhood enclaves of Chinese living in Russian
cities (Saveliev 2002); they do not tend to live in compact areas, although scholars have
reported observing individual buildings and street-scale areas that allow only Chinese to
enter (Gel'bras 2004). A low proportion of Chinese resident in Russia obtain citizenship.
The 2002 census reported a total of 34, 664 naturalized Chinese across the Russian
36
Federation; but for example the census reports 12, 801 naturalized Chinese in Moscow,
while estimates of the total number in fact range from 20 to 40 thousand (Gel/bras 2002).
Gel'bras (2004) estimated that there were about 400-500 thousand Chinese in Russia at
the time of his surveys.
Russian commentators often express anxiety about the criminality of the Chinese
migrant community, but scholars who study the issue have noted that Chinese criminality
is conditioned by the "criminal character of Russian reality" (Larin 2003; see also
Gel/bras 2004; Zaionchkovskaia 2005). In the Far East, for example, local regulatory
conditions do not favor the establishment of Chinese small business (Shkurkin 2002).
Gel/bras suggests that Russia must change its policies in order to reduce the tendency to
form Chinese "zemliachestva" which exist to channel profits back to China and not into
the Russian economy. His 2002 surveys showed that only from 10-15% of resident
Chinese intend to stay in Russia permanently. The difficulties of obtaining citizenship
and integrating into Russian society suggest that Chinese migration to Russia will
continue to be characterized by sojourning and chiefly economic motives.
Galenovich, who expresses suspicion in his evaluation of China's intentions
towards Russia, cautions about the presence of "Chinese" space:
On our territory appear 'micro-Chinatowns' where Chinese live with their own
rules and into which neither our citizens nor the representatives of our authority
structures are permitted to enter. In fact, on our territory functions a huge
mechanism isolated from the life of Russia, her laws and authorities, a kind of
'Chinese world' or even a 'Chinese octopus' which in a centrally organized way
sucks from us tens of billions of dollars yearly. (2003,374)
By contrast, Gel'bras notes in his study of Chinese migration to the Russian Far East that
a successful strategy for settlement in the cities he studied have been mini-fiefdoms run
37
by Chinese businessmen, where the entrepreneurs maintain closed compounds for
workers and their small manufacturing facilities. Gel/bras suggests that these compact
self-governed units-at once a protection from anti-ethnic feeling and a way of avoiding
inefficient Russian work practices - may be a "new form for mastering the Russian
expanses" (novaia forma osvoeniia russkikh prostorov; 2001, 54).
Migration and labor shortages
In certain circles of Russian policy and scholarship, there are debates raging over
two issues that relate to Chinese migration and Russia's demographic decline: the
Russian labor deficit and the low population of the Russian Far East. Some scholars
(Zaionchkovskaia 2005) have argued that Russia will not be able to supply its future
labor needs with its own population, even if the birthrate increases drastically as a result
of government policies. She suggests that Russia will have to fill its labor gap with
Chinese migrants. In contrast, other scholars (Larin 2003) see an increasing Chinese
presence as a threat and suggest that the labor deficit can be filled with Russian migrants
from the former republics; in this view, the population of the Russian Far East must be
sustained with ethnic Russians and not allowed to become Chinese, because of the risks
of political loyalty to Beijing rather than to Moscow. The proportion of ethnic Russians
willing to leave the former republics or the near abroad and move to the Far East is,
however, probably quite low.
Currently, as reflected in data gathered for this project, low-skilled jobs in
construction are filled by Tadjiks and Moldovans. At the beginning of research, use of
Chinese workers for construction of the Baltic Pearl was a highly controversial question
38
and the city administration promised that the project would employ Russian labor.
However, in July 2008, staff at the site stated that all construction laborers were Chinese
and that more would continue to arrive; dormitories and a cafeteria building were visible
from the main building. Whether this will have a permanent effect on the labor market in
St. Petersburg remains to be seen.
Some recent research on Chinese migration to Russia suggests that the proportion
of unskilled labor (of the sort needed to fill Russia's needs) is not as high as some might
think. In fact, many Chinese migrants are educated entrepreneurs who seek to establish
their own businesses, not to work for Russians (Gel/bras 2004).
Strategic investors in Russian space
In October 2003, Valentina Matvienko was elected City Governor of St.
Petersburg. In December, her administration created a new Committee on Investment and
Strategic Projects. The mandate of this committee was to reach out to investors who
could bring substantial investment to the city. Any projects that required planning
supervision, such as the Baltic Pearl, would also fall under the jurisdiction of the
Committee on Urban Development and Architecture (KGA).
Andrei Mikhailenko was the first chairman of this new committee. On December
22,2003, the weekly Delo reported that he promised a change in the city's investment
policies.
. .. the newcomer chairman himself has already managed to share his opinions
about the investment policy of St. Petersburg with the public. In part, he
announced the necessity of forming in Petersburg 'a unified investment window.'
And he also specified a series of strategic projects, the realization of which would
become the first task of his committee. In that group is the construction of a
39
second stage for the Mariinsky Theater, the Western Diameter of the ring road,
and also unnamed 'projects of private capital without state interests.'
(Gladyshcheva, 12/22/03, http://www.idelo.ru/307/8.html)
In June 2004, Maksim Sokolov replaced as chairman of the committee (Basic
Characteristics), and continues to serve as of early 2008. Sokolov was thus the
committee's chairman at all stages of the official negotiations between St. Petersburg and
the Baltic Pearl investment consortium.
Given the growing reluctance of Western institutions to invest in St. Petersburg
and other Russian locations (Buckley and Mini 2000), the large sums promised by the
Chinese hold great appeal. In May 2005, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Chinese
investment might reach $12 billion by 2020 (St. Petersburg Times, 5/17/05). The Baltic
Pearl alone promised $1.5 billion (St. Petersburg Times, 6/10/05). Other city officials
hope that Chinese firms and the Chinese government will invest in local infrastructure,
such as projected tunnels under the Neva River.
Contemporary Shifts on the Horizon
Given this broader context, what is the nature of the material landscape into which
the Baltic Pearl enters?
A sleepy, dim Petersburg emerged from the 1980s suddenly to reclaim its original
name in 1991 as a gesture towards its pre-revolutionary status as a governmental,
industrial, and cultural center of modernizing Russia. The city that I first knew was
thickly layered in stories of history and literature that helped local residents to sustain a
sense of self independent from state rhetoric, and the surfaces of its buildings were
covered in plaques commemorating famous residents, events, and flood levels. It was a
40
paradoxical mixture of the pseudo-democratic access brought by Soviet ideology (parks,
museums, cheap-if almost nonexistent-restaurants and cafeterias) along with patches
of anti-Soviet resistance sustained by local memory and subcultures oriented to
recovering the city's past. It combined a shocking level of urban decay (softened by the
culture-inspired affection) and a high level of attendance at cultural events.
This unique position as an island of place-identity in fact makes Petersburg an
excellent site through which to examine the kinds of changes facing Russia as a whole.
Its long neglect by official building policies brings it closer to its provincial counterparts,
even as its relative prominence between those counterparts and Moscow has made it a
logical destination for globalizing trends seeking to gain a foothold in post-Soviet Russia
(i.e. it has more resources and services than smaller cities, but seems to promise a better
chance of success than highly competitive and highly controlled Moscow). The kinds of
changes taking place affect the sleepy backwater identity by reconnecting St. Petersburg
with Europe on the one hand, and reestablishing its place in the hierarchy of Russian
cities on the other; both trends have powerful implications for local landscapes and for
the socio-political identity of late Soviet Leningrad.
Petersburg as "space ofrepresentation" for cultural Europe
Associating St. Petersburg with Europe in almost any context seems
irreproachable and transparent (e.g. Turovskii 2003). St. Petersburg has extensive
connections with European culture, given its architecture and many pro-Western
traditions, right down to the different character of its street names (Buckler 2005). Of
course St. Petersburg is European; of course in its development, it would strive to build
41
on that legacy. There was a period in the 1990s, associated with the mayoral terms of
Anatolii Sobchak, when serious discussions took place in St. Petersburg about whether
the city should seek a separate federal status and recreate itself as a segment of Russian
space able to connect with Europe-in particular-on its own terms, without the control
of Moscow (see e.g. Kotsiubinskii 2004).4 Petersburg's historical connection to Europe
seemed to offer independence from Moscow and the space that Moscow controls.
With the accession of Vladimir Putin to the role of president in 2000, this changed
dramatically. The move by the "center" to recall powers that had been relinquished to the
"regions" began almost immediately in a bid to remedy the many failures of the policy of
regional autonomy.
City Governor Valentina Matvienko mentioned "Europe" or used the adjective
"European" between ten and twelve times in each of her first four Annual Addresses
(2004-2007); in her 2008 speech she uses a form of the word five times. The persistence
of this usage demonstrates at least that the invocation of "Europe" in the St. Petersburg
context remains useful, if not necessary, in communicating with her audience and in
setting out her ambitions for the city's future. She only uses the word "Eurasia" once, and
makes little reference to China beyond mentions of the Baltic Pearl (see Chapter IV).
This belies the substantial hopes placed in Chinese investment by many city
officials. In 2005, Matvienko stated that "Petersburg has become one of the most
attractive platforms for investment in Europe" (Annual Address, March), even as she
looked to the large amounts of promised Chinese investment (St. Petersburg Times,
4 This collection's date of publication is significant. Although by publishing inertia, as in the West, articles
promoting regional independence continued to appear into the 2000s, the time of regionalism had passed.
All articles collected in Petersburg without Russia were actually written and published in 1998 and 1999.
42
5/17/05). In 2006, she warned that "we must dynamically and flexibly react to the world
paradigm (mirovaia koniunktura)," emphasizing the need to adapt (Annual Address,
March). She presents St. Petersburg as European space in order to link it to its history and
the vision of European prosperity, but meanwhile looks to China for an influx of capital.
Petersburg as "space of representation" for Russian state spatial practices
Meanwhile, "Moscow/the Kremlin" (impelled largely by Putin, according to
rumor and many observers) is now reshaping Petersburg according to its own notions of
Russian urban hierarchy, including transfelTing some federal-level functions to the city.
Understood at this scale, within Russia, St. Petersburg would take on the role of industrial
engine, freeing Moscow as the post-industrial global city to solidify its position as a
"world city" (Solodilov, interview, 10/17/06).
City Governor Matvienko provided an official statement of this policy in her 2004
speech:
The point of orientation for us is the speech made by the President of the Russian
Federation to the Federal Assembly, for the basic goals and tasks of St. Petersburg
are inseparable from the goals and tasks of Russia.... The historical mission of
our city consists in becoming the leader of Russian modernization and becoming
the center for birth and realization of innovative ideas as well as the conservation
of the national cultural heritage and the intellectual potential of Russia. (Annual
Address, June)
As part of embodying this symbolism in the built environment of the city, plans to shift
the federal-level Constitutional Court from Moscow to Petersburg have been underway
for several years. While this transfer of a politically powerful state organ brings clear
potential benefits to Petersburg in prestige, the intrusion of this single event into the
existing urban fabric and socio-spatial traditions is drastic. The building in which the
43
Court is now housed is the former compound of the Senate and Synod, the two matching
buildings of Russian governmentality established by Peter the Great. On the square
before these two buildings, the Decembrist Uprising took place in 1825, the most
significant show of opposition to the Tsarist regime until 1905. The statue of Peter the
Great stands in that square. During the Soviet period, the buildings housed the State
Archives, a notoriously closed space but a source of intellectual liberation and historical
memory when access to them was loosened in the 1990s for both local and foreign
researchers. The removal of this collection to a location far outside the city center
enraged some locals, and the insertion of a space of state power (instead of this musty,
frumpy embodiment of knowledge against the state) strikes many as significant.
Additionally, the area targeted for construction of housing for the Court staff was
Krestovskii Island; this area is fast becoming a neighborhood of wealthy enclaves, but
"average" residents still live there and the western half of the island has long been a huge
and beloved public park. Thus, while the new presence of the Constitutional Court might
be intended to inspire pride, it also intrudes violently into spaces that have functioned
until now for the formation of local attachments and identities. St. Petersburg, thus, is
caught between these realities of its historical identity as well as the new Russian
imperialism.
It remains to say a few words about the current material reality of St.
Petersburg-its built environment and land use policies-that grounds a more detailed
discussion of the Baltic Pearl.
44
The inherited built environment ofLeningrad
The overall structure of St. Petersburg has clearly demarcated types of historical
development. The central historical core extends from the creek Chemaia Rechka in the
north to the Obvodny Canal in the south, and as far east as the southward bend of the
Neva River at the Aleksandr-Nevsky Monastery. Surrounding this core, and perforating it
in places, is a belt of late-nineteenth-century and twentieth-century industrial parks; the
twentieth-century additions adhered to the 1920s Garden City-influenced vision of
workers living near their places of labor. Outside the industrial belt (and sometimes
mingling with it) stands a thick ring of late Soviet housing, sometimes called "sleeping
districts" since in those areas the original vision for including a wide range of services
never materialized. Several larger artery streets run through the city, although Soviet
planning tended to deemphasize automobile traffic; planners intended for residents to use
the fairly comprehensive (but never perfect) network of public transportation in order to
get around (French 1995). For a while, Leningrad processed a fair amount of trade
(Axenov et al. 2006), but this was shipped around the Soviet Union not by long-distance
trucks but by rail; thus, it is only within the past several years that a "ring road" or bypass
highway was constructed around the city near its border with the Leningrad Oblast. 5
The historical core retains a fairly high level of residential use (Bater 2006),
although in sections the availability of services has diminished in the face of high-end
5 I heard the best summary I know of Petersburg's structure in a talk given by Professor Konstantin Axenov
to a group of visiting geographers from the Netherlands on Vasilievsky Island in September 2006; I have
amplified his comments about the belt structure with my own observations. The book that Axenov co-wrote
with Isolde Brade and Eugene Bondarchuk also informs the summary here, although the description of St.
Petersburg there focuses more narrowly on the industrial past and topics in economic geography rather than
social geography. See Axenov et al. 2006. Bater's extensive work on St. Petersburg also discusses its form
(1976, etc.).
--------------------_._---
45
retail and restaurant functions (site observation; Nevastroyka); it is visibly gentrifying
and becoming less widely accessible in financial terms, although it is still the main place
to stroll and enjoy city views for a large number of residents. The diversity of its
offerings to a wide range of socio-economic classes is steadily diminishing; the popular
Apraksin Yard, with its famously cheap goods, was closed in December 2006 and is
slated to become "a pedestrian zone of elevated comfort" (Nevastroyka). Residential
areas outside the historical core itself vary in their period of construction, but all have
struggled with in-fill, or the construction of new buildings in open spaces between
existing structures in order to take advantage of existing infrastructure (and to avoid
paying the cost of providing it). Russians term this "uplotnilovka," short for "densifying
construction" (the same verb was applied to the process of imposing additional residents
into existing apartments in the 1920s and 1930s). Brand new housing construction varies
in style depending on the developer; there are townhouses and freestanding "osobniaki"
(detached housing), especially on the city edges, and buildings of 10-12 stories. Many
new apartment buildings, however, range to 20 stories and in their overall massing outdo
the largest of the Soviet-era mass housing estates (see photos).
In the 1930s and 1940s, when 1920s-era planning had a stronger hold on the city
and the population size permitted policies that later became luxuries, the city was
restructured according to the new ideology of workers and their living spaces. As one
interviewee related to me, a resident of Vasilievsky Island didn't really ever have to
leave: there were factories there, buses and streetcars could take the worker right to those
factories, and there were stores, schools, and parks right in that neighborhood. In spite of
46
persistent attachment to the historical center, a resident could survive in his own district
(especially if it was a central one). Another resident who lived on the east corner asserted
that you could travel the length of the city on one bus. However, as the city grew and
apartment buildings were thrown up on the outskirts, the infrastructure never caught up.
Now, with internationally-significant highways set to cross within meters of Vasilievsky
Island, the internal dynamics of St. Petersburg are broken open and vulnerable to new
influences.
Existing policies for the built environment
The current City Master Plan (Generalnyi Plan, or Genplan for short) was
adopted in November 2005 (Solodilov, interview, 10117/06). It is the twentieth Genplan
since the first one by Domenico Trezzini in 1712; the previous plan was proposed in
1986 and adopted in 1987. The "Conception" for the current Genplan was developed in
the 1990s by the Leontief Center with consultation from the European Union (Tsenkova
2007); it was adopted in 2004 (Solodilov). The motto of the Genplan is "Open European
City," an idea that most likely derives from the involvement of EU consultants at the
"Conception" stage.6 A commentary on this motto in February 2005 noted that "the new
Master Plan of Petersburg is oriented to the achievement of a European standard of
quality in the urban environment" (Nevastroyka, 2/15/05).
6 Staff at KGA also told me that the Genplan was also influenced by their experience hearing about the
Barcelona Master Plan during a visit to that city in the late 1990s, when Barcelona was the darling of
European cities for its successful Olympic bid and well-publicized redevelopment projects (Polishchuk,
interview, 2006). In particular my interviewee mentioned the model of inviting multiple stakeholders, a
new approach for the formerly centralized Russian process.
47
As a major point of orientation, the plan acknowledges the designation of the total
area of historical St. Petersburg as an object under the supervision of the UNESCO
World Heritage Council, managed locally by the Committee for Conservation of
Monuments (KGIOP). Originally, the historical district was designated by a line around a
large central area (see Map 2.1); in later developments, this policy was changed to isolate
individual buildings, since the disincentive to developers was found to be too high (Butler
et al. 1999). (A planner with whom I spoke regretted that each building could not have its
own mini-buffer area.)
Next to areas of historical preservation, however, the main focus of the Genplan is
on "territorial solutions [through] the formation of new social-business zones"
(Nevastroyka, 2/15/05). It is these zones (in the sense that this term is used in U.S.
plmming) which will do the work of creating new revenues and jobs and attractive areas
for investment; they will integrate retail and commercial space into city areas served by
existing infrastructure. Many of these were previously dominated by housing (this fact
caused a great deal of the controversy surrounding the Genplan public hearings and
discussion in the press).
This idea that a certain number of "business centers" will transform the city has so
far led the city to focus on highly visible prestigious projects and less on the nuts and
bolts of city machinery. The problem with this approach is that the broader fabric of the
city is not yet prepared for the kind of incremental, spontaneous market-led change that
could transform its spaces without the dramatic confrontations that have characterized
many projects thus far. Market conditions now prevail to the extent that project cost is
48
related to location and infrastructure provision, putting upward pressure on land costs
nearer to the center. All planners with whom I spoke noted that Russia in general is
undergoing a shift from the "extensive" approach that characterized Soviet planning,
when land was rarely recycled and the cost of expanding outwards was minimal, to an
"intensive" approach where each builder wants to maximize the benefits he can gain from
each plot, and wants to place it as centrally as possible. Yet in a preliminary interview in
August 2005, a local environmental lawyer suggested that the new Genplan was like the
blueprint for a house that had no bathroom and no kitchen, just a parlor; a builder I
interviewed in November 2006 agreed. He complained that the focus was on improving
the area around Nevsky Avenue, the "Fifth Avenue" of St. Petersburg, and making it look
prestigious. Similarly, former Chief Architect Oleg Kharchenko told me that he regretted
that during his tenure he had not been able to persuade the city administration of the
wisdom of increasing the amount of buildable land by extending systems of infrastructure
(interview, 12/6/06). As the city seeks to become an "open European city" with a
"European standard of urban environmental quality," an important measure of the success
of this attempt is to evaluate how the institutional constraints are shifting and adapting to
the conditions induced by new projects and challenges. For this reason, the Genplan has
implications for all scales of the Petersburg built environment.
The Genplan contains seven goals for the city, stating that it regards St.
Petersburg as:
1. a comfortable environment for habitation;
2. a cultural capital;
3. a major transport node with all the related possibilities;
4. a Russian port;
5. a center of business activity;
49
6. a center of innovations and leading technologies;
7. a powerful industrial core.
A memorandum published by the Committee on Urban Development and Architecture
(KGA in Russian, henceforth CUDA) comments immediately after this list that "The
balanced combination of these vectors brings us to the formula 'Petersburg-city of
European standards'" (Generalnyi, 2006). Of course, as is typical for the rhetoric of such
broad plans, it is not clear at all that there is a connection between the list and the motto.
The seven goals of the Genplan cannot function as articulated aspects of a single policy:
they require different "solutions" with different spatial forms at differing spatial scales,
and thus may in some way conflict with each other. The Baltic Pearl is supposed to
exemplify the kind of project that can meet, for example, the first goal (by providing a
substantial addition to the city's housing stock) as well as prompting development of the
third, fifth, and sixth.
However, the Genplan consists of more than goals; its machinery for execution
actually depends on sets of codes and ordinances. One set of these at the federal level is
known as SNiPs, or Stroitelnye normy i pravila (Construction norms and rules); these
norms establish distances and quantities such as road width, minimum territorial
requirements for schools, and so on. A new set of ordinances, not yet passed, are known
as the PZZ or Pravda zemlepolzovaniia i zastroiki (Rules for Land Use and
Construction); these specify functional zones at a larger scale and contain the new
50
regulations on height. The PZZ also will summarize codes and procedures for
construction permits.7
A geographer-planner's insights
The list of seven goals for St. Petersburg's development that accompanied the
Master Plan contains contradictions. An interview on general urban development topics
with a transportation specialist in the planning institute NIPIgrad revealed some of these.
I include a discussion of his comments in order to demonstrate the complexity of spatial
changes currently affecting St. Petersburg.
This planner made firm statements about the vision of St. Petersburg that guided
the "Conception of the Master Plan"; land use and landscape development should be
governed, he said, by the fact that Petersburg "is not a megapolis, it's an urban
agglomeration."
And Petersburg is only a part of this agglomeration. A significant part is the
satellite settlements, in Leningrad oblast. ... Some of them have been there for
three hundred years, they should stay. So that Petersburg doesn't melt all over the
place, doesn't swallow them up, because this structure that has formed for
centuries, it has its pluses ... this mustn't be destroyed. (Solodilov, interview,
10/17/06)
This of course is one planner's voice, and the Conception underwent modification after it
left the planning circles in NIPIgrad and went to discussions in ZakS and in the City
Governor's office. But the planner's comments signal several spatial values that are
trying to shape Petersburg. The importance of preserving local historical patterns governs
his overall conception of Petersburg space; a range of spatial practices are implied by the
7 The PZZ in particular were designed based on workshops and courses held in the U.S., in which members
of the KGA participated in the mid- to late-1990s (Polishchuk, interview, 10/13/06; Roshchin, interview,
10/20/06).
51
choice to maintain Petersburg as a loosely linked series of smaller settlements, including
transportation adjustments and cultural assumptions about the optimal population size of
settlements.8 Each of the satellite settlements to which Solodilov refers has an individual
cultural history (such as the town of Pushkin, now also called Tsarskoe Selo) and the
agglomeration model presumes that these individual histories are worth maintaining
spatially. (This pattern continues to change; for instance, Pushkin is fast becoming a
location for affluent housing for Petersburgers who commute by car to the center, moving
away from its Soviet-preserved existence as a quiet palace-town where Alexander
Pushkin studied and Anna Akhmatova had a house before the revolution.)
At the same time, Solodilov perceived the contradictions inherent in the city's
plans for development. I asked him what he saw as the greatest challenge in transforming
Petersburg into a "post-Soviet" city.
It seems to me that [the greatest problem] is ensuring an acceptable balance
between the formation of a high-quality environment for living-and-acting
(zhiznedeiatel'nostj - of high European quality, corresponding to European
standards - and the development of the city as a major industrial and transport
node.
He stated that the models for spatial practices that would ensure a "high-quality
environment for living-and-acting" came from an idea of micro-scale "Europe."
Quantitative norms set out in the Master Plan (the first draft of which was completed in
2005) were drawn from European cities such as Helsinki, Stockholm, and Tallinn (for
example, the "norm" of 35 square meters of living space per resident).
8 Solodilov probably echoes here decades of Bolshevik-influenced urban planning values; French (1995)
notes that the 1920s Soviet administration believed strongly in managing settlement size; Glazychev notes
that the Bolsheviks did not like large cities, and himself suggests that there is a threshold population
beyond which a settlement ceases to be a true city (2005, 129).
52
Working in the area of transportation projects, Solodilov also knew about major
plans to link Petersburg into the road and rail systems of Northern and Central Europe. 9
He saw this as a major change from the Soviet period, putting Petersburg into an entirely
new socio-spatial paradigm (and entailing a whole new set of spatial practices as
embodied in transportation routes and landscapes):
So you can see, how [the city] is opening up towards Europe. Towards the world.
This didn't happen before. This was a profoundly Soviet city, closed in on itself
and the Soviet Union. It was a typical industrial center. .. Now besides the port,
these high-speed rail lines are supposed to go through, first from Moscow through
Petersburg to Helsinki. And all these autoroutes, the ring road, the Western Speed
Diameter, they are all turned in the direction of Finland and the EEC. As soon as
we normalize relations with Estonia, this will all happen.
For "the development of the city as a major industrial and transport node," Solodilov
suggested that Petersburg had to be placed into the context of the Baltic Sea region,
where its port has already acquired influence. He also placed it into the context of
Russian urban hierarchy, seeing Moscow as the main global city which would try to
relieve its internal tensions by allotting some governmental and trade functions to
Petersburg. "It benefits Moscow if Petersburg develops as a regional metropolis in the
Baltic region... So some functions are being transferred from Moscow to here, those that
Moscow is shedding as a global city." He developed this thought further, remarking that
"of course it is difficult, difficult to combine [the two goals]"-implicitly recognizing the
competition between two sorts of socio-spatial paradigms and the spatial needs that each
has. For in spite of his statement early in the interview that Petersburg is an
9 During a visit to interview a transportation specialist in another institute, a Finnish representative from the
ED spoke to my contact's class of students about the inclusion of St. Petersburg in the TEN program. The
ED website has numerous documents describing this program, and its maps show ED-linked roads
extending deep into Russia. See Map 4.6.
53
agglomeration and must preserve its historical spatial structure, he also recognizes the
economic exigencies facing the city. His insights into these contradictions are reflected in
the following passage:
So now the city is earning financial resources, the city as an original megapolis is
raising its status, its competitiveness is growing [with] Helsinki, Tallinn,
Stockholm, Warsaw, maybe even Hamburg... , But how to combine this with
post-industrialization? Which the city also needs. Post-industrialization and this
high-quality environment. And all the other problems ... Quality of housing,
growing automobilization, attractiveness for tourists, attractiveness for business,
especially global business. Will anyone want to have headquarters here, I just
don't know. Or banks, right? Major, international. Perhaps gradually, to some
degree developing as a regional megapolis of the first order, well, Piter will begin
to acquire these elements of global infrastructure. Because Moscow will be
overwhelmed...
Solodilov also expressed full awareness of the type of landscapes that the "high-quality
global environment" would entail: "They demand after all, these transnational
corporations, they demand skyscrapers." In spite of this recognition, he persisted in
insisting that local architectural traditions should govern construction: "it seems to me
that it's not worth breaking with that tradition. We have to approach this with care. But
on the other hand, how do we attract [transnational corporations]? How can you plant
them here without a skyscraper? This is confusing. They have gotten used to
skyscrapers." He perceives the spatial practices and the types of sites that global entities
seem to require, and implicitly realizes the impact that this could have on the built form
of Petersburg.
His comments are rich with observations on the changing economic, political, and
spatial conditions affecting St. Petersburg. They suggest the shift in conception of space
that now governs St. Petersburg, where integration with the European Union economic
54
zone and related political requirements (such as reconciling with Estonia) start to affect
the kind of landscapes and spatial practices (in the form of outward connections, routes,
and movements of people and goods) that will take shape in the city.
The crucial contradiction inherent in the two major vectors of the Genplan goals
has been summed up by Harvey: on the one hand, the aim to make Petersburg into a
"high-quality environment for living-and-acting"-into, that is, a even texture of
sociability based on a principle of "political economy of territory"; and on the other hand,
an economic node among other nodes, shaped by the logic of "political economy of
place" as Harvey describes it, which (as discussed above) are typically anchored by
"premium networked spaces." The Baltic Pearl enters into these interlocking vectors.
Will it be shaped and govemed by a political economy of territory, or of place? And how
will this affect the challenges of sustainable social integration now facing St. Petersburg?
Conclusion
As the information presented in this chapter already demonstrates, an evaluation
of the development of Russian space, just as an evaluation of relations between entities as
complex as "Russia" and "China," must take place at several scales in order to capture
processes that will have a material effect on their further development. The premise is
that we must study microscale interactions between the receiving society and new
arrivals; this is not to assert the study of microscale in isolation from broader processes,
but to strive for greater integration of such studies into interpretations at "privileged"
scales.
55
Just as Gel/bras recognized that "microlevel conditions" must change for
interactions to improve, other Russian scholars have called for attention to these
microscale interactions. Vendina's influential study of ethnic enclaves in Moscow
(2005b) suggests that it is the receiving society that is promoting the formation of
enclaves in the post-Soviet era. Her case studies examine the residential distribution of
Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis, and she did not find
striking patterns. Drawing on studies by Gel'bras, she makes a brief comment on the
possibility of "Chinatowns":
Probably the comparison of the Russian to the European or American situation is
legitimate only in relation to people from South-East Asia, but their numbers in
Moscow are not great enough to fear the formation of a China-town, and anyway
they live in the capital extremely isolated, striving to reduce to a minimum
necessary contact with the local population and representatives of the authorities.
(67)
Her concern is that the increasing socio-economic stratification within Russian society
itself is a negative factor for promoting acceptance of more migrants. Since the built form
of the city (here Moscow) has not adapted to the real needs of the population (e.g. for
affordable housing), the middle and upper classes find themselves besieged by their own
problems (2005b, 55) and remain conservative with respect to migrants (2005b, 82-83).
Vendina's comment about how to study the ongoing interaction between host site and
migrants sets an agenda for research to which this study aims to contribute:
In order to evaluate the potential for full inclusion of migrants into the main
current of urban life, it is important to know not only the particularities of
behavior of the immigrants themselves, but also the particularities of interaction
of the institutional and structural parameters of the receiving society and the new
arrivals. (2005b, 56)
56
The remaining chapters of the dissertation seek to outline the "particularities of
interaction of the institutional and structural parameters" in processes at different scales.
Chapter IV discusses the negotiations between planners from the St. Petersburg
administration and the Chinese firm; Chapter V considers the socio-spatial paradigms
operating among "ordinary" citizens; and Chapter VI examines socio-spatial paradigms
played out in the daily routes of Russian and Chinese individuals.
57
CHAPTER III
EXPANDING SPATIAL ANALYSIS WITH 'SOCIa-SPATIAL PARADIGM'
A Story of Shifting Sense of Place
Liudmila Ivanovna knew my American professor of Russian when he visited Leningrad
in the 1960s. When I went to that city in 1990 to study Russian, he passed along his
friendship with her to me, and she showed me around museums, parks, cemeteries, and
favorite streets as she had once done for him. I remember numerous trips on streetcars
with her, especially to one obscure cemetery where the modernist poet Blok was buried,
where Lenin had wanted to be buried with his sisters and mother until he was hijacked
into his Moscow tomb for Stalin's purposes.
Like most Russians whom I met in the early 1990s, Liudmila Ivanovna had no
car. As an unmarried woman and a professor of botany, her means and ambitions did not
lead to that kind of acquisition.
In a phone conversation with her in the winter of 2005, she lamented the removal
of almost all streetcar lines from her district-that is, from almost the entire area of
Vasilievsky Island. The then-mayor had decided to limit public transportation on the
narrow historical streets to buses, since the streetcars produced unpleasant traffic jams for
the increasing flow of automobiles (and because bolder drivers tended to use the streetcar
tracks as turning lanes).
58
For the traffic engineers, this might have made sense. For the mushrooming
number of drivers (often of imported European models and SUVs), it made the trip home
more pleasant. For Liudmila Ivanovna, the change produced several unforeseen effects
that changed her sense of belonging in the city and her sense of access to spaces she had
previously taken for granted.
First of all, it became much harder to get her dog to the train station. On
midwinter weekends and during the summer, she spent her time at a dacha outside the
city along a train line. Without a car, she relied on public transportation to reach the train
station; streetcars would allow her black terrier to ride there, but the subway would not.
Without the streetcar network that she had always used, she had to make inconvenient
requests for a ride from friends with cars. Her sense of independence was affected as well
as her sense that the train station was within her spatial reach.
Second, the removal of streetcars drastically reduced her ability to attend cultural
performances in the city center. She could get to the symphony hall by subway, but she
had to reach the subway station by streetcar, and she felt unable to return alone at night
on foot without it. Her beloved opera and ballet performances at the Kirov (now again
Mariinsky) Theater were accessible to her only by streetcar. She was forced to attend
only matinee performances at the symphony and to give up opera and ballet altogether.
Her sense of access to these cultural activities, seen by her generation as part of their
heritage and regular life as Leningraders, was strongly curtailed and she felt constrained
by age and socioeconomic class as she had not done before. The city as a whole felt less
"hers," and she felt isolated on Vasilievsky Island.
59
The city expected Liudmila Ivanovna to cope by using a combination of the
subway (which has become seriously overcrowded since the early 2000s) and the new
"fixed-route taxis," minivans that charge a fixed fee for a particular route and do not
recognize transportation discounts traditionally issued by the state to students, the elderly,
and veterans. As a survivor of the Leningrad Siege and of retirement age, Liudmila
Ivanovna falls into this class of people privileged by Soviet tradition and ideology, but
can no longer benefit from this position as a resident moving around the city.
In my glimpses into the life of Liudmila Ivanovna, I observed indications of
broader changes between Leningrad and St. Petersburg, between walking culture and car
culture, between a culture emphasizing collective responsibility and respect for elders and
a Western-influenced, individually-structured culture that still manages to articulate quite
well with traditional Russian corruption and melodrama. Some of those more popular and
sensational aspects of culture will not change; meanwhile, under their glossy surface,
significant cultural changes are occurring that can be most clearly traced by observing
what is happening to socially produced spaces-to the sense of place of St. Petersburg
and to the ways that it has fragmented depending on how a resident moves, lives, and
does or does not feel constrained by the material city.
The impulse to observe space in this way both resulted from and prompted a
search for flexible theoretical tools to govern the interpretation of gathered data. Two
studies that examined the creativity of spatial practices while also recognizing the
constraints imposed by space were important points of departure for conceptualizing the
intended attention to space.
60
Work by Kenneth Olwig suggested a symbiotic, rather than deterministic,
relationship between material space and the way space becomes invested with meaning
by its inhabitants. Olwig places the work of Tuan among his chief inspirations for the
writing of Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic (2002). His book analyzes how
specific understandings of place based firmly in certain kinds of spaces were dismantled
by state power (in Denmark, England, and the U.S.). His two chief terms (compare later
Scott's metis and legibility) are "custom" or "customary law" and "nature" or "natural
law"; custom grows from a place and shapes itself to that place, while "nature"
(understood in a post-Renaissance sense) posits a universal applicability and takes no
account of local specificity. According to Olwig, custom has several important features: it
"was inscribed in the land through physical practice" (214); it was "an expression of a
body of custom developed, through time, on the basis of individual and social practice"
and it was "woven into the very fabric and texture of the land, giving it a meaning that
spoke to (and with) the body as well as the mind" (215). In his first and most striking
case study, Olwig focuses on the historical dismantling of Danish landschap as polity: as
he intriguingly demonstrates, the word landschap originally had no visual content at all-
it was a political term for a defined space organized by certain socio-political practices.
Olwig does not focus on the way that political or social resistance could be articulated;
the Danish landscapes and practices that he describes disappeared and could no longer
provide the staging ground for action against the newly-forming Dutch state. However,
the important concept to derive from his work for my study is the very symbiosis
between space and practice-giving rise to political process as polity itself-that he
61
observes and discusses. This possibility suggested a direction into analysis of space-based
practices that did not have to be reduced to environmental determinism and that could
find positive socio-political potential in local customs.
Shaul Cohen provides another stimulating example of the way that practices in
space are linked to social and political assumptions in his book The Politics ofPlanting
(1993). The chapter that discusses the planting of olive trees by Palestinian Arabs and of
pines by Israeli Jews around eastern Jerusalem shows the way that such micro-scale
practices can produce space: wherever there stood pines, this was "Jewish space";
wherever there stood olives, this became "Arab space." Operating under the surface of
formal methods to resolve land disputes, olives and pines formed lines of demarcation in
the struggle to claim space for parks and future development (on the part of the Jerusalem
administration) or for agricultural livelihood (on the part of Palestinian villagers). The
planting of one tree or the other had cultural signification and was closely tied to the
symbolism and identity of each group. Planting created a tangible physical effect; for
example, the appearance of pine groves eliminated agricultural space for Palestinians or
prevented the circulation of Bedouins (1993,121). This case study points to the
coexistence of and negotiations in space defined by two different sets of socio-cultural
symbols, and to a way that developed for each group to shape the landscape: olive
enacted "Arab," while pine enacted "Jew." This case study suggested how behavior in
space creatively used material objects as signs that designated different identities; it also
suggested the inertia of these associations, questioning the potential for a new,
synthesized space to arise in the face of these associations.
62
Socio-Spatial Paradigm: Capturing the Multiplicity of Spatial Experience
These readings stuck in my mind as I planned fieldwork. How does a set of
symbols or practices become usable as "vocabulary" in competing arguments as
individuals and groups move through space? I wanted to find a set of tools or criteria to
look for the kinds of culturally-signifying gestures that Cohen described, or to discern the
presence of practices that helped to knit together a polity as Olwig had discussed.
There was no ready theoretical model that incorporated the range of elements that
seemed essential to interpret the research data. I had the sense that there was a sort of
paradigm operating-as in a set of orientation points or set of assumptions that people
would have in thinking about space and moving around the city, but that would also
include the actual material space (e.g. that provided the range of objects and spaces about
which people could think) and the implicit and explicit regulations (i.e., both spatial
etiquette and planning regulations) that would affect movement. The paradigm had to be
socio-spatial instead of just spatial, because the social and cultural elements based in
concepts and practice-imagination, stories, expectations, rules-clearly had to playa
significant role. People (co)inhabit space differently and multiply; it seemed intuitive that
by observing the components of their responses to space, you could discern the nature of
this difference and multiplicity and thereby gain greater insight into why conflicts arose
and (temptingly) what aspects of culture might change in concert with conceptions of
place.
Inspired in part by the work of Massey (see discussion below), I wanted a term
that could capture "place" as a process involving the intricate functionalities and
63
mobilities structured around meanings, and the meanings structured around functions and
mobility. I saw this process as a symbiosis: as something that arises between and with the
material and social, between the performance of social and cultural meaning (often
repeating, but always open to improvisation and change) and the sedimentation of this
meaning (repeating or solidifying, often the role of the state but not belonging wholly to
it) as Romi Bhabha describes the formation, enforcement, and metamorphosis of
nationhood (1991). In other words, meaning arises around material places and practices,
but that meaning can then transform those places and practices, or can be radically
transformed itself if an external actor chooses to alter or prevent the material spaces and
practices. I settled provisionally on the term "socio-spatial paradigm," and use it
throughout the dissertation.
My use of the term does not derive from one particular scholar. The term itself or
elements of it have been employed before, however, and a short discussion of these uses
helps to illustrate the urge to find a new concept for this study. Leonie Sandercock, for
example, briefly uses the term to designate "an ideological construct that prescribes"
behavior-in her case, "a public sphere for men and a private sphere for women" (1998,
143). Designating a socio-spatial paradigm as an ideological construct alone could not,
however, capture the need to evaluate how regulations and practices reinforced or
undermined the ideology. Soja (1996) discusses a socio-spatial dialectic, which he then
complicates with Lefebvrian trialectics; this was not the source of my use of the term.
Gottdiener and Budd (2005) summarize the "socio-spatial approach" in urban sociology
which assumes that
64
the form of settlement space is related to the mode of organization of the
economy.... important and key spatial patterns which define the spatial
organization of society are associated with specific aspects of the cultural,
political, social and economic features of the correlated mode of societal
organization. (140; emphasis in original)
This "paradigm shift" in urban studies was inspired by the work of Henri Lefebvre, and
focused on class, race, and gender as shaping forces in the production of urban space
(Feagin 1998, 4-5). It also explicitly recognized "the importance of symbols, meanings,
and culture to the shaping of cities [and] ... the global contexts of urban development"
(1998,5). This approach provides a foundation to much new work in critical urban
geography.
Influenced by this work, I intended to make a case for attention to the way that
spatial structures shape our sense of place-the meanings of attachment and belonging
we attach to particular spaces as a locus of identity. Since some literature seemed to
assert a reverse determinism-that is, that material spaces should have no influence at all
on identity or attitudes-I sought a concept that could address the constraints on urban
residents' movements yet also capture their choices within those constraints. There was
clearly a relationship between the possible paths to be taken and the available modes of
transportation; between what people would see if they went a certain direction, and how
what they saw would affect what they thought. But, insofar as it was possible, I wanted to
analyze the spatial experience and discourse of all my interview subjects as a pragmatic
action-not divorced from power, or assumed to be immune to it, but something that I
could say "everyone" possessed. This attempt at crafting an objective tool, indifferent to
class, race, or location, would, I hoped, help me to avoid either nostalgia for certain
65
landscapes and spatial arrangements or the assumption of path dependencies (the
overdetermination of current choices by the residue of the past; see Sykora [2008] for a
critique of overuse of this approach in post-Soviet studies in the late 1990s). Purcell
summarizes this well in terms of Henri Lefebvre's "right to the city":
... the right to the city is earned by living in the city. Everyday life (Lefebvre's la
vie quotidienne) is the central pivot of the right to the city: those who go about
their daily routines in the city, both living in and creating urban space, are those
who possess a legitimate right to the city. (2003,577; emphasis in original)
My hope for an "objective tool" risks the naivete assigned by critical geographers to the
humanistic tradition in urban and cultural geography, in which scholars such as Tuan and
Relph apparently posited a universal "everyman" which excluded considerations of race,
class, and gender. However, I intended for the term "socio-spatial paradigm" to capture
the active relationships (the enacted "practice") between a local politics of space and
related spatial assumptions and practices, and I intended for it to capture multiplicity. I
did not want to use one group (such as the homeless, see Blomley 2004; Mitchell 2003)
as a litmus test for the politics of space, and thus sought to consider all experiences of
urban space as equivalent.
While spatial assumptions can also be indicated, to a degree, by "geographical
imaginary," the latter term may not encompass essential details for teasing out how
conflicts between urban stakeholders operate. My sense of "socio-spatial paradigm" is
that it requires that we ask how respondents understand what "sociable" means in space,
that is, what is necessary and supportive to a good (urban) life. It requires consideration
of the material and legal as well as emotional and conceptual aspects of how people see
and feel loyalty to place, to certain kinds of spaces that take on "place-like" meaning.
66
Addition of these aspects (e.g. material and legal) gives a fuller dimension to analysis of
local forces which resist the idea of new construction (such as the Baltic Pearl or the
Gazprom skyscraper project), particularly the efforts of so-called "ordinary residents"
who have become activists. "Socio-spatial paradigm" as I propose it here also requires
that we consider how different groups and individuals locate themselves physically and in
authority structures, and how they link themselves to local and global conceptualized
spaces as they make their arguments.
Socio-Spatial Paradigm: Using Scale to Calibrate, Not to Govern, Analysis
In terms of scale, I did not see any socio-spatial paradigm as having a particular scale, but
as being by definition multiscalar-a kind of nexus of ideas and discourses at mUltiple
scales. What I hoped to do was not to take phenomena in space at one scale and analyze
them, but take a particular vision of space and analyze how that vision affects an
individual's interaction with phenomena at various scales. The idea is that the
individual's actions would be determined more by the attitude to space than by the
claimed location at a certain scale; for example, in Chapter IV, an architect's vision for
the social value of a residential courtyard affects his attitude to urban development.
For example, one perspective on scale would indicate that we could best
understand Sino-Russian relations by looking exclusively at the political relationships
between government officials. In that perspective, juxtaposing knowledge of an urban
development project such as the Baltic Pearl with the location and self-presentation of
Chinese restaurants in central St. Petersburg might seem to contradict the logic of
mutually isolated scales. However, building on the insights of critical geography into
67
interaction across scales, this analysis focuses not on the size of spaces or on the scale at
which actors claim to be located, but on the arrangement of these and other factors into
the combination of spatial referents and assumptions as deployed in specific arguments
(whether rhetorical or actual) about space and how it should be used. I argue below that
my term "socio-spatial paradigm," together with a close reading of Henri Lefebvre's
triadic model for analyzing space, provides "structuring elements" that do not make scale
irrelevant but rather use it as an additional tool in calibrating the complex relationships
inherent in anyone paradigm.
This point is elaborated by Kaganskii, who notes, as Euro-American geographers
have done, that
the usual supposition of a staircase of scales that arose from the practice of
placing smaller objects as wholes inside larger ones is convenient but suspect,
because material areas and volumes can be stacked, but concepts and meanings
cannot. ... Scale is a particular kind of context: the space of a cultural landscape is
polyscalar; a whole spectrum of meanings, significances, functions corresponds to
each part and place in it. (2001, 31-32)
Scale is sometimes regarded as a factor limiting the potential juxtapositions that can be
perceived; that is, we can only compare objects that seem to be located at the same scale,
or we must look to objects at a certain "privileged" scale for an explanation. Yet I would
suggest that an individual's actions at the urban scale-for instance his plans for
modifying urban landscapes-may stem from a socio-spatial paradigm that draws from a
smaller scale, for example a garden or a house. Insistence on a strict scalar
correspondence would obscure this important connection. If we understand individual
cultural landscapes to be polyscalar, capable of linking out to processes at many different
scales, then an individual's socio-spatial paradigm can also be understood as polyscalar.
68
The point becomes not to fix an individual or group in space and decide at what scale she
or they are located, but to examine closely the elements of the socio-spatial paradigm and
understand their scaled interrelationships with other phenomena.
Analysis of socio-spatial paradigms separately from and in addition to analysis of
policies and material actions can also bring insight to existing political-economic
analyses of scalar shifts that are often understood as happening in isolation from each
other. For example, we assume that "inquiry framed at local scales yields different results
than inquiry at larger scales" (Martin et al. 2003). In part, then, we assume that if we
study the local scale we are not learning anything about "larger scales." To take an
example: the quoted article adds that glocalization has been described as "a transfer of
authority and responsibility from a national-scale state" down to lower scales. The
concern of such an analysis is revealing how "local states and governance institutions
accept more responsibility and authority" (Martin et al. 2003, 115). The concern of my
own analysis would be to discern the socio-spatial paradigms of the officials who take on
the responsibility ceded to them by the nation-state "for ensuring that the local area can
compete effectively in the wider global economy" (2003, 115). For example, the
responsibility to supply services may rest with municipal officials, but their decisions
may be informed most strongly by a national vision for the identity of the city (recall the
shift of the Constitutional Court to Petersburg, described in Chapter II). It is not only the
shift in the scale of responsibility for enabling economic and social reproduction from the
state to the already-burdened local administration that we need to know about. A
decision-maker at any scale (national or local) may be entrusted with a decision and may
69
base the decision process on a socio-spatial paradigm that is not commensurate with the
demands of the task; the assumptions that guide the decisions may remain shaped by an
understanding of space that contradicts the purpose of the decision. My goal is to use a
qualitative approach in order to deepen our analysis of how a "policy shift in cities ...
toward competitiveness" (Martin et al. 2003, 115) plays out in the socio-spatial
paradigms of various actors and groups in a city. With what assumptions does it
resonate? How is it transformed or refracted by possibly contradictory assumptions or
practices?
Geographers have suggested that "conflicts are not so much between various
parties, places and neighbors, as they are between scalar levels, at each of which space is
structured in a different way" (Kaganskii 2001, 33). I would maintain that it is not only
scale which conditions the different "structuring" of space, but also the socio-spatial
paradigm which I describe. Studies that employ these more detailed spatial analyses are a
further way of exploding the global-local dichotomy, since we can move on to explore
the ways that different groups of actors at the "local" scale choose, and interact with,
different elements in spatial assumptions that can be labeled as either "global" or "local,"
and thus delineate how local elites enable or shape the influence of the "global" and thus
globalization.
The empirical chapters of this dissertation examine negotiations, ostensibly at
different scales, that revolve around an aspect of the Baltic Pearl and the growing
Chinese presence in St. Petersburg. In Chapter IV, the negotiations over space involve
Russian administrators, architects and planners on one hand and on the other Chinese
70
investors, planners and involved in the Baltic Pearl project. In Chapter V, negotiations
over transforming space reveal the struggles between Russians on the "winning" and
"losing" sides of ongoing social transformation, and contrast local residents'
imaginations of "Chinese" space with the reality of developing Chinese landscapes. In
Chapter VI, individual stories of living in St. Petersburg drawn from interviews with both
Russian and Chinese residents display similarities, conflicts, and possible points of
commonality. The contributions of Lefebvre and other scholars (discussed below) allow
me to uncover how new socio-spatial paradigms take shape around new forms of spatial
organization and new patterns of spatial practice.
Methods
Influenced by study of St. Petersburg that focused on the lived experience of
"average citizens" (Piirainen 1997; Simpura & Eremitcheva 1997), my research sought to
uncover new socio-spatial paradigms in post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Finnish sociologists
who have done extensive work in transitional Russia frame qualitative research methods
as a tool to examine a phenomenon whose existence is beyond dispute in order to find
unnoticed nuance in that phenomenon (Alasuutari 1995); in this way, the resulting data
can elicit the new conceptual categories taking shape in radically changed social
conditions (Piirainen 1997). Pavlovskaya's combination of interviews with mapped
commercial data in Moscow provided inspiration for an innovative spatial study of
societal transformation in Russia (2002, 2004). Sassen concurs that "detailed fieldwork is
a necessary step in capturing many of the new aspects in the urban condition" and
recommends "depth of engagement" and "effort towards detailed mappings" (2005, 355).
71
Some studies have examined aspects of spatial culture in St. Petersburg (Ruble 2003;
Staub 2005; Utekhin 2004), but much remains to be done to create the studies of
"pedestrian" life that Hellberg-Him (2003) called for in her comprehensive study of the
city's changing culture. St. Petersburg has a rich and idiosyncratic past for a post-Soviet
city (Bater 1976; Ruble 1990). Many studies that provide context for St. Petersburg's
entry into the global economy focus on Central and Eastern Europe (Hamilton et aI.,
2005) or Moscow (Brade & Rudolph 2004; Kolossov et a1. 2002; Golubchikov 2004;
Gritsai 2004); they also tend to focus on criteria established in Western scholarship for
world city status and economic indicators. Axenov, Brade, and Bondarchuk have
demonstrated convincingly that market mechanisms now playa role in structuring
Petersburg's retail patterns and consumer behaviors (Axenov 1997; Axenov et a1. 2006)
and Bater has shown that elite housing has not entirely changed the historically persistent
profile of downtown St. Petersburg (2006). However, apart from Boren's study of the
spatial transformation of a suburban St. Petersburg neighborhood (2005), no Euro-
American geographical studies that I could find have drawn on extensive qualitative
research. (This is not true for sociology and anthropology, although these studies have
not emphasized the spatial aspects that most interested me. Important studies that have
influenced my research include: Ries 1997; Pesmen 2000; Boym 2001; Yurchak 2006;
Humphrey 2002.) In building on these studies and also trying to cast a wider conceptual
"net," I hope to capture a broader aspect of how space is used and perceived.
One goal of employing interviews with a range of subjects was to expand the
types of information that has been gathered about the ongoing transformation. As Boren
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notes, most of the work by Euro-American geographers of post-Soviet Russia has
focused on politico-economic perspectives (2005,49). His own work reveals the
influence of his informants in interpreting his observations, but does not privilege the
voices of his informants, focusing instead on an analysis of space and political behavior.
In this project, interviews (conducted entirely in Russian) were supported by analysis of
policy documents, published speeches and media texts; by participant observation and
visual study of St. Petersburg's spaces; and by analysis of maps that resulted from
interview data. However, commentary drawn from interviews remains the shaping
element. This approach sets the project apart from much recent work done by
geographers of Russia (but see work by Graybill 2007; Round 2005; Shubin 2007).
The Russian cultural geographer Glazychev provides retrospective justification
for the choice of this interview approach: in his wide-ranging study of Russia's interior,
he describes the task that he set for the students who collected data for him on over 100
minor cities and settlements: "The task sounded simple: try to see 'everything,' ask about
everything" (2005, 44). In this project, the scope was much smaller: the focus was on St.
Petersburg and the list of questions used in semi-structured interviews with 'ordinary
residents' retained several basic points that sought to elicit spatial patterns and
assumptions. I asked interviewees to describe their childhood or arrival in the city; to
explain their opinions about new construction and development projects, including the
Baltic Pearl; to say where they would most like to live; to say what parts of the city they
liked most. I also asked interviewees to draw a map of main daily routes on a map that I
provided, asking them to elaborate on questions about what they saw along the routes,
73
where they could get stuck (in traffic, etc.), where the route was pleasant for them. In
asking these questions, I was assuming that a certain common fund of spatial conceptions
would be discernible and would allow me to interpret the interviewees' responses as part
of a larger body of spatial practice in St. Petersburg.
To obtain a general picture of the situation in the city, I completed about 90
interviews with 60 subjects which divided about evenly between interviews with
"ordinary residents" of the city and with experts on the city in some capacity-architects,
developers, city officials, members of planning institutes, journalists, and activists.
"Expert" interviews sometimes included elements of the question series that I posed to
"average" residents, but not the mapping series. My interview approach in those cases
aimed to elicit a full description of the interviewee's position in and opinion about the
process of spatial change.
My participant observation aimed to understand broader policy factors that also
formed part of the body of spatial practice. To learn about protest and resident resistance
to various projects, I did extended interviews with protest activists from three city
districts: Primorskii to the northwest, Vasilievskii in the central west, and Moskovskii to
the central south; I also attended some of their public demonstrations. To gain perspective
on the official city policies for urban development, I attended three public hearings on
the city's proposed Rules for Land Use and Construction, for Primorskii, Moskovskii,
and Centralnyi districts, as well as a press conference on the Rules, all held in October.
To learn more about the discourse on historical preservation and architecture, I viewed
exhibits of architectural design in the city at museums and in the Committee for City
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Planning and Architecture (located on Lomonosov Square). I also attended a press
roundtable on architectural preservation where commenters included Alexander Kobak,
acting director of the Likhachev Foundation, and Vera Dementeva, chair of the City
Committee on Historic Preservation. In terms of the Baltic Pearl specifically, I made two
visits to the firm's offices on Vasilievsky Island where I interviewed two company
representatives; I also made an unofficial visit to the neighborhood of the construction
site in December 2006. I also did extensive observation and photography in various
districts of the city in August 2005, August-December 2006, and March 2007.
These approaches served a methodology of discerning as many dimensions of the
socio-spatial discourse as possible. The diversity of interviews, with both experts and
"ordinary" citizens, protesters and city officials, was intended to help me triangulate
emotional or mainly conceptual statements with what I could learn from other sources
about policy, actions, and the actual use of space. The Baltic Pearl, as a new phenomenon
in St. Petersburg, thus appeared against a dense backdrop of other incidents of protest and
plmming issues, and was clearly imbricated in those events. In an effort to capture the
complexity of the factors I saw in operation, I coined the term socio-spatial paradigm.
While ultimately I found that the work of Henri Lefebvre provides basic tools that
adequately approximate "socio-spatial paradigm" as an analytical concept, several themes
in cultural geography also support my analysis.
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Important Concepts in Cultural Geography that Influenced Socio-Spatial Paradigm
Place
Theoretical work in geography on "place" and locality studies also provide a
formative context for my research. It captures the emotional attachment that first drew
my attention in Liudmila Ivanovna's story, but also confronts urgent questions of
transformation due to globalization and of new "contact zones" that form as a result of
migration and social change.
Doreen Massey's work on 'place' dates from essays that appeared in the early
1990s, including "A global sense of place" (1994), through to her philosophical summary
of her thoughts to date, For space (2005), and her recent analysis of London, World City
(2007). Her work describes place as process, as the accumulation of events and
happenings and people that at any moment coexist in space. The beautiful language that
she uses to elaborate on this idea envisions an ideal future space (mostly urban) of
juxtaposition and hybridity; thus, her ideal notion of "throwntogethemess" assumes not
just the physical co-location of widely different objects and people in space, but social
negotiation and political interaction in place.
Massey's work is particularly useful for this study because she captures the nexus
of dispossession and xenophobia that lies at its center. She makes it clear that her
motivation to reimagine "place" comes from her observations of others' anxiety about
immigration-specifically, about migration into England of formerly colonized peoples.
Her leading example in the essay "A global sense of place" (1994) comes from her own
"hybrid" neighborhood, full of shops and restaurants owned by non-Anglo-Saxons and
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making up a new space of British experience. The chapter on migration in For space
rejects the selection of a stone in a European harbor as a stable symbol for the local
population, since the stone, too, at one point came from elsewhere (in some glacial
shift)-thus, she writes, we are all migrants and cannot reasonably exclude as Others
anyone who comes into the space that we now inhabit. Her assertion that place is also
constituted by relationships as "the focus of a distinct mixture of wider and more local
social relations" (1994) is also meant to prevent the creeping growth of assumptions that
places can be isolated as 'pure,' coherent wholes-a step in the argument that is meant to
convince anti-immigration attitudes that their 'places' are already connected to the places
from which migrants came, and are thus not defensible as untouched space. "Place" must
be understood to be always open and accepting, and those who would bound and limit
their "places" in an attempt to purify them of outsiders-in fear of losing their own place-
based culture-must be persuaded to give up their efforts.
While this openness of "place" suggests a way to facilitate new syntheses of
spatial practice, two qualifications must be considered before applying this discussion to
the case study in St. Petersburg. First, Massey de-emphasizes coherence, since that
quality might lead to boundedness and from there to rejection. She does pause briefly on
the idea that "coherent" places may be at times benign and that people may need some
sense of stability: in "A global sense of place," she writes that "There is a need to face up
to-rather than simply deny-people's need for attachment of some sort" (cited in
Cresswell 2004,66). She does not discuss this conceded need any further, leaving
unexamined the hidden "attachments" and persisting preoccupations with certain
77
meaning-structures in space that threaten to crop up and reassert the elements that she
would like us to undo-"certain forms of nationalism, sentimentalized recovering of
sanitized 'heritages,' and outright antagonism to newcomers and 'outsiders'" (cited in
Cresswell 2004, 63). For the purposes of understanding the socio-spatial paradigm into
which new arrivals enter, I actively solicited descriptions of coherent patterns in the
narratives of my interviewees.
Second, Massey is very cautious about authenticity. Her reconceptualization
"underscores the lack of basis for any claims for establishing the authentic character of
any particular place... , There is, in that sense of a timeless truth of an area, built on
somehow internally contained character traits, no authenticity of place" (1994, 121;
emphasis added). To put this another way, Massey wants residents of an area not to
consider their own spatial practices as the privileged, autochthonous, "natural" practices
to which all arrivals must assimilate themselves. Spatial practice and the nature of any
space or landscape is affected by processes far beyond its immediate vicinity, and these
practices and landscapes are always changing. Yet in order to conduct an empirical
analysis of how two types of spatial practices meet and transform each other, I conceded
a conditional authenticity to the narratives of long-time residents.
It seems that Massey is concerned to prevent individuals or groups from
associating themselves with certain features of a place which they will then extrapolate
into an identity of priority or "localness," thus justifying power over or exclusion of
others. However, in order to recognize fully the diversity of local spatial practices and the
possible difficulty of embracing the "throwntogetherness" that Massey endorses, it seems
78
necessary to acknowledge a preexisting system or set of local possibilities and
constraints; these may persist in place even if the actors change, simply in dependence on
the physical constraints or dominant customs. They may oppress or they may sustain;
they are not inherently threatening.
Dirlik (2005) gives a useful example of this alternative approach in concluding an
essay on "colonizing" architectural practices in China. He contrasts not groups, in fact,
but conceptions of using space, stating that "off-ground conceptions and goals of spatial
utility"-such as those embodied in urban megaprojects designed to achieve world city
status-are "premised on the marginalization, if not the erasure, of alternative uses of
space that are more consonant with the needs and prerogatives ofeveryday existence"
(Dirlik 2005, 49-50; emphasis added). He calls for "spaces that affirm life and livelihood
against the abstractions of placeless architecture driven by a fetishism of development"
(2005, 55). Dirlik would like to see projects that have "an organic relationship to the
environment" (2005, 38; for a related concern about the connections of urban
development projects to local needs, see the concluding sections of Olds [2001] or
Marshall [2003]). It is the "sociable"-not necessarily the "local"-that needs SUPPOlt.
Expanding on Dirlik's argument, there are certain kinds of constraints that do not
have to do inherently with aggressive exclusion: any observer of an ecosystem can name
certain shifts in flora that happen in differing locations, such as the shift from fir to pine
when you move from west to east over the crest of a coastal mountain range, or the shift
from tall grasses to ferns and other low undergrowth when you move out of a meadow
into a forest. Many locations in the world have confronted the material limitations on
79
amounts of water, and any group of plants will compete for a constrained quantity of light
and other nutrients. The ferns do not actively exclude the grasses, nor the grasses the
ferns-but they are unlikely to be found in the same place, and an attempt to make fern
grow on a sunny hillside would require efforts that would greatly alter the usual state of
the slope; if ferns and grasses had to develop conditions where they could both survive,
they would have to transform themselves as well as the slope.
This body of theory is therefore an important step in interpreting the Baltic Pearl's
appearance in St. Petersburg, since that project occurs as an element embodying change
in St. Petersburg's landscape with both local and international implications and since it is
both a symptom and a catalyst of broader intercultural confrontation between Russians
and Chinese. Theoretical literature on place opens up urgent questions about these
processes; it does not, however, offer specific tools for analyzing the processes, For
those, I turned to literature on spatial analysis.
Examining differentiated practices through spatial models
Geographers such as Cresswell have actively reincorporated the work of 1970s
humanist geography into their work, recapturing some of their more 'empirical' insights
from the gap left by the cultural turn of the 1980s. The work of Yi-Fu Tuan and Edward
Relph, in particular, seemed na'ive in light of the increased political and social awareness
of Other-ness and patriarchy, a process compelling a differentiated (rather than universal)
articulation of such apparently simple concepts as "home" and "dwelling place."
Cresswell and others have maintained that we still have much to learn from these
geographers. I follow this lead in arguing that, rather than privileging one set of spatial
80
practices and insisting on the "authenticity" of place, Tuan's book Topophilia (1974)
contains some powerful images of how the place-valuation of Western communities had
changed over historical time (1974,104-105). Tuan's first diagram includes a primitive
view of home, center, as safe and sacred, while the area outside is dangerous and
"profane." As he moves through later centuries, noting the change in views on the city
and forested wilderness, his diagrams suggest that what was taken for granted as values
associated with certain kinds of place are not stable, but rather change along with other
social structures and processes. Arguably, these diagrams get at one aspect of spatial
experience that the term "socio-spatial paradigm" aims to capture.
Returning to Tuan's spatial diagrams with an eye to studying overlapping socio-
spatial paradigms, we can apply them not in order to suggest an aggregate view of a
particular society's dominant spatial conception, but to see them as co-existent in time. If
we superimpose one over the other and imagine that the two conceptions of valued places
have to be "co-present" as Massey would have it, then we begin to ask how two different
spatial conceptions would affect interactions. How would decisions about how to treat
places be made if their claims on space conflicted? This begins to integrate such political
questions of "geographies of power" direct!y into the tools of landscape analysis that
Tuan provided.
Similarly, early geographers also made use of Kevin Lynch's work on cognitive
mapping in cities (1960). Lynch's well-known structural analyses of how the built
features of cities interact with residents' knowledge of and conception of city space
offered a crucial tool for realizing that residents do not see everything that actually lies on
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a city landscape (Lynch also meant these maps, perhaps chiefly, as evaluative tools for
the usability and transparency of the city structure). In fact, other scholars took this idea
one step further and examined the differences between cognitive maps created from
interviews with groups of residents with varying socioeconomic positioning. In a key
article, Peter Orleans (1973) presented cognitive maps for five different groups of
residents in Los Angeles, following techniques used by Lynch to produce a unified
cognitive map of the same city. (The five groups had different ethnic, social, and
economic qualities.)
Orleans used Lynch's techniques to show that Los Angeles was differently effective
for different groups-thus laying a foundation for study of differing views of place in
relationship to differing social and economic experience. As Orleans concluded,
It is all too easy to reify the concrete manifestation of the city, to assume that its
symbolic representation is equivalent for all of its residents. This is especially
dangerous if the perceptions of middle-class residents are taken as representative
of the population at large.... [We need to] continually check our own world view
with that of others who share the same matrix, even though, or perhaps especially
because, our social worlds all too often touch but fail to interpenetrate.
(1973, 129-130)
Implied in Tuan's work and more explicit in Orleans's is the fact that each diagram or
cognitive map depicts not just coexisting flows, but different sets of values and customs
that have different material results, requirements, and constraints in the landscape. While
they become static on the page, they also imply certain patterns of mobility and "a
distinctive environmental imagery" (Orleans 1973, 128)-that is, a subselection of
noticed and utilized elements as bearers of place-meaning.] In 51. Petersburg, such
1 Soja probably has these analyses in mind when he writes that 'often the interpretation [of different
cognitive maps] abruptly ended with naIve categorical idealizations, such as ... the poor have highly
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distinctions become visible in the different paths and points of orientation used by
pedestrians and automobile users. Long-time residents and senior citizens also tend to
know about and make reference to historical sites in a way that younger or more recent
residents are unable to do; essentially these different residents may be inhabiting the
same city, but different spaces in that city.
Eliciting differing socio-spatial paradigms that operate in the same space can help
us to see why certain groups do not interact or why they feel anxious about the presence
in space of newcomers (insofar as there is a spatial component to this anxiety). Massey
uses a very general approximation of what I intend by "socio-spatial paradigm" when she
deploys the term "geographical imagination"; she defines it as "an implicit geography
that organizes our social understandings, that supports-though usually without being
mentioned explicitly at all-the analyses in documents (as well as practices) of all kinds"
(2007, 87)? Massey's insightful conceptualizations can benefit from retaining empirical
tools to examine specific city typologies and spaces (Lynch 1960; Jacobs 1961; Yeung
1996) or particular types of trajectories (Pred 1990; Urry 2000; Cresswell 2006). Her
discussions of place and the way that hybridity can happen in a place is often idealized;
she and many other scholars want negotiation to happen, but rarely engage with the
question of how that negotiation will take place, and how to establish mechanisms that
will permit people who regard each other as "Other" to talk to each other. While wanting
localized mental maps in contrast to the wealthy' (Soja 1996, 80). His critiques are valid but Orleans
himself, for example, qualifies his own results and does not make such idealizing claims. The maps indeed
do not say much without the accompanying engagement with 'world views' or types of 'interpenetration'
between groups.
2 The most influential recent use of the concept "geographical imagination" has been by Gregory (1994)
and Massey (2005, 2007), although Tuan also has an essay on this topic (1990).
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to retain the critical-geographic assertion that space is not fixed and that it is highly
conceptualized ("constructed"), I also wanted to engage close observations of urban
workings. This turned me to Kevin Lynch and other scholars of urban planning.
Space and power
Kevin Lynch's well-known The Image of the City (1960) has resonance around
the world, including in recent designs from China for the Baltic Pearl. Lynch provides a
concrete set of spatial entities that he describes for use in analyzing the effectiveness of a
city's form; these are paths, nodes, edges, districts and landmarks.
Unlike the dark criticisms of planning emanating from social theory, Lynch does
not concede to planners as much power as they might think they have. He warns, "Only
partial control can be exercised over [the city's] growth and form. There is no final result,
only a continuous succession of phases" (1960,2). In the midst of this assumed chaos and
diversity, he would like to find some commonality. It is not necessarily important to him
that a building, road, or park function precisely as the planner or designer intends, but it
is certainly important that it does function and provide an element for diverse urban
texture which enables navigation and attachment. That is, a planner's planned objects
may be reappropriated by the individual pedestrian in a manner that contradicts the plan.
Lynch's main goal in writing his book is achieving greater usability of the city for
the user. He combined interviews with a wide range of people into an amalgamated map;
the work of a city's planners is judged effective if their planned elements (such as
landmarks and roads) appear in interviewees' mental maps as meaningful destinations or
points of orientation. The reinforcement of certain elements through multiple mentions
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reflects his belief that "Structuring and identifying the environment is a vital ability
among all mobile animals.... Let the mishap of disorientation once occur, and the sense
of anxiety and even terror that accompanies it reveals to us how closely it is linked to our
sense of balance and well-being" (1960, 3-4). These city elements must serve not only for
longtime residents, but also for visitors; the potential subjects moving around Lynch's
city are not only those who are "natives" (although in his study, these subjects tend to
have the clearest, most comprehensive "images" of their city) but also new arrivals to the
city, who are faced with the task of moving around in it and orienting themselves to its
spatial practices as well as the spaces themselves.
In the appendix to Image of the City, Lynch writes:
.. .in a broader sense [the environmental image] can serve as a general frame of
reference within which the individual can act, or to which he can attach his
knowledge. In this way it is like a body of belief, or a set of social customs: it is
an organizer of facts and possibilities. [It may] act as an organizer of activity....
The landscape... furnishes material for common memories and symbols which
bind the group together and allow them to communicate with one another. ... The
symbolic organization of the landscape may help to assuage fear, to establish an
emotionally safe relationship between men and their total environment.
(1960,126-127)
Certainly, as noted above, Lynch does not intend to build a city for "natives" or for a
dominant class; he intends for it to become "usable" for everyone. "Our purpose," writes
Lynch, "is simply to consider the need for identity and structure in our perceptual world"
(10). The potential that his approach offered for eliciting "identity and structure" made
his work foundational for the research methods used in this project: by asking about use
of paths, nodes, landmarks, and so on, I hoped I could really be asking interviewees to
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comment on their knowledge of "symbols and stories" that are embedded in the physical
structure of space.
Space as precursor ofaction: Scott and metis
James Scott's influential work Seeing like a State (1998) prominently uses the
concept of (planners') legibility. Unlike Lynch, for whom urban legibility is a feature that
any city user can access, Scott associates the term "legibility" with state action that seeks
to order society visually as social space, particularly when the state combines a high-
modernist ideology bearing a strong visual aesthetic (the requirement that things appear
ordered) with authoritarian and utopian tendencies (that is, extensive control and
considerable ambitions to "improve" life). The opposing term in his analysis is "metis,"
which he defines early on as "a host of informal practices and improvisations that could
never be codified" (6). Utopian schemes for 'legibility' fail because they suppress metis.
By tying the definition of metis to practices and not to places, Scott supports the
notion that people facing drastic change can indeed adopt and find new ways to live and
that their ability to adapt is not linked to reactionary attachment to particular delimited
spaces (a concern of Massey's); however, he also implies throughout the book that the
society-sustaining processes of metis are embedded in spatial arrangements and niches
that escape state-sponsored planning, and that these processes can disappear if you
disarrange the spatial pattern in which they take root.
In contrast to Certeau's definition of metis (see below), Scott also progressively
adds the aspect of "local practice" to "informal practice." It is clear from many of his
examples and some of his conclusions that metis has a basis in particular places and
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historical customs (cp. Olwig). His example of the description of land in nineteenth-
century France measured "in days and equipment needed to work it"-that is, by the
practices intertwined with that land-also solidifies this essential connection to place.
This understanding could not grow without knowledge of place. For Scott,
Customs are better understood as a living, negotiated tissue of practices which are
continually being adapted to new ecological and social circumstances-including,
of course, power relations. (1998, 34)
This definition is strikingly similar to Olwig's, without the explicit reference to land or
other spatial frames; yet the planning disasters that drive Scott's book are produced by
the loss of these customs by changing the physical organization of space that allow them
(the customs) to exist. In a subsequent section on cities, Scott asserts (in what for me is
the crucial link between "metis" and "place") that spaces organized by common custom
provided "a vital margin of political safety from control by outside elites"-that they
combined "insulation" with "patterns of local solidarity" that permitted alternate political
visions (1998, 54). In this same section, Scott elaborates on this spatial link when he
critiques the geometric "grand plans" of states for four aspects-and three of these are
spatial: "absence of dense street life; loss of cozy spatial irregularities; and gathering
places that promote neighborhood feeling" (57).
In one of his final chapters Scott elaborates on the definitions of metis: it "resists
simplification into deductive principles" (1998, 316); it is "almost always local" (317); it
arises in "spatially and temporally unique settings" (318; my emphases). In order for all
four elements mentioned here to remain applicable, there must be a base of operation-a
physical place, a landscape, a space of reference. Scott aims chiefly to articulate the
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social basis for resistant political action, but in most cases this action has a spatial
underpinning. When he states that "A reasonably strong neighborhood can, in a
democratic setting, fight to create and maintain good schools, useful parks, vital urban
services, and decent housing" (145; my emphasis), he leaves underanalyzed how the
"neighbors" can preserve the physical location that allows them to be neighbors in the
first place.
In the context of modem cities and the struggles over space, who counts as the
party with metis? The long-term residents of a neighborhood, or the planners who have
been studying the city (and probably also living in it) for just as long? While the former
seem to qualify on Scott's terms, the swiftness with which we employ the terms
"nostalgia" or "NIMBY" for those who oppose changes in the built environment points to
the need for a more evenhanded application of terms and methods. Purcell warns about
the "local trap" of excessive sympathy for those who support conservation (2006), but in
the case of St. Petersburg it is arguable that a way of life with a specific infrastructure is
changing; this must be recognized as more than mere sentiment.
Lefebvre
In turning to the work of Hemi Lefebvre in order to elaborate on the idea of socio-
spatial paradigm, I want to emphasize the pragmatic aspects of his work. Tajbaksh quotes
the criticism of Castells that Lefebvre remained too "humanist" in his approach (2001,
50) and neglected the influence of class and other sociological structures. However,
Lefebvre provides a useful template for considering several different aspects of the vision
of space held by both individuals and groups. It is in this pragmatic sense that I employ
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his terms: Lefebvre manages to include conception, action, and expectation in his
analysis in a way that produced clear insights into the material I gathered during
fieldwork and provided the best ready vocabulary to expand the concept of "geographical
imagination" into "socio-spatial paradigm."
In The Production ofSpace (1991, French original 1974), Lefebvre suggests a
deductive approach to observing space and people's behavior in it that can reveal and
illuminate an overarching conceptual spatial structure. In fact the word "structure"
already reduces his idea, which presupposes a complex network of relationships between
different aspects of space. The relationships can be glimpsed in various gestures and
signs; Lefebvre terms these "codes."
Codes will be seen as part of a practical relationship, as part of an interaction
between 'subjects' and their space and surroundings. I shall attempt to trace the
coming-into-being and disappearance of codings/decodings. (1991, 17)
When individuals describe, "read," or act in the space around them, they use many of
these codes. Lefebvre warns that recording an individual's reading cannot capture the
process of how signs and gestures are chosen and fixed. However, he suggests that
"spatial codes have existed, each characterizing a particular spatial/social practice, and ...
these codifications have been produced along with the space corresponding to them"
(1991, 17; second emphasis added); thus, although we cannot discern the practice itself,
we can listen for codes that surface in recountings of the use of space, and we can listen
for the "spaces that conespond to them." At another point in the introduction, Lefebvre
notes that "a spatial code is not simply a means of reading or interpreting space: rather it
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is a means of living in that space, of understanding it, and of producing it" (1991,47);
thus, discerning spatial codes can help to get at "living, understanding, producing."
Lefebvre's belief in the existence of such spatial codes is reinforced in the way
that he sees planners and architects as space-producers who are able to manipulate
space-its forms and signs-in order to manipulate the resulting meaning; for them
"form... is supposed to enunciate or proclaim the function" (1991, 144). This point is
crucial, because it is the consequent reduction of the possible meanings of space that
underpins the seriousness of the critique; the assumption is that planners want to restrict
the meaning to a single, predetermined one that embodies a command to the "reader"
(library =read, park =walk, bank =deposit money, skyscraper =respect financial
power). Lefebvre goes on:
According to this principle, which is espoused by most 'designers', the
environment can be furnished with or animated by signs in such a way as to
appropriate space, in such a way that space becomes readable (i.e. 'plausibly'
linked) to society as a whole. (1991, 144)
Indeed, recall that Lynch did say that city planners, since they "aspire to model an
environment that will be used by many people," are most interested in "group images,
exhibiting consensus among significant numbers" (1960, 7). The idea of consensus
alarms Lefebvre; he sees all "notions of 'design', of reading/writing as practice" as
directed "towards the dissolving of conflicts into a general transparency" (1991, 145),
that is, into a dismissal of difference and conflict for the sake of a state consensus. Yet
Lefebvre indicates a recognition of Lynch's concern with orientation and environmental
coherence when he states that "all 'subjects' are situated in a space in which they must
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either recognize themselves or lose themselves, a space which they may both enjoy and
modify" (1991,35).
Similarly to Scott, Lefebvre sees an explicit relationship between space and a
successful practice in that space. When he laments that radical social groups (such as
communes) have not been able to outlast their critics and internal divisions, he sees a
spatial causality: "the absence of an appropriated space, the inability to invent new
forms" (1991, 379) hampered those efforts-that is, the failure to create a new space
commensurate with new social structures eventually destroyed the new society.
Lefebvre's "trialectics" provides a way to "test" for truly new space.
Lefebvre's trialectics
In the succeeding chapters I use Lefebvre's terminology as a quick method of
extracting evidence for socio-spatial paradigms. This requires a reading of Lefebvre's
main spatial trichotomy, which Harvey skims over and misrepresents (1989) and to
which Soja draws attention but also obscures by overstating its difficulty (1996).
Cresswell helpfully summarizes that the trialectics emphasize that "place is constituted
through reiterative social practice-place is made and remade on a daily basis" (2004,
39). Through observation of these repeated actions, Lefebvre proposed new
understandings of how space is "produced."
Lefebvre uses many triplets in The Production ofSpace that he intends to help
him articulate his new science of space. Sometimes the three terms are numbered (1991,
33-34) or clearly linked to additional terms, but sometimes it is more difficult to decide
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on clear correlations. In the table below, the top two rows contain Soja's terms (1996); I
have italicized the words that need clarification.
Firstspace
physical space
1
spatial practice
perceived
Secondspace
mental space
2
representation of space
conceived
Thirdspace
social space
3
space of representation
lived
As Soja's interpretation shows, the second term in the triad is the clearest. It is the first
and third terms that occasion some trouble. In Soja's interpretation, a "Firstspace
perspective" is "focused on the 'real' material world" and a "Secondspace perspective...
interprets this reality through 'imagined' representations of spatiality" (1996, 6).3
"Thirdspace," by contrast, which for Soja is the "space of representation," the "lived"
space, has the most radical potential for revising the other two (even though they work
together for Lefebvre). Soja sees it as "the creation of another mode of thinking about
space that draws upon the material and mental spaces of the traditional dualism but
extends well beyond them in scope, substance, and meaning" (1996, 11). This final
formulation, in spite of Soja's enthusiasm for Thirdspace, does not tell us very much
about how the three terms actually work together or about Lefebvre's approach to
examining their manifestation in space.
First, we should remember that while Lefebvre did not recommend studying the
layout of physical space or the material world per se, he did encourage a focus on the
linked term "spatial practice" and on the codes that practice inscribes in physical space.
He implies that it is possible to "perceive" these codes and work backwards to the spatial
3 Harvey perhaps gets hung up on the word "imagined," which causes him to describe the triad as 1
experience, 2 perception, 3 imagination, and confuses what Lefebvre means by all three (1989, 220-221).
92
practice that we can link: to specific spaces organized by a particular historical mode of
production (1991, 17). This is not the same thing as the "Firstspace perspective" that Soja
sees as outmoded (and to which he would probably link: Lynch, Tuan, and Relph).
Perceiving the codes requires study of physical space.
Second, the "Thirdspace" term is both more complex and simpler than it seems
based on Soja's depiction of the physical-mental duality that it supposedly explodes. A
"space of representation" is not always a liberating space; it concentrates and expresses
social meaning, and is formed by lived practice, but may be just as unintentional as the
"reading" that (as we have seen) Lefebvre deplored. Creating "spaces of representation"
can be a powerful gesture to make, but anyone can make it. (In my quotations from the
1991 translation and throughout the chapters, I follow Soja's practice of using the phrase
"space of representation" for greater clarity.)
Lefebvre often turns to the European Middle Ages in order to show what he
means by his terms. First he offers some commentary on them (the two passages are
contiguous but I separate them to highlight the distinctions):
Representations of space are certainly abstract, but they also playa part in social
and political practice; established relations between objects and people in
represented space are subordinate to a logic which will sooner or later break them
up because of their lack of consistency. [This implies that they are judged by their
ability to be consistent.]
Spaces of representation... need obey no rules of consistency or cohesiveness.
Redolent with imaginary and symbolic elements, they have their source in
history-in the history of a people as well as in the history of each individual
belonging to that people. (1991,41)
These two terms, then, are both collective as well as individual; notably, a "space of
representation" can be fraught with history as well as promise liberation. When Lefebvre
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gives some specific examples for each term from medieval society, the terms gain yet
more shape. I separate them again in order to facilitate comparison and clarity:
1 spatial practice =network of local roads close to peasant communities,
monasteries and castles, also the main roads between towns and the great
pilgrims' and crusaders' ways.
2 representations ofspace = the Earth, the underground 'world,' the luminous
Cosmos, Heaven of the just and of the angels a fixed sphere within a finite
space... ; below this surface, the fires of Hell .
3 spaces of representation =the village church, graveyard, hall and fields, or the
square and the belfry.
(1991,45)
As these examples show, "spatial practice" entails not just the physical surroundings
themselves but an articulation of relationships in and between spaces that fix hierarchies,
directions, and priorities; many of the examples that Lefebvre gives here are of spaces for
movement rather than for stasis. "Representations of space" clearly refer to a religiously,
ideologically, or philosophically conceptual structuring of the world; they provide a
general structure for what spaces can mean in relation to the conceptual structure (is a
space oriented to heaven or to hell, for example). Finally, "spaces of representation"
concentrate social meaning and priorities in spaces that are created and sustained by
repeated practices that articulate their consistency though the performative movement of
bodies. (As Lefebvre noted just a few pages before, these spaces "need obey no rules of
consistency," but they are recognizable as intended for certain acts because of the activity
that has come before, even if the precise activities may change in the future.)
Based on these examples, it is clear why Lefebvre suspects that he must focus
much of his energy on "spatial practice," the part of the triad that analyzes how people
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move in and between spaces. "Representations of space" and "spaces of representation"
have a degree of coherence that allows easier observation, while "spatial practice" is
elusive; the last, though, may be the key to understanding "the truth of space." As
Lefebvre implies in this short passage, it might be the third term that helps to decipher the
relationship between the other two: "the question is what intervenes, what occupies the
interstices between representations of space and spaces of representation. A culture,
perhaps?" (1991, 43). "Spatial practice" is surely not "a culture" in and of itself, but can
give clues to it, and perhaps to its change.
Understanding "spatial practice" as the articulation of relationships in and
between spaces that fix hierarchies, directions, and priorities presents an intriguing
possibility in Lefebvre for studying how globalization gets enacted at the local level. In
discussing leisure spaces that have developed to give (deceptive) relief from "the
homogeneous matrix of capitalistic space," Lefebvre suggests that these "specially
equipped 'spaces'" are "syntagmatic links between activities within social spaces as
such" (1991, 227). This provocatively suggests one implied definition of "spatial
practice" as the mode of linking 'spaces of representation' together-whether mode of
travel, order of visit, or length of stay. In trying to understand precisely where
globalization makes its mark in localities, we might (as one option) study the local
"spatial practice" as the "syntagmatic links" between existing (and newly developing)
"spaces of representation" and as the embodiments of shifts in "representations of space."
While he moves away from this notion of spatial syntax, this passage on the
following page helps to extend the hypothesis:
95
Inasmuch as global space bears the inscriptions and prescriptions of power, its
effectiveness redounds upon the levels we have been discussing-the levels of the
architectural (monument/building) and the urban. Where global space contrives to
signify, thanks to those who inhabit it, and for them, it does so, even in the
'private' realm, only to the extent that those inhabitants accept, or have imposed
upon them, what is 'public.' (1991,228)
In the earlier historical times that Lefebvre discusses and from which he gives examples,
the operative "representation of space" was generated locally or regionally. As has often
been stated, the effect of the "global" on the "local" and regional is neither unidirectional
nor even, but it is hard to escape the persistent impression that "global" signs and forms
become dominant. This passage in Lefebvre suggests that the global and local are not
binaric but imbricated and coexistent: but the impression of the global's dominance is
overwhelming because it is as though the space between (the "syntagmatic links")
becomes global whereas before it was more locally produced. This means that taking note
of whether the "syntagmatic" spaces are globally produced or locally created forms an
important step in studying larger cultural and socio-spatial shifts.
Lefebvre and differentiation
As shown earlier in a discussion of the concept of "place," analysis of space
through different cognitive maps has the potential to help us explore the diversity of
urban experience as well as the spatial experiences of different groups. Lefebvre provides
a vigorous theoretical support for this approach.
Ethnologists, anthropologists and psychoanalysts are students of. .. spaces of
representation, whether they are aware of it or not, but they nearly always forget
to set them alongside those representations of space which coexist, concord or
inteifere with them; they even more frequently ignore social practice. (1991,41;
emphasis added)
96
Crucially that Lefebvre suggests that representations of space can "coexist, concord, or
interfere" with each other. The implied layering immediately recalls Massey's notions of
"coeval" presences and "throwntogetherness" (2005, 141). Later in an even more richly
suggestive passage, Lefebvre expands on this point:
A theory is therefore called for, one which would transcend spaces of
representation on the one hand and representations of space on the other, and
which would be able properly to articulate contradictions (and in the first place
the contradiction between these two aspects of representation). Socio-political
contradictions are realized spatially. (1991,365; second emphases added)
Lefebvre indicates that conceptions of space and lived experiences of space may
contradict each other. Following this statement, I hypothesize a general common fund of
knowledge about space in a single city (a generally operating "representation of space")
yet recognize that different groups and actors in the city may invoke different elements in
that representation of space when making their arguments about what should happen to a
particular landscape (e.g. in the medieval example, some may argue that a landscape
should express association with heaven, while others may argue it should be associated
with hell). While there will be a certain common fund of "spaces of representation"
(museums, landmarks, main streets, churches, markets), different groups and actors will
emphasize different "spaces of representation," order them differently in their routes, and
place them differently in a spatial hierarchy.
Articulating a Socio-Spatial Paradigm
To restate, Lefebvre saw "codes" as "part of a practical relationship, as part of an
interaction between 'subjects' and their space and surroundings" (1991,17; emphasis
added). Studying a particular behavior in space that is governed by such codes can-or so
97
Lefebvre's work implies-lead us to an approximation of codes and how they change
over time with changing modes of production. I was attracted to the empirical approaches
that I used based on the hypothesis that any individual's choices, loyalties, and
movements reflect a degree of pragmatism (Lefebvre's "practical relationship") that no
one individual would be able to describe consciously. (For example, Lefebvre cautions
that a "reader of space" may become overly obedient to its signs.) I suspected that I
would have to capture the evidence for "codes" in several ways-through knowing the
history of, and trends in, the base environment; through hearing individuals' narrative of
spatial loyalties and trajectories; through observing significant places and spaces; and
through studying public discourse about the overall environment and particular spaces. It
is this hunch, for example, that suggested the use of "route descriptions" in my interviews
with "average residents" (which I discuss more fully in Chapter VI).
Although I feel that Harvey misinterpreted Lefebvre in early summaries (1989),
his work clearly reflects Lefebvre's profound influence; I recognize the early stimulus to
materializing a spatial analysis in Harvey's comment that "urbanization should ... be
regarded as a spatially grounded social process in which a wide range of different actors
with quite different objectives and agendas interact through a particular configuration of
interlocking spatial practices" (2001, 349).4 Hoping that a more articulated spatial
analysis could cut across assumptions made about the fate of different classes in the post-
Soviet transition, I found reinforcement in Sykora's rejection of a determinist path-
4 In fact, Harvey presents in this article ("From managerialism to entrepreneurialism") a very Lefebvrian
triad (artefacts, institutional arrangements, and environment of experience) which presents a much closer
approximation of Lefebvre's model than his interpretation in The Condition ofPostmodernity (1989). His
powerful analysis of urban entrepreneurial projects in that article moves on to other points, however, and
does not dwell on this triadic model as a tool for analysis.
98
dependency analysis as offered by Pickles and Smith (1998) and his statement that
"We... have to take into account the effects of historically formed geographies deeply
embedded in cities and regions on the behavior and decisions of key actors that shape
current societal and especially territorial transformations" (Sykora 2008,290; emphasis
added). An effort to recover the lived experience of individuals in studying these
processes (such as Pavlovskaya 2002; 2004) also finds support in one of Kaganskii's
definitions of "landscape":
An unbroken polymorphic space on the earth's surface; a polyscalar and
polyrhythmic diversity; a living environment of places that are saturated with
meaning by the people who live in them. (2001, 135)
For example, in St. Petersburg, there is a clear geographical imaginary of Europe (see e.g.
Turovskii 2003, 162). However, in the city today, different groups make widely different
uses of "Europe" as a representation of space. The elites look to Europe as the source of
successful economic models and esthetic prestige. Many activists in the city, whether
they are protesting unscrupulous construction or new highways, "look to" Europe in a
different sense, for models of legal action and for the authority of the World Court. Some
protesters against the Baltic Pearl or the Gazprom skyscraper (see below, Chapter IV)
also used Europe very much as their model-but the part of Europe to which they
referred varied. For example, intellectual elites who disapproved of the Gazprom
skyscraper's placement engaged in debates over which European city offers the best
model for Petersburg's development-Rome, Paris, London, or Stockholm. By contrast
again, European economic prosperity and high-tech microlandscapes (such as Sir
99
Norman Foster's buildings) were ways in which Gazprom tower supporters invoked
Europe to support their arguments.
Brief examples
Throughout the dissertation, I discuss and analyze space in S1. Petersburg by
using the terms described above. Socio-spatial paradigm refers to the complex of spatial
assumptions, practices, and attitudes that gets deployed, particularly by individuals. I use
Lefebvre's terms "representation of space, space of representation, and spatial practice"
to refer to specific aspects of this complex, particularly when I analyze spaces
themselves-material locations do not so much have "socio-spatial paradigms" of their
own but rather appear as elements in the paradigm of an actor or group, while Lefebvre's
notions can work usefully for both analyses.
To further suggest the relevance of what this study can reveal, I end this chapter
with a sketched analysis of two types of sites in S1. Petersburg-parks and fitness clubs-
that suggest how spaces of representation differ between socioeconomic groups. They
thus also hint at larger changes taking place in the social fabric, in the tendency to value
certain types of places within cities, and to value the city as a whole in a certain way.
S1. Petersburg contains parks dating back to the 18th-century founding of the city,
when the monarchs and appointed planners applied European models in order to
"civilize" the Russian north (a "representation of space" laid out on the landscape as
"spatial practice" for the upper classes, and a "space of representation" for their claims to
be European). Parks, then, are not by any means an invention of Soviet planning -
although the creation of several city parks and persistent attitudes to them could be said
100
to derive from the Soviet planning ethos, which in tum derived some of its energy and
vision from the Garden City movement in Europe. (Here we see how the park as "space
of representation" for urbanity expanded to include the "spatial practice" of all residents,
and intriguingly links the "representations of space" of the aristocratic Baroque and
Soviet egalitarian planning apparatuses.) As revealed in a survey conducted recently
(Karpov 2004), the percentage of Petersburg residents who feel entitled to city-provided
green space within walking distance of their residences is high. Current city
administrators who have turned yet again to (contemporary) European models of services
and urban landscapes definitely value parks as well, even as they try to apply post-Soviet
means to fund these projects and as they give out permits for construction in certain green
spaces.
This last situation, however, starts to highlight the divergence in conception of
parks between those who remain within a Soviet-generated set of attitudes about use of
space and those who style themselves "contemporary" (the same "space of
representation" starts to function within different "spatial practices" and "representations
of space"). A park in the Soviet era might have amenities in it, especially small-scale
amusement parks; Gorky Park in Moscow was famous for its giant Ferris wheel.
However, many parks would strike Western eyes as looking almost neglected-open
green spaces, relatively unmanicured, without amenities. City dwellers saw these spaces
as local "nature," especially if they did not have the time or money to leave the city limits
for the dacha belt and forests; people talked of "getting oxygen" there and did not expect
much beyond a small kiosk with ice cream (but certainly numerous benches). Their
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"spatial practice" in such parks included passing through on the course of daily errands,
suntanning, sitting, drinking, or chatting.
Today, some city officials are trying to increase the number and quality of
amenities provided in parks. Around Aviators Park southwest of the city center, local
residents have been fighting the installation of a large tennis complex for several years.
They deeply resent the idea that public park space would be taken over by a private club,
even if that club promises to provide a certain number of free lessons for local children.
The park itself, while pleasant and green, does have several large empty patches of
asphalt that detractors can point to. However, residents who oppose the tennis complex
prefer to keep the park underdeveloped in order for mothers with perambulators to have
full access to the space.
At a public hearing for the district on land use laws in October 2006, a dispute
arose between the senior city official from the planning department and several activist
residents: the official admonished people that they should support the tennis complex; he
had played tennis his whole life, he said, and found it very beneficial. The surge of
contempt in the audience was audible. It's all very well for him, fine fellow-murmured
the listeners-playing tennis! For them, envisioning this sport in their local park was
tantamount to having it taken over by invaders. In a conversation that I had later with one
of the activists-a woman in her early 60s-it was clear that the individuality of tennis,
as well as its cost, was part of the problem. "Sport should be collective, don't you think?"
she said. "And the space should be for everyone." The "spatial practice" that temlis
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represented seemed alien to these residents, who harbor a "representation of space" that is
partly based on hygienic norms established in the 1920s (Karpov, interview, 10/29/06).
Ultimately the residents who protested the tennis complex envision the park used
in very different kinds of "activity spaces" as Massey has them: that is, the activity to be
performed there lies on a different point in the daily or weekly trajectory, and has widely
different destinations as its other points. People who played tennis at the complex would
arrive in cars (as evidenced by the space allotted for parking in the proposed design) and
would not walk through the park as so many local residents did; they would use the space
as a recreational stop-off and not as part of their daily landscape. Numerous paths
through the park (and other pedestrians observed during fieldwork) show that the park
functions as a pass-through space for many residents, integrated into the way that they
envision their neighborhood as their "place."
This example contains certain elements of the contrasts that fitness clubs raise in
contemporary Russian society. While younger people and a certain higher class of
middle-aged Russian people have started to use the fitness clubs that have sprung up
around the city, residents who cannot afford or disapprove of these establishments make
comments that emphasize the very different type of activity space that contains a fitness
club. Such gyms are discussed as part of a complex of nodes that includes a car, emphasis
on self, and a certain kind of job. Using a gym is not just a sign of Westernization or
Western trends, but indicates that a person moves differently through the city than other
people do, intersecting different nodes and experiencing the same places differently. We
cannot set up the conflict between those who are for and against the tennis complex as
103
merely a struggle between wealthy and poor, or between modern and backward people-
in fact, a whole way of envisioning and moving through space is at stake.
It is the purpose of this dissertation to explore the effectiveness of the "socio-
spatial paradigm" in analyzing the multiplicity of urban visions and practices, and to find
ways to discuss with more insight the spatial conflicts that result in xenophobia and
dispossession.
104
CHAPTER IV
THE BALTIC PEARL AS SPATIAL CATALYST
When there is contact between socio-spatial paradigms which differ strongly-as
we might presume with Russian and Chinese models-then there is an opportunity for a
hybrid to develop. Hybrid spaces have been much discussed as a new global ideal (e.g.
Amin 2004), but the relative difficulty in forming one depends on the degree of conflict
that is likely to occur based on misunderstandings. Positing a socio-spatial paradigm
implies that hybridization could be more successful if the parties involved could more
readily recognize the spatial practices of others and understand the role of their respective
primary spaces of representation. This chapter looks at visions of the Baltic Pearl as an
urban district and also looks at a small architectural element (the courtyard) within the
design in order to reveal differing socio-spatial paradigms. Study of the contradictions
can support a conversation about how groups with starkly different socio-spatial
paradigms might be expected to live together, i.e., in part, whether the space will increase
or mitigate xenophobic tendencies. This type of examination can also reveal whether
threats to cherished spatial elements will heighten sensations of dispossession. Again,
these questions cannot be answered at higher scales.
The first part of this chapter suggests coincidences and contradictions in visions
for the space of the Baltic Pearl proposed by the city administration and by the Baltic
Pearl firm through its design presentation books, exploring what meanings and activities
105
the site might concentrate as a space of representation, what spatial practices it will
incorporate or participate in, and what representations of space govern its conception.
The second part considers how the "urban morpheme" of courtyards functions within the
Baltic Pearl (both materially and symbolically) and how the socio-spatial paradigms in
which that spatial form is set intersect with the Baltic Pearl project and work to form new
hybrid space.
As Gel/bras suggests (see Chapter II), the contradiction in today's Russia between
the actions of national governments and the needs of individual citizens is striking. St.
Petersburg indeed hopes that the Baltic Pearl project will meet several local needs
(housing, infrastructure, prestige-described below), while the national governments of
both China and Russia hope that it will fulfill several geopolitical, national-scale needs.
Local residents in St. Petersburg are also concerned and confused about what the Baltic
Pearl quarter means for them. There is a yawning gap between making the city a "good
place for life and work" and making it conform to the other five (economically-framed)
points of the Genplan's goals. The conceptual gap between these two meaning frames has
a lot to say about how successful it is to use such a project to help St. Petersburg
accomplish the transformation from a city with a thick, meaningful past into a city with a
flexible future, open to new meanings and spaces.
Background of the Baltic Pearl
To date the Baltic Pearl exists chiefly on paper; this means that a spatial analysis
of its capacity to support Genplan goals must depend so far on design materials and
related documents. From these materials it is clear that the genesis and development of
106
the project happened at the "privileged" scale as a state project. The official agreement
was concluded between the municipal government of St. Petersburg and a consortium of
firms headed by the Shanghai International Investment Corporation (SHC). However,
these entities have close ties to their respective central states: Petersburg city governor
Valentina Matvienko was appointed to her position by then-president Vladimir Putin,
which makes it highly unlikely that such a deal could be concluded without his implicit
approval; SHC was capitalized by the Shanghai municipal government (using the island
on which the ultra-eco-friendly project Dong Tan will ostensibly be built), and thus also
ultimately has ties to the Chinese state. The first part of this chapter discusses how the
Baltic Pearl is conceived of as spatial practice and space of representation for these
"privileged scale" considerations. That is, as a "spatial practice," to what will the project
connect Petersburg? How will it rearrange Petersburg's place among world cities and
between Russia and China? As a "space of representation," to what values and activities
will it give a place for performance? Will it re-present the urban values of traditional St.
Petersburg, or something new?
Site details
As can been seen on Map 4.1, the Baltic Pearl is located far outside the orbit of
most other high-profile city projects; it is not near the rail terminals or the historical
district (where the highest density of commercial activity is still located), and it is not
located right on the already constructed eastern section of the Ring Road. The site is
bounded to the south by the heavily used Peterhof Highway, which leads to a popular
suburb palace and a satellite town, both also called Peterhof. To its north is the Gulf of
o
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o 1.25 25 5 Kilometers
I I I I I I I I I
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Map 4.1. The Baltic Pearl in relation to other large urban development projects.
108
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Map 4.2. Matisov Canal area in 1993 (above) and 2005, showing added land.
Marine Facade
Port Facilities
ap 4.3. St. Petersburg's shore along the Gulf of Finland, designated as the "fa~ade of the city." a\0
Baltic PearKonstantin Palace
at Strelna
PeterhofPalace
and Gardens
110
{j
Map 4.4. Image from the 2005 Baltic Pearl design book depicting water transport
connections. From right to left: a downtown city dock; the port facilities; the Baltic
Pearl; the Constantine Palace at Strelna; PeterhofPalace; and the port at Lomonosov.
Map 4.5. Image from the 2005 Baltic Pearl design book depicting the city's
development towards the south.
111
Finland; to its southeast is a large Soviet-era park, and to its northeast, also bordering the
gulf, is the planned site of another residential district under the direction of the same
Russian planner-architect who has worked on the Baltic Pearl with its Chinese team.
West of the quarter, beyond a green buffer, stands a tobacco factory.
The parcel of land which has become the Baltic Pearl site did not exist in its
entirety as recently as 1990, as can be seen by comparing the spot on a map produced in
1993 and one produced in 2005 (see Map 4.2) Although interviewees in the city
administration downplayed this information, the northern part of the site closest to the
Gulf was created artificially; the land had to "settle" for at least ten years before
construction could commence. Other physical aspects around the site that had to mature
before it could become attractive for investors were the construction of a water treatment
plant (Lopatkin, Gorod, 7/26/04) and an electricity station.
These facts may give the idea that the site is undesirable or marginal, but this is
true only if it is evaluated with respect to the historical center alone. In fact, development
of the site into a similar residential quarter had been envisioned in the 1986 city Master
Plan, long before the city signed agreements with the Chinese investors; the local
planner-architect who became the Russian liaison to the Shanghai team had previously
worked on designs for the site when his planning institute was still a part of the municipal
government (Nikitin, interview; Kharchenko, interview). As the journalist Shuvalov ..
explained,
There was a project in the mid-90s to move theBaltic Shipyards away from the
center, to move the Admiralteiskii drydocks and reclaim the whole area as
housing. In order to create a fac,;;ade, so that there would be a fac,;;ade, a face for the
city. The Marine Fac,;;ade is part of this ... , And the Baltic Pearl is right about here,
112
it's not the very center, but more or less. And these marshy areas that were here,
they have to be tidied up into an embankment, a fa9ade for the city.
(interview, 10/24/06)
The import of such a project is visible on Map 4.3-although it is clear that the port
facilities remain as an obstacle to any plan for a uniform fa9ade on the Gulf of Finland.
However, the site's history as an important component in the vision to modernize and
decentralize the city illustrates that the Chinese consortium was in effect asked to take up
a cherished project for which St. Petersburg itself had not found the resources.
Conversation with a Shanghai designer involved in the early phase of the process
confirmed that the idea to focus on locations around the shores of the Gulf of Finland
came from the St. Petersburg administration. An early schema from a Baltic Pearl design
book (see Map 4.4) shows that the designers placed great emphasis on sites that, at the
time, seemed minor compared to the existing spatial paradigm in the city; however, in .
2008, the sites indicated are clearly part of a broader plan. On the 2004 image, water
travel lines link the Baltic Pearl to Peterhof-certainly a major tourist attraction, but
without significant commercial functions; to the City Center (given current plans, a link
that may turn out to have its terminus at the Marine Fa9ade); and to the Constantine
Palace. The latter is a former summer residence of a Nicholas II's younger brother, Prince
Constantine; as late as 2001, its grounds were open to the public for picnics. By 2004,
when the project began, Putin had transformed the building into a personal residence and
hotel for foreign dignitaries, making the grounds off limits to public visitors except for a
section to the west. Its presence on Baltic Pearl plans originally seemed idiosyncratic.
Now, though, evidence points to long-term plans for the southern gulf shore that explain
113
the emphasis placed on these other sites: new higher-priced housing is being constructed
in Strelna, the nearby former "village," and a competition for the design of a "Palace of
Congresses" was run in fall 2007 for a site to the east of the Constantine Palace
Baltic Pearl design documents reflect other aspects of this vision for St.
Petersburg. Other early images clearly assert that further city development will occur to
the south. (This is supported by a comment made by Solodilov.) As can be seen from
Map 4.5, those presenting the project express this very confidently with a large arrow
pointing southwards. At the time the project was first proposed in 2004, the Chinese
investors must have known about long-term infrastructure plans that have taken visible
shape only in the past two years, such as the extension of the Ring Road past Pulkovo
Airport and the expansion of the airport's international termina1.
Thus, evidence about broad elements of the project's development point to the
influence of state-level actors, such as Putin; the Baltic Pearl seems intended to fill a spot
in a state-envisioned spatial structure linked to national and international prestige. Yet the
finer details of the project must also be considered: how the planners interact with one
another, and what socio-spatial paradigm (of spatial assumptions and assumed useful
spaces) influences their choices at the level of the project's implementation.
Other influences are clearly at work in negotiations between the Russians and
Chinese involved at different levels, as can be seen from the architectural style of the one
building completed on the site as of summer 2008 (Illustration 4.1); this building houses
a luxurious business center and the headquarters of the Shanghai consortium's local
114
Illustration 4.1. The Baltic Pearl business center, with units under construction.
Illustration 4.2. A scale model of the proposed Baltic Pearl design (business center in
foreground).
115
subsidiary, the Baltic Pearl company. A version of the design finally received approval in
early March 2007, seen as the scale model that now stands in the business center
(Illustration 4.2). In contrast to other major prestige projects, active construction
continues at the site; as of September 2008, Nevastroyka reported that the first residential
blocks (visible in Illustration 4.1 behind the business center) were 40% completed and
were already on sale (Project "Baltic Pearl," 9/26/08). By summer 2009, the new owners
may take up residence. But the history of the negotiations still say a great deal about how
spatial assumptions in St. Petersburg are changing.
Influences on the Form and Purpose of the Baltic Pearl
Several statements describing to the Baltic Pearl indicate that it serves the vision
of St. Petersburg as a "space of representation" promising to enact Russian state power
and Russia's rapprochement with China.
The design books authored chiefly in China (that is, prior to the 2006 version)
emphasize this role. For example, in the version produced in December 2004, several
passages emphasize the project's importance for geopolitical ties:
A Pearl symbolizing Sino-Russian jriendship-
China and Russia are two countries with good-neighborly relations. The new
century gives us a good opportunity to cooperate with each other. As the first
large-scale development project that China invests abroad, this project will
transfer friendship sentiments between people of the two countries. We believe
this project will be recorded in the history of Sino-Russian friendly
communication like a bright pearl. (SIIC 2004b, 33)
There are good-neighborliness between China and Russia, friendly relationship
between St. Petersburg and Shanghai, so the construction of this project is not
only of economic but also great strategic significance. It will become a symbol of
Sino-Russia friendship. (2004b, 34)
116
To heighten comparison with later statements that fit into other socio-spatial paradigms,
note that these passages mention sites at only the broadest scales; they provide no anchor
points in spaces of representation or in any specific spatial practice.
Russian historian Rakhmanin cites an intriguing comment made by Putin to
Chinese envoy Chi HaoTian in January 2000, at one of his earliest meetings as acting
president of the Russian Federation: "Putin noted that he retained the 'warmest and best
memories from his with meeting with the chairman of the PRC in September 1999 in
New Zealand at the APEC meeting.' During their conversation Putin reminded Hao that
St. Petersburg and Shanghai were sister cities, and in that sense he and Jiang Zemin
'could be considered brothers'" (Rakhmanin 2000, 388). The fact of sister city-hood
between St. Petersburg and Shanghai was a frequently-cited reason for the location of the
project; it is very possible (as some of my interviewees hypothesized) that the project had
its conceptual inception at this very highest level of personal interest between Putin and
Jiang Zemin. (One of my Chinese interviewees claimed in Fall 2006 to be designing a
Chinese pagoda for Putin's private estate, possibly indicating an unusually high degree of
interest in cooperation with China on Putin's part.)
That some in the Chinese government had been considering the initiation of a
large project in Russia, possibly since the late 1990s, was confirmed by conversations in
January 2008 with a representative of the SUC firm and with academics in Chinese urban
planning (Li, interview, 1/19/08). Partly guided by the example of large Hong Kong
developer firms, some Chinese firms with this profile were seeking a location on which
to complete a construction project abroad. In the case of Hong Kong, the drastic lack of
117
land on which to build drove development firms overseas (Ning, interview, 1/22/08);
Chinese development firms seeking to grow their potential faced the different problem of
a lack of internal demand (Zhuo, interview, 1/22/08), which suggested external
investment as another way to generate profits. As noted by the firm's representative, the
level of competition in this field seemed too stiff in regions already dominated by
Western construction firms; Russia presented an arena with a lower degree of
competition in which the companies could test themselves.
Professionals in planning and architecture interviewed in China felt that the main
motivation for the project came from the need to establish an economic bulkhead in
northeastern Europe. One professor of geography at East Normal University (who had
once studied Russian) suggested motives for the project: the sister-city relationship and
the relationship of the firms to the government would promote friendship, and the less
developed economy in St. Petersburg offered an opportunity to invest and sell more
Chinese goods. The professor's colleague suggested that the political relationship
between Russia and China was better than the economic exchange indicated, so the
project would be part of increasing this turnover.
Specific events that resulted in the project agreements began a few years into
Putin's term. Interviewed by Sergei Baluev in the magazine Gorod, Viacheslav
Zarenkov, the head of a large St. Petersburg construction firm, claimed to have submitted
requests to build on the site as early as 2001; these requests were rejected. Zarenkov also
claimed to have suggested the site to a Chinese executive who visited Petersburg after the
two met at a Shanghai Sino-Russian trade conference in 2003 (Behind the Chinese wall,
118
8/23/04). A delegation of leaders of the largest construction and trade firms in China
visited Petersburg in July 2003, and saw the site at this time; as the Moscow News
reported, the initiative was attributed to Jiang Jiren, chairman of the Shanghai People's
Political Consultative Conference, who visited S1. Petersburg in July 2003 (Rabotnova,
10/19/05; Basic characteristics, 2005).
According to Aleksei Oreshkin of Gorod, the company that took charge of the
investment consortium, SHC, had established the Shanghai Trade Center in S1. Petersburg
in 2002 (Hope becomes real, 12/27/04); a company representative stated that this made
the investors feel that they knew S1. Petersburg (Li, interview, 1/19/08). (Interviewees in
Shanghai stated that this company obtained over half of its capitalization from the
Shanghai Municipal Government.) Further ties developed between the S1. Petersburg
administration and SHC during 2004; in April, during a trade visit to Shanghai,
representatives of the St. Petersburg CISP signed a memorandum of agreement with the
SHC firm. This meeting authorized the Chinese to begin exploratory studies of the site,
which culminated in the signing of a formal agreement in December 2004.
Immediately, some in the city government feared that the resulting project would
become an embodiment of their worst stereotyped fears about Chinese migrants.
Nevastroyka reported that during the session at which the CISP presented the project
formally to members of the City Legislative Assembly, deputies demanded assurances
that the project would not turn into a "Chinatown," complete with overcrowded housing
and high levels of criminality (3/24/05). The CISP representative assured the deputies
that the percentage of Chinese residents in the quarter would not exceed 1%-a number
119
that was offered by head of SHC Cai LaiXing at a press conference (Oreshkin, 12/27/04;
Rabotnova, 10/19/05) and repeated by Vice-Governor Vakhmistrov as reported by
Nevastroyka (3/24/05). This number was apparently offered in order to stem local
anxieties.
The project is the largest such endeavor ever attempted outside Asia by Chinese
firms according to numerous sources such as Gorod magazine (Zagorskii, 7/26/04).
When asked whether it might not have been more advisable to start with a smaller
project, Mr. Li of the SHC remarked that there were many discussions about what sort of
project to propose, including what size it should be. Those involved decided that a larger
project was the best approach; once a large project had been accomplished successfully,
smaller projects could proceed more smoothly (interview, 1/19/08). The subtext may well
be that once the initial wave of xenophobic commentary had crested and been overcome,
other Chinese projects would have a smoother path.
Former Chief Architect of the City Kharchenko, who had presided over the
CUDA when the project was initiated, phrased it as "[the Chinese] wanted a really big
project, they needed a large territory." A builder active in the city's construction industry
commented, "It's not clear who is making the decisions. There are six Chinese
government firms involved, and the Communist Party of China has the status of investor
in the project. ... And somewhere I read that basically they aren't even very interested in
Russia, they actually want to move into Europe, you know? But it's really complicated to
get into Europe, so they have to sit for a while here in Russia.... I don't believe it's a
commercial project." This (admittedly indirect) evidence suggests that members of the
120
Chinese national and Shanghai municipal governments see the Baltic Pearl as a space of
representation for inter-state friendship and also possibly for Chinese ambition.
In a design book for the Baltic Pearl produced exclusively for a Chinese audience
in 2005, there appeared an image of Hu Jintao shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, a clear
marker of the nation-to-nation cooperation. The company representative with whom I
. spoke in Shanghai, however, emphasized the categorization of the project as international
investment, not as a political action. His statement came in response to a question about
the relative positions of Russia and China in the early 2000s as opposed to the 1950s,
when Soviet Russia sent thousands of "experts" to help Mao build Communist China.
This is a different situation, the representative emphasized: "now it is not political, not
like the 1950s, not experts 'sent' to Russia; just investment" (Li, interview, 1/19/08).
Sources for the Baltic Pearl Vision
The three background sections in Chapter II suggest potential roles for the Baltic
Pearl at several scales: in the political maneuvering of the nation-state relationship
between China and Russia; in consolidating a northwest region around St. Petersburg as a
world city; and in the bid to insert Petersburg somehow into European space while still
conserving a political force field centered in Moscow. The added capacity to interpret its
significance through a Lefebvrian analysis reveals several more possibilities, which I
explore in the remainder of this chapter.
If we ask for whom (or for what practices) the Baltic Pearl could function as a
"space of representation," several possibilities suggest themselves: in addition to enacting
geopolitical rapprochement between Russia and China, the quarter certainly has
121
functioned abstractly and will function materially as a space for the enactment of
contemporary architectural visions; it concentrates the attention and practices of planners
and designers; it may become a node of Chinese migration or business activity; it will
gather new urban functions and practices and could come to concentrate ideas of 21 st_
century St. Petersburg. For each of these possibilities, analysis can be expanded by
developing what spatial practices and what "representations of space" combine to
compose socio-spatial paradigms crisscrossing the space. Whose socio-spatial paradigm
will dominate?
This section uses qualitative material from a range of sources. Apart from
interviews described in Chapter III, this chapter also draws from five speeches made by
city governor Valentina Matvienko; material on the Baltic Pearl's official website;
images and text from four iterations of the Baltic Pearl design book; and interviews with
key planners and architects in St. Petersburg, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Matvienko's speeches
Valentina Matvienko's election as city governor succeeded the term ofYakovlev,
who then entered federal-level government as a minister. His term was widely seen to
have reflected a particular venality and caprice, and Matvienko entered as an official who
could get things done. A former Communist Party official from Ukraine, she is not a city
native but has learned to use the language of being a "Petersburger." Matvienko may
even have had some involvement in any negotiations that took place at the federal level,
since she was appointed by Putin in March 2003 as the President's Representative for the
122
Northwest Federal Okrug. She was elected as St. Petersburg's new City Governor in
early October 2003, when the Baltic Pearl project was in its most preliminary stages.
As a City Governor, Matvienko has responsibilities that resemble those of city
mayors around the country-that is, balancing the need to generate profit and the need to
cope with the backlog of social services left behind by the communist system. Matvienko
restored the practice of making a yearly speech to the City Legislative Assembly
(Zakonodatelnoe Sobranie, or ZakS for short) which summarizes the state of the city and
lays out the administration's plans for social programs and for attracting investment. Her
audience is composed of the sympathetic ears of the city deputies but also includes the
city as a whole; therefore, the spatial codes that she invokes in the speeches to engage
that audience and justify her plans reveal the complexity of the socio-spatial paradigm in
which she sets St. Petersburg.
Baltic Pearl design books
A diverse succession of associations and influences structured the design process
as reflected in the presentation books produced for consumption by investors in Shanghai
and administrators and planners in St. Petersburg. Of the ones made available to me for
review, the first book, written in Chinese and English, was produced by the Vast United
Enterprise in association with the main Shanghai investor, SHC, in August 2004; it seems
directed mostly at Chinese investors (judging in part by the two languages used). The
second book was created near the end of 2004; representatives of the Baltic Pearl
investors came to St. Petersburg on December 20 to present their studies of the site and to
sign another agreement about progress on the project, and the book was probably
123
produced for this December meeting. This time, the Petersburg planning institute
NIPIgrad is listed as participant along with Vast United; the diction of the book indicates
an injection at this stage of ideas from Petersburg officials and planners. As planning
consultants, one of the title pages lists as collaborators the Netherlands planning firm
Kuiper Compagnons and the Shanghai institute ECADI. This book, alone of the four, is
produced in Chinese, English, and Russian-indicating its audience in both China and
Russia. The third book was produced in December 2005 after the conclusion of an
International Proposal Collection process involving six major international architectural
design firms. NIPIgrad is listed, but the main author of the book was a design evaluation
team at Tongji University in Shanghai, one of the most inf1uential design institutes in
China. The book is printed in Chinese and Russian, indicating its preparation in China but
audience in Russia; it provides evaluation of the projects as well as synthesizing their
proposals. The final book, presented in November 2006, was prepared chief1y by the
British engineering and design firm ARUP, with some consultation from NIPlgrad; it is
printed in English and Russian, indicating that its main audience was in Russia. These
varying elements in both language and designers indicate the complex process of
negotiation and communication that had to take place before the final design received
approval in March 2007.
An interview with a planner at Tongji University in January 2008 clarified that
the designers for the August 2004 (wholly Chinese-authored) version based their design
on information provided to them by the St. Petersburg administration as well as the
Shanghai investment firm. In early 2005, under pressure from the City Administration to
124
make the Baltic Pearl project truly innovative and high-profile, the firm had the Design
Institute at Tongji University in Shanghai organize an International Proposal Collection
(IPC) process. The results of this process were announced in October 2005 in St.
Petersburg. Seven groups were selected to participate, all prominent European or
American architectural design firms. The Russian press (as well as many officials) were
perplexed that no winner was announced, but the organizers from Tongji had never
intended to declare one winner. The competition thus raised the international profile of
the project, and of St. Petersburg, but did not commit the Chinese firm to "buying" any of
them. (A contact in Russian planning said that they would have engaged Rem Koolhaas if
he had not asked so high a fee.) The several proposals were returned to Tongji
University, where the planning specialists wrote up a summary and produced a new
design presentation book that sought to incorporate the best elements garnered from the
competition (Xu, interview, 1/23/08).
In its final pages, the 2005 book presents a summary of the seven projects. Two of
the projects came from Chinese institutes. Four were world-famous or highly significant
Western design or planning firms: Office of Metropolitan Architecture working with
ARUP; the American-Hong Kong firm HOK; Sweco; and Xaveer de Geyter. The final
entry was from the Russian firm Zemtsov Kondiain with Studio 44.
Over the summer of 2006, difficult negotiations with the Gradsovet (Urban
Development Council) prompted the Baltic Pearl firm to engage the British architectural
engineering firm ARUP to do supplemental design work on the project. ARUP created
new elements in the existing design and presented its ideas to the Gradsovet in November
125
2006. Since several features of this new design were also heavily critiqued by the
Gradsovet, the design was returned to the Russian design institute and the lead Russian
architect on the project, Sergei Nikitin.
As noted above, a "final" design for the Baltic Pearl site was approved by the
Gradsovet in March 2007, and some subsections were assigned to architect-planners and
Russian firms for implementation. The "final" design establishes principles for following
city code (including specifications for insolation, permitted sharing of functions by one
building) and distribution of functions throughout the quarter (paths for automobile and
pedestrian movement, placement of major social objects such as schools, location of
retail and commercial sites).
The Baltic Pearl as a Spatial Practice
Socio-spatial precedents from Shanghai
Shanghai presumably provided relevant models for spatial practices (modes of
linkage) and spaces of representation (performance sites) that might be translated to the
St. Petersburg site. Shanghai began to globalize in the late 1980s and early 1990s;
hesitant evaluations of its potential for success at this globalization now seem amusing in
light of the striking development there (Gu and Tang 2002; Wu 2003; Yusuf and Wu
2002). Many scholars of Chinese urbanization have noted the Lujiazui development on
Shanghai's east side, or Pudong (east of the river Pu), and its role in transforming the city
into a significant site for finance and other world city functions per Friedmann and others
(Marshall 2003; Olds 2001; Friedmann 1991). From being a partly finished plan in the
writing of some of these authors, Lujiazui has become a crowded stand of skyscrapers,
--------- ._------_.__ ._ ..
126
backed by the still-growing Pudong district that extends for miles further away from
central Shanghai. Lujiazui was also created after an IPC competition, and in the discourse
of its creation and development we hear the same language of globalization that I
describe below (Olds 2001; Marshall 2003). In spite of misgivings about the choice of
final design (e.g. Marshall 2003), the current Lujiazui is prospering (as far as its own
goals extend). Marshall and aIds both argue that Lujiazui as space turned into a corporate
monoculture with poor provision for public or collective spaces; also, the process of its
development and the development of other spaces around Shanghai offer examples of
authoritative and non-transparent process and neglect of resident rights (this is a broader
problem in China as well as in Russia). However, it is also arguable that public space of
various sorts is abundant in other locations in Shanghai. For the sake of my argument
here, I want to emphasize the experience of urban designers and planners in Shanghai
with a project of this scale, and with astounding success in transforming former
agricultural land into a hub of commerce and world finance (buildings now in Lujiazui
include major banks and financial centers). We should keep that context in mind when
we read the claims made by the Baltic Pearl's designers for the potential of this project to
transform St. Petersburg.
Early design books also draw a parallel between the location of both St.
Petersburg and Shanghai on water-since Shanghai has reoriented itself in recent years to
the Huang Pu River. The parallel has a direct relation to this practice of using a certain
kind of district to raise an area's economic potential and transform urban space as a
whole, as noted in Chapter II: Shanghai deliberately used the Pudong in order to change
127
its identity and increase its potential for world city status. That project began a massive
reorientation of Shanghai to the east, changing a low-lying area of marshes and
subsistence farms into the motor of the city's economy, a densely built expanse of roads,
housing, retail, commercial and business spaces. Olds (2001) argues that the Pudong
made Shanghai legible for international investors, even if Marshall (2003) argues that the
Pudong in fact makes the city less legible for residents and public activity. What are the
spatial implications for St. Petersburg?
To a great extent, the Baltic Pearl is governed by the same "representation of
space" that drives St. Petersburg's turn to post-industrialization; it is the same kind of
"space of representation" that Russian planner Solodilov described for transnationality
and the spatial practices of the global elite (Chapter II). In this section I analyze several
spatial phenomena in St. Petersburg that have relevance to the Shanghai project and in
which it participates.
Transportation routes as spatial practice
A crucial part of St. Petersburg's ongoing development has to do with
transportation and trade as well as with oil. First of all, St. Petersburg is well-placed to
connect Northern Europe with Central and Western Europe for overland travel. In fact, as
Solodilov indicated, it plays an important role in the network of roads planned by the
European Union that will eventually render more evenly coherent the entire space of
Western and Central Europe and European Russia (see Map 4.6). Among multiple major
infrastructure projects planned for the city over the next several years, a project for a ring
128
I
E·ROAD Network in Caucasus and Central Asia
UNITED IlATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE jUNECE)
r ·..n~~I()I~ :11'JISi(l~
El2
[r;JJ
I (~I ,1 I =:
: ,,1 1 r "C ~
Map 4.6. European Union plans to extend a highway network into Russia.
Source: Joint Study on Developing Euro-Asian TranspOit Linkages. United Nations, 2008 .
.' ,
'.,. f, "
".:.',
'. -.: .~I
,-' ll1
j \~
I /'\ \
" ~ '",
. - I' --------...,.
~7--..._.:...____-_
\'
I
"
o .. ,,,
. ,'!
1"1(:'
--."1 ... ,
'" I ..~. r - ,," r,,' f ,Ii'·"
'1;--'
~ .. -,
.... - -.'
Map 4.7. Map of ports in Eurasia.
Source: RathelY, Alain. 2007. "Policy Actions for Developing Efficient Inland Transport Links
between Asia and Europe," International TranspOit Fomm, European Ministers of TranspOlt. p. 5.
129
road around the city has been partially completed (the KAD, mentioned above). A
controversial section of the infrastructural vision is the project for the Western Speed
Diameter. This road, slated to run from north to south over the Gulf of Finland along the
historical city's western edge, is locally intended to relieve the historical city center of
traffic, but at a broader scale (as Solodilov also makes clear, see Chapter II) links St.
Petersburg firmly northwards to Helsinki and Finland and southwest to Poland and
Western Europe. While local awareness focuses on disruptions to neighborhoods brought
by the new roads, the larger picture is one of creating a transportation hub for the
European "continent."
The development of St. Petersburg as a port is closely linked to this transportation
development. The turnover of goods in the local port complex has increased over the past
several years; goods that previously were expected to travel into Russia through the
Black Sea have now switched their routes into the Gulf of Finland (Solodilov, interview).
Not only St. Petersburg but also Lomonosov and Primorsk contribute to this
intensification of sea traffic in the area. St. Petersburg, as the only port Russia has near
Europe, thus takes on an increased role for transport of goods to and from Europe (see
Map 4.7).
Clearly this "representation of space," prioritizing economic nodes on far-flung
trade networks, operates at a far different scale than the efforts to preserve St.
Petersburg's cultural-historical agglomeration structure.
130
Megaprojects as Spatial Practice and Spaces of Representation
The same representation of space is visible in the desire of St. Petersburg
administrators and planners to organize urban mega-projects that are intended to raise the
profile of the city and increase its competitiveness (again with the presence of an impulse
from Moscow/the Kremlin).
The idea of inserting a space of global form, or a space that can connect to the
global economy, has begun to play an extremely important role in the spatial economy of
St. Petersburg. The belief that such projects will revitalize the city as a whole and
transform its economic potential is evident in language used by city governor Matvienko
in her State of the City speeches to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. In March
2006, she spoke of "projects appropriate for a megapolis," indicating that she associated
megaprojects with a rise in the city's status. The following year she was more specific,
using the word "locomotive" to explain the concept:
Petersburg cannot be a regular, average-European city. By its birthright it is an
international megapolis, a bridge between Russia and Europe. Only major,
locomotive-type development projects can give it this future.
(May 2007; emphasis added)
She had expressed the same assumption in her December 2006 comment about the
district which is slated to receive the controversial "GazpromlOkhta-Center" project:
"This is the only thing that can save Okhta!" Indeed, the very decision to transfer the
Gazprom subsidiaries away from Tomsk to St. Petersburg is clear proof that the decision-
makers involved agree with Vendina's suggestion to concentrate resources in the spaces
that can accommodate globalization.
131
Megaprojects as spaces ofrepresentation in St. Petersburg
As of early 2008, there are several plans grouped together by the media as
"projects of the century" which are intended to change St. Petersburg's role and increase
its claims to call itself a world city, even if it remains second to Moscow within Russia.
Since the Baltic Pearl was established as a project in late 2004, several other projects
have arisen that have almost overshadowed the Baltic Pearl; the influx of oil money and
the increasing involvement of the Gazprom corporation has made the Shanghai company
just one investor among many. These other projects are depicted on Maps 4.8 and 4.9.
Many of these projects are meant to become new architectural landmarks, such as
the Second Stage of the Mariinsky Theater. I A cluster of projects to the east includes the
GazpromlOkhta-Center skyscraper. To the west, significant sites are the demolished
Kirov Stadium, where the new stadium for the St. Petersburg soccer team, Zenith, will
rise-paid for by the Gazprom corporation (the team's controlling owner as of 2005) and
designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa; a renovation of New Holland by Sir
Norman Foster; various incursions on the previously public space of Stone and Elagin
Isla!1ds by elite housing (see Chapter V for the role of such spaces in local protest); and
the Marine Fas;ade, a combination of passenger and trade port firmly linked to the project
of building the Western Speed Diagonal across the Gulf of Finland.
1 While the Mariinsky site was cleared in 2006-including the eviction of several hundred residents and the
destruction of an entire block of nineteenth-century courtyard buildings and a cultural center-nothing
concrete has been accomplished on this project, and Dominique Perrault was dismissed as the project's
designer in 2007 because of disagreements over the height, cost, and other specifications of his proposal.
132
Orlov Tunnel
Smalny
Quarter
Okhta-Center
(Gazprom Tower)
Nevskaya Ratusha
(new city offices)
Stockmann Shopping
Center
Modern towers at
Ladozhskaya Station
IT Park at
Bonch-Bruevich Institute
Map 4.8. Map of major city projects on the east side of the city.
Zenith StadiwlI
Consti tu tional Court
residences on
I\rastovsl<,y Island )'borg-City
Second Mariinsky
Stage
Marine
Facade
Vasiliwsky Island
Constitutional Courl
displaces State Archive
In Sanate/Synod
New Holland
Kolomna
Nwshy Avenue
Apraksin Yard
remodel
Map 4.9. Map of major city projects on the west side of the city.
133
These projects provoke two significant kinds of socio-spatial frictions. First, they
are occurring near the historical center. There is a superficially logical reason for this-.
there is not enough free space in the city center to erect such major projects
there.However, the city center is also a space of representation for a conception of St.
Petersburg that maintains historical assumptions about the city's urban culture, including
restrictions on the height of new buildings. Matching the height of construction to the
cornice of the Winter Palace is a spatial practice with not only mechanical but also
political meaning: it (ostensibly) gives citizens and planners leverage against developers,
and endows the material space of the city center with a moral authority. Those
megaprojects which have tried to establish their globalized spatial practices in material
spaces that physically overlap with "spaces of representation" of traditional Petersburg
assumptions (such as New Holland, the Mariinsky Theater, or the Gazprom skyscraper)
have raised vigorous discussions at public hearings and sometimes protest on the streets.
Second, the projects typically have engaged famous international architects for
their design. In spite of attempts to harmonize the design forms with the local urban
planning culture (and the need to obey local codes and ordinances), these projects
become spaces of representation for a far different culture, with its basis in Western
Europe and North America and its other nodes in places like coastal Chinese cities and
Dubai.
The Baltic Pearl self-identified as a locomotive project
Language used in the 2005 version of Baltic Pearl design resounds with an
awareness of the world city imperative and the assumptions of globalizing cities around
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the world: the main socio-spatial paradigm seen in operation is the world economy.
While the books prepared in 2004 emphasized a parallel between the physical setting of
both Shanghai and Petersburg on rivers and highlighted the potential of the Baltic Pearl to
link Europe and Asia, Russian and China into a closer friendship, the 2005 version
emphasizes the chance for development; the need to raise St. Petersburg's status among
other cities; and the leading role of the Baltic Pearl in revitalizing St. Petersburg as a
whole. The following statement appears in the 2005 design book (and persists in a new
form on the current website): "the general orientation of this project is as follows: to
build an international complex district with globalization, Europeanization,
modernization and clean ecology, with strong competitiveness in tourism and commerce"
(Tongji 2005, 17).
In its specific promotional statements (for the audience of investors), the Baltic
Pearl connects primarily with "prestige scale" goals, reflecting assumptions about post-
industrial economic sectors in world cities: quaternary occupations amplify tertiary ones
and replace industry. For example, an extended section analyzing the Baltic Pearl's
potential states that it will "become an important node of tourism and commerce in the
Baltic area [and] will create a new image of a marine city, will raise urban functions ... ,
and will give a push to the completion of networks for tourist industry" (Tongji 2005, v).
Other similar claims assert:
The exploitation and construction of a new city on the background of market
economics usually actively takes its start from the perfecting of urban functions
and raising the rank of the city. This is done by way of providing the city with
multiple functions ... (2005, 8)
[We must] form competitive node capabilities ...
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Leaning on the status advantages of the city's location by the sea, the port, and
airport, by way of construction of first-class facilities for tourism services and a
center for commerce and conferences, we should build a tourist and commerce
center with a large influence on the Baltic area and even on the whole world ...
(2005, 17) (Emphasis added throughout.)
The references to perfecting urban functions, raising the city's rank, multiple functions,
and providing facilities for conferences are all hallmarks of would-be world cities,
particularly the emphasis on improving infrastructure suitable for international business
meetings and for tourism. The designers recognize that they need to provide what
Marshall (2003) calls "spaces appropriate for the world elite." The three strategies that
they suggest are summarized in these subheadings: "concentrate network resources;
multidimensional globalization; encourage various forms of competition."
Company representative Li definitely saw the Baltic Pearl in the context of the
numerous other projects in the city. These could not hurt the Baltic Pearl's success but
only help it, since city residents would become more used to such landscapes and the
Chinese project would benefit from the city's experience in managing other sites.
The role ofthe Baltic Pearl as a megaproject
The self-presentation of the Baltic Pearl to investors contrasts with City Governor
Matvienko's presentation of the project to her city through her annual addresses to the
Legislative Assembly. Throughout her speeches, Matvienko makes constant reference to
Petersburg as a city or as a megapolis with European connections. When she discusses
the Baltic Pearl, she mentions Asia only in passing; in June 2004 she called for St.
Petersburg to acquire "an ever weightier role on the Eurasian expanse." She does not
mention her visits to Shanghai or the visits of Chinese diplomats to Russia and St.
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Petersburg. Her arguments reveal spatial codes necessary for communicating with her
constituents.
Initially, Matvienko saw the Shanghai investment as a major force in St. Petersburg's
development, a component of St. Petersburg's acquisition of the features of a megapolis.
She mentioned it in her 2004 and 2005 speeches as a source of record foreign investment
(US$1.5 billion). In 2005, she first mentions it in the context of other investment
agreements with foreign and Russian companies for local infrastructure projects and
industrial development, including Tinkoff, Gillette, Pepsi, Siemens, Gazprom, and
Severstal.
We have reached an agreement with the Shanghai Investment Company for the
construction of a multifunctional megacomplex called the "Baltic Pearl" with a
total investment of as much as 1.5 billion dollars. This is an absolute record for
quantity of foreign investment in St. Petersburg. (March 2005)
She discusses it further in the middle of her speech, again-as in 2004-presenting the
project as a way to solve local housing deficits. But she extends the discussion on it in
view of local protest. I include this entire passage from her speech.
On an abandoned, swampy, unexploited territory without engineering
infrastructure to the South-West in only five years will appear a super-
contemporary suburb-city, equal in size to a small European town with housing
for 35000 Petersburgers, with a business center, a green zone, hotels, schools,
kindergartens, clinics, and sport facilities. For the first time we will have a district
where the quantity and quality of social objects will completely correspond to
European standards.
Meanwhile, the most ridiculous rumors are circulating in regard to the Baltic
Pearl, intended to sow panic among city residents. Particularly among those who
have not yet realized that foreign investments are not the same thing as a foreign
invasion. From this tribunal I will again declare that the Government has
sufficient political will to develop the largest construction projects in the interests
of Petersburgers, against which a narrow group of biased parties oppose their own
interests.
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I have no doubt, that such projects will sound the death knell for so-called
densifying construction. I have no doubt that the success of such a project will
bring a flow of major foreign and Russian investments into our city. I repeat
again: The Baltic Pearl will become the steam engine behind which will follow a
whole line of wagons. (March 2005)
This classification of the Baltic Pearl as a steam engine (paravoz) resembles her language
in other speeches about "locomotive" projects.
However, by 2006, she gives it the briefest of mentions in the context of other
major projects, such as the Marine Fa9ade, the Mariinsky Second Theater, the Zenit
stadium (see Map 4.9); in May 2007, she does not mention it or even refer to it at all,
although she does name some of the city's "sixteen strategic projects." In 2008, she stays
away from discussion of projects with any controversial social or architectural aspects
and mentions only major projects of transportation infrastructure.
Meanwhile her speeches also contain passages that give particular attention to urban
micro-spaces such as yards, streets, and sports fields. Even as she classifies the Baltic
Pearl as a steam engine, the first section of the passage quoted above focuses on the
context (and scale) of daily urban life; she avoids framing it as a space of representation
for international capital. She foregrounds the image of "a small European town ... with a
business center, a green zone, hotels, schools, kindergartens, clinics, and sport facilities."
These are spatial practices of social reproduction, the spaces of representation for the
daily life of average residents.
European standards of quality - this means the time you wait for a bus at the stop,
the time to arrival of an ambulance. It is a reasonable number of pupils in a
classroom, and of patients in a hospital ward. It is the accessibility for the
handicapped of museums and city transport. It is an income not less than the
living minimum for the most undefended categories of citizens. It is the
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possibility to work and earn for everyone who wants to depend not on the
government, but on himself. It is simply a worthy life. (June 2004)
These are spatial practices of movement, daily life, and economic organization.
Matvienko conflates these logistical arrangements subtly with social values, especially
with openness. This could possibly, then, be a space of hybrid spatial practice-made
possible by Chinese investment and partially by Chinese design, but radically changing
the traditional structures of Soviet-influenced spaces.
For Matvienko-at least as expressed in the rhetorical space of her speeches to
the city-the Baltic Pearl functions at once at two scales, within two socio-spatial
paradigms: it is a megaproject that thus participates in the development of transportation
infrastructure and globalized urban landscapes, and it is also a space of daily life that
helps to alleviate pressing social problems such as the housing crisis and decaying city
services. She prominently categorizes the Baltic Pearl as a node anchoring globalization
in the St. Petersburg expanse. She also claims that it will provide housing stock for
beleaguered "Petersburgers," even though statements by the firm suggest that the units
will sell mostly to the affluent, not significantly improving the housing chances of those
who have struggled the most with the shift to a new system of distribution?
The Baltic Pearl's simultaneous presence in several scales, in several socio-spatial
paradigms, corresponds to the multiple goals that the city has for its ongoing
development, encompassing improvement of daily life, globalization of the city's
2 An article entitled "Intended for the Elite" appeared on Nevastroyka on March 17, 2008 (accessed March
27,2008). An anonymous blog commentary noted that the streetcar lines which have passed the site along
Peterhof Highway for years were being removed, a clear sign that "average" citizens taking this lower-class
form of public transportation would not be welcome.
139
landscape, and creation of stronger geopolitical ties. She claimed in June 2004 that "All
major cities in the world develop as multifunctional centers, and Petersburg in this sense
is not an exception." In the following passage, Matvienko employs the word "scale"
(masshtab) in the same way, implying that the suite of projects and plans can express a
certain unity:
All of our projects, independent of scale, are fitting for the needs of a megapolis.
Because for a resident of Petersburg, a huge high speed roadway, and a courtyard
with amenities, and a comfortable office, and a remodeled basement-all these
are signs of the new quality of life. (March 2006)
Matvienko claims that the images that she invokes-although at different scales-
actually come from the same socio-spatial paradigm: the "new quality of life." But
although she insists that they can all fit into this paradigm of improved life for an
individual resident, there are clearly contradictions inherent in the scales that she implies:
the high speed roadway links to Russian Federation space and to a geographically
proximate Europe; the well-outfitted courtyard focuses on the city space (for which
residents must take more responsibility, see below); and the comfortable office and
remodeled basement are in fact globalized spaces that are crafting new occupations of
space in the old local paradigms of collectively distributed residential space and (now
lost) public toilets. In her descriptions, the Baltic Pearl, too, seems to have the capacity to
unite all scales for the city's good.
Arranging successful space at the right scale: the Baltic Pearl as a sub center
When the Shanghai designers link the Baltic Pearl to the same language of
success present in arguments about the Lujiazui project in Pudong, they bring certain
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assumptions about how this success happens in space; they bring not only their socio-
spatial paradigm of the world economy and its world cities, but also elements of the
paradigm that is currently popular in China. In all three of the books mainly authored by
Chinese designers (in contrast to 2006, authored mainly by British designers at ARUP),
this spatial assumption shines through in the word "sub center."
The basic import of this term comes out in the first presentation book.
The analysis of the Existing Conditions of St. Petersburg shows that it is gradually
developing into a city with many urban cores.
Today, St. Petersburg has had developed many residential areas centred around
the old downtown, but these residential areas are not developed enough to form
sub centres of the city due to imperfection of public facilities. (SHC 2004a, 9)
A sub-center, or urban cluster, is one hallmark of a successfully managed city in China.
Both Beijing and Shanghai are actively working to develop sub-cities or functional
clusters in order to spread the benefits and costs of urban development over space (e.g.
the functional clusters Zhonguancun for IT and the CBD for finance on opposite sides of
Beijing). Once the initial design team establishes this capacity as a virtue of the Baltic
Pearl development, it gets repeated multiple times. In 2005 in particular, the design
discussion clarifies that this understanding of the Baltic Pearl causes the designers to read
St. Petersburg southward, asserting that
The history of St. Petersburg's development has shown that the southern shoreline
areas are the future of the city. The urban development of St. Petersburg calls for
the building of a southern subcenter. This is a shining chance for development of
the city. China desires cooperative construction of this southern subcenter
together with the Petersburg people [narod]! (Tongji 2005, v)
In a separate paragraph (including a repetition of the claims above), the language adds,
"as the largest facility of urban exploitation for Russia, the facility 'Baltic Pearl' bears on
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itself the important duty of building a subcenter of St. Petersburg." However, in spite of
conflict over new structures in the city center, the Petersburg population has little
experience with successful satellite areas; the models they do have are Kupchino, which
is a gray residential ghetto. Further, this new idea of subcenters does not necessarily
harmonize with the Genplan's aim to preserve the historical agglomerated structure of St.
Petersburg, and may even undermine it.
The scale for ameliorating space chosen by the Chinese
Language on the Baltic Pearl promotional website emphasizes connections
between sites at the regional scale: "St. Petersburg is Russia's window to Europe, a
neighbor of the countries of the European Union, and occupies the position of an
important strategic center." The website also emphasizes places to which St. Petersburg
links in Europe, not in central Russia. The website's socio-spa~ial paradigm is very aware
of the major European centers and how St. Petersburg relates to them: on the same page
as the phrase quoted above, distances are listed between St. Petersburg and Moscow,
London, Paris, Berlin, and Helsinki.
By juxtaposing St. Petersburg with Europe and other European cities, the
language used does not only make use of the cliched (although justifiable) linking of St.
Petersburg to its heritage; it also elides finer scales of spatial confrontation in order to
suggest transformation at a broader scale. Promoters link the project to "the modern
concept of European life" and "universal district of European type"; it is not difficult to
suppose what a "district of European type" is, but to make it universal renders
"European" a generic, widely acceptable tool that does not necessarily have a geographic
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anchor. The design implications of applying this tool are apparent in a statement noting
that
The optimal structure of squares (the relationship of residential and commercial
construction with recreational facilities) is intended with consideration of world
and European levels of consumption, which makes our complex an ideal place for
comfortable living. (Baltic Pearl)
In fact, the website several times asserts the "new" quality of the Baltic Pearl, stating that
"the project will become an absolutely new district of living and tourism in St. Petersburg
and Europe" and, in a near-restatement, it will be "a new center of living and tourism,
attractive for residents ofSt. Petersburg and all of Europe" (emphasis added). In spite of
St. Petersburg's history of association with Europe, the website claims that the Baltic
Pearl will establish "a completely new style and way of life for Petersburgers" (Baltic
Pearl). This "new style and way" is ultimately global, not the historically familiar
"European" style and way, and not the local way.
Evidence from design books created at various stages of the project suggests that
this is where a certain Chinese element enters into the plans, pushing towards a new
hybrid. But the Chinese firm is also aware of the language of globalizing culture,
asserting that "The Baltic Pearl is able to become a new Petersburg brand," something the
city can use to market itself in the global economy. They also mean it to be "a new center
of gravity." They hope for achieving "a new way of thinking: the concept of development
of an international enterprise of the integrative type" and for "striving for harmony:
conception of creating a district in which sky, earth, and man will combine
harmoniously" (Baltic Pearl; emphasis added). The implication in these words is that of a
harmonized, smoothed space of urban living that might have intriguing resonance with
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Matvienko's calls for an unproblematic consensus in urban civil society. The Chinese
firm is unlikely to have anything to do with the civic dynamics of the area, and they
certainly will not be able to control who buys apartments and then inhabits the quarter-
but the potential parallel between rhetorical approaches suggests the need to observe
further.
As noted at the end of Chapter II, a crucial question about the Baltic Pearl is how
it will serve the goals of the Genplan, and whether it will improve St. Petersburg's overall
urban texture or will function as an isolated node of globalized space. Information about
a resolution to this tension cannot be found in public statements about the quarter's value,
but becomes clearer in negotiations over the project's form at the micro-scale. If, as
Vendina suggests, we have to understand the local parameters into which a new influence
enters, then it is important to gauge whether-in this case-the Baltic Pearl is providing
new forms or standard Petersburg forms, and why and how this is happening.
Some early newspaper coverage of the Baltic Pearl suggested that the quarter
would be partly designed in "Chinese style." A perception of the "Chineseness" of the
project-indeed an imposition of a stereotyped Chineseness, including an assumption
about what would make the project "Chinese"-contrasts quite profoundly with the
qualities revealed by an examination of the design books produced by successive
planning teams associated with the project.
Matvienko's public statements about the Baltic Pearl project all emphasized its
contribution to a "territorial" vision for Petersburg: the improvement of its sociable
texture for residents who need housing or modern infrastructure. The goals described
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above don't fully connect with Matvienko's local vision; all spatial practices cited so far
have a broader reach. In order to gauge whether the Baltic Pearl will perform as a
successful hybridized space and whether it will erase cherished spaces of representation
for local residents, we need a finer-scaled spatial practice to use as an evaluative test.
Courtyards
I use the rest of the chapter to consider commentary centered around one
particular micro-scale urban morpheme, or unit of architectural form: the courtyard. In
the 5t. Petersburg context, the "courtyard" is a spatial code in the Lefebvrian sense: it
immediately calls up a set of socio-spatial practices; it is a space of representation, a
place where residents focus meaning and understand the set of activities that should occur
there; it participates in a representation of space where small socially-oriented places are
valued.
The term "dvor" (courtyard or enclosed yard) in the morphology of 5t. Petersburg
cityscapes has a generally understood meaning, although it takes a range of physical
forms which have additional connotations. The basic concept of the courtyard as a space
of representation derives from the historical center: buildings were constructed with
several stories surrounding an enclosed space that could be entered from the street via a
short tunnel under the second story, and this enclosed space-onto which opened several
doors, and from which yet another passageway might lead into a yet more interior space
in the center of the block-is the "courtyard." An extreme example is the "courtyard-
well," which receives little to no light: these are considered antiques from the time of the
novelist Dostoevsky and especially characteristic features of the Petersburg cityscape. In
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the pre-revolutionary period, this would have been lower-class space; the wealthier
residents of a building would have entered and exited from the street entrance, while the
yard would have been the province of servants and those who could only afford the less
prestigious, less healthy residences to the rear of the yard and further into the structure.
The Soviet understanding of "courtyard" has its roots in the 1920s push to house a
wide range of rural-to-urban in-migrants and other workers in the city's available
residential spaces. The most famous result of this, still a phenomenon in Petersburg
today, is the communal apartment: wealthy families who owned apartments of several
rooms were forced to move into a single room and yield the rest to other families at the
command of the local soviet government. This policy engendered the almost ubiquitous
mixing of social classes which inhered in Soviet housing and persists until the present
time. While considerable social friction arose as a result, a Soviet part-myth, part-reality
arose around the social potential of the "courtyard." It came to represent an extension of
the social planning desired by Bolshevik officials; in the central city, it also had historical
and architectural features that elicited the affection of its residents. While many fell into
disrepair under the general neglect of city infrastructure, "courtyards" can still be sudden
oases of greenery, benches, and quiet, secluded from the street (see Illustration 4.3).
When the government had enough money to begin building more housing in order
to accommodate the sharp demand, the "courtyard" tended to persist in Petersburg
construction. (I have seen some examples in Moscow as well, but am not competent to
discuss these.) In the Stalinist era, the buildings tended to have 3-5 stories and the interior
space had trees, other plantings, and sometimes benches and children's play equipment.
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Illustration 4.3a. Greenery in a 19th-century courtyard off Moskovskii Prospekt.
Illustration 4.3b. Greenery in a late Soviet courtyard on Vasilievsky Island.
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While the space was not as tightly enclosed as in the historical center, the buildings stood
closely enough together to form a recognizable space. In the case of Khrushchev-era
construction, this is also true; while these buildings are less well made, they tend to have
a rectangular space between them, open at either end but still enclosing a recognizable
space that grouped residents. In the later era, from the 1970s to 1980s, the high-rise panel
construction buildings might still stand grouped as though around a "courtyard," but this
space tended to be too large to consider recognizable. There was still substantial
greenery, but the sense of enclosure depended on the accident of building size and
grouping. In some, play equipment and benches appeared over time; again, sometimes a
small grove of trees could create a sense of refuge from the street. The sense of belonging
to this yard, or the kind of social infrastructure claimed for other yard sizes, might not
arIse.
In sum, some residents had good experiences with yards, and some had
unpleasant experiences. Some lived in small buildings, got to know their neighbors, and
felt able to make small improvements to the yard area; others lived in such smaller spaces
and felt oppressed by the behavior of neighbors who had a different attitude to cleanliness
or to social behavior. Some lived in buildings with huge spaces between them, and
enjoyed these spaces but never felt neighbored or sheltered by them; others found the
expanses oppressive. In Petersburg today, the commonality of the concept confuses the
distinctions between two kinds of issues. On the one hand, courtyards and their diversity
of social class represent a golden Soviet era of democratic interaction. On the other,
courtyards (especially in their openness to other urban spaces, and thus to vandalism,
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littering, and worse) intersect with concerns over a lack of ownership and a deficit of
safety. Residents in many historical buildings have voted to lock their yards to outsiders
in order to defend their entranceways from being used as public urinals and to keep
graffiti off the yard's walls; the act of installing gates seems a direct blow to the spirit of
the yard's golden age.
Even in daily discourse, then, the courtyard is an arena for negotiating the
transition from the "Soviet" era to the present, when a range of different forces has come
into play. The physical state of the yard, its role as a common unit of social structure, its
relationship to ownership and individual initiative for improvement in the yard's
appearance-all of these are present when it is discussed. Its mention in the public
speeches of the city governor are therefore striking-and all the more so when the
courtyard turns out to be a key element of explanation and negotiation for the Baltic Pearl
designers and for architects and planners who comment on it.
Matvienko's interpretation ofcourtyards
The significance of the yard as a spatial code can be seen in the deployment of the
term in public discourse, including in the annual addresses of City Governor Matvienko.
In her 2004 address, Matvienko links yards to two things simultaneously: to the need for
a fine-scaled attention to the urban environment in order to promote "social optimism and
resident comfort," and to resident responsibility. She makes this appeal to involvement
and responsibility precisely at the scale of socio-spatial community identity (or at least its
presumed location; see Humphrey 2005).
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Courtyards appear in passages in most of Matvienko's annual addresses,
especially when she is trying to assert a connection between her policies and the
improvement of everyday life. In March 2005, announcing the inauguration of a program
to rehabilitate numerous yards throughout the central city (covered in Fontanka and
Nevastroyka throughout the year), she stated that "We do not separate the cleaning and
beautifying of yards and streets from the modernization of the entire city infrastructure."
She also explicitly links the destruction of old attitudes as part of the necessary
development:
Breaking the old Soviet stereotypes in economy and psychology must happen in
parallel. From their own experience citizens are convinced that this way is the
single correct one, that it leads to qualitatively new standards of life.
Matvienko's audience already knows the stereotypes to which she refers just as well as
they recognize the concept of "yard"; one of them is that Homo Sovieticus never takes
responsibility for anything and believes that "someone else" will pay for maintenance of
the buildings.3 In light of Lefebvre's implication that new ways of life require a radical
alteration in the built structures that they inhabit, Matvienko's emphasis on existing
historically formed spaces is striking: she calls for spatial practice to change inside these
cherished spaces of representation. In the March 2006 address, she calls on residents to
become true owners of their buildings and yards; organizations akin to homeowners'
group should take over responsibility for the yard, a semi-public space. (After years of
neglect at all levels of urban infrastructure, yards have often borne the brunt of
3 As I will maintain in chapter 4, this link (between stereotypes and failure to achieve higher standards) has
an obvious basis in the lack of urban maintenance and other Soviet-era experiences, but the "old Soviet
stereotypes" ironically also include assumptions about widely accessible public space, about government
transparency, and about civil society action that are actually quite progressive and could be maintained.
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resentment at lack of public services.) By re-envisioning the same space, Matvienko
wants to re-envision the dependent Soviet citizen as an individual owner.
In the addresses, yards playas important a role in the modernization of the urban
environment as more prominent projects. Matvienko states that the massive city
megaprojects will modernize the city and "lay the foundation for entirely new
possibilities for urban development and for growth in the quality of life" (March 2006).
But she adds, "Here there are no trivialities, everything is important": clinics, yards,
kindergartens-all of these participate. This idea continues in a short passage in May
2007 when Matvienko repeats her sense that the city needs a new standard of daily life:
The citizens of Petersburg are waiting-and not simply waiting, but demanding
from the authorities decisive steps towards the renovation of the city's appearance
(oblik). Contemporary bus stop shelters, public art and fountains, stylish benches
and tidy urns, flower vases and nighttime illumination of buildings-there are no
trivialities here.
It continues in April 2008, when she includes another appeal to tend to yards:
The state of roads and yards, cleanliness, amenities, greenery, lighting, simply
beauty and the tidiness of streets-all this is in fact our urban environment. We
have set ourselves the task of making it Europeanly comfortable.
The yards are to be transformed and hygienized, and thus will become new, spaces of
representation for a "Europeanly comfortable" life and, by extension, global life. In some
ways Matvienko's appeals might remind a reader of the 2007-2008 preparations in
Beijing for the Olympic Games, when the coverage of government training of the
population to stand in line, avoid public spitting, and avoid fighting in public frequently
made the news. Indeed, the passage that follows soon after this statement resonates
strongly with such an impression:
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Let's be open about it: our level of everyday culture is very low, unacceptably
low for Petersburg. It's enough to look at defaced elevators, poles pasted over
with flyers, New Year's trees ruined by vandals. And if we want to live in a clean,
well-kept city-and we do-then each of us must do something towards this. Not
to any degree removing responsibility from the authorities, I am counting heavily
on the inevitable appearance of a powerful social movement for a clean
Petersburg among the city-dwellers themselves. With every year we have more
and more of people who are not indifferent, who tum their building and their yard
into an oasis of beauty and comfort. And I promise all support to these citizen
initiatives for the renewal of the city's appearance.4 (April 2008)
According to Matvienko, yards and other familiar sites will thus remain important spaces
of representation in the city, still concentrating important Petersburg values-but they
will be the site of very different spatial practices. In this passage the governor suggests a
clear link between the behavior of individual citizens and Petersburg's ability to,
essentially, achieve world city status. Yet for many city residents, this transition is a false
one and "courtyard" retains its previous set of spatial practices; Matvienko's exhortations
resonate with some residents, but for many others do not persuasively transform the
structuration of their daily expanses.
Regardless of their level of success, the references themselves in Matvienko's
speeches to courtyards stand out: this is clearly an understandable socio-spatial unit for
her to use, and her listeners can quickly read the "stereotypes" as well as "movements" to
which she refers. But the "something new" that Matvienko wants to see does not quite
articulate with the existing vocabulary of the reigning socio-spatial paradigm. If the built
4 The hesitation we should feel in immediately labeling this approach as neoliberal devolution of
responsibility lies in the stark contrast with what many people felt was the complete irresponsibility of the
Soviet authorities. I interviewed several people who recounted their own or others' efforts to improve the
appearance of their immediate urban environment-usually a yard or a space right under the window of the
apartment where they lived. Many of these efforts were vandalized by residents or other passersby, and this
elicited despairing feelings from my interviewees. Matvienko may have switched to depending on this kind
of initiative in order to save the city budget some money, but she is not calling for an activity without
precedent.
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environment were to change first, then she might structure her appeals differently. But
while the yard remains the most legible unit of socio-spatial communication, then its
subtext of collectivity and public provision of urban goods remains works against the
narrative of ownership that Matvienko wants to promote.
Humanistic urbanism in the courtyards of the Baltic Pearl
Although the conceptualization of the Baltic Pearl as a locomotive node, a
transformative "subcenter," runs strongly through the design books and clearly meets a
need perceived by the St. Petersburg city administration, a spatial discourse on smaller
spaces-including courtyards-also appears in the design books. The very first design
book from August 2004 (affected less by Russian planners) addresses the social function
of small spatial forms. In fact, the analysis gives evidence of sensitivity to local
differences in the representation of social space.
Current apartment employs north entrance in order to reduce the loss of south-
orientation room. However, according to the investigation, the entrance is not
only the access for each unit, but also the place for people assembly. People
would not like to stay longer at north entrance for the coldness, while south
entrance with sunshine forms a small-scale shined [sic] environment, providing
the area for communication. In addition, normally, it is expected that some
transition can be available from indoor to outdoor, thus to fit the cold climate
outside. South entrance can solve the issue appropriately, increasing the comfort.
(SHC 2004a, 57; emphasis added)
In order to understand the significance of the preceding paragraph, it is important to
know that minimizing "loss of south-orientation" has a real basis in Shanghai, where, as
an architect told me, everyone wants the advantageous southern exposure in order to get
more sun (almost universally in order to hang and dry laundry, based on observation);
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thus, entrances are not placed on the south side. The concession to the Russian desire for
"area for communication" represents an adaptation.
This brief mention of Russian spatial practices mostly gives way to other terms
that seem more Chinese-influenced: "neighbourhood centre" and "public space." The
following passages present a good summary:
In this design, we organize facilities of culture, business and entertainment
properly. This facilitates people's daily life and a core of space is formed in this
way.
The design of neighbourhood centre should meet both physical and spiritual
requirements in accordance with local conditions and cultural customs. Our
planning principle is focusing on people. We try to create outdoor spaces with
cultural atmosphere through proper architectural treatment. (SHC 2004a, 70)
Neighbourhood centres serve for daily life of residents. Through proper treatment
of spatial scale and environment, a public space for different people in spite of
class, income and ... is formed, so communication between residents can be
facilitated. (2004a, 72)
A "neighbourhood centre" differs markedly from a "yard," indicating that the analysis of
"local conditions and cultural customs" did not fully absorb that spatial code. Based on
observation in Shanghai, the "neighbourhood centre" mentioned might be a separate
building placed somewhere in the neighborhood-not an element in the very structure of
the residential building (as a "courtyard" is, see further discussion below) but a public
place that one has to go out to. (In January 2008 I saw such a center in a housing complex
constructed for Shanghai residents displaced from the central city during the first phases
of redevelopment in the 1990s). This is arguably a more Communist idea of how
neighborhood mixing should happen; the "courtyard" was a space of representation
appropriated by ordinary people during the Soviet period (Humphrey 2005), even as it
was transformed by Soviet builders. Crucially, none of the Russian planners and
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architects with whom I spoke suggested such "neighborhood centers" as an attractive
solution for future construction projects. Still, the rhetoric of attention to individual
comfort may in fact be a feature of the kind of globalization that the Chinese want to
bring; they mention "public space for different people in spite of class" and other
categories. What kinds of "human-scale spaces" are envisioned?
The book prepared for December 2004 marks greater influence of Russian
planners, who were assigned to get involved after review of the August 2004 book by the
city administration. The wording in this version articulates the explicit role of the yard as
a space of representation for important social values:
Multi-story residential buildings arranged in high density can create better feeling
for people.... Quiet and peaceful courtyards surrounded by residential buildings
form a contrast with busy streets. Comfortable and tranquil courtyards make great
contribution to safety of the community and communication between dwellers.
(SIIC 2004b, 100; emphasis added)
The "courtyard" appears as the potential site of hybridity, that is, of synthesis between
two different sets of spatial assumptions between the Russians and Chinese. The spatial
code that both groups use to indicate their vision is "Europe"; this diverts attention from
any Chinese role in the design process, suggests Petersburg's role as Europe within
Russia, and also indicates the direction of the transformations that are foreseen.
Strikingly, the transformation is linked to the social values embedded in particular spatial
forms, such as in this paragraph titled "Diversity and integration":
Europe is a highly international region, with residents from all over the world.
Going back from the European tradition of equality, democracy and tolerance,
Europeans are known for their thinking over own boundaries. People from
different cultures and origins live together in cities, towns and villages. Different
living forms and habits are respected and integrated in the collective living space.
(2004b, 27; emphasis added)
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The phrase about "thinking over boundaries" might suggest the heightened possibility for
hybrid spaces in the resulting project. Another paragraph titled "Collectiveness and
individualism" lists numerous (presumably transferable) spatial forms that support social
life:
Since the Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, collective living spaces, such as
square, street and courtyard play important roll [sic] for the European life. At the
same time, different individual living forms are given space in the traditional
urban unit - the Building Block, built up by attached individual buildings. It
defines collective urban space of street and courtyard by its continuous street
facades. (2004b, 28; emphasis added)
Finally, a section on "Tradition and innovation" suggests the transformation of those
forms:
The Europeans have high respect for their history, traditions and cultural heritage.
A lot of efforts have been done in the transformation of the traditional urban
elements to suit modern living habits and characters, for example the flexible use,
the diverse living forms, the suitable mix of several functions etc. (2004b, 30;
emphasis added)
According to this text, "equality, democracy, tolerance" and "democratic and
individualistic culture" are firmly linked to the traditional forms of "collective living
space" such as "squares, streets and courtyards." Yet the phrase about "transformation of
the traditional urban elements to suit modem living habits and characters" suggests that
the Baltic Pearl will do just this: transform the familiar spaces into new spaces of
representation for a globalized world, with new spatial practices.
The rhetoric is promising, but it is not clear that the Baltic Pearl will take
seriously Matvienko's vision of the Baltic Pearl as a "territorial" space. In discussions of
the quarter itself (as opposed to architectural history), the 2005 version emphasizes the
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animating potential of the project's commercial areas. In the first cited passage here,
"communal space" is linked to housing; in the second, "communal" can also mean space
that shades into service and commercial functions.
District communal space-housing and the communal-construction district form
relatively strong and weak communal space. Housing stresses the 'green' and the
humanitarian restraint [sic; probably 'scale' is meant]; the communal-construction
district stresses openness. (Tongji 2005, 57)
Districts of communal constructions: the sphere of service is oriented in the
districts radiating [to] the Baltic Sea, the nucleus is the infrastructures of tourism,
commerce, recreation and meetings [conferences?], these districts are
characteristic [characterized] by apartment-hotels-a new model of construction
that includes the functions of commerce and residence, such a model corresponds
to the requirements of contemporary commercial tourism. (65)
References to "commercial tourism" and "apartment-hotels" derive clearly from the
current intense development in China itself, where "apartment-hotels" are a popular way
for expats and the newly wealthy to live.s While there is some mention of "communal
space" here, the engagement with the concept is not serious or sustained; the primary
pressure is "the requirements of contemporary commercial tourism."
The design books yielded only one example of the notion that a yard could be a
combination of European and Chinese sensibilities. In the 2005 appendix with
evaluations of the different IPC projects, the project from Sweco Partners expressed the
best understanding of the local climate and culture (as a representative of the consulting
committee told me). Of the courtyard-based design that Sweco produced, the presentation
book text says that
5 For example, the project for Qianmen District by SORa China, which company employees showed to me
in January 2008, contains a specific section for luxury apartment-hotels, indicating their popularity.
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The project successfully combines the cold regions of northern Europe and
creates a sunny courtyard and Chinese block-based urban l~fe. ... It forms a
clustered residence and a construction of public space, combining the experience
of eastern Asia and northern Europe. (Tongji 2005, 104; emphasis added)
In fact, the humanistic concept behind this idea can be seen running through the interview
comments of both Russians and Chinese on similar and related spaces, but is not
explicitly acknowledged as a point of commonality. When British architects (from the
firm ARUP) participated in the 2006 design book, they began with an extended analysis
of historical urban morphology in Petersburg. The discussion considered different types
of courtyards created in the 18th and 19th centuries as well as during Soviet periods, such
as the Stalin and Khrushchev periods, and also looked at the resulting creation of public
spaces in and around those buildings. The emphasis in this analysis was on the decline of
urban public space as it grew larger-"open windswept plazas ... human scale lost"-and
the concrete need to create sheltered public spaces. The discussion notes the "interior
space of the courtyard" as playing an important role and notes "positive aspects of the
Russian micro-complex principle." There is no link made to China, however-the
version suggests "a combination of European urban planning and the urban morphotypes
that have historically formed in St. Petersburg," making the result into a more localized
critical regionalism in architecture and not necessarily a global phenomenon.
On-site research in Beijing and Shanghai revealed that the courtyard is an
essential element of urban morphology there as well, and that the Russian courtyard-
while having a different size and different cultural attributes-is not an unfamiliar
amenity to Chinese. "Block-based Chinese urban life," as described in the evaluation of
the Swedish project, has its basis in both Shanghainese shikumen and estate housing
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(derived partially from British and French construction influences) and Beijing hutong
housing, where each traditional building has an interior courtyard.
The absence of this element in explicit commentary from Russian and Chinese
observers is striking; while a hybridized space might be needed, there was little
discussion of how current Chinese landscapes could bring something valuable to St.
Petersburg. When asked what Chinese elements the Baltic Pearl project might contribute
to the Russian location, the Tongji University researcher told me essentially that this is
the wrong question; the Chinese designers and investors are not seeking to bring
"Chineseness" to St. Petersburg. They want to create global spaces that will be used and
enjoyed by Russians. This explicit intention to be global might be a response to the
strange persistence of Russians in fearing a Peking Opera or Buddhist temple, as noted
above; in order not to raise anxiety, Chinese designers might avoid mentioning a
commonality that they in fact do see. But the Tongji researcher's comments and the
persistent presence of courtyards in the discussion prompt a deeper investigation into
what a humanistic global space is, and how such a space can mediate between local
Russian sensibilities and the global Chinese ambition.
Invocation ofcourtyards by architects and planners
Any emphasis on the discussion of the yard as an urban morpheme may have
resulted from the influence of language used by the city administration and particularly
the Russian planning institute, NIPIGrad. In important cases, as noted with the emphasis
placed on the yard by Sweco's design for the IPC in 2005 and with the overview of
"courtyard" history incorporated by ARUP in 2006, it was a European-based architectural
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firm that discussed the yard's importance. The Chinese discussed this as a concession to
"local norms," but their main concern in designing urban space seems to lie elsewhere.
Yet-also as indicated by the use of "yards" as a principal morpheme in two sets
of European designs-many Russian planning professionals regard the yard as having a
particular value in the Petersburg context. I consider first what this value is, in the
interview comments of two planner/architects, and then explore how references to the
"yard" reveal Russian discourses of negotiation regarding the Baltic Pearl project. The
"yard" is seen as the bearer of valuable meaning and purpose into the present time, even
though it is an urban morpheme derived from the past. Its importance for some Russian
planners is discernible in the comments of Sergei Nikitin, the planner-architect
responsible for coordinating Russian cooperation with the Baltic Pearl project, and Oleg
Kharchenko, a former Chief Architect of St. Petersburg.6
Note that in the quoted sections of interviews that follow, the referential examples
of "courtyards" mentioned are of varying sizes and eras, which partly demonstrates
further the flexibility of the concept. Thus the reader must follow mentions of the
different yards as described in the introduction to this section. (N.B.: the valuable features
of yards did not necessarily inhere in all their incarnations.)
Russian interpretations ofyard as spatial practice and space of representation
The first quality of yards that was frequently mentioned is their adaptability to the
severe St. Petersburg climate, and this capacity depends on the yard not exceeding certain
6 In the interviews conducted with these two men, Nikitin introduced the concept of the dvor himself, and
Kharchenko discussed it in response to my question (which I derived in turn from Nikitin's emphasis on it).
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dimensions. As Nikitin commented, "we have to make the courtyards an enclosed space,
where there won't be wind" (interview, 10/17/06); his colleague, evaluating the Baltic
Pearl's 2006 design, noted approvingly, "with this climate, with this snow, they dealt
with all that [by creating yards]" (Kharchenko, interview, 12/6/06).
Second, the most prominent reason for praising yards in professional and popular
discourse is its social function. Again a quotation from Nikitin gives the flavor of this
quality:
A certain social commonality arises in the courtyard. In fact, the Russian people
have always liked this interaction, traditionally. We're always in the courtyard....
It's very funny, that's how it is. They know everything about everyone. It's good.
It's like your own yard.
He noted shortly thereafter that as a child "My apartment, in my mind, included my
yard," emphasizing this classic part of the vision of the ideal "courtyard": your sense of
belonging and unofficial ownership extended to this semi-public space which you shared
with your neighbors. Kharchenko extended this thought:
The idea of a yard is very productive. It gives birth to a kind of collectivism, to
the sensation that people live together, a sensation of being defended, of being
able to encompass a certain space/expanse. For example, people are selfish, but a
person will contribute some money all the same if he is paying some money for
upkeep [of the yard]. This still goes to a group of people, but to him also.
In Kharchenko' s reading of the social value of a yard, the "collectivism" that it inspires
can act as an economic motivator, a mitigating factor against the "natural" egoism of the
individual in a market economy. In this sense, a yard is a tempering influence in a time of
transition, and in a time when-as part of the overall transformation-some in society are
trying to preserve certain social tools for working together, these comments show how
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retention of this particular urban form is a code for collectivity (as distinguished from
Matvienko's vision of vastly expanded self-reliance).
Third, the "courtyard" at its best is also seen as a bearer of human scale; its proper
scale enables the climatic and social functions praised above. In a spatial hierarchy of
nested scale, the yard structures a person's relationship with other neighbors and with the
surrounding city, creating a scalar step in that relationship and in his perception of space.
As Nikitin told me:
When I was little, I lived in the central city... [urban structure] was very distinct
there. My apartment, in my mind, included my yard. The street is there-I wasn't
allowed there. There were cars there. And so on. And there were several of this
sort of levels. There's my street. To go there was dangerous. And before that,
there's the district park, Tauride or Summer Garden. The post office. There's the
American consulate. They took me for walks in the Tauride Gardens or the
Summer Garden, it was about the same distance. But in general when this certain
hierarchy operates, the hierarchy of social units in an urbanized environment, it's
very good. When it isn't all the same. My apartment, my yard. Then my district.
Here Nikitin is discernibly speaking of a historical yard in the northeast section of the
Central District, but the "hierarchy of social units" that he describes could apply to yards
of other eras as well. The way that spaces (and by extension, people) articulate with each
other is nested and hierarchical in this narrative; preservation of the yard would preserve
that system of interaction.
The yard as a building blockfor new spaces of representation
But how successfully can the yard become the "something new" that Matvienko
mentioned and that the Chinese investors promised? As the Russian planners understood
the situation, the "something new" that the Chinese had an opportunity to contribute
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involved a revision of the construction codes (the "norms") that conditioned the
monotony of the late Soviet built environment.
The shifting forms and sizes of yards throughout the twentieth century, refracted
through changing regulations, have already reflected the connection between aspirations
for the social good and conceptions of space. At first, as noted above, "courtyards" were
the lower-class realm of a building, often damp, dark, and dirty. The 1920s reaction to
intensive urban development under capitalism (Le Corbusier, etc.) penetrated Soviet
urban planning, and the changes undertaken during the twentieth century were inspired
by the desire to improve urban living standards. Based on this, in the Soviet Union,
"draconian codes" were drawn up based on "disurbanizing ideas," as Nikitin explained:
[The previous] yards were dark, bad, damp. This is all the defects of capitalism.
And then the architects came, avant garde guys, inspired by communist ideas, and
began to propose things. Let's raze all this, and we'll put in buildings standing
among greenery!
Nikitin added, "Our building codes were calculated for this disurbanism"-that is, for the
notion of buildings with adequate air circulation, light (insolation), and accompanying
greenery. The idea that every person should live in these ideal conditions became a part
of the struggle over how to further construct urban space.
By the end of the Soviet period, the courtyard was an ineffective space for
representing these elements. Kharchenko commented that "the Soviet yard was not
humanistic" because of its huge scale; Nikitin added, "under Brezhnev they lost this
human scale [achieved in earlier periods]." Additionally, as Kharchenko commented,
under Khrushchev the urgency of providing comparable housing for all city residents
kept the government in a cycle of building the same thing over and over again. The
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rigidity of the codes caused the sameness so familiar in late Soviet construction: "our
building codes are so rigid that we get everywhere almost the same solutions [of plamling
tasks]. Many solutions are basically identical." Nikitin mentioned specific numbers that
became encoded into assumptions of a healthy but still cheap urban structure:
There's an inhuman scale. It's a scale for cars everywhere. So what happens: by
the codes you get a huge street, 100 meters wide. The width of the streets ... and
the buildings have to stand further back. So you get 119 meters. This is a fantastic
width... , and the pedestrian currents have to walk in this inhuman environment.
In the view of many, this loss of humanly-scaled space created social problems; Nikitin
asserted that Petersburg "needs compact spaces" and saw yards in the context of restoring
certain social values. He felt that the project had correctly grasped this principle:
... in this sense we have complete agreement with the British and with the
Chinese. Complete agreement. And that's very good.... This is the analysis of
existing city blocks (kvartaly), for different epochs. And this was all analyzed and
they chose a certain optimal-in the opinion of contemporary professionals-
optimal variant. In this sense it's good.
Kharchenko, too, felt that the arrangement of residential buildings in the Baltic Pearl had
hit upon a usable scale in the arrangement of space.
It's different from our kvartals, it's not so bleak, it has a different scale, it
becomes more European. It has a more human face, [there's] more warmth, more
humanism in this environment.
The "courtyard" in the Baltic Pearl thus becomes an opportunity for both transmitting
important local cultural values as well as creating something new: as Kharchenko
commented just above, "it's different from our kvartals." Nikitin added that the yards had
been well done: "This is all marvelous. Excellent in that sense." (See Illustration 3.3.)
And in fact, the combined efforts of the Chinese, the British ARUP, and other
invited consultants had produced a model housing unit that had the potential to offer a
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II
.
Illustration 4.4. Courtyards as depicted in the scale model of the Baltic Pearl.
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change and to provide a precedent that would motivate the revision of the Soviet codes.
Nikitin himself recognized that although the yard was a good thing, "a microclimate,
social control. ... now we have to do it on a new technological level, on a new national
level, in terms of storing automobiles. That didn't exist then." The presence of cars would
have to change how these valuable urban forms could be constructed. He pointed out an
aspect of the 2006 (ARUP) design that he liked very much: a structure that would have
parking on its first floor with living space above, including a central sheltered yard
between the wings of apartments (a familiar approach in many Western cities) that would
be accessed by a staircase at the end or from within the structure. He liked the way that
the yard was created, and saw it as reproducing some of the values he and Kharchenko
both mentioned during interviews:
It's very good when the yard is raised ... You get a border for the social landscape.
. .. Social control is facilitated. If someone appears here, it's like he came through
the fence. As though there was a fence, private, owned space. Almost the same
thing, but there's no fence. There's just a planter. (Nikitin, interview)
Unfortunately, Soviet-influenced codes strictly forbid several aspects of these structures.
According to these codes, living space may not be above first-floor parking; such a
garage may contain no more than 50 cars (and here there would be 130) without a gap of
2.5 meters between each group; entrances to such garages must be built at least 15 meters
from the windows of a living space (which would mean a distant underground entrance to
the parking garage).
Nikitin asserted that he and others would ultimately like to see the codes changed,
saying, "We need to bring [our construction codes] into normal correspondence with
[Petersburg's new existence as a] contemporary major city. So that they don't retard its
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growth. So that they allow us to create a truly comfortable environment for living." He
felt that the situation in the city would eventually come to this-but that the Baltic Pearl
fell short of forcing such change, thus falling short of creating the transformation that it
. d 7promIse.
Nikitin and other Russians had lobbied effectively for inclusion of courtyard-like
spaces in the project, but the scale of other aspects of the project seriously displeased the
city's Advisory Council on Architecture and Planning, or Gradsovet. Nikitin explained
several aspects of this to me which chiefly had to do with the arrangement of various
functional buildings and codes. Kharchenko, who sits on the Gradsovet as a former Chief
Architect and working architect himself, summed it up in a critique of the retail and
commercial sections of the design.
It's completely clear that here two scales, two cultural environments cohabitate.
Here it's distinctly and completely visible that this part and this part were drawn
by different people, and this part with this flower [a tower at the entrance to the
site], with this exit to the sea, these are drawn by different people. And if this
[eastern residential] part is drawn for people, and it's understandable why there
are such gaps and distances, then this [commercial area] continues to be drawn for
Soviet man.... It's again the ideas of a certain composition, you understand, in
which a person becomes a part of some kind of spatial game, it's Stalinism again,
China, Mao ZeDong.
As shown earlier, language in the design books indicates that the Chinese planners saw
the greatest potential for transforming space in the "communal"-commercial spaces; the
7 The developer whom I interviewed made a similar comment with an added emphasis on a needed
transformation in attitudes to enforcement of codes: "Probably we need to get rid of all that, in order to ...
Of course, in order to get rid of it, we need to have a fairly strong culture of exploitation and service. Well,
for example, when you park in front of a fire hydrant in the States and block it, things will be bad for you.
So. Therefore if we're going to observe them, which would be correct, then I think... but you know what
we need." The obscurity of his comment seemed in context to stem from his perplexity at transforming
social norms along with the construction codes.
------ -- - - ---------
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Russian planners had focused the greatest part of their energy on the residential spaces.
Other contradictions are apparent in Kharchenko' s summary of the Gradsovet's critiques
during protracted negotiations until the project's formal acceptance in March 2007. First,
Kharchenko noted, the original designs did not show an adequate articulation with the
surrounding city. "You understand, such a beautiful spot, which is not plugged in, not
connected to the city." Yet recall that the books themselves give evidence that the
Chinese were indeed thinking about this in their own way, reading out a cluster-based
relationship to other important nodes in the city. He described further concerns with the
way that pedestrian spaces related to automotive spaces, how prominent park spaces
failed to meet existing codes and did not accomplish their goal of routing pedestrians, and
with the arrangement in particular of the vast retail spaces. The Chinese persisted in their
assertions of bringing a new "European" way of life, understood more through apartment
layout and provision of infrastructural services at global standards.
Kharchenko's descriptions ultimately revealed that he was evaluating the success
of the Chinese project from within a highly articulated local understanding of space, and
that he had a firm idea of how "spaces of representation" for collective activities should
be shaped. He explained his disappointment:
... this was essentially the first case when, after a decade-long interruption, we in
the city had the chance to see in the shape of this big territory, how it [kvartal-
scale planning] would develop ... and naturally, knowing what is going on in the
world, knowing, and hearing these promises from the Chinese, that the project
should be interesting, contemporary, taking account of world trends, in the area of
housing, in urban planning, [we figured] that this project should be interesting.
But the result was a bleak pragmatic uninteresting project, no better than Soviet
ones.
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In response to repeated questioning, he continued to imply that the main disappointment
of the project was this failure to resuscitate kvartal-scale planning in the hoped-for way.
Because the Baltic Pearl designs did not (in the view of the Russian planners, including
others on the Gradsovet) grapple with the need to discover a radically new way of
structuring urban space, they did not succeed in becoming the catalyst for spatial change
that everyone was waiting for.
Based on my discussion of Valentina Matvienko' s annual speeches, Baltic Pearl
design documentation, commentary by Chinese observers involved in the project, and
Russian planners involved on their side, each of the actors shares the following ideas:
first, that 5t. Petersburg should change; second, that something new should enter the city
in order for it to change. However, each actor or group has a clear representation of space
that is not always formed at the same scales; thus, they have different ideas about what
spaces of representation will best embody the change, and often understand essential
urban spatial practices differently. These contradictions condition the search for a mode
of construction to accommodate contemporary life while still conserving productive
features of the past.
Conclusion
That the urban form of 5t. Petersburg is "in play," and that it is indeed a key
fulcrum of negotiation in the city over the nature of society and its development, also
emerges in comments that do not take the "yard" as a unit of value. When I spoke to the
Deputy Chief Architect of the city, I asked about the way that construction codes were
affecting the planning process for the Baltic Pearl; he expressed frustration for the way
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that local codes were hampering the implementation of something "Chinese" that might
work just as well, and the historical, social, and physical value of "yards" did not arise.
When he was told about the problems that the Chinese were having with meeting Russian
code,
I said, Oh great, let's definitely in a Chinese restaurant make sure there's a bowl
of our borsch. No! If it's a Chinese restaurant, let it be a Chinese restaurant. Let
the Chinese do something according to their. .. I don't think that it would be a
worse district for living than some other one. Because it turns out that the
situation is spoiled. These microdistricts, the typical microdistricts get put
together, which always turn out, no matter what we do ... I can't really say it, but
we have a joke: whatever party you build, you get the KPSS! [CPSU, or
Communist Party of the Soviet Union]. (Polishchuk, interview, 10/13/06)
I was able to speak to one developer during the course of my interviews, and he did not
share the careful view of urban morphology expressed by the planner-architects, either.
When I asked whether he saw anything valuable in the built forms of the past, he was
categorical: "I don't see anything good in what was.... Right, courtyards, some kind of
housing that got built, the streets of the city were always clean... The streetcars always
ran on time." This developer lived in the new housing districts to the city's north, so he
did not have any experience of the "effective" courtyards of the center or the Stalinist
areas, but he might have rejected their value in any case. He hoped for a shift in mentality
somewhat like what Matvienko described, and thought about building in terms of cost
effectiveness.
The Deputy Chief Architect showed me photos of the kind of built form that he
wished some developers would adopt for new housing: they were two-to-three story
apartment buildings in Holland. They were familiar to me as the kind of inexpensive
housing that goes up around many American cities-somewhat like motels, but often
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with some greenery between the buildings and at least not 22 stories high. Polishchuk
said, "These are barracks in our language." When I said that they were everywhere in the
States, he explained that this kind of affordable housing comes into conflict with the
architectural predispositions of those in the city administration and current plmming
apparatus:
In Russia now, economically there is a mass of people without housing and so
forth. [I ask,] Could you build this sort of thing? Why not? 'What are you on
about, is that even architecture?' This is what they ... I say, we need to build
this-we have to build a city of these! 'What do you mean, no, you can't
possibly! That's not serious.' ... This is our mentality.
Thus there is a way in which the firm entanglement of form with social meaning
complicates even further the halting struggle to house people and make them feel good
about the transformations in society. Polishchuk has a very specific, microscale sense of
needing to provide affordability even if the resulting form is disengaged from the dense
network of social assumptions about housing. The Baltic Pearl tends to focus on a
different level of transformation, seeing the new district as a "locomotive" node or
subcenter.
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CHAPTER V
SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF XENOPHOBIC DISCOURSES
At the scale at which the city is "produced" as a common space for large
segments of the population, the project of the Chinese firm Baltic Pearl constitutes a
disruption in familiar "spatial practices," together with a restructuring of "representation
of space" of the city historically and materially, together with a rearrangement of "spaces
of representation" in terms of values, location, and activities. On one hand, when the
project is seen as "Chinese" with connections to geopolitics and to demographic issues,
the reaction to this disruption is often xenophobia. On the other hand, when the project is
seen as "global," with all the architectural, economic, and cultural implications that
attend ideas about globalization, the reaction is a protest over dispossession. As this
chapter shows, the types of spatial anxieties which provoke both reactions are closely
linked.
While responses to such complex disruptions cannot be reduced only to an
analysis of spatial practice, we can gain insights into questions of both xenophobia and
dispossession through a spatial analysis. For example, xenophobia can be isolated. It
might seem that a respondent would be supportive of the Baltic Pearl if she apparently
has the ability to adapt to or accept a new socio-spatial paradigm caused by general
disruptions. I did not find this to be the case; in some cases, respondents who support new
architecture or investment in general were not supportive of the Baltic Pearl project.
------------------ .- _._--_._----
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Of course, the Baltic Pearl has the potential not only to disrupt but to create new
practices, representations, and spaces. For some, as is already implied, this is threatening;
for others, it is the opening of a new field for action that they welcome. As discussed in
this chapter, an analysis of the components of socio-spatial paradigms through
examination of the discourse deployed in research materials can be helpfully described as
a competition between-or at least an overlapping of-stories as Certeau describes them
in his chapter on "Spatial Stories." A story, he writes, "has distributive power and
performative force.... [and] it founds spaces" (1991, 123). Conversely, "where stories
are disappearing... there is a loss of space" (1991, 123). In this passage Certeau then
moves to discussfas, which is a phenomenon different from a story, but which seems to
approximate the story's function: fas is a ritual in Roman territorial practice which
"create[s] the field necessary for political or military activities ... [and] 'provides space'
for the actions that will be undertaken" (1991, 124). Certeau qualifies his comparison by
noting that unlikefas, "socioeconomic technocratization confines" the story "to the level
of the family unit or the individual" (1991,125). However, I would argue that while we
are most used to thinking of the stories of individuals as these weaker, less significant
tales (recall Certeau's discussion of tactics and strategies), the structure of argumentation
at the scale of the city or even governments partakes of several elements of narrative that
strongly resemble what individuals do discursively in order to establish a "field of action"
around themselves. As seen in Chapter IV, a "story" structured by appeals to the spatial
form of the yard works powerfully to make certain things happen in visions of the Baltic
Pearl project. Even so, as becomes clear in this chapter, "stories" that appeal to other
173
spatial references or set certain locations and events in a certain relationship to each other
in space and time try to define the "field of action" for the city, other residents, and
potential Chinese migrants.
Methodological Notes
This chapter is based on material collected in several ways from 2004 to 2008,
including, first, hundreds of newspaper articles produced locally in St. Petersburg.
Observation of urban phenomena began with research in locally-based online newspapers
Fontanka (May 2004) and affiliate Nevastroyka (January 2005); since Fontanka focuses
on Petersburg issues and Nevastroyka specifically addresses issues related to
construction, they constituted the main source of published information used here.
However, articles from business daily Delovoi Peterburg and the English-language St.
Petersburg Times (which both also have print editions) provided confirmation or
additional facts. Second, semi-structured interviews with both "ordinary citizens" and
"experts" were the focus of fieldwork. Of the fifty interviews completed with Russian
subjects (mixed between these two categories) and the ten interviews completed with
Chinese subjects, I refer here to sixteen Russian "ordinary" interviews that included
discussion of the Baltic Pearl project. Third, the material includes results from a survey
co-designed with colleagues from the Center for Independent Sociological Research and
administered by Russian sociology students in Krasnoselskii district, where the Baltic
Pearl site is located, and in the adjacent Kirovskii district. The 350 respondents in this
survey were asked several questions similar to those asked during semi-structured
interviews with 'ordinary' residents. Finally, participant observation in several street
174
demonstrations and daily travel around the city contributed to a perspective on the
salience of various issues for the city as a whole.
The aim of this set of methods was to explore, qualitatively, the types of concerns
that residents and experts would raise. I sought, though a general set of questions, to
create conversations that would elicit stories about movement through space, which
would in turn reveal the components of socio-spatial paradigms-common spatial
practices such as modes of travel and beliefs about behavior, assumptions about spatial
hierarchy and valued spaces ("representations of space"), and locations that hosted
consistent types of activity or were regarded as performing a particular social function
("spaces of representation"). As noted above, Certeau provides a way of understanding
the discursive deployment of these components as a performance in space, the definition
of a field of action. While it is important to note that the subject groups for the survey of
city residents, the entries on the news forum, and semi-structured interviews were all
different, my aim was the collection of discourse on themes relevant to the research. I
sought to hear sets of common terms in these definitions, with the goal of discovering
developing phenomena that will require further study (Kaganskii 2004; Piirainen 1997).
Context for Protest against the Baltic Pearl
Media presentation of the Baltic Pearl
As noted in Chapter IV, the original statement of the substance of the Baltic Pearl
project occurred in March 2005. On 23 March, the Committee on Investments and
Strategic Projects presented a document to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly
detailing the results of its negotiations with the Baltic Pearl consortium. The first half of
175
the document, presented as a list, demonstrates the emphasis placed on social
infrastructure: schools, libraries, health clinics, drugstores, and sports facilities are among
the services that the city plans to require from the developers. Some interviewees
expressed a concern that the Baltic Pearl firm was trying to reduce the number of objects
provided for social infrastructure (e.g. Nadia), e.g. by removing a hospital, but in a July
2008 interview, City Vice-Governor Vakhmistrov used the same numbers provided in the
March 2005 document. The firm did not in fact agree to build a hospital, but rather to
include two health clinics, one pediatric and one general.
The misunderstanding of the project's details is evident in other aspects.
Importantly, the March 2005 memorandum makes no mention of architectural style or
requirements. Yet early newspaper coverage of the Baltic Pearl suggested that there
would be a visible "Chineseness" to the project. The Nevastroyka news site still records a
huge amount of information about this and other projects (as of September 2008) and
archives the chatrooms which comment on them; Nevastroyka inserted information in its
first descriptions claiming that "one part of the quarter would be built in contemporary
style, the other in traditional Chinese style" (Chinese Quarter, 1112004). Along with the
Moscow News (Rabotnova, 1011912005), the site also claimed (and still claims) that the
district would include a branch of the Peking Opera and a Buddhist temple.
These two supposed architectural objects gave justification to many complaints
about the "Chineseness" of the quarter. However, there is no evidence for this whatsoever
in other recorded sources, either in the March 2005 memorandum or in any of the design
books from 2004 to 2006; in January 2008 an interviewee in Shanghai rejected the notion
176
that such elements were ever part of the design. In fact, the Baltic Pearl firm seemed very
careful about presenting the project as neutrally as possible, insisting on its connection to
local Russian tradition and modeling its form on European standards. Indeed, a reporter
at Gorod complained that the project as presented in December 2004 "completely lacked
Chinese identity," including any relationship to the notably cosmopolitan Shanghai, and
that its low-lying buildings most recalled Versailles (Oreshkin, 12/27/04).
The statement that the site will contain a Buddhist temple-naturalized as official
information by its steady presence on a website and in other publications-reveals the
local confusion over how this negotiation took place. It also suggests a slippage between
discourses of xenophobia and frustration with the opacity of the city administration. The
inclusion of this mysterious information by Nevastroyka allowed some nervous observers
to label the site as a threatening Other. Yet a FontankalNevastroyka reporter dismissed all
protest as a combination of irrational nationalism and a misunderstanding of investment
projects (Zaitseva, interview, 8/26/05). Again, while conceding that these two elements
definitely seem to inhere in the protest discourses used, further exploration can reveal the
complex struggles over socio-spatial paradigm that are buried in these standard discursive
taboos (for to be nationalist or anti-investment seems a retrograde attitude). For, while
pro-investment and anti-chauvinist arguments also advanced reasonable points in support
of the Baltic Pearl project, such positions tended to use the faults of their opponents as an
easy means to dismiss their objections, which in fact often had their roots in a broader
spatial anxiety connected with some shift in a socio-spatial paradigm that affected
residents' lives.
177
For example, early discussions of the project focused on the displacement of a
boating club that had been located on the site for several years. I suggest that if the
discourse deployed by the club's supporters was nationalist or anti-investment, this was
so because this terminology was readily available to the speakers while a terminology for
describing a more profound dispossession had no purchase in the context of the
discussion. The club, "Baltiiets," claimed that they had been summarily evicted from the
area; that promises of compensation were never realized; and that they were entitled to
more compensation even than they were promised, since they had extended the historic
Matisov Canal and created the shorter canals running east to west and then south off
Matisov that became important design features of the new project. The magazine Gorod
mentioned this situation in sympathetic tones.
At the public hearing on 8 February 2005, held at the Voskhod cinema in
Krasnoselskii district, at least 600 people gathered to protest the project (Nevastroyka,
2/9105), led by the "captain" of the boating club. A briefly mentioned element that the
journalist did not emphasize was the residents' complaint that "automobile traffic" had
been allowed "under hundred-year-old oaks" on the site, thus ruining it and allowing the
authorities to call it "a dump" (Nevastroyka, 2/9105). While the effective designation of
the site as a place of public significance and much-vaunted access to nature seems weak,
it is an important signal of the type of socio-spatial paradigm held in mind by the
speakers. The three main concerns listed by the journalist in the article were these: "[1]
That the Chinese will possess the ten'itory under lease for 49 years, and afterwards have
the option to purchase it permanently; [2] that specific engineering plans are not in place;
178
and [3] that Russian developers received no such carte-blanche, no such direct grant from
the City Governor's 'gift fund'" (Nevastroyka, 2/9/05).
These concerns, couched in a language calculated to be relevant in the context of
a public hearing where the residents have limited standing, hint at deeper concerns that
the speakers cannot articulate. First, many of those in the "protest group" (including
voices on the Nevastroyka forum and among my interviewees) are anxious about new
concepts of property and property transfer. Second, they mistrust the ability of the
authorities to manage the engineering logistics of large projects and to maintain city
infrastructure, including the surroundings of their residential buildings. Third, in spite of
their misgivings about property, they perceive a shift in the manner of developing
space-a kind of return to its exploitation in large blocks with government sanction. In
this last case, the Baltic Pearl emerges as a contradictory phenomenon, marking both a
new mode of spatial operation in terms of property distribution and a continuation of the
command planning approach of the late Soviet period.
Notably, the response of the city government to resident xenophobia was to
propose a policy which was simultaneously recognized as impossible and which was
complicit in xenophobic assumptions: several members of the administration and at least
one representative of the firm mentioned that the quantity of real estate sold to Chinese
buyers would amount to no more than 1% (cite other sources, dates) "for internationalist
reasons" (Nevastroyka, 3/28/05). That is, instead of mounting a campaign of more
substantial information about the project and thus minimizing misperceptions that could
179
inflame opposition, the administration apparently planned to quiet protest by claiming to
control the size of the misperceived object.
In some cases the construction of measuring instruments for the public sentiment
displayed the same disposition to thinking in these oversimplified categories. A survey of
500 respondents administered in March 2005 by the polling firm Agency for Sociological
Information suggested that 44 per cent of city residents were against Chinese investment
qua Chinese, while 28 per cent favored it and 18 per cent had formed no opinion
(http://www.asinfo.ru/?id=323). The survey also reported that "nearly half of city
residents had never been outside Russia, had never eaten in restaurants with non-Russian
food, had never visited exhibitions of foreign artists, and had no foreign friends or
acquaintances." The survey also asked respondents to list countries most hostile to Russia
and to supply an ending to the phrase, "I think that a typical Chinese is ... " (Nevastroyka,
3/28/05). While the survey has some similarities to the one administered for this research
in November 2006, it provides no questions that would indicate the relationship between
a respondent's spatial positioning in the city and his responses, thus framing the
responses as "naturalized" and essential. While the interpretation of the survey's results
as indicating that "we are dealing with nothing less than genuine racism and we live in a
racist society" (Nevastroyka, 3/28/05) is not incorrect per se, such an interpretation
relieves the city administration of responsibility and refuses to implicate the other factors
that are at work. (Similarly, in an otherwise excellent survey, Gel'bras posited a deep
reluctance to engage socially between Russians and Chinese because they would not
180
consider marrying each other; it seems essential to consider more intermediate stages in
mutual socialization.)
Problematizing the framing ofquestions on the Nevastroyka blog
In order to elucidate other factors at work, I analyzed spatial aspects of discourse
in a sustained public discussion about the project. The material that I chose to
approximate public discussion (perceived as impossible in the press or on the street) was
a "forum" or extended set of blog posts archived on the Nevastroyka site along with a
page detailing the history of the Baltic Pearl project (for treatment of this material as
"public discussion," see below). In the thematic sections below that explore the
complexities of the arguments, I use "quotations" from these entries, and amplify those
results with interview quotations.
I was able to calibrate the framing of the blog posts through juxtaposition with
other sources as well as interviews. A survey conducted for this project in the last week
of November 2006 on the streets of the Krasnoselskii and Kirovskii districts provides a
general picture. This survey collected 350 responses from respondents who were virtually
all longtime residents of Petersburg; about 40% had a tertiary education, and about 35%
had a technical education. They were divided about equally between men and women,
and divided fairly evenly across ages from 18 to over 60. Only about 19% were
pensioners, while about 60% were employed in professions ranging from management to
the military. (Thus, the respondents were not dominated by the "protest group.") The
results of the poll's question about a respondent's support for the Baltic Pearl project in
general are opposite to the one cited from ASI in March 2005; about 44% stated their
181
support, while 30% opposed it (about 25% didn't care or hadn't formed an opinion).
When asked for whom they thought the Baltic Pearl was being built, results also
indicated that the majority of respondents did not see the area as a threat. About 58%
believed the area was meant for Petersburg residents, while only 26.5% thought it would
be chiefly for Chinese (and about 15.5% had no opinion). However, while I say "only," it
might still seem striking that almost a third of the respondents were against the project
and more than a quarter believed it might become an ethnic enclave. It is for this reason
that I consider negative reactions more closely in the subsequent section, focusing on
entries from the news forum.
My survey indicated that most residents had little idea about the project, and so
about 65% could not say how the construction of the Baltic Pearl would affect their
district. However, four possibilities were seen as having the same probability by those
who had a clearer opinion: an increase in traffic jams and transportation difficulties; an
increase in housing costs and rent; an increase in the district's prestige; and an influx of
Chinese migrants (all named by about 8% of the respondents). Again, reasons for
believing this last point lead into interesting tangles of socio-spatial assumptions, as
discussed below.
Another way of gauging common assumptions about the spatial effects of the
Baltic Pearl carne in publications from the investing company. To counter local
resistance, the Baltic Pearl firm produced a magazine, the first issue of which appeared in
summer 2008. A cornmon set of criticisms was actually set out as "ten myths," and then
addressed, in a separate article.
182
1 Only Chinese are designing and building the Baltic Pearl.
2 The real estate will be only elite.
3 The builders are not considering Russian codes.
4 There is still no clear plan for construction of the complex.
5 The Baltic Pearl will turn into a China Town.
6 Transport connections to the complex are difficult, it's difficult to get to the
metro.
7 The Gulf of Finland will become inaccessible to residents.
8 Nothing contained in the project has been built yet.
9 The Baltic Pearl will become an endless construction site.
10 The company leadership does not intend to improve the transportation
situation in the area.
(Baltiiskaia Zhemchuzhina 2008, 28-29)
The firm's public relations manager provided rebuttals to each of these objections. In
Chapter IV, it was shown that points 3 and 4 are of course "myths," but signal a much
more complicated story. New transportation plans do in fact exist; the firm's most recent
promotional brochure (produced in January 2008 and made available in Petersburg in
summer 2008) contains a map with the proposed line for a monorail and in July 2008 a
firm representative confirmed that the last corrections to the quarter's design had been
made to allow for this route (see Map 5.1). Further, all design sketches show a widened
Peterhof highway minus the current public streetcar line.
However, this list of ten "myths" leaves out some of the most vigorous objections
and glosses over others. First, the rebuttal of the first "myth" asserts that Russians have
already participated actively in design of the quarter. This is true, as Chapter IV shows; in
fact, in spring 2008 the firm announced the hiring of a Russian construction company to
build a group of small skyscrapers in the retail area of the site towards the Gulf of
Finland (Nevastroyka, 3/28/08). However, during a site visit in July 2008, even firm
representatives admit that all construction laborers on the project are Chinese,
Map 5.1. The Baltic Pearl with the monorail route linking it to the metro system.
Kilometers
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184
brought in specially for the purpose, and they expect more to arrive. This contradicts
arguments made by several pro-project "voices" on the news forum, who maintained that
local Russian workers would be employed. Two factors work against this: in general,
construction laborers in Moscow as well as Petersburg are non-Russian, either Tadjik or
Moldovan (Boris, interview, 10/14/06), and additionally, local experts conceded that
Petersburg could never supply the needed amount of manpower for such a construction
site (Nadia, interview, 11/3/06).1 Thus, the fact of Chinese laborers does not surprise
anyone who knows the situation, but it contradicts arguments made by supporters. The
issue of high Chinese in-migration and its impacts on the project are taken up below.
Second, the claim that housing in the quarter will be for the middle classes as well
as for the elite might be misleading. While there is reportedly still a crisis in provision of
housing in the city, a large portion of this crisis relates to city residents who are poorly
housed in either communal apartments or Khrushchev-era buildings that were meant to
be temporary. The pent-up demand does not lie with residents having excess capital to
invest in housing, but rather with a backlog of those who were waiting on a "list" for
government-sponsored improvements to their situation. While the housing in the Baltic
Pearl will not be among the most elite in terms of price (this is reserved for detached
housing at the city limits and the most central apartment locations), it may still not be
affordable for those residents who form the bulk of those seeking new housing. This may
promote another common problem in Petersburg, speculative real estate purchase. As a
1 In this chapter and in Chapters V and VI, I quote "ordinary" interviewees using pseudonyms and the date
ofthe interview. "Ordinary" interviews are not listed in the bibliography. All interviews cited were
conducted by the author in Russian. Repetition of names and dates occurs in the text when it is necessary to
maintain clarity of reference.
185
blogger wrote on the news forum, purchases in some new apartment buildings are chiefly
investments, and lights come on only in the few units owned as primary residences. If the
Baltic Pearl cannot manage to sell affordably to the city's real "middle class," then it may
not achieve the dynamic urban neighborhood feel that it seeks.
Finally, the "myth" that the quarter will become a "China Town" such as those
known in cities around the world (notably New York and San Francisco, and many others
mentioned on the blog posts) indeed seems absurd, and it was thoroughly refuted on the
blogs as well as in the magazine. In contrast to the 1300 local inquiries reported in early
September 2008, the firm's representative wrote for the July magazine, "no discounts for
purchase by Chinese citizens are planned, and as of now not a single inquiry about
apartment purchase has come from that direction" (Baltiiskaya Zhemchuzhina, 29).
However, as is addressed below, the conflation of anxiety over migration with general
ignorance about the Baltic Pearl produced quite a range of objections to the way that the
Baltic Pearl would "produce" space. These objections capture the elements of current
struggle over the production of space in contemporary St. Petersburg.
The sample interview quotations below demonstrate the range of perceptions and
the lack of knowledge that local residents had about the quarter in fall 2006, about two
years into the project's development and at the time of the first building's construction.
One of my older interviewees (60 years old) lives not far from the construction
site, and regularly visits the park just east of it; she also mentioned that she enjoyed the
"natural," undeveloped areas north of the park (in the same state as the Baltic Pearl site
was during the 1990s). Ignorant that this area has been slated for massive development
186
since the 1986 City Master Plan, her recommendation for the area was to develop it as a
recreational area so that local residents could get more fresh air. She knew little about the
Baltic Pearl when I asked her, but said only that "people are afraid right now.... That this
will become a criminal area, and that you won't be able just to walk here [in the
undeveloped area]. It's sad. '" No one is telling us anything" (Vera, 12/9/06). Her
impression that crime would increase along with an imagined increase in Chinese
migrants was typical of the blog posts as well.
Two younger interviewees knew just as little, but reflected different ideas of what
might happen. A young man (22 years old) said
I heard that here to the southwest they're planning to build a Chinese quarter. I
haven't heard much about it, just that much. I wonder whether it will be a student
campus, or in fact a sort of residential area. It seems a little awkward from the
point of view of location. It's really far from everything. (Mikhail, 10/12/06)
This comment illustrates that he associates Chinese with the number of students studying
in the city, and that his reaction to it as a residential district has pragmatic elements to it.
Not having traveled outside Russia, he still has access to new (for Russia) ideas about
economics through his work and friendships, and notably does not outwardly assume that
a construction project means high immigration.
A young woman also in her 20s, who has traveled widely in Europe and works
with English-language tourists, rejected outright the idea that the area would become a
"Chinatown":
It seems to me that both sides need it. I think that it's probably also needed ...
Perhaps connected with investment. And then I don't think that it will be some
kind of China-town, I don't imagine it this way. Most likely it will look different.
Not any kind of immigrant neighborhood, that's a completely different thing.
(Nina, 12/13/06)
187
Intriguingly, all three of these respondents knew essentially nothing about the project
beyond the fact that it was underway.
Concealing details behind generalities: for and against the quarter
As of September 2008, 1555 posted entries remain on the Nevastroyka news
forum dedicated to the Baltic Pearl, covering a period from November 2004 to April
2008 (Projects of the Century: Chinese Quarter).2 While the entries often became
dominated by 3-4 "voices" on each side of the issue, in sum the range of arguments
offered for and against the quarter encompass every such argument I ever read or heard
from other sources during the course of research. The entries were also a source of "tips"
about aspects of the project that were not covered widely in the press; especially valuable
entries were not those of the chief "voices" which appeared as proponents and opponents
of the project, but longer posts by infrequent visitors to the forum.
The main arguments for the quarter, summarized by informal bloggers and also
mentioned in the official press, include the following points (Chinese Quarter):
It will add several hundred thousand square meters of housing to the city stock;
It will offer competition to the small number of local construction firms;
It will bring investment into the city;
It will add jobs;
It will give Petersburg a beautiful modem quarter with facilities for all residents
to use;
It will catalyze new transportation options, such as a monorail;
It will catalyze more construction in the area, increasing investment in
Krasnoselskii.
2 Hereafter cited as "Chinese Quarter." In sections below, individual entries from this blog forum will be
cited by date.
188
Except for the first two arguments, which are rather specific to Petersburg, the same
arguments could be made for any urban megaproject (and have been, see Massey 2007).
These are generalized goods that any such project supposedly brings, and these
arguments seem undeniable (Harvey 2001). As noted above, the positive effects may be
certain, and the quarter will probably develop successfully in the manner of other
projects. However, scholars still need to seek ways to discuss more forcefully and more
precisely the nature of objections. I consider further below the kind of racist anxieties
raised by the Baltic Pearl project, but first I want to consider procedural objections to it
that suggest other transformations in the socio-spatial paradigm because it is precisely
this for which we have yet to find an effective language.
The following points constitute what I regard as the most reasonable of the objections
advanced by posts on the blog (Chinese Quarter). All are umelated to fears about Chinese
migration:
• The grant of the site to the Chinese consortium for construction of the quarter has
unfairly displaced the boating club;
• The land was granted to the Chinese company without the proper tendering
process;
o One blogger quoted a federal regulation that "the delivery of land parcels
for construction out of land which is in government or municipal
ownership may be accomplished only through sale (competition,
auction)";
• After 49 years, the company will have the option of purchasing the land at nine
times the tax rate, which is minimal in this part of the city;
• The promised investment is virtual-all money will in fact return to China as
payment for Chinese-produced construction materials and salaries for Chinese
workers;
• The city budget will receive only lease fees, taxes on the land (minimal in this
district) and taxes on any real estate (low until something is built);
• The city will have to pay more than it expects for site preparation (electric,
plumbing, roads, embankment granite) [estimated by one blogger as $550 million,
189
with already $728 million spent to create the additional land in the Gulf of
Finland in the 1980s];
• Since this is a government project, graft will be a problem-and the requisite
bribes in such projects are usually 60% of the estimate;
• The costs per square meter to build and the corresponding price charged can't add
up; the Chinese won't be able to make the housing affordable-or if they can, it
won't be a profitable project;
• The consortium is financed directly by the Chinese government, so it isn't a
private project.
The objections fall into three general categories, all related to space. The first is the
allotment of space for economic or other activity in the city, including the displacement
of the yacht club and the lack of a bidding process for the land; the second is the
trajectory and ultimate location of so-called investment monies; and the third relates to
social and political access in terms of ability to purchase housing in the quarter and
control of it by another government. The combination of the first and second categories is
striking: the first set of criticisms reproaches the process for not following new market-
style procedures for allotting land, while the second critiques the investment process for
not being what it claims.
The first issue touches directly on the position of the Baltic Pearl in the
transformation of urban space in Russia. As noted in Chapter IV, Shuvalov, a journalist
familiar with the history of land use in the city, noted that the earlier Master Plans
intended to transform the entire shore of the Gulf of Finland (see Map 4.3) into the
"fa~ade of the city," an intention reflected in the Baltic Pearl design books. This location
of the site in a broader administrative planning vision obstructs its inscription into the
new market sphere of open bidding. The "granting" of the site to the Chinese consortium
more resembles the Soviet mode of assigning large blocks of land for development to
190
state corporations and institutes. Certainly it stands outside any attempt at normalizing
market processes: Zarenkov, a local developer, gave several interviews claiming to have
made bids on the site that the city administration rejected (e.g. Gorod 8/23/04), and
several officials went on record in early 2005 stating that the project had the political
aspect of being a kind of good-will gesture between the Beijing and Moscow government
structures (Nevastroyka, 3/24/05; Basic Characteristics 2005).
The second issue seems to remain nebulous in any such project; who can do the
accounting over the extent of an entire project, or count the benefit to a city budget or to a
single firm? However, in a context where a major part of the argument to citizens is the
financial benefit received from a project, the objections listed above point to the distance
still to cover in the minds of many Russians if the authorities are to connect a tangible
sense of benefits to general investment or construction activity. Residents who made
some of these objections clearly are not familiar with the common practice of cities
providing public infrastructure for private construction projects as an investment in
general development and not as a calculated return. In the case of the Baltic Pearl, current
indications are that the project will indeed have the projected economic impact on the
nearby district: several other large residential projects are planned nearby (Site Visit, July
2008) and the city administration makes regular statements about a new monorail. If the
plans are realized, they could function as a concrete lesson in such investment processes.
The third issue is expressed in terms of the flow and destination of money, but
reflects further anxiety about the clientele for whom the site is being transformed.
"Money decides everything" is a new and negative comment made by many
191
Petersburgers when discussing new phenomena in the city, and it often has to do with
how space is redivided under the new economic conditions. The fact that the price of
housing in the Baltic Pearl might be out of reach of most residents even as the quarter is
presented as a major contribution to realizing the federal program of "Accessible Housing
for All" seems like a betrayal of Russian space. The fact that part of the consortium is
directly financed by the Shanghai Municipal Government, as confirmed by interviews in
Shanghai in January 2008, strikes some observers as hypocritical when the project is
promoted as a major "investment" project. Finally, the certain presence of graft in the
process seems another betrayal, a diversion of public and/or the investors' money into
private hands that constitutes yet one more depublicizing of a space that had been at least
partially conceived as common.
This tangle of objections and worries unleashed numerous simplistic charges
against "the Chinese" and "the authorities" on the blog site. Interviewees tended to offer
more moderate criticism, although their remarks sometimes echoed blog comments.
Resident Activism and the Spaces of its Representation
Before addressing the spatial anxieties of many bloggers and some interviewees, I
want to dwell on the self-conception of public space demonstrated in the entries as a
crucial context for the struggle between concepts of space. Both xenophobia and
dispossession have found expression in this way. Xenophobic statements are officially
deplored, while statements of dispossession generally are dismissed. Yet in spite of
increasing the official discouragement increasingly facing dissenters, public protest
retains a firm position in the socio-spatial paradigm.
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City governor Matvienko on the proper placement ofresident activism
In her annual addresses to the Legislative Assembly, considered at some length in
Chapter IV, one of the other things for which Matvienko claims Petersburg needs
"European standards" is civil society and local governance. Indeed, one of the
requirements for accession to the European Union is the principle of local governance
(which Petersburg in important ways clearly violates, since Matvienko is appointed). She
asserts:
Independence and responsibility of local governance is one of the foundational
European standards.... European standards of quality of life mean simultaneously
European standards of civil society. (June 2004)
In March 2005, Matvienko develops the formula of Petersburg as "a city with European
standards of quality of life, a European level of economy and development of civil
society" and she repeats this phrase in both March 2006 and May 2007 (in 2007 she
actually calls it a "formula" herself). She does not articulate the content of this iteration
of "Europe" as she does that of the material, service-oriented "Europe." In fact, when she
actually discusses civil society and its organizations in her speeches, she again clearly
operates based on her paradigm of unitary space that operates at the city and state scales,
emphasizing harmony and the reduction of disagreements. In June 2004, the requisite
independent local governance consists of "constant information about activities"
circulated between city officials, leading to "cooperation with Federal structures and
oblast organs." In March 2006, in an extended commentary obviously directed at
numerous public complaints and resistance to her plans, Matvienko again emphasizes her
city-scale paradigm of uniform cooperation.
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I have said many times before and repeat now: civic activism [grajdanskaia
aktivnost] is not only requests, complaints, and criticism. First of all it is the self-
organization of citizens. It is the energy of activists who create homeowners'
associations. It is the supportive councils of educational institutions. It is the
organization of active youth who are seeking their place in society. It is
philanthropic organizations, without shouts or self-promotion helping other
people. It is unions of entrepreneurs. It is national-cultural unions that reinforce
tolerance and agreement. It is the growing civil society of our city. We are open to
this society. We are open for dialogue. We have no reason to hold discussions
only with extremists.
As is clear from the organizations Matvienko lists positively, "extremists" are those who
disagree with the positions of the authorities. In May 2007 she made the following
statement that resonates with the previous one but adds a specific circumscription of the
political geography of civil society:
I have said and will repeat: we will not be led around by the directors of marginal
protest demonstrations who are earning political and not only political bonuses.
But we will rigorously demand that informal, honest public hearings be conducted
for the residents of the specific microdistrict where construction is proposed.
People have the right to know how their area of habitation will change. They have
to right to state their opinion about this and influence the decisions taken. To
supply such informal hearings is the direct obligation of the district heads and the
deputies of municipal entities.
The insistence on limiting protest to the residents of certain districts arose because, in fall
2006, protest groups began to unite across districts in order to help each other understand
legislation and formulate complaints that would enter the official record at public
hearings, as well as demonstrate moral support; activists and lawyers appeared at the
hearings held in the districts of their colleagues. By requiring residents to unite around
one vision of the city but then simultaneously limiting any protest discourse with the
criterion of spatial location in a particular district, Matvienko contradicts herself; she
asserts that residents must work for the good of the whole but then must conceive of
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impacts on themselves as circumscribed by district or block boundaries. Yet, as
demonstrated by the growing collaboration between activists from different
neighborhoods, activist residents are capable of conceiving that their concern is not just
one local area but the broader texture of sociability that surrounds them.
Forum views on civil society
Given the context of public debate in Russia since the accession of Putin in 2001,
such online spaces as those provided by Nevastroyka and other news outlets actually
constitute a public space for discussions that cannot be fully accommodated in
newspapers or on the street. In particular, protest discourse must obtain permission for a
demonstration that takes place in the usual urban "public spaces": a gathering of more
than five persons must have a permit. Since dissenting views are seen as "extreme," as
Matvienko's comments about a unified "civil society" imply, a range of opinions and
complaints marginalized by the authorities must seek "locations" for expression such as
these news forums since they are discouraged from appearing in city squares.
One criterion for a true online public space might be the facilitation of collective
action, as has been noted in China (Zheng and Wu, 2005). In this case, while in the early
stages of the Nevastroyka's Baltic Pearl forum some contributors attempted to garner
support for a city-wide referendum on the project, the "dialogue" devolved often into
empty antagonism from both "sides" (of 1554 entries, fully 386 fell into the category of
"you're stupid"); there is a high probability (as mentioned on the forum itself) that the
discourse was contaminated at various points by contributors who deliberately sought to
disrupt the exchange of information. Yet there was indeed an attempt to generate support
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for a referendum; during the first four months of the forum (November 2004-March
2005) there were nine entries calling for this. Over the course of the three years of the
forum, what stands out (in paradoxical relationship to the unpleasantness of many of the
stereotyped comments about Chinese) is the self-conception of "Russians" as civically
active and ready for political participation as a way to assert their claims on territory.
In the midst of their own ignorance about China, individual Chinese, and
traditional or contemporary Chinese culture, some contributors to the forum saw the
official condemnation of their positions as anti-populist. Their perception that most other
city residents shared their concern combined with a rumor about Chinese civic practices:
Recently I saw Aunt Valia [Matvienko] on TV, she was promising to grind into
powder anyone who protests against the Chinese, so that means basically all city
residents. Then the golden time will come for the authorities, they can settle the
entire city with Chinese, who won't organize demonstrations or demand social
welfare and free transport fares [for senior citizens and students] and so on, or
insist on compensation for being evicted. (Chinese Quarter, 3/16/05)
The activities that this entry mentions-demonstrations, demands for social welfare and
subsidized passage on public transportation, and demands for fair compensation in the
event of eviction from buildings slated for redevelopment-were common topics in that
part of the press that covered resident problems, and all fall into Matvienko' s categories
of "extremists" and "marginal protest." Through the implication that the Chinese won't
make trouble, the contributor criticizes the unresponsive city administration.
Thus, although the following blog comment starts to shade into a
misunderstanding of what an investment project is, the connection that it makes to the
possibility of public protest is crucial:
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This is a political project, not at all advantageous for the city. Who answers for
these kinds of policies? We don't have freedom of the press [literally, "freedom of
the word"] but there's a law on extremism, therefore I can't say any more; think!
(Chinese Quarter, 3/17/05)
This comment rejects the arguments about investment and benefits to the city budget,
linking promotion of the Baltic Pearl project to suppression of resident opinion and
action. In this way, as discussed below, it points to the fact that the struggle is between
the city administration and the residents who do not agree with the spatial transformation
taking place-not between the residents and Chinese, of whom most city residents
(including the bloggers) have almost no experience. Another contributor cited the federal
and municipal laws on the right of citizens to have a referendum conducted (2/17/06). A
consistent strain of the forum comments (as noted above in the list of legalistic objections
to the project) supports the introduction of clear legal guidelines in urban construction,
and sees the local Petersburg (and maybe general "Russian") response as involving
meetings, petitions, referendums and participation in public hearings-all activities of
vigorous political civil society.
However, as Massey and other geographers have noted, the comments and
arguments also reveal that space is structured very much through understandings of
belonging, historical meaning, and national or ethnic identity (2005,2007; depending on
how the writer uses terms). This reveals a very vigorously Russian local "representation
of space" that precludes Chinese from taking part in the "spatial practices" that would be
performed in the traditional Petersburg "spaces of representation." In these spaces, there
is no place for either the Chinese investors or large numbers of Chinese migrants.
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Anti-Chinese Prejudice
Especially in the context of current-day Russia, local residents feel that they
cannot affect decisions made by their elites; in Sassen's terms, they have no power to
affect the "colonization" of the city by the "new city users" (1998). Yet a more crucial
problem is that they do not have any effective language to do more than complain about
the pressing problem of dispossession. By contrast, while residents have a similar lack of
political or social power to affect the supposed "colonization" of the city by migrants and
other people still in the minority, they have a ready language to express the non-
belonging of these people: xenophobia is easy. Thus, one of my aims was to seek spatial
codes for dispossession in arguments made in xenophobic terms.
Spatial references in the forum entries
Hostile repartee constituted a great many posts on the news forum, but many still
indicated significant elements of discourse. Negative responses under the heading of
"cultural interaction" formed 5% of relevant entries, mostly in the category of
exclamations such as "This is our land, stay out." Many subscribed to the idea of rigid
spatial assignments for different nationalities:
What about earlier, for example, when the Yakuts lived in Yakutia, Russians in
Russia, the French in France, African-Americans in America, just residents of
Africa in Africa, Chinese in China and so on. So why is everybody rushing about
like this? Of course a certain percent of foreign citizens must and should live in
other states: marriage, a scholar or specialist, lots of reasons. But like this, the
whole tribe at once, the whole nation-off to the neighbors-God save us! We
need to get our own house in order. (5/14/05)
Yet alongside such misreadings of history (neglecting to mention colonialism, or the
Russian imposition of "Siberia" on native peoples), some of the entries contained
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references to the local housing situation, such as this one: "We can't even house our own
citizens [grajdane], pensioners live in ruins, and they want to build a mini-city for the
Chinese. Build in the taiga somewhere, but why in Piter?" (4/19/05). It is this subtle
connection to local housing problems and other socio-spatial dislocations that drew my
attention, and made me want to explore even the most xenophobic sections of the news
forum more closely.
A fairly constant notion on the news forum posts was that the Chinese would live
in ethnically exclusive enclaves. Out of 1168 relevant posts, anxiety about enclave
formation was mentioned 31 times; fear of Chinese-only spaces was mentioned 10 times.
As already hinted above, dominant stereotypes of Chinese include the idea that a large
number of Chinese migrants would not take part in public life as the local residents know
it, thereby further disadvantaging them in the struggle to adapt to the new economic
circumstances. In fact, as described below, residents ignorant of project details expressed
a great deal of anxiety that issues of national sovereignty would be at stake if the
(government-owned) Chinese consortium were able to purchase the Baltic Pearl site. It
might perhaps seem too lofty to make the point I intend, but I suggest that local anxiety is
increased by this sense that large numbers of Chinese will form spatial interruptions in
the local texture of sociability, shutting off part of the socio-political circulation that
oppositionally disposed residents already see as under threat from their own government.
In order to make this point more clearly and persuasively, I now examine the spatial
references-to practices, spaces of representation, and representations of space-that
occurred in the news forum posts.
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For the "protest group" orientation, a fixed set of sites, often historical, anchor the
notion of a common set of "spaces of representation." These threatened sites, linked
variously to the Soviet or pre-revolutionary past-but invariably to a notion of public
good-emerge in a variety of news forums on the Fontanka and Nevastroyka sites. They
include several cherished parks where local developers have attempted or partly
succeeded in building elite detached housing or townhouses. One blog entry captures a
few of them along with other spatial commentary:
We can't even cope with [Russian] migrants from the former CIS, you can barely
walk without stepping on them, and now you want to organize a Chinese
expansion here too! Valentina Matvienko isn't from Piter, she doesn't care as
long as her son gets enough for his candies, but there are true Petersburgers,
natives ["rooted"], who don't want skyscrapers in the center, townhouses on
Krestovsky Island or villas in the Central Park of Culture and Rest [on Elagin
Island]. (Chinese Quarter, 6110/05)
Many participants in the forum who favor preservation of these "spaces of
representation" suggest that the Chinese will harm the built environment that enables the
spaces. (Clearly many of the xenophobic Russians are unaware of the usual attitude of
Chinese to Petersburg's historical area, as described in Chapter V.) The focus of irritation
is actually the city administration or the general shift in building practices, but the
Chinese project creates an easy outlet for frustration. The perception is that the Baltic
Pearl will participate in this dispossession of residents, changing local spatial practices
and marginalizing the dispossessed still further.
Several types of comments on the Chinese Quarter blog illustrate the envisioned
disruption of existing spatial practices. (The link between this kind of anxiety and the
Soviet/post-Soviet transformation is addressed in the final section of this chapter.)
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• One contributor warns that the Baltic Pearl will have "Chinese tenements just like
all over the world, with their own rules" (12/19/04).
• Someone else, supposedly based on the experience of a friend in Paris, imagines
that "on one side your neighbor will be a Chinese drug addict and on the other a
Chinese drug dealer, above you a Chinese prostitute who invites clients home and
below you Chinese Mafiosi, filthy entrances and yards, shot-up doors, you can
only go outside during the day" (3/17/05).
• Another, speaking of enclaves and a feared residential concentration of Chinese
migrants, warns of "an alien body, a sore that will separate itself from the citizens
and the city itself' (3/29/05).
• Someone else adds that it will be "a state within a state with its own laws and
customs" (12/20/05).
• The spirit of the Russian proverb cited by one contributor runs through many such
entries: "You don't take your own charter to another monastery" (5/12/05).
The chief fear is that Chinese newcomers will not obey the local spatial practices, that is,
that their refusal to behave according to local norms threatens the continuity of local
space. I would argue, although not strenuously, that there is a global aspect to this fear in
that the Chinese are seen as new arrivals who have sufficient power to reject the local
socio-spatial paradigm and create their own. This fear has some links to a historical fear
of Chinese invasion that is far from unique to Russia. However, the sense of the power to
disrupt of Moldovan labor migrants is vastly less than perceptions of such power on the
part of Chinese labor migrants; they are perceived not only as hardworking but as bearers
of geopolitical rivalry. By extension, neither Moldovans nor Chinese are given the power
to participate in shaping space, or any explicit dispensation to redefine the socio-spatial
paradigm.
Strikingly in this connection, the spatial practices of the Other are all imagined as
hostile to existing residents. While such xenophobia is common in many parts of the
world, we might pause to wonder why the imagination of arriving Others does not tend
on the whole to include positive visions: many existing residents anticipate that the new
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arrivals will disrupt a system that they understand-social, cultural, economic, or (in my
analysis) socio-spatial-and either replace it or change it beyond recognition. That is, the
elements that they introduce will have no productive potential.
The one contributor to the forum who consistently expresses interest in living in
the development reinforces this point in a description of why he would like to live there.
Among other reasons, he suggests that he could take his children to the water park and
walk with them along the covered embankment. That is, he envisions himself enacting
simple spatial practices on the site that seem to him "completely normal" and that support
his idea of family activities; he does not perceive the resulting development as an expanse
of competing spatial practices, with different cultural and social representations
demanding their own spaces.
Evaluation of these antagonistic comments on the forum demonstrates that the
imagination of a persistently threatening set of spatial practices on the part of any
Chinese migrants conditions a great many of the negative reactions. On the news forum,
as in interviews, it turned out that very few contributors or respondents had direct
experience with Chinese people; information was usually derived secondhand. Thus, the
forum contained multiple references to problems with a high number of Chinese migrants
in the Far East and also indicated slippage onto experiences with other non-Russian
people in St. Petersburg and Moscow. One contributor to the blog forum recognized this
epistemological problem:
We already have quite a lot of migrants arriving in the city now, and not all of
them legally. It's precisely on this background that people connect the Chinese
quarter with some kind of Chinese aggression. Of course, there is no logic in this.
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But it's also not surprising, if you read the vast majority of comments entered
here. (6/13/05)
An extended anecdote offered by one contributor demonstrates how many opponents of
the project tended both to elide the differences between different groups of non-Russian
migrants (here bringing an example involving migrants from the Caucasus to a discussion
about reacting to Chinese) and to associate hostile spatial practices with any migrants.
Take people from the Caucasus. No, I'm not a nationalist, but I don't like it when
one family moves into a building stairway, occupies a two-bedroom place, then
you find out that about 20 people somehow fit in there, then they begin to earn
money and buy up the remaining apartments in the entryway. And meanwhile in
the morning they yell to each other from below up to the windows in their guttural
language, and someone yells back from the apartment, and meanwhile they warm
the engines of their creaky minivans, that they use to take goods to market,
endlessly slamming the van doors. My mother-in-law lives in a building with just
such a stairway, I'm not making this up. I'm not against these people, but after all
they have no plans to blend into our culture, to accept our customs and habits, but
they-and I won't agree with anyone who says the contrary-MUST do this,
because THEY came to US, and not the reverse. (2/8/05)
Before we rush to deplore the intolerance of the contributor, it is important to notice the
implied assumptions about spatial practice and use of space: silence in the yard during the
morning, a certain number of square meters per person-certainly not 10 people per
room! After years of waiting patiently for an apartment with multiple rooms, many
Petersburgers find the idea of acquiring multiple apartments beyond their comprehension;
after years of struggling to increase the official allotment of square meters per person in
living space, the idea of accepting less (even in the name of frugality) must strike many
as degrading. In fact, the phenomenon of one family buying up several apartments also
struck some of my interview respondents and some mentioned it in informal
conversation. An acquaintance of mine in her early 60s told me a story similar to the one
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quoted above (involving members of the same ethnic group) with a hint of disapproval,
as though it were profligate behavior. And certainly a shift in the majority of residents in
a yard or around a stairway can dramatically change the assumed spatial practices.
Some entries tried to make this case, such as the following:
It isn't a question of racial features but of the upbringing, lifestyle, and moral
code of one or another ethnic group. A human is a social being, and it's typical for
people from the Caucasus and China to keep their own traditions, alien to ours,
and this is the danger of the appearance of a large number of representatives of
these nationalities in Petersburg. They don't care a whit for Petersburg and its
residents. [literally, "they could spit on"] (Chinese Quarter, 7/7/05)
The repeated link made between immigrants from China and from the Caucasus is very
significant, even though it would hardly stand up to extended anthropological analysis.
The argumentative gesture itself of comparing the social (and, I suggest, spatial) behavior
of unknown Chinese migrants to "known" migrants from the Caucasus does several
things. First, it reveals an assumption common in Russian discourse that separate
"ethnes" exist and behave uniformly, heavily influenced by the anthropo-philosophical
works of Lev Gumilev; second, it reveals that many Petersburgers are using the local
experience that they have with other migrants as a way to process their feelings about as-
yet unknown migrants as well as an urban development project, in a kind of spatial
mismatch; and third, it again reveals an insistence on the supposed salience of practices
("upbringing, lifestyle, and moral code") over essentialist prejudices.
In Chapter IV, it was shown that different assumptions about spatial and
architectural form did occur in negotiations between a small group of Russian and
Chinese architects and planners; they are not reducible to "anti-Russian" or "anti-
Chinese" prejudice, but can be traced to existing historical and contemporary practices in
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different cities in the two countries, particularly in Petersburg and Shanghai. At the scale
of large groups of much more diverse individuals from different countries who come into
contact with each other, is it legitimate, as some of the forum contributors do, to point to
spatial and other practices as reasons for mistrust and even conflict?
Interview comments on other urban prejudices
Semi-structured interviews allowed a deeper exploration of this question. Just as
in the news forum, many of my respondents knew little about the Baltic Pearl or about
individual Chinese people; they, too, tended to shift their explanations and reasoning to
instances out of their experience, which tended to involve migrants from the Caucasus. In
the end, though, while few of them could say much about the Chinese in particular, they
had a fair amount to say in general about intercultural relations in the city. These
comments revealed additional aspects of the spatial anxiety that is visible in the news
forum.
The Russian respondents whose comments I use below have had a range of
experiences with Chinese. (See Table 4.1.) Three had made extended visits to China, two
of them for language study; these latter two continue to work with Chinese in Petersburg,
one as a representative of a shipping firm and one as a guide for Chinese tourists. Two
others were highly educated teachers; one teaches culturology in a local institute where
there are large numbers of Chinese students. Two others are also highly educated, both
linguists, who have traveled widely but don't know any Chinese students or city
residents. One is a seventy-year-old woman who lived through the Siege of Leningrad as
a child and has never left the country; finally, one is a 25-year-old young man who had
Table 5.1. Summary of Russian interviewees' position on the Baltic Pearl. (Organized by increasing income.)
Name/age Car? Income Suspicious For Ethnic conflict Investment Crime
Vera, 62 low • •
Liudmila, 70 low • •
Mikhail, 23 low •
Ivan, 25 low •
Masha,36 low • •
Anna, 36 low • •
Boris, 25 • medium • •
Rita, 38 • medium • •
Nina, 26 medium • •
Dmitri,45 • medium • •
*Nastia,24 medium • •
*Varya,46 medium • • •
*Nadia, 27 • high • •
Sergei,42 • high • •
Pavel,40 • high • •
Svetlana,38 high • • •
**Polishchuk,52 • high • •
**Nikitin, 68 • high • • •
* indicates that the respondent has visited China and continues to have frequent contact with Chinese acquaintances.
** indicates an "expert" interview with a city employee.
N
0
VI
------
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never left Petersburg until a trip to Moscow in fall 2006. They are not activists, although
by definition (including age and income) some of them fall into the "protest group";
although many were disgusted with the local administration (reflecting the general mood
of the news forum), none of them had participated in any political action or street
demonstrations. They had positive to lukewarm views on the need for investment in the
city, and in general were either supportive or neutral about the idea of the Baltic Pearl
project; none expressed vigorous opposition. The point of reporting their views is the
probable moderateness of their positions-in other words, these are not people who are
calling loudly for Chinese to be expelled from the city; they want to see themselves as
educated and worldly. Thus, their views are indicative of serious problems, and their
hesitations tap into the more persistent elements of a socio-spatial paradigm that does not
accommodate difference.
The following quite long quotations from interviews in this section are essential in
order not to take statements out of context or to truncate interviewees' thoughts for the
sake of proving a narrow point. I include them here to demonstrate the complexity of the
socio-spatial terrain into which the Baltic Pearl enters.
Liudmila, a thoughtful professor of botany and lover of poetry in her early 70s,
had little to say when asked directly about Chinese: "I only see students. If there are other
Chinese in the city, I don't see them. I don't frequent the Far East, so I don't know how
things are going there." (Note her unprovoked association of the Chinese with the Far
East, which occurred frequently in the news forum.) However, as our conversation
probed local attitudes to newcomers, she attempted an explanation for xenophobia and
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attacks on migrants. While she thinks of herself as an educated person, she recognizes
that she feels a distinct discomfort in dealing with certain migrants; also, she
simultaneously rejects abstract Russian nationalism as well as the assumption that
Russians have somehow been duped into xenophobic attitudes. In sum, she sees real
problems in the behavior of non-Russians, and in an interview ascribed the crude
responses of Russians to a lack of education and poor economic conditions.
First of all, not everyone is living well right now ... And nowadays, they just toss
you something [at market stalls] and you can't say anything in response. So of
course I-although I consider myself a fairly educated person, more or less
cultured-I don't allow myself to say nationalistic things ... but when I go to the
market, I try to buy from Russian vendors .... And then, whereas before I always
went to the market, that was the tradition, I bought everything there, but now I
don't want to. I don't want to talk to those people. Maybe it raises anger and
resentment in some people, but not with me. But I don't know, I think it's wrong
to talk about how someone is brainwashing us. Nobody is brainwashing me....
But then some people yell "Russia for the Russians!" - this is completely stupid.
Why for Russians? After all, Finns lived here before us. So am I supposed to pack
my bags and leave, or something? And before the Finns there was someone else.
You can't be saying all the time, Russians lived here. . .. The lower the level of
culture, the more strongly this is expressed. And the fact that we live poorly. If
people lived better, they wouldn't pay any attention to such things. (10/30/06)
Aside from her appraisal of public xenophobia, it is clear from her description here that a
common place for interaction between different groups of people in general has been
food markets where vendors sell vegetables and other fresh foodstuffs by weight. For
many years, most of the vendors of fruits and vegetables have come from the Caucasus,
since this region is the main source for these foodstuffs (vendors of dairy are usually
Russian; vendors of meat products vary). Chinese have reportedly appeared at Troitsky
Market. The more affluent and the poor also used to mix here, since the market had the
highest quality of fresh food. As grocery stores and "hypermarkets" (English
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"supermarket") take over more of the sector, the markets become more the domain of the
poorer consumer. As Liudmila mentions, it was the "tradition" to go to the market; now,
economic forces beyond her awareness are changing the structure of the retail food
system in Petersburg, and changing social dynamics mean that tension between ethnic
groups has increased as well. Specific behaviors result in part from these larger
dynamics, and Liudmila indicates that contact between differing groups may have
decreased as a result of the tension.
Varya, 50 years old, who had made two trips to China for cultural programs and
who spoke ecstatically of her interactions with individual Chinese, deplored the empty
xenophobia of her countrymen that she felt resulted chiefly from laziness, but she also
emphasized the underpinning of spatial practices that she felt conditioned the response of
local residents:
They are truly active people. Why do local residents, people from Petersburg, feel
threatened by this? It seems to them that these people, they've come here, they're
making their own career, they're taking our jobs, and so on. On the one hand, who
is preventing you? Work actively yourself! .. , These are very active people who
are trying to make their way, to position themselves, establish themselves in this
life and so on. And sometimes, this sort of thing often happens, this striving to
conquer space, it seems very aggressive. Their behavior is such that it doesn't
accept certain settled, foundational customs. After all, Petersburg is a city with
three hundred years of history. There is a defined mentality here, an idiosyncratic
cultural environment, a certain norm ofbehavior even. How are Moscow and
Petersburg different? Here you walk and walk, a visiting person says, How should
I get here? And [a Petersburger] will take you practically to the door. There's
nothing like that in Moscow. In the best case people say, Go that way or buy a
transport card, and beyond that no one wants to know who you are. Here it's a bit
different. So people, native Petersburgers, they want to make sure that the good,
those good foundational customs, rules, that these things are preserved. And so
they hold certain expectations for the behavior of new arrivals. For example, why
are they suspicious of people from the Caucasus? It's because they have a
different attitude to women. As though they were second-class citizens. If you
don't regard a woman as an equal, people will reproach you. If you insult a
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woman, people will reproach you. And if you don't understand, then you're free
to go back home and setup your own rules there. That is, when you arrive in an
existing environment, you have to deal with those rules.
(3/25/07; emphasis added)
When I spoke with Varya for the first time in October 2006, she had just returned from a
trip to China and was full of enthusiasm. She described the way that she had gone from a
negative to a positive view of the Baltic Pearl project, based on an abstract enthusiasm for
the mingling of different people in one place.
A lot of people are coming here now. In principle this is good, when people come
together. I don't think it will be just Chinese there.... So, I don't know what will
happen with the Baltic Pearl. It will need colossal resources. And if China begins
to invest in Petersburg, that will be good. Both for Petersburg and for China.
Without a doubt. In general I feel very positive about this idea. (10/28/06)
In our second conversation, the same woman emphasized a different aspect of her
reaction, expressing particular concern that Chinese not form an ethnic residential
enclave at the site:
Right now the Chinese are building the Baltic Pearl. And they say that people
from China will live there. I feel somehow very negatively about this
concentrated residence of one nation. It seems to me that this will be a ghetto.
This must not happen. There must be assimilation with other nationalities.
Because entrance for all others would become forbidden....When the same kind
of people concentrate in one place, terrible things happen. (3/25/07)
Of course she means "when the same kind of people concentrate in one place" inside a
space that other people regard as their own, where there is some kind of generally
recognized set of spatial practices-an "existing environment" as she called it in the first
quotation I included by her above. As Massey (2005) implies, the blindness of the
"native" population to its own concentration in space does not prevent the imagination of
disastrous conflicts with non-native populations, although establishing who has clear
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claims to "native-ness" is becoming increasingly problematic. However, it is fair to posit
a fairly stable set of spatial practices, a kind of accepted socio-spatial paradigm, when a
large number of people seem to share it. Whether or not it is valid, its existence must be
acknowledged as a factor in attempts to achieve the kind of urban society that so many
scholars, and some residents, would like to see realized.
A conversation that I had with two highly educated professors, Pavel and Liza,
illustrated the same principle. In this dialogue, notice the references to a set of practices
related to place of origin, and to the anxiety created in the second speaker when resident
practices in the domestic spaces of courtyard and bus stop are unfamiliar to her.
P: They aren't adapted to live in a city. They don't understand how to live. More
than that, they don't understand thefoundations of urban life. Of course I think
this creates the potential for serious tensions. Because when a criticaL .. when
there are districts in the city here, in Petersburg, where the non-native, even more,
with different skin color, this is very noticeable. It isn't dominant, but it's very
noticeable. I think that the high number of skinheads in Petersburg is a reaction,
say, of the less-educated part of the native population, mostly that uncultured
lumpenproletariat, let's say, to those people, new migrants, who live there the
same way that they live at home. By the law of the mountains, so to speak.
L: I can't even say that I reject them, that I can't accept people from a different
culture. I can. But you know, when you are walking home at night, and there's a
group of people sitting there, and you listen... for example I know all the Finno-
Ugric languages, but it's not that group. I know the Turkic languages, and it's not
Caucasus languages. It's not Azeri, Georgian, or Armenian. It's not any central
Russian language. It's some tribe or something.
P: Probably Tadjiks.
L: No, I understand the Tadjik language. It wasn't Tadjiks.... I hear them and can
tell that I don't understand.
P: And there are very few languages she doesn't understand. She can at least say
what family it's in.
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L: And you look at their expressions ... and you don't know what they're thinking.
I walk along, and I'm already afraid. Or say, I go out to the bus stop, and they're
sitting there sometimes. I don't remember how many. They sit on their heels, and
spit all around them. Am I supposed to like that? I know that our building janitor
is not going to clean up the bus stop. (11/5/06; emphasis added)
Pavel went on to say that he thought it was the responsibility of the authorities to create
some kind of firm framework in order to regulate the inflow of migrants who might know
little about either urban or local culture. While both wanted to be seen as accepting and
enlightened members of society, they also felt the disruptions to their normal experience
of space; they did not see a smooth connection between wanting to accept Others and
managing their own spatial experience of Others' presence. A thoughtful 25-year-old
respondent captured all of these elements in an extended conversation about ethnic
prejudice in Petersburg. Discussing the Baltic Pearl, he said,
I would of course not be against it if something developed in Russia, like, well ...
When such chaotic things happen, it seems to me that it's not bad conceptually,
that is, it's not bad that the color of people's skin is different. It's bad that the
process is chaotic, it shows that there is some kind of disbalance in society;
everything was quiet, and then suddenly there's this huge shift. Why did it start?
Everybody is surprised, they couldn't prevent it, you know, regulate it. The
authorities, who can't do anything ... It means that they, you know, are
incompetent to decide these questions. If there is going to be a China-town, well,
who cares, it sounds great, Chinese, they have lanterns, little restaurants,
everything's fabulous. If it helps the economy, who would be against it. People
are against other things, I think. (Ivan, 10/29/06)
The "other things," as I have suggested, are the chaotic disruptions to the dominant socio-
spatial paradigm. Thus, when scholars write that new urban public spaces require
"engagement across differences, a mutual respect for those who are different from
oneself, and space for them to be so" (Watson 2006, 171), there is a piece of the puzzle
missing: engaging with the socio-spatial paradigm in the "existing environment" and
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finding ways for it to intersect with the socio-spatial paradigm that most strongly inheres
with the arrivals. In connection with this, I now turn to a final section in this chapter that
addresses another set of mistrustful Russian responses to the Baltic Pearl. These reveal a
broader anxiety about the shift from a Soviet socio-spatial paradigm to a hoped-for "post-
Soviet" one.
The Struggle between "Soviet" and "Post-Soviet"
Post-Soviet Russia is not a monolith. Many internal struggles remain between
those who adopted, and adapted to, the sweeping economic and social change and those
who did not make it into that successful class. The socio-spatial paradigms of many
residents retain "Soviet" points of orientation, ranging from specific spaces of
representation for Soviet national pride (such as Damansky Island, just below) to
representations of space that include more collective-oriented use of land, such as for
parks. For this aspect of post-Soviet life, though, an effective language is still missing.
Invocations ofhistory in the forum
Forum posts also revealed a scale of oppositional discourse that went beyond
perception of urban ethnic friction, raising the agreement to build the Baltic Pearl-
signed by representatives from the two national-level governments-to the level of state
symbolism. (This scalar move, of course, is consistent in some ways with statements
made by various officials from both states about the political significance of the project.)
The breadth of such scaled appeals is striking: in making their points, for
example, several entries referred to significant territorial conflicts between the Soviet
213
Union and the People's Republic of China. Entries that asserted China as a potential
enemy for Russia recalled conflicts such as the Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969,
fought over Damansky Island (returned to China in 1991). Some entries mentioned
Mongolia as a rallying cry against the project, invoking the Soviet claim to have liberated
the Mongolians from Han Chinese domination when they made Outer Mongolia into a
Soviet republic. Both of these references sought to portray China as a territorial
aggressor, and to place the Baltic Pearl into the context of these prior conflicts over
control of space.
This Soviet-influenced stance often synthesized new information about Chinese
migration to other parts of Russia. Several entries in the news forum immediately made
an association between Chinese migration and the Russian Far East. Several anecdotes
were posted about parts of Vladivostok or Khabarovsk where Chinese had posted signs
forbidding entry by Russians or had come to dominate residential or commercial space.
Scholarly studies of Chinese migration to several Far East cities and to Moscow provide
partial corroboration for such anecdotes, although recent scholarship also indicates that
many residents of the Far East welcome the Chinese migrant presence as a needed boost
to the local economy. In the context of the Soviet vision of the Far East, however, that
region is a prize not only in terms of natural resources such as oil, gas, and timber, but as
a frontier that Russian discourse expressed pride in conquering (Bassin 1999; Stephan
1994). Many geographical and economic realities may inevitably force Russia to yield de
facto control of the region to China; the Russian government may not have either the
financial or population resources to sustain its Far East settlements, while prosperous
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China can more easily support its burgeoning population in northeast provinces right on
Russia's border. However, allowing the Chinese gradually to overwhelm the area struck
some forum participants as unpatriotic.
Expectations for the Baltic Pearl: between central planning and market development
Uneven attempts to find a language for what is really at stake (in many cases)
show through in comments about planning, architecture, and spatial practice in
Petersburg. Expectations for the Baltic Pearl intersect with two aspects of a socio-spatial
paradigm: the spatial practice of distributing land for development, and the spaces of
representation (assumptions about how to arrange space) associated with the Soviet
period. The latter surfaced frequently in entries opposing or criticizing the quarter.
In Chapter IV, I discussed the vision for the Baltic Pearl project espoused by the
city administration and by the Baltic Pearl firm itself. In terms of distribution of land for
development, my concern specifically is to evaluate impressions of the project from the
point of view of the transition from a "Soviet" model of structuring urban space to a new
approach, perhaps post-Soviet, certainly transformational (Axenov et al. 2006; Sykora
2008).
Contradictions in the goals of the St. Petersburg Master Plan are visible here as
elsewhere. Interview and forum commentaries pointed out some of these contradictions,
exhibiting frustration with the (ironically) Soviet-style opacity of decisions and
centralized planning control over the total vision of the city. Some criticized the choice to
develop the Baltic Pearl site as residential/retail; many news forum posts complained that
the city should have used the Baltic Pearl site for expansion of the industrial port, which
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is located between the historical center and Krasnoselskii district (see Map 4.3). In this
context, journalist Shuvalov told me in an interview, the stated intention to have the city
become a more significant port conflicts spatially with the desire to craft an esthetic post-
industrial fayade for the city along the shores of the Gulf of Finland (described above).
He added, discussing ambitions for more significant port activity:
If we are a break-of-bulk center, a base on the route from Europe to Korea, then
of course we need to develop the port, and then everything else has to be
curtailed. We can't do both, we'd have to widen the port. And really develop it-
if you want to bring 300-meter tankers here, well, we have only three such berths
now. (10/24/06)
Solodilov, an employee with a major planning contractor for the city, mentioned that the
city had considered removing all port activity further away from the center, but had
rejected the idea as too expensive. This means that the "beautified shoreline" will have to
coexist with the port, possibly forcing more industrial port functions to Vasilievsky
Island, which has been promoted as chiefly a cruiseline/passenger port.
Expectationsfor the Baltic Pearl: service to the collective vs. promotion of creativity
Juxtaposed with the desires of architects, the forum also reveals contradictions in
the kind of "spaces of representation" residents envision for the "representation of space"
imagined as an endeavor for the collective good. First, as noted in Chapter IV, local
planners and architects see the Baltic Pearl as a second chance for the massive
construction projects that could be never accomplished according to planners' intentions
during the Soviet period. Former Chief Architect Kharchenko stated, "after a decade-long
interruption, we in the city had the chance to see in the shape of this big territory, how it
[kvartal-scale planning] would develop" (12/6/06). He and other planners in support of
216
this idea saw careful kvartal-scale planning as a good idea thwarted by bureaucrats and
contractors who cut comers during the building process. The 20S-hectare Baltic Pearl
project is far smaller than some "new town" style developments done by Chinese firms in
other countries (e.g. 2800 hectares in Indonesia, Leisch 2002). As an element of a city-
level vision for a "Gulf of Finland fa<;ade" for the city, such a project entails control
exercised broadly over a large space in order to control the outcome; not surprisingly, not
all residents share the planners' enthusiasm for massive block-style construction. Just as
the method of granting land to the Chinese firm struck many as Soviet and antithetical to
market practices, the very architectural mode struck some as Soviet, too. On the news
forum a blog contributor signing himself "architect" wrote:
The quarter-scale construction proposed by the Chinese is not typical for
Petersburg. Our city was from the beginning built project by individual project,
and this gives it a particular umepeatability. Construction by blocks happened in
the Soviet period and reached its peak in the 1960s-80s. We see the result of this
in Kupchino and the southwest. (2/27/05)
Even supporters of the project on the blog forum repeated several times that they didn't
want to see Soviet-style blocks turning up in the Chinese project. One wrote, "the only
thing I'm afraid of is that they'll build a typical faceless quarter in the style of Soviet
builders!" (3/12/06). As scholars have noted of East European countries affected by
Soviet-era mass construction practices, the current tendency is to avoid this large scale
and seek low-rise housing (Czepczynski 2007), although the visible Chinese tendency is
to create massive housing blocks.
Architect Nikitin is a strong supporter of kvartal-scale development and proud of
the designs he produced over decades in Soviet planning. Crucially, he (and Kharchenko)
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understood something different behind the concept of "blocks"; he did not want Soviet-
style monotony either.
These boxes, what is this? The same old Brezhnev construction, Khrushchevian
rhythms. Everything is resolved with these primitive compositional techniques.
Very dull and not inspired. Music can have a clever melody with complex,
diverse rhythms. But in primitive music, it's just bum bum bum bum bum.
(Nikitin, interview, 10/17/06)
As Chapter IV showed, the particular block form in the Baltic Pearl resulted at least
partly from consistent Russian pressure to build courtyards. Nikitin and Kharchenko
knew the Baltic Pearl had to cover a large space, but still wanted it to embody creative
design. Observers in the city saw the block as deadening, a form to be surpassed by
something contemporary; the Chinese and British designers embraced the efficient
geometry of the large housing block as though it were futurist art. It remains to be seen
whether this form can accommodate the change that Petersburg desires. (According to
Nikitin, the most skilled design for the whole quarter came from Rem Koolhaas at OMA,
but his fees were too expensive.)
Second, some felt that it was disingenuous to promote investment as the key
principle in a new "representation of space." Although comments cited above show that
the process of transfening the land to the Baltic Pearl firm did not take place under
conditions of market tender, supporters overall still regard the project as based on this
very post-Soviet financial vision, with the potential for modeling a new era of foreign
direct investment in Petersburg (the city administration has sought and gained foreign
investment in, for example, concessions for the projected north-south highway, the so-
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called Western High-Speed Diagonal). Nadia, a professional in the Russian-Chinese
business community, emphasized that
It's an investment project that's very important for the city, because in general it's
the first Chinese project of this size done in Russia ... Therefore it must work out,
it has to show that the Chinese can pass the test, and that maybe we should change
the city policies about investment here. (interview, 12/1/06)
While the land transfer process was not transparent, the release of such a plot of land at a
time when major Russian energy companies have been seeking renationalization may
signal a certain willingness on the part of authorities to experiment; after all, as a blog
contributor to the news forum wrote, "In other regional centers, all construction is still
under the firm paws of the local authorities" (3/20/06). The project appears to be a back-
room deal to some observers, but the administration may be taking a healthy risk in
allowing a foreign company to complete such a visible project. The Baltic Pearl may
provide a bracing model of success for the construction community if it can keep to its
schedule and produce attractive and affordable housing. It could indeed become a place
where a new kind of life in Petersburg is forged, with a new set of spaces of
representation and a transformed vision of yards and residential blocks.
Third, modes of transportation emerged as a key point of struggle. Spaces of
representation and spatial practices in the form of transportation infrastructure associated
with Petersburg's Soviet period, or Leningrad, were prominent in many comments-
chiefly in sarcastic comments made by supporters of the project who see the Baltic Pearl
as a way to refashion the central spatial assumptions of Soviet-era urban life. A major
space of representation for the collective experience of life under which the government
issued apartments to waiting families is the "khrushchevka" or "khrushchoba," the mass-
219
produced building constructed under Nikita Khrushchev to alleviate a critical housing
crisis. Meant to be temporary, they still house a large portion of the city residents here
and across the former Soviet Union. The following blog forum entry builds on this and
other common spaces of Soviet and immediate post-Soviet life as a reproach to
opponents of the Baltic Pearl:
Why don't our marvelous friends build us the typical five-story buildings we've
known from childhood-the Tadjik builders and the Moldovan tile-layers, under
the protection of our own dear Chechens. We'd rather have a sea of kiosks, with
Azerbaidjani merchants, than let those cursed Chinese build their awful
oceanariums, mirrored skyscrapers and silly aquaparks! And even better-let's
leave it as an empty lot, because otherwise there's nowhere to walk our dogs and
drink port. Good job Leka-a real Russian patriot, standing alertly on guard for
the interests of his native city! (12/30/05)
The "five-story buildings" are the "khrushchevki"; kiosks are a sign of the transitional
stage of 1990s retail (Axenov et al. 2006); and the empty lot is quasi-common a space, in
practice neglected by the Soviet building system and often appropriated by nearby
residents. Each of these forms is its own "spatial practice," with its own context and role
in a reigning socio-spatial paradigm. Related blog entries give additional illustration of
the mood:
Dearer to the heart of our people are the khrushchevki. It's warmer in those when
they turn off the heat. And your neighbors don't envy you. (1/23/06)
Our people are used to their khrushchevki. Let the Chinese build in other
countries! We don't want anything except khrushchoby, streetcars, and fixed-
route taxis. And maybe heat during the winter, and a bit of humanitarian aid now
and then. (2/15/06)
These two entries suggest a passivity and mediocrity in collective life, in which people
weren't active enough (or didn't have the power) to improve unreliable systems of urban
heating, didn't have the nerve to exceed the low standards set by lazy neighbors, and in
220
which Russia had to accept humanitarian aid to feed its people. Thus, this kind of
opposition to the old socio-spatial paradigm-which translates here into support for the
Baltic Pearl-sees nothing but negative qualities in the pre-1990 urban life. When one
contributor expressed suspicion that a dairy outlet in the Baltic Pearl would somehow be
connected to a high birthrate there for Chinese migrants, a blog contributor in this anti-
Soviet pro-progress position wrote:
People travel the devil knows where around the city and suffocate in lines in order
to get milk for children. This kind of situation can only be normal for a Stalinist
who has lived his whole life in deprivation and dreams that his children will suffer
even more. (3/16/06)
Such entries reject the arrangement of space prevalent under the Soviet regime, and hope
that the new district will sweep away that arrangement. Pavel commented,
In general I have this feeling of hopelessness. Nothing is getting better in our
urban development. I completely understand those who are building the Baltic
Pearl. That they decided to start with a clean slate. Take some district where there
was nothing before and try to create a different world. (interview, 11/5/06)
Whether the slow pace of development stems chiefly from the resistance of certain
groups or the policies and behavior of the city administration, there are certainly residents
who are reluctant to let the old spatial arrangements go. The streetcar is a focus of this
sort of conflict, since many of its lines were removed to make way for more car traffic.
But it symbolizes a certain Soviet orientation, and constituted a distinct "spatial practice."
It aroused several tussles in the news forum, and like references to other "spatial
practices" of Soviet times it was deployed as a reproach against opponents of the Baltic
Pearl. One opponent of the project signed himself as "minus sign," and a fellow blog
contributor exclaimed, "Minus signl Demand streetcars instead of housing!!!"
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(3/16/06)-that is, the contributor reproached "Minus sign" for promoting the mere
rhetoric of Soviet spatial practice instead of demanding essential services. Missing the
point of using the streetcar to refer to an outmoded socio-spatial paradigm, a "bystander"
blog contributor linked it as spatial practice to the identity of LeningradlPetersburg; he
wrote, "Why is there such hatred for streetcars? After all, it's one of the symbols of our
city. I've heard that there aren't any streetcars in China" (3/16/06). Finally, another blog
contributor recognized that all of these spatial practices could be seen as game pieces in
the shifts in city policy, where various sites and practices familiar to residents could be
changed depending on the current needs: "soon after they remove all the [streetcar]
tracks, they will announce the program for the 'Renaissance of the Petersburg Streetcar.'
But that will be under a different City Governor. .. " (6/28/06).
The sense from this sort of exchange is that many supporters of the project see it
as a catalyst for sweeping away a socio-spatial paradigm that stifles the city's
development; they are thus willing to forgive some of the impreciseness and questionable
legal nature of the transaction between the city administration and the Shanghai firm
because it will lead to a new set of spaces of representation-aquaparks, pedestrian
zones, and modern housing.
The most elaborated argument against this wave of change specifically mentioned
the social policies of the Soviet period. (Note that my translation ref1ects the "free-verse"
formatting of the original entry.)
if you mention the Union then you should compare not the assortment of cheap
goods in the stores but the percentage of
child-orphans
drug users
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homeless
unemployed
and the other poor
and also remember the free medical care and the pensions that allowed our old
people, after all, not to die of hunger
also remember the young people who worked in the student brigades and in the
Komsomol building factories hydroelectric stations and other state projects
believing in something!
and now our young people suck down beer in the entryways and beg for money
for their next hit (3/26/06)
The following blog response from a supporter of the Baltic Pearl rejects the substance of
this collective vision and reveals the frustration of those who want a change:
No one believed in anything at the end. No one had any illusions left. And
besides, your Soviet envy tells you that it's better when everyone lives equally
badly than when there are a few rich people and no one has to go to have a little
talk with the KGB when they want to take a trip to Finland. This is not to mention
the bread trains, that the whole country except for Moscow and Petersburg lived
on ration cards, that the peasants were starving, that they didn't have passports
until the 1960s (just like in serfdom), that people stood in line for hours for break
and milk, and that they fought like animals over vodka. (3/26/06)
In fact, these two "voices" invoke different aspects of the Soviet socio-spatial
paradigm-on the one hand, clinics, student brigades, factories and hydroelectric plants;
on the other, lines for basic goods, the KGB's office, and strict border control. Caught in
the middle somewhere is the effort to preserve and reSUlTect Petersburg's historical
texture, although it tends to be invoked mostly by opponents of the Baltic Pearl:
Living in the most beautiful city in the world, it seems strange to drag your kids to
stroll in the Chinese quarter, it's even dangerous! Show them the historical center
of Petersburg, the marvelous parks at Peterhof, Pushkin, Pavlovsk! (blog, 1/20106)
At the least, the vigor of these competing socio-spatial paradigms signals a continuing
struggle.
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Conclusion
Reconsidering xenophobia
While the amount and degree of local resistance to the Baltic Pearl project has
many of the unpleasant features of xenophobia, it cannot be reduced to this alone.
Tension over the transformation of existing socio-spatial paradigms underlies much of
the negativity.
In a study of company towns built by Chinese corporations for their employees
outside Jakarta, Indonesia, Leisch writes that the Chinese desire to live separately is
respected by the surrounding residents. However, he adds,
such spatial exclusion implies the concentration of power and wealth in a
developing country. Hence, jealousy among the poor people living around such
protected 'islands of wealth' cannot be avoided. It is only a question of time
before jealousy turns into crime, clashes and violence. (2002, 107)
Leisch's comment suggests that we should not rush to dismiss all Russian protest as
reactionary; in this context, due to precedents for Russian chauvinism, the "white"
Russians fall into the category of the racial aggressor, and automatic sympathies go to the
Chinese. In the case of Jakarta, the successful and dominant Chinese seem to be to blame.
A careful consideration of the Petersburg situation suggests that the local officials also
have a role to play (not unique to this context) as a complicit elite, neglecting certain
legitimate complaints from their citizens in a bid to profit from a large-scale project.
Leisch's study also supports the comment of Vilia Gel/bras that Chinese plans to
construct Chinese-focused spaces in Russia might not succeed. Discussing plans for
Huamin Park, a Chinese business center in a northeast neighborhood of Moscow near the
Botanical Garden, Gel/bras remarked that "this group would do better not to concentrate
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itself' (interview, 3/19107). Gel/bras's sober comment recognizes the economic and
social realities of contemporary Russia, where, as some fear, "it is only a question of time
before jealousy turns into clashes and violence."
Leisch also notes that the Chinese population in a Jakarta company town is aware
of the tension around them; "therefore, the company that is in charge of [the new town]
Lippo Karawaci, as well as the one that runs Bumi Serpong Damai, donates gifts (such as
free chicken) to the villagers" (2002, 105). In his conclusion, Leisch links this tension to
the capacity of such projects to improve genuinely the spatial conditions and
infrastructure around itself: "As long as the population in general cannot profit from
economic growth, the Chinese enclaves in Jakarta will have to be protected by high walls
and peace offerings-in kind, money or through the temporary use of land-to the
impoverished neighboring villagers" (2002, 107; emphasis added). The notion that the
"new town" projects create problems for themselves because they do not have enough
impact on the spatial experience of surrounding areas recalls Harvey's call to reconsider
"territorial" benefits in urban development, that is, "designed primarily to improve
conditions of living or working within a particular jurisdiction" (2001, 353). His general
critique of urban megaprojects was that they became "Place-specific projects ... [which]
have the habit of becoming such a focus of public and political attention that they divert
concern and even resources from the broader problems that may beset the region or
territory as a whole" (2001, 353).
My findings as discussed in this chapter reveal several entangled problems. First,
Petersburg as a representative Russian city will face challenges in integrating new
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arrivals into its existing socio-spatial paradigm. Second, the "existing" socio-spatial
paradigm is currently under stress and is still undergoing radical transformation. Third,
the lack of attention to broader spatial problems, and the dearth of projects with a
"territorial" approach, solidifies the problems of social isolation both between classes of
local residents (Russian and non-Russian) and newcomers such as Chinese.
The question that remains for this study is how to grasp more clearly what it is
about the current socio-spatial paradigm that many residents value, and what urban
projects might look like when based on a "political economy of territory" (Harvey 2001).
The simultaneous question relating to Russian-Chinese relations is whether the two
groups would really have such a contrasting experience of space as some negative
complaints make it seem, and/or whether there is a basis in spatial practices and shared
spaces of representation for expanding Petersburg's acceptance of urban change and
making it a more productive experience for all its citizens.
Two final quotations set the stage for Chapter VI. Sergei, a builder in his early
40s, rejected the value of Soviet spatial practices and the then-reigning socio-spatial
paradigm:
First of all, what we had in Soviet Union... in fact people say that things were
pretty good, right? I don't see anything good in what there was then.
MD: As in courtyards . ..
Yeah, courtyards, some housing that was always being built, the city streets were
always clean. Nothing of the sort. That's all fairy tales. Fairy tales, because
people were younger then... like in the jokes where the grass is always greener,
the vodka was better, the sun shone more brightly...
MD: And the streetcars always came on time.
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Yeah, the streetcars were always running. Nonsense.
This interviewee's experience of public transportation and state-supplied housing had few
rosy moments. But in an echo of the promises of those times, a contributor to the news
forum wrote:
There are a host of plans! All this is necessary. But all the same it would be great
if the pipes didn't burst in our apartments, if there weren't constant breakdowns in
the electrical grid, if the lights didn't go out in the evenings, if the garbage was
removed regularly, the price of gas didn't go up constantly, and so on, and so on.
lt's not so great to wait half an hour for a bus, and it's scary to ride in fixed-route
taxis. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I would really like to drink clean water,
for which I pay taxes in full measure. (10/25/05)
This contributor reposted his entry twice more, in November and December. While his
comments could be seen to reflect a post-Soviet passivity, I propose reading it also for its
emphasis on a failing city infrastructure and the need for "territoriality" in the sense that
Harvey suggests.
Chapter V has also suggested that the Baltic Pearl project takes a stand for a
modern set of "spaces of representation," while at the same time aiming to address
certain infrastructural problems, such as the provision of public transportation to the
southwest area of the city and widening the roads that serve Strelna and Peterhof beyond.
Given the struggle between Soviet and post-Soviet visions of the "good" in S1.
Petersburg, how will individual Chinese fit in? The next chapter addresses how
individual Russians and Chinese see the functions of a city, and explores ways that they
might find more in common than they anticipate. Do Chinese imagine a set of separate
spaces for themselves? What influences their behavior? And what do Russians actually
value most about the city as it exists already?
227
An interesting and productive agenda for future research will be site observation
and interviews conducted in an occupied section of the Baltic Pearl quarter; residents
who live there will have self-selected as subjects unaffected or undeterred by their
fellow-residents' anxieties over Chinese crime or immigration. Such research would be
able to trace a truly new phenomenon in contemporary St. Petersburg culture, and would
have the potential of problematizing assumptions about widespread Russian xenophobia.
Methodological qualifications
Although I attempted to gather material as widely as possible, I recognize an
important limitation in my methods concerning subjects who were inaccessible to me as a
function of my own cultural and socio-economic placement as a researcher in St.
Petersburg society. While I spoke to a wide range of respondents, both in terms of age
and profession, the overwhelming tenor of my results is mistrust of the Chinese project.
Yet it seems most likely that the Baltic Pearl will develop successfully, and that local
residents or real estate speculators who have no qualms about Chinese migration will
purchase and occupy the promised housing. In fact, for 1100 apartments in the first series
of buildings planned for completion by the end of 2009, the company has already
received 1300 inquiries (Nevastroyka, 8/27/08). If, as projected, as many as 35 000
people eventually occupy the residential buildings in the quarter, this is still a small
fraction of the city's population; if we suppose that apartments are usually occupied by
two people, only 17 000 people out of Petersburg's population of 4 million need to
overcome any anti-Chinese prejudices for the quarter to become fully occupied.
228
Resistance and mistrust may remain widespread without affecting the success of the
project.
Xenophobia is very visible, however, in my findings and in material used for
discussion in this chapter, regardless of the collection method. This raises a question
about studying this aspect of the Baltic Pearl's development: why try to understand anti-
Chinese statements in a more nuanced way? Is there any nuance?
The selection of data has strongly affected the aspect of the transformation that I
am able to discuss here. None of the sixteen interviewees whose comments about the
Baltic Pearl appear below expressed any interest in actually living in the quarter, even if
they expressed support for the project. This is partly a reflection of the current difficulty
described to me by colleagues in Petersburg: more affluent residents who have views
more favorable to entrepreneurial urban projects have become far less accessible to
researchers, and thus it is difficult to represent their views accurately. Although several of
my interviewees are well educated and also well-traveled, none is wealthy, and most do
not own a car. The survey of 350 residents of the Krasnoselskii district and the adjacent
Kirovskii district was conducted on the street with willing passersby; thus, it could not
incorporate the views of residents who travel by car and appear rarely on the street-a
sociological division of growing importance in the city. Finally, the blog referred to in
this chapter requires active participation; while there were several names contributing
entries in support of the project and of investment in general, there is no evidence in their
posts to suggest wealth or (except in one case) intention to live in the quarter. Thus, while
my research encompassed a range of voices, they tended to be in what might be called a
229
"protest group." Yet the nature of their protest, I would argue, is not as simple as it is
often portrayed. According to a local polling agency, this term refers chiefly to senior
citizens (pensioners) who generally refuse to support new ideas or projects. Data from my
research suggest that suspicion of the Chinese project in particular is not merely related to
rejection of everything new, but is strongly related with anxiety about new urban
development plans in general. Further, while xenophobia is a discernible and disturbing
trend, its spatial components and implications described by residents who are not merely
"knee-jerk racists" reveal important challenges in developing a truly multi-ethnic city,
and also suggest the need for researchers to pay more attention to overlapping concepts of
space and spatial practices in areas where conflicts arise.
Overall, allowing for the larger sociological limitation of my data (that is, not
capturing what maybe a small but "enlightened" subpopulation), I am still confident in
the combination of methods I used to extract themes and suggest conclusions. Persistent
themes emerged among the 350 survey respondents, 16 interviewees, and blog posts.
This allows me to propose a set of 'representations of space' and 'spatial practices,'
including a set of spatial references, that are important in the ongoing transformation.
The methodological assumption that study of responses to the Chinese quarter
should be set in a context of wider concerns about urban development in general came
from the breadth of topics considered during preliminary research in spring 2004.
Newspaper articles discussed a wide range of controversial urban issues, including
definition of the city's historical zone and predatory construction practices. Material
gathered on a preliminary research trip in August 2005 revealed clearly that, while the
230
Baltic Pearl was still an important phenomenon, it was quickly being supplanted as the
most controversial item on a list of resident grievances. Research done during the primary
fieldwork trip, from August to December 2006, confirmed this impression; in fact, the
most notorious public event of late 2006 was the announcement on December 1 of a
design project for a new skyscraper near the city center. The Baltic Pearl remains an
extremely important element in St. Petersburg's transformation, but the very fact that the
main focus of resident ire has shifted reveals that not it alone has provoked the degree of
protest demonstrated in the city over the past three years. Major street demonstrations
throughout 2007 focused around the "Gazprom tower," and the Baltic Pearl was not even
mentioned during a six-hour "marathon" TV program on June 25, 2008, that addressed
problems with urban development. Additionally, I observed demonstrations and
conducted interviews with activists in three different districts around the city where
residents are attempting to protest aspects of large urban infrastructure projects. While a
full discussion of these activists' work is beyond the scope of this dissertation, a certain
commonality of socio-spatial paradigm observed between their formulations and those of
residents concerned with the Baltic Pearl gives me additional confidence in my
hypothesis that protest against the Baltic Pearl does not rest on xenophobia alone. While
the reasons for protest may remain unsubstantial in the minds of outside observers (and
certainly in the minds of some city officials and residents), consideration of them helps to
reveal a complex texture of socio-spatial orientation in the city.
In some ways, the ignorance about China and Chinese investment practices which
unleashed xenophobic responses also heightened the degree of response in general; the
231
high responses also tended to contain evidence of other types of anxiety, which residents
would perhaps have had trouble voicing. And even as residents and protesters have
moved away from discussing it, I believe that discussion of the Baltic Pearl can still teach
us a great deal about why protest is happening and the genuine problems or challenges
that remain before the city authorities. These include not only management of increasing
migration, but also the process of administering land use, the assumed structure of urban
space, and the promotion of new "spaces of representation" alongside existing ones that
focus the "spatial practices" of a large number of residents.
232
CHAPTER VI
ADOPTING THE SPATIAL NARRATIVES OF ST. PETERSBURG
In this chapter I want to ask first how and whether Chinese arrivals in St.
Petersburg adopt elements of the local socio-spatial paradigm-partly because local
residents have tended to identify certain social values with aspects of the built
environment, but also because some city residents have found the invocation of particular
paradigms to be a powerful political resource. In that sense, one question in this chapter
is whether, by joining in successful aspects of that local paradigm, arriving Chinese can
overcome Russians' xenophobia against them and simultaneously support the political
struggle against dispossession by corning to share the assumptions that permit that
struggle.
In prior chapters, the two questions about dispossession and xenophobia that have
been driving my analysis of research data had to do chiefly with the local socio-spatial
paradigm. That is, I have asked how local residents are being dispossessed and how local
spatial conditions might generate xenophobic prejudices. Chinese interviewees enter in
the role of additional commentators on the transformation of the city.
Observers of urban ethnic encounters have suggested that study of how migrants
modify their host landscape/society must accompany study of them as passive objects of
local conditions, usually as victims of local attitudes to them (Ruble 2005; Colombijn and
Erdentug 2002). This rightly recognizes the transformative presence of migrants' spatial
233
practices and their conceptions of space, which ultimate in a new landscape for all
residents. The first steps in this process occur as migrants begin to use the host city's
spaces according to their usual practices and experience the effect of the host city's
arrangement on these practices, as Colombijn and Erdentug suggest when they state that
space has an impact on how people from different ethnic groups (besides being of
a certain class, age and gender) lead their lives. Conversely, since the members of
the ethnic groups have, by definition, a different cultural background and develop
dissimilar economic activities, they tend to utilize the urban environment in
diverse ways, having a different impact on the transformation of urban space.
(2002,3)
That is, in this case, Chinese migrants to the city will bring spatial practices from their
home locations in China, and will have to react to the impact on them of St. Petersburg's
space. Thus, when politicians talk of Sino-Russian state-to-state economic and policy
cooperation and local nationalists proclaim that Chinese and Russians cannot live
together, an important site to search for evidence of long-term cooperation is at the level
of the street, where Chinese explore Russian space and decide whether it "works" for
them.
After describing the methods used to solicit information from interviewees, I
briefly discuss the current state of Chinese migration to Petersburg and general public
perception of them. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to an exploration of the ways
in which a spatial approach to analyzing the collected data introduces new categories for
future analysis of interaction between existing residents and newcomers.
Methods
In seeking research methods that would give me material to use in answering
questions about changes in Russian socio-cultural structures, I wanted to find empirical
234
approaches that also would allow for observation of "spatial practice" in varying ways,
with the assumption that narratives of movement through space would provide the basic
structuring question for "ordinary" interviews. ("Expert" interviews also aimed to elicit
commentary about the physical environment, which was assumed to provide important
spatial constraints on movement and meaning-creation.) The methods practiced by the
authors I discuss below inspired and/or shaped my methods.
The basis of Lynch's interview design (1960) was the goal of eliciting
interviewees' overall conception of cities. Lynch and his research team asked a series of
questions about the physical layout of Los Angeles and Boston, asking respondents to
describe aloud how they would move around the cities. After constructing amalgamated
"cognitive maps" of each city, Lynch used the five urban elements (path, node, edge,
landmark, district) to analyze the city's effectiveness. This specific approach suggested
that a city could be understood to have a common 'vocabulary' of the five elements-that
is, that all city residents could be expected to recognize the major thoroughfares and
landmarks. Lynch (as stated above) was aiming to produce a composite picture, so he did
not record deviations from this composite or analyze individual trajectories, as did Pred.
The later work of Orleans (1973), building on Lynch, created composites of "mental
maps" based on the responses from several neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
I did not attempt to create any composites, since I was most interested in
individual narratives against the backdrop of a physical environment assumed as
common. In fact, I was interested precisely in how different narratives used the same
spaces: would interviewees' spatial practices converge around the same spaces of
235
representation? While the paths of some might never cross, I hypothesized that, on the
whole, spaces and paths might not be as spatially exclusive as they were conceptually
exclusive.
To a certain extent, I also assumed that I already possessed a large amount of
information about the common "vocabulary" of Petersburg; I allowed additional basic
information to emerge from interviews (especially comments about the city's historical
development and past understandings of spatial divisions in the city), but I considered
that I would usually be able to discern departures from the standard vocabulary as
significant points in my data. I always had in mind the "dominant" forms of sociospatial
paradigm that I felt I perceived among Russians, partly because many of the Russians
among my interviewees explicitly saw this paradigm as the thing that they most want to
have communicated to newcomers.
Methodologically, however, I posited an equivalence between the claims made on
city expanses by Chinese interviewees and Russian interviewees. That is, while I
accepted the existence of a recognized socio-spatial paradigm, I did not assume that this
invalidated any comments that fell outside that paradigm. These in fact formed important
critiques of the standard paradigm, and I consider some of them in the conclusion to this
chapter. However, I did assume that a certain fund of spatial vocabulary underpins most
communication about space in St. Petersburg.
Contention over the Spatial Components of the City
Ham1erz (1993) suggested that a truly "world" city should have the capacity to
incorporate newcomers into its expanses, thereby increasing its social and cultural
236
capital; Ruble (2005) similarly has suggested that "diversity capital" is created by
accepting new arrivals. As noted in Chapter II, Soviet-era Leningrad was seen as a
"good" city in its capacity to promote attachment to itself as a special place; migration
"waves" throughout the twentieth century were absorbed into the population and learned
the local lore. Yet new economic and political conditions have changed the types of
migration streams and the policy environment, and new contention over the nature of 51.
Petersburg as a city has resulted. As illustrated in previous chapters, analysis of
negotiations over the Baltic Pearl brings into relief arguments about the nature of the
city-about the spaces and qualities that a city must have in order to accommodate its
residents. Interviewee Varya (quoted extensively in Chapter V) had thought carefully
about why Russia was not reacting well to migrants, and how Petersburg had the capacity
to aid in their adaptation because of its singular ability to engender loyalty:
The impression is being created that, you see, we have this very special Russian
culture, that stands alone. You understand, in a certain sense, everything
happening now [i.e. attacks on foreigners] derives from this sense that we are
special. ..
[but] in principle these new arrivals who enter the Petersburg megapolis, they
should certainly accept the city's culture, the spirit of the city, there should be
certain agencies, organizations, that would help a person more easily and quickly,
not so painfully, blend into this general culture. (10/28/06)
What would it mean for new arrivals to "accept the city's culture, the spirit of the city"?
This is the topic of the first section of this chapter. In order to understand how the city
"digests" newcomers, it is important first to understand how existing residents see the
city as put together (or as falling apart). The analytical lens of this project revealed the
spaces that underpin this understanding.
237
Some interviewees suggested that each person has a different idea of what form a
city should take, based on his or her own desires and lifestyle needs; this supports the
argument that residents have absolutely disparate attitudes that cannot be agglomerated
into a consensus, and thus cannot be efficiently considered in deciding on city
development. This is the evident position of Shuvalov, a journalist who responded to the
question, "What is a city for its residents'?"
For a person who came here to make money, the city is the factory which gets
built, and he has a place to work. For an old woman in the Petrograd district, the
city is her pocket park. (10/24/06)
His comment suggests that the city is a set of prioritized nodes instead of a fabric of
sociability, with multiple nodes and multiple paths that link them together, all mattering
to the user. Shuvalov emphasized the fundamental self-centeredness of individuals,
suggesting (not without reason) that taking into account the needs of residents framed this
way was too great a challenge for city authorities.
On the other hand, "ordinary" interviewee Anna stated her belief that the quality
of individuals' lives should command the authorities' attention, because in fact it is of
that quality that the overall quality of city life is constituted: "Everything is always about
the common man, each concrete person, how he lives.... in general everything is always
made up of individual people" (3/23/07). Other comments reinforced the idea that the city
should be a benevolent environment in which to live one's life, satisfying the first stated
goal of the Genplan; they demonstrate that many residents share the conviction that the
city should have spaces designed to facilitate the daily social and physical needs of its
238
residents-that is, spaces that "represent" the valuation of all individuals regardless of
socioeconomic standing.
Parks were onf) very common space mentioned. Vera suggested that the best use
of some undeveloped land in her neighborhood would be a park for the use of local
residents. (Unbeknownst to her, the land abuts the Baltic Pearl and the city has plans to
develop its own subdistrict on the site.)
Our Lenin Avenue ends at the back side of this park. And there are several
undeveloped hectares there ... we went walking there, and it turns out to be so
wonderful. Just a wild overgrown treed area... They could make it into a beautiful
park [like in Finland]. .. .It would be a wonderful place for recreation, with boats
for children. Something like that. (12/9/06)
Vera's instinct that the expanse should be used for recreational space, particularly for
children, reflects other interviewees' sense that their social and emotional lives should be
facilitated by urban planning. This directly connects to transportation, a second common
type of space mentioned. Comparing the relative value of large projects to those that
supported the ability of ordinary citizens to move freely around the city, Liudmila
asserted,
I agree, let them build an amusement park, but there need to be transportation
routes for residents of the city. So that we can go to the city center, go to the
museum, visit friends, socialize with each other, talk on the telephone ... Make
telephones available! In fact [these things] are all of first-order importance. And
transportation above all. (12/5/06)
The apparent neglect of the lives of ordinary citizens came up in a conversation about the
possibility of increasing financial polarization in the city with Ivan, a 25-year-old graphic
designer. His extended comment summarizes the sense that the city should have a
sociable quality for all its residents.
239
In fact it has begun to irritate me that food costs so much in the city. That is, a
person who earns, say, 10000 rubles, he simply can't afford to spend 300 rubles
for one meal in the city. To spend, I don't know, 250 rubles a day, that kind of
daily thing. It's needs, right? It's the same as if they charged not 10 rubles for
using a public toilet, but 120. That is, you don't have anywhere to go, you know,
and you have to do this, but [it's as if they say] Figure it out, do what you want.
... This is all rather confusing. It's annoying of course, because people want to
eat. And this is a city where people live, and they have needs, and they are doing
all that they can so that they can live well. But then it turns out that you are in a
city which is not adapted to your needs at all. A kind of aggressive environment
which more or less, well, pushes you out. And it's like you have to work very
very hard, and it's not a city where people live, but a huge factory in which either
you're a worker or you'd better get out. (9/17/06)
In effect Ivan feels dispossessed by the transformation of space; his comments suggest-
without quite having the terms to explain-that he believes a city should maintain certain
types of public spaces for its residents. His sense of there being no place for him, of being
pushed out of a certain expanse, happens precisely because of the shift in the types of
spaces that represent his views, permit his spatial practices, and "accept" him.
Another interviewee specified the lack of "tenitorial" syntax in the proposed
projects, confirming Harvey's insights at an everyday scale; Rita recognized that a
disproportionate focus on the prestigious site of New Holland might affect her own
ability to move around the city.
From the point of view of an inhabitant. .. I'm not against the city developing. I
just know how it will develop. That they will build New Holland. But no one will
consider that they need new access roads. There will be constant traffic jams.
Constant. That's what I'm against. (10/21/06)
The tendency of many residents to describe problems with the city's transformation in
terms of dislocations in the infrastructure and built environment prompted closer
attention to the anxiety felt by residents about these changes. Given the degree of struggle
over the transformation as embodied in changing spaces, new arrivals-in this case
240
Chinese-would experience the impacts of that struggle as an element to which to adapt;
they also could become useful observers of the process. The "spatial vocabulary" of
adaptation that emerged in interviews motivates the examination of spatialities in the city,
including particular spatial forms, which follows in this chapter. Interview and blog
quotations in the previous chapter showed that Russians saw development of enclaves as
a failure of their spatial culture. Varya, who hoped that the Baltic Pearl would not
become a Chinese enclave, simultaneously posed this problem and its solution through
attachments to specific urban spaces.
The future is in these multi-ethnic joinings [obedineniia]. And also, I am
profoundly convinced that it's wrong to build sub-districts for Georgians,
Chinese, Tatars, Chuvash, Ingush-these will become reservations. We must have
mixing. When we have mixing, then there will be... They will all live off one
stairway together, what will there be to divide? The same building. The same
landing [on the stairway]. The same cultural center, where everyone will be
together. (l0/24/06)
Varya's description of how locals and newcomers will share space is entwined tightly
with Petersburg's existing built environment, including yards, and the social assumptions
based on it: stairways (podjezd), landings, apartment buildings, and cultural centers.
These forms all occur in both historical and Soviet-era housing, although they will not
necessarily be the forms of future housing. But Varya' s words indicate that this shared
residential space should become the basis for greater understanding, partly because the
users of that space will have the same motive for its care. Further, she stated, "there
should be certain agencies, organizations, that would help a person more easily and
quickly, not so painfully, blend into this general culture." In the absence to date of such
agencies and organizations, how could newcomers (in this case Chinese) adapt more
241
quickly? As the main part of the chapter shows, certain kinds of skilled adaptation
already take place, and may have implications for a more deliberate program.
Evidence for meetings in space between Russians and Chinese
To date, migration of Chinese to Petersburg has not been sizable. The majority of
Chinese in the city have been students (5-6000 out of an estimated 8000). The sites where
Russians might meet Chinese are tightly related to presence of students as well as to the
activity of traders and sellers.
Universities and institutes constitute, of course, an unusual case in overlap
between Russian and Chinese. Interviewees involved in tertiary education all stated that
they had seen many Chinese (participant observation also confirmed this). It might be
thought that this would be an important arena for the fostering of greater understanding
and possible knowledge of local customs. However, a focus group with a group of
journalism grad students and an interview with a young Chinese student at a different
institute suggested difficulties (Dixon, Under Review): the tendency of Chinese students
to remain together due to cultural preference and language barriers prevented the mixing
one might anticipate in student life. This seems partly due to the increased numbers of
Chinese students arriving, since they can rely on each other for support (Yifang,
interview, 10122/06); it differs from the experience of older Chinese who arrived as
students at the end of the Soviet period, in the late 1980s or early 1990s (Wang,
interview, 10/10/06; Chunping, interview, 10128/06). It also might be due to a changed
ethos in the dormitories, where the Soviet ideology of friendship among nations, even
242
with notable difficulties, once made contact between "peoples" more popular (Gelbras,
interview, 3/19/07; participant observation, 1990, 1991-1992).
A survey of 350 people conducted in December 2006 included a question
designed to gauge the degree of contact between Russians and Chinese in four types of
spaces that were assumed to be common: on the streets and in public transportation, in
Chinese restaurants, at goods or flea markets, and on construction sites. (Three of these
sites, as it turns out, assume low-wage labor to a certain degree.) As can be seen in Table
6.1, the highest percentages for claims to see Chinese "sometimes" or "constantly"
occurred for "on the streets and in public transportation" and "at flea markets," with 60%
of the respondents claiming to see Chinese moving around the city and 45% claiming to
see them involved in trade. The numbers for Chinese restaurants and construction sites
are notable because the common assumption that Chinese are present there contradicts
the low numbers. In the case of restaurants, the higher percentage claiming never to have
seen Chinese in Chinese restaurants (about 71 %) could reflect two things: the low
number of local Russians attending restaurants of any kind (e.g. Liudmila, by her own
assertion) and the tendency of Chinese restaurants to have Russian waitstaff.
Table 6.1
In what circumstances do you meet with Chinese people?
constantly sometimes a few times can't remember no/never
no answer
on the streetslin buses 22.9 37.4 11.5 19.7 7.6 0.9
in Chinese restaurants 8.0 10.3 10.3 53.1 17.7 0.6
at fl ea markets 27.1 18.2 6.8 39.1 8.2 0.6
on constlUction sites 5.0 2.4 4.4 69.7 17.9 0.6
Source: Survey, December 2006.
243
Additional information came from write-in responses to this survey question. Twenty-
three respondents reported seeing Chinese at the cinema (1), at work (17), or at school
(5). These entries demonstrate the weakness of survey assumptions but also a possible
increase in white-collar migration, as has been suggested by Gelbras (2004); i.e. Chinese
will not necessarily come to fill the low-wage jobs that the Russian economy cannot staff,
but will compete with white-collar Russians.
Of those claiming to see Chinese at work, the reported jobs were as follows.
Table 6.2
Jobs reporting contact with Chinese in St. Petersburg.
Employment category Frequency
Retired 3
Worker (including trade) 2
Specialist (teacher/doctor/secretary) 4
Engineer/constructor 3
Manager 1
Technical worker 1
Boat captain 2
Source: Survey, December 2006.
On the whole, the professions of trader, construction laborer, or restaurant waitstaff might
all account for the Chinese seen by these Russians "at work." It is unclear from the nature
of the survey question whether the respondents met with Chinese at work in the role of
colleagues or of clients and subordinates; still, the list of employment categories could
suggest that Chinese are present in more spheres of urban life than goods trading or
restaurants.
244
Evidence for spatial concentrations of Chinese
While there is no reported enclave of Chinese in St. Petersburg that resembles
anything like a Chinatown (cp. Anderson 1991), there are rumors of emerging
concentrations. A news forum entry suggests looking for Chinese at Apraksin Yard and
the Trinity Church Market (Troitsky Rynok) (Entry); these are well-known sites for trade
in cheap goods.
Information about Chinese restaurants in St. Petersburg, drawn from an online
Yellow Pages site, also reveals some clustering (see Map 6.1). The Admiralteiskii
District in particular seems to have a high number of Chinese restaurants; this was
confirmed by interviewees living in that area (Pavel, interview, 11/5/06; Svetlana,
interview, 3/24/07). However, while this particular clustering may reflect a correlative
concentration of Chinese residences (one interviewee-restaurateur indeed lived in this
district within several blocks of two of his restaurants), other factors may condition the
high number of establishments. The area of this district immediately north and south of
Sadovaia Street (where the restaurants cluster) is still less expensive than comparable
space around Nevsky Avenue; it hosts a high number of "next-door shops" and small
inexpensive retail stores. City-driven development in the area of Apraksin Yard has
already prompted signs of gentrification, however, and the effect on Chinese restaurants
must be monitored (Dixon, Under Review).
Interviewee Summary
Display of basic data on residential location and patterns of mobility around the
city do not reveal any stark differences between Russian and Chinese respondents.
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245
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246
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Compared with location of individual Chinese interviewees.
247
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Map 6.4. Chinese routes categorized by mode of mobility. Map 6.5. Russian routes cateogorized by mode of mobility.
249
Given that the majority of the current Chinese population in St. Petersburg is
made up of students, it is not surprising to find that there are large numbers of them at
locations where large institutional dormitories are located. Interview data suggested the
probability of large numbers of young Chinese living in a dorm on Korablestroitelei
Street allotted for students of the History, Journalism and Philological Departments and
also near Yusupov Park on Sadovaia Street. Of 52 students surveyed at the GUAP, about
one-fifth lived in a dorm on Marshal Zhukov prospect, southwest of the city center (see
Map 6.2); another dormitory is located to the northwest on Peredovikov Street.
Kazanskaia Street (corresponding to the large circle in the central city) seems to have a
high number of apartments willing to rent to Chinese students; this was confirmed by
evidence from an interviewee. The high number of students in the GUAP survey
reporting disparate places of residence (as well as interview data) tends to confirm the
generally accepted claim that Chinese residents in Petersburg have not concentrated into
one area of the city, and also that it is possible for Chinese to rent in many city locations.
A map of residences for Chinese interviewees for this study shows some overlap
with the two dormitories and Kazanskaia Street; three interviewed students live in
precisely those places (Map 6.2 and Map 6.3). The eight Chinese interviewees with
clearly mappable routes divided into 4 residents of the city center (including one student);
the remaining four lived at some distance from the center (including three students). The
residences of adult professionals were not clustered. A comment from a Baltic Pearl
official interviewed during research indicated that highly-placed white-collar Chinese
workers at the company also lived in various locations, although other evidence suggests
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Table 6.3. Summary of Chinese interviewees' opinion about Baltic Pearl.
Name Age Car? Ignorant Poor promotion Just investment Too distant
by city
Mei 20 •
Chaolin 20 •
Yifang 22 •
Xin 23 •
Jue 22 •
Zhang 24 •
Chunping 41 • • •
Jihan 45 • • •
Jun 38 • • •
Wang 50 • • •
Table 6.4. Summary of Russian interviewees' opinion about Baltic Pearl.
Name Age Car? Income Suspicious For
Liudmila 70 low •
Mikhail 23 low •
Ivan 25 low •
Masha 36 low •
Anna 36 low •
Boris 25 • medium •
Rita 38 • medium •
Nina 26 medium •
Liza 39 • medium •
Pavel 40 • high •
Svetlana 38 high •
Source: Interviews, 2006-2007.
that construction laborers and lower clerical staff have been concentrated in worker
dormitories.
The ten Russian interviewees whose routes were used for this analysis also lived
in a scattered distribution; four lived at some distance to the south of the city center, four
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lived in the central districts, and two lived in Soviet-era buildings on the west side of
Vasilievsky Island (Map 6.3). Notably, none of the Chinese professionals lived as far
from the center as some of the Russian interviewees, even if they had cars; they seem to
uniformly prefer the historical areas of the city. Just as Russian students do, however,
Chinese students often have long journeys to their institutes via public transportation; the
trajectories of Chinese professionals from home to work also sometimes cover long
distances, just as with their Russian counterparts. Further, as shown on Map 6.4 and Map
6.5, there is a fairly even spread of transportation use between the two groups, with use of
walking, cars, metro, and public transportation all represented. (For car ownership, see
Tables 6.3 and 6.4.)
Analysis of Adaptation through Spaces of Representation and Spatial Practices
Bourdieu and Lefebvre advance an analysis of power relations, but the terms they
employed, such as "habitus" and "spatial practice" also suggest criteria for evaluating
successful 'public' space: that is, an expanse with a set of understood practices which all
participants follow more or less, and which newcomers can observe and follow with more
or less accuracy. Such practices may allow initial acceptance of a stranger, and thus
promote low-density interaction which later can lead to more dense connections. A good
example of this sort of practice is trade: thus, markets have traditionally been places
where interaction between starkly different people can take place (see e.g. Ruble 2005
about the trade-based diversity in New Amsterdam/New York). A place where people
can buy or sell offers a certain kind of universal acceptance. Another rough example is
the space of transportation routes such as busstops, metro stations, and so on. Patterns of
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forming lines, passing money to the conductor or driver, and requesting exit tend to be
fairly well established and can be understood from relatively brief observation.
Resentment can grow in situations where a newcomer ignores the established
practices (often understood as common courtesy) or behaves in a way that contradicts
what is expected. Some have pointed out that a public-private divide can be seen
operating here; if "newcomers" or even "locals" perform behaviors in a "public" space
that are understood by others as 'private' acts, they may be understood as transgressors at
some level (Watson 2006). We can see this same analytical structure in Tim Cresswell's
template "in place/out of place" (1996). Hypothetically, the more that a "stranger" can
adopt the local practices in a common expanse of this type, the more that that stranger
can pass as a local.
Beyond the basic acts of trade and travel, do new residents learn to take on the set
of historical meanings and fields of significance that have been established in a place?
That is, to put it in words used by Relph, does the "field of their concern" extend in any
meaningful sense to their new location? This question might be posed to any migrant to a
new place; in the case of St. Petersburg, Russian migrants, including politicians, mayor
may not be seen as adopting this "field of concern." Speaking of Valentina Matvienko,
Rita explained the significance of the fact that the City Governor came originally from a
village in Ukraine and not from Petersburg.
Well, people who grew up here, who know it and love it. .. I can't say that
[Matvienko] just doesn't love this city. But she doesn't know it. She gets driven
around....It's one thing when a person was born in Petersburg, he appreciates
this. Or for example, many people who came and settled here, the city appeals to
them, they appreciate it and love it. They absorb this, they too want to preserve it.
And they know what does and doesn't need to be preserved. For example they
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went and demolished the Palace of Culture Named for the Fifth Five-Year Plan.
They destroyed this Palace of Culture on the site where they plan to build the
second stage for the Mariinsky [Theater]. But a Leningrader would never have
demolished this center, because it represents the memory of many people... who
lived through the Blockade [of Leningrad, 1939-1944]. (10121/06)
Clearly, according to Rita, even Russians who are not locals do not always "get it." Two
important ways of considering Petersburg as space emerge from her comments. Rita
mentions the Palace of Culture, which "represents the memory of many people"-that is,
represents a certain part of the "spirit of Petersburg." A first question for newcomers is
whether they are able to appreciate the city's meaningful spaces and "know what needs to
be preserved.:' Rita also mentions that Matvienko "gets driven around"-effectively
implying that she has no way to develop immediacy in her contact with the city; driving
will not accomplish an intimate acquaintance with it. A second question, then, is how
newcomers make contact with a city as they move through it-how their mode and scope
of travel affects their acquaintance with it.
Analysis of spatial practices and spaces of representation in this sense force closer
attention to the commensurability of cultural assumptions. Many residents assumed that
the city could only sustain itself culturally in the long term if it could succeed in
conveying its most significant spatial assumptions to new anivals. In the context of
discussing immigrants-both students from other parts of the former Soviet Union as
well as workers from China-two teacher interviewees asserted the power of Petersburg
to shape attitudes, as long as there was a sufficient degree of exposure to the local culture.
There is something that I observe at the level of my students. People who live
here a sufficient length of time are truly not hung up on material interests. The
city changes them completely. It seems to me that representatives of various
[native] peoples don't change the city, that is it's not they who change the city
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with their colorful enclaves, but the city that changes them, at least for now.
(Masha, 11/6/06)
Of course to learn the social and cultural particularities [of the city]-even with a
pragmatic goal, all the same, for successful business, you have to learn these
things. And then people catch the infection of the city. [But] people who go no
further than their workrooms and kitchens, only work, earn money and send it
back to China, then work, earn money and send it to China... that sort of thing
[isn't good]. (Anna, 11/6/06)
Interviews indicated two ways that Chinese caught this "infection" and demonstrated
similarities to Russians in their experience of the city. First, they came to share a certain
vocabulary of spaces of representation: they developed emotional attachments to certain
places in the city and could articulate goals for historical preservation. Second, they
shared use of common transportation routes with Russian residents and expressed similar
opinions about them.
Spaces ofrepresentation for the Petersburg spirit
The idea that the Petersburg spirit can win over new arrivals in the city is closely
linked to ideas about effective urban space. Areas dominated by late-Soviet construction
do not have this power. Varya expressed the conviction that the St. Petersburg built
environment has the potential to help people develop morally.
In Russia we have this concept of an icon that has absorbed the prayers of many
people (namolennaia ikona). A prayed-over icon. That is, an icon which is
ancient, but not only ancient-maybe from the twelfth century. [The idea is that]
millions of eyes have looked at it. From the twelfth century, people have entrusted
their most sacred prayers to this icon, it is truly prayed-over, it has an internal
light, it already nurtures you in return. You see, it's the same thing in an old city.
An old city nurtures you. So people can come here, they can stroll, think, rest
their souls and so on. (10/28/06)
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Varya suggested at once that Chinese could appreciate the spirit of the city and that
Russians' attitude to newcomers could improve were they all to live in spaces that
nourished them.
Feeling mystical attachment: susceptibility to Petersburg space
Masha, not a native Petersburger, recounted that she was struck by the dilapidated
appearance of the city when she first arrived in the mid-1990s; she was disappointed with
the contrast between the Petersburg she saw in glossy photo books and the place where
she how lived. However, with time, her impression changed.
When a more profound acquaintance with the city came about, with its culture, its
people, certain monuments, museums, that [dilapidated] picture faded into the
background. I understood that life would never be as interesting anywhere else as
it was here. Here there were huge intellectual and spiritual opportunities, and the
outward neglect faded. (10/23/06)
Certainly this growing sense of intellectual and spiritual opportunities was strongly
connected to the historical center of the city; while Masha lives far south of the city
center in a khrushchevka (which she likes), her frequent trips to her institute's small
campus on the Moika Canal made her feel connected to the city's cultural history.
I had classes sometimes on the Moika... and the windows faced the Yusupov
Palace, and when I was bored-when the students hadn't prepared, or something
was happening in the classroom-I looked out the window and imagined
completely different things ... When I travel from home to the center, I sense that
I really live in 5t. Petersburg.
The sense of connection results partly from the fact that this fantastic landscape steeped
in history is also (at least sometimes) the landscape of the everyday, allowing Masha to
inhabit the space for work and then to feel that "the everydayness is replaced by a fairy
tale, by an expanse of escape and esthetic enjoyment."
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Some Chinese interviewees had in fact adopted similar attachments and described
these in response to a question about their favorite places in the city. Zhang, 25 years old,
is an artist whose choice of St. Petersburg was inspired by studies in China of European
art. He attends classes and works as a tour guide. Particular places that he liked to visit
were St. Isaac's Square, between the cathedral and the city legislature building, and the
Griboedov Canal:
There's lots of interesting history there. Inside [the cathedral], it's really
interesting. And the widest bridge [in the city] is there. On the right is the Red
Bridge, on the left the Green Bridge. The [wide] bridge is called Blue Bridge.
There are a lot of feelings here.... I also love to walk along Griboedov [Canal].
There are small buildings there, like in Venice. First left, and then right. I don't
like walking straight- I like it when it bends. (3/28/07)
Russians also mentioned the embankment of the Griboedov Canal as a favorite place to
walk, for similar reasons. Jihan, 45 years old and a businesswoman, told me that she liked
the cemetery at the Aleksandr Nevsky Monastery.
Besides museums, I like most of all to see the monument at the Aleksandr
Monastery. To see who is there. Not just musicians, but also Dostoevsky. I read a
book at home in Chinese, and then looked at all the monuments. I stood and
thought for a long time. (12/2/06)
In these comments it is striking that the Chinese, too, mention the way that they feel
intimate emotions in St. Petersburg through connection with particular places. Yifang
noted the spot on her route to university where she could glimpse the Moika Canal, and
also indicated that there were places in St. Petersburg that could even comfort her, such
as the catwalk under the cupola of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Hermitage museum.
I like to go to lsaakii, the tallest of all, to see the whole city. And I like to go to
the Hermitage. If I know that I don't have a very good mood on some day ... I
need to walk through the Hermitage, to look at the paintings. (10/22/06)
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A Chinese woman who had lived in the city for about 20 years resisted specifying
particular places, saying that these tended to change over time; however, she stated a
strong attachment to the city as a whole: "When I have been in China for two weeks [to
visit my mother], I want to come back. It's a special city." Wang, a Chinese businessman
who had originally come to the city as a student, had attachments to places associated
with that period:
I got a stipend from the Chinese government, and from the Russian govemment,
and stood in line for "potatoes." Once a month, and the little window is still there.
Last year I was driving by with a delegation, and I looked out and saw-My
beloved little window! Yes, I stood there a lot and then right away went to buy
beer. (l0/1O/06)
Certain types of space also tended to engender attachment. For Chinese respondents, the
motivating factor was a contrast to their home cities or towns in China: they tended to
mention public parks and green spaces. (Russians also value their green space highly, as
indicated in survey results; Karpov 2004.) As several Chinese interviewees made clear,
they felt that similar spaces were sorely lacking in their home country. Mei said, "It's a
very green city. I really like that" (10/20/06). Asked to mention a specific park that they
liked, 21 out of 52 Chinese students in focus groups were able to name one. Of these, 11
listed "Victory Park." There are two parks in the city with this name; Zhang clarified that
the students meant the large park on Krestovskii Island: "No, culture center park! It's
very quiet there. And when it's autumn, the sun is so beautiful!"
Overall, all of the Chinese with whom I spoke expressed specific appreciation for
St. Petersburg's natural surroundings. In a general question about "things they liked"
---------
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posed to the 52 focus group respondents, 29 listed "nature" or "surroundings"; nine of
them mentioned "fresh air." Yifang expressed it this way:
In China, the nature is already bad, because people just want money. Then forests,
rivers, there isn't much now. Then if there's a free space, they can make a store,
apartments. There aren't many parks. So here Chinese like that there is sea, forest,
and the weather is really good in the summer. (10/22/06)
Chinese interviewees also frequently mentioned the suburb parks of Pushkin and
Pavlovsk as "favorite places." This preference is evidence that the Chinese were glad to
recognize a feature of the Russian landscape that contrasted with their own experience of
space. Their appreciation for these parks, so similar to the Russian appreciation of them,
could form a basis for cooperation between the two groups.
While some Russians also mentioned parks, their appreciation of smaller spatial
forms affected their choice of particular places; their knowledge of these forms allowed
them to feel close to the city. Three separate Russian interviewees mentioned the
Kolornna area of the city (see Map 4.9), noting both the fine details of its construction
and its relationship to the city's history. Ivan recognized Kolornna as supremely
characteristic of historical Petersburg:
This district for me is the embodiment of those Petersburg courtyards, those old
sidestreets, those two- and three-story buildings. Those carriageways. And
Dostoevsky's heroes lived there. There are lots of untouched buildings. And it's
such a quiet district, maybe because there aren't any big roads, it has these
crooked sidestreets, and there aren't big stores there; it's that kind of district.
Beyond it, towards the Neva River, the Gulf starts, with the Neva on the other
side. It's that kind of place. A good place. (9/17/06)
Long-time Chinese residents of the city could also recognize certain districts as the most
valued or the most characteristic, even if they didn't use similarly detailed language to
explain their choice; Jihan, for example, noting the preference of many for the historical
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center, mentioned "Vasilievskii, Petrogradskii, Primorskii, Vyborgskii" districts. (She
here leaves out the "Centralnyi" district, but clearly intends to show her knowledge of the
city with her comment.)
This recognition of the value of certain areas, and the current structure of the city
which grows out of the valuation, affected how Chinese respondents evaluated the Baltic
Pearl as a place to live. Their reaction to a question about possibly living there provided
further evidence that they made judgments about where to live based on local parameters,
and were not swayed by the idea that the area would be "Chinese." When asked whether
he would move there, JUll answered "it's kind of far for me" (3/25/07); student Xin said,
"No, it's very far from the center. And to buy there would be hard." Jihan recognized the
possible impact it would have on her daily travel; further, her Russianized daughter
wouldn't like it.
No, it would be inconvenient [to live there]. It would be inconvenient for my
daughter. She studies in the city; even worse. My daughter always wants to be in
the center; some people just love Vasilievsky, Petrogradskii, Primorskii. Or
Vyborgskii district. We won't move there [to the Baltic Pearl], it wouldn't make
sense. (12/2/06)
Recognizing important spaces of representation: Chinese support for historical
preservation
While Chinese residents could not articulate attachment to the city using the
spatial vocabulary of courtyards and archways, many of them mentioned the good state of
preservation of the historical center; many responded firmly to an additional question
about the style of the proposed Gazprom Corporation headquarters, Okhta Center, which
was being widely covered in the press at the time of these interviews. The winning
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design, announced near the end of 2006, was a glass-and-steel skyscraper more than 300
meters high. Vigorous public debate and protest broke out among Russians over building
something that would so overwhelm the height of buildings in the historical center,
especially the baroque cathedral on the opposite bank of the Neva River. The debate
raged over the true nature of Petersburg, and whether overly tall buildings would ruin the
city's essential spirit.
Wang, the businessman who had lived in the city for many years, expressed the
usual overall Chinese reaction to St. Petersburg:
I like the whole city! It's a good city. Of course mostly the old district, the central
district. Typical European architecture is good, especially for us, Easterners, this
is very interesting. (10/1 0/06)
An employee of the Baltic Pearl firm mentioned that he appreciated that St. Petersburg
was "a very whole historical city," with little change in its center. In Beijing, he said, "a
lot of things were changed, old areas destroyed." Although many Beijingers wanted to
build the newer modern buildings outside the old center, "finally they were defeated. A
lot of [central] districts were destroyed. It is very regrettable." Of St. Petersburg he
added, "you cannot build another one in the world" (11/23/06).
Although this employee's words might be put down to the need for good public
relations with city residents, he was not the only Chinese person I talked with who
expressed exactly the same opinion. Interviewees who addressed this topic all made
comparisons with the loss of historical districts in Chinese cities. Asked about the
Gazprom skyscraper, Jihan said,
I don't know whether it's bad or good. If it's for the economy, that's good, but it
doesn't fit in with Piter at all.... This isn't New York. I know they already did
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this in Shanghai. There was an old city, and they built over everything.... Here
it's very good, the parts that are historic-they did the repair well, it's beautiful,
they didn't destroy it. It's too bad in Beijing, they've already destroyed a lot of
historical buildings. It's too bad. (12/2/06; emphasis added)
Xin, who didn't know about the details of the Gazprom skyscraper, still had absorbed
enough of the local politics to agree with me about the efforts towards historical
preservation.
I also heard that people wanted not-modern. They want pleasant, lots of old
monuments. Lots of old buildings. Very comfortable. In Moscow, there are lots of
high things. But here in Petersburg, [it's] like Paris. In Paris there are places
where you can't build high things. A good thing, I think. (10/26/06)
Xin was even able to specify height as a principal criterion for evaluating whether
something matched the Petersburg milieu and a crucial focus of contention.
Jun, a businessman resident in St. Petersburg for several years, was able to
articulate thoroughly the need to preserve the historical center.
I think that Petersburg is beautiful because it has its own styles, European styles,
in the center of the city where most of the buildings are like this.... They need to
put new sorts of districts further from the center, around the edges, and in the city,
especially in the center, they should preserve these styles. The historical style.
The new construction should be there, and where Peter built, yes, they shouldn't
let things be higher than the spire of Peter and Paul Fortress. There should be
rules to conserve the city's style. Building modern buildings in the center-there
are some, it happens, but they don't fit in at all. (3/25/07; emphasis added)
Thus, many of my Chinese subjects had lived in the city long enough to know certain of
its historical places and to appreciate its historical character, and had become confident
critics of a possible tendency in the city administration to follow the Chinese model of
reconstructing historical sections of cities. Their use of phrases such as "fit in"
demonstrates that they recognized a paradigm that determines what does fit. They could
perceive a local tendency to preserve the architectural aspect of the culture and could
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align themselves with this local attitude, in effect accepting a "representation" of
Petersburg as a particular urban value that requires protection. They did indeed seem to
have caught the Petersburg spirit.
The syntax oftravel as spatial practice
Soliciting daily routes was part of all my "ordinary" interviews. Lefebvre suggests
that no new social structures can arise "so long, in short, as the only connection between
work spaces, leisure spaces and living spaces is supplied by the agencies of political
power and by their mechanisms of control" (1991,59; emphasis added). In the case of St.
Petersburg we might ask how people appropriate the connections that they draw between
spaces-perhaps contrary to the intentions of "the agencies of political power," or in
resonance with or in opposition to a predominant socio-spatial paradigm.
Torgen Hagerstrand's classic work on space-time trajectories in geography
provides an initial model for analyzing movement through space as "syntagmatic links"
between spaces and life-phases. As Harvey summarizes, these time-space trajectories
included "daily routines of movement" as well as "migratory movements over phases of a
life-span"; Hagerstrand analyzed temporal and physical constraints on movement, nodes
or "stations" along individuals' paths, and "domains" where certain types of interactions
are presumed to occur (Harvey 1989, 211).
My immediate inspiration for using the time-space approach to analyze changing
socio-cultural structures in the context of a new mode of production is the work of Allan
Pred. Pred discusses Sweden and the U.S., with detailed examples from Stockholm and
Boston (1990). His work transcends Harvey's critique of the schematic nature of
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Hagerstrand's space-time trajectories, adding detailed consideration of linguistic and
social dimensions to the "massive empirical data on time-space biographies" (Harvey
1989,212). Pred produced more than simply a mass of schemata because he considered
the impact that changing modes of production-and thus types and location of
employment-had on family life and on the "projects" that family members could
complete together. As Pred explains, trajectories "are the result of institutionally
embedded power relations, the result of relations that determine which individuals,
gender members, groups, or classes mayor may not gain access to activities" (1990, 12).
In resonance with Lefebvre, he adds that the "duration [of the persistent material life]
depended upon an uninterrupted dialectic between practice itself and the social
reproduction of rules and power relations, and upon the parallel emergence of socially
produced 'spatial structures'" (1990, 45). Social reproduction reinforces or modifies
"spaces of representation" and "spatial practices" that hold life together.
Daily routes participate in "the social reproduction of rules and power relations."
The mode of transportation used, in Petersburg, becomes a reflection of a person's
socioeconomic status or a person's willingness to be on the streets of the city. The routes
chosen show a person's field of concern or notions of security and danger. In addition to
functioning as rational actors who need to arrive at a destination, some respondents
deliberately take specific routes in order to increase their own sensory enjoyment of the
city. Ultimately, we can ask more about how people work with or against the dominant
"syntax" of space. Here I consider how walking and driving in the city function as
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different spatial practices in S1. Petersburg that bring users into contact with space in
different ways.!
Since the residential distribution of Chinese had basically the same features as
that of Russians and their travel also spanned use of metro, car, and public transportation
as well as walking, their comments on these points are eminently comparable. The
comments reveal a commonality in judgments about the viability of transportation
networks in the city, and also start to reveal the weak points in the potential of a shared
perception of the city (whether as "urban" or as daily landscape) to underlie greater
understanding between disparate groups.
Walking in the historical center of S1. Petersburg evokes elements of the
traditional Europeanfldneur narrative, but it is also the way that many residents reach
their destinations every day; traveling by metro also entails a great deal of walking
(during line transfers). Several Russians noted informally that transportation types have
become a rough way to categorize the city's residents: students and retirees take public
transportation; the lower middle class takes the marshrutki, or fixed-route minibuses;
upper middle class and the very wealthy drive their own cars. The local journalist and
film critic Tatiana Moskvina has maintained that there are two worlds developing in
Petersburg: the world of pedestrians and the world of drivers. She maintains that drivers
do not directly make contact with the city and, as Rita suggested about Matvienko, cannot
therefore make adequately informed decisions about urban development policy
(Moskvina, interview, 10/2/06). Her comments establish distinct socio-spatial paradigms
I This approach has already been used (with archived historical data, producing schematic trajectories) to
good effect by Bater (1976), who used records of daily routes to discern realities behind St. Petersburg's
claims to urban development and social stratification in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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for cars and for pedestrians. Thus, there is already an internal struggle; how do
newcomers fit in?
Walking as spatial practice
Many residents that I talked to walked long distances through the city on a regular
basis. Anna, a migrant to the city for study and later for work as a teacher, described the
value of daily movement around and through Petersburg's material environment of space
and architectural form:
The expanses of Petersburg are somehow without holes. That is, especially in the
center, the old center, there's this unbroken united expanse which, it seems to me,
sort of supports you. It doesn't matter, if you need to cross let's say this bridge,
these chain-links are present, it doesn't matter to you how long you have to
walk-you see the street, you see various points of orientation, right? And you
walk ... and besides, in Petersburg you walk and enjoy what you see. If you have
this tendency to look around you, you don't simply walk, as if through unpleasant
districts, you walk and all this nourishes you. (3/23/07)
This assertion that simply moving around Petersburg could provide a spiritual benefit was
illustrated in the "route narratives" of other Russian interviewees. Svetlana, another
migrant who had married a city native, noticed details in the built environment that made
her additionally happy about walking in the city:
Oh, here I forgot to tell you: every time I walk my son to school, I love it, here
there's such a building ... Dostoevsky lived here, everyone knows that. It's a
unique building, I simply dream of living there, it seems to me that there's an
amazing energy there. It's my favorite building in Petersburg. Truly. And then
here's Kokushkin Bridge... (3/24/07)
Her capacity to embed fairly detailed historical knowledge in her appreciation of her
daily route-such as knowing where Dostoevsky had lived-heightened her sense of
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individual connection to the city. She did the same thing in describing the route to her
son's school.
Here we turn onto Sadovaya, and here we pass our famous Yusupov Garden, from
the 18th century. It's a unique architectural site, this was the estate of the
Yusupovs, this was considered the suburbs then; here's the pond, and the park and
the palace. And they kept the original appearance, with this beautiful wrought-
iron fence.... Sadovaya has that name because it used to look like one big garden
(sad), there was one estate after another here.
Another native of the city, young graphic designer Ivan, talked about choosing his route
to go home based partly on the way he could enjoy the walk to a metro station on Nevsky
Avenue:
I usually go to Gostinka [metro stop] on the way home, because you leave work,
the sun is shining, it's just great. I don't have to hurry, ... someone is playing
music. Also I leave when the sun isn't very high, it makes really-really long
shadows, and everything looks so warm in reddish colors and there's a strong
contrast; I love that time. And then there's all that, palaces, parks, happy people
walking around. (9/17/07)
By contrast, Ivan said, the area south of his family's apartment was "gray," and he didn't
know whether he could feel happy going to work in that district. In all, about 25 Russians
were interviewed about their daily movements through the city, and nearly all had
something to say about their enjoyment of the environment they moved through. One
interviewee lived far to the southwest in the areas of Soviet-era construction, but
mentioned that when she had to cross the entire city for work, she often made a point of
coming up onto the street at a downtown metro station in order to walk for a short while
in the historical center. While pro-Baltic Pearl entries on the Nevastroyka forum often
blamed fellow Russian residents for knowing little to nothing about the city and for
267
caring even less about its upkeep, residents in my sample tended to express complex
attachments to its spaces.
Many Russian interviewees described walking long distances without noticing it,
and implied that this activity is a key way to get acquainted with the city. When asked
about their daily routes, Rita and Liza could quickly add recreational walking routes to
the usual home-to-work lines (see Map 6.6); similarly to their narratives of routes taken
to work, these routes were linked to favorite places in the city or favorite things to look
at, such as statues of sphinxes, former residences of pre-revolutionary aristocrats, or a
view of the river. When asked where she most liked to walk, Anna answered "If I could
just ramble, I would go on the sidestreets, then back to Nevsky. And along the canals; a
stroll along the canals is really something. This part from Nikola towards the Griboedov
Canal is completely rapturous" (3/23/07). The desire and ability to ramble-to have
adequate knowledge of the city for such wandering-is a mark of many residents as well
as some visitors to Petersburg.
As noted already, interviewee Zhang also mentioned walking along Griboedov
Canal as a favorite activity. Describing her route to the closer of her two work
destinations, Jihan said that she usually preferred to walk, "because it's beautiful to look
at everything"; her route took her across Palace Bridge and gave her a view up and down
the Neva River. Less emotionally, Chaolin noted pragmatically that he didn't like to wait
for the public transportation, so if he knew that he could walk somewhere in less than 30
minutes, he made that choice.
268
'..... -y-,..- Rita's walk
-- Rila's roule
cc ~:;: Li.za's walk
-- Pavel's and Lita's routes
0.5 2 KJlome:te:rs
I
Map 6.6. Recreational walking routes of Rita and Liza.
iifang
Balli<'
P",,ul
Chunl'ing.
if
Xin
Illn
(
A
OKHomeu:1'E
I
Map 6.7. Routes of Chinese interviewees color-coded by interviewee.
269
Anna
Pavel
Baltic Pt.'"ad
Masha
s
'-:
Boris
Nina
Mikhail ~IUlGUdtI$o 1.25 2.5 5
Map 6.8. Routes of Russian interviewees color-coded by interviewee.
270
However, Chinese interviewees spoke less about place-attachment through
walking, and several frank comments about the current phenomenon of xenophobia in the
city illustrated why. Interviewee Chunping said that she had walked all over the city
when she first arrived as a student in the late 1980s, and felt very safe. Her sense of
security had changed dramatically, however; now, she said, "I go for walks [around the
city] in the summer, when everyone has left town .... I don't take the metro, I go by car to
avoid [the streets]" (10/28/06). Chinese university students were even more direct about
their concerns. Asked if he went to any parks, Xin answered:
Very rarely. It's a very interesting thing. When I came here, the second day,
Chinese told me that there are hooligans [in the park near my dorm]. In winter I
didn't want to go anywhere. There was a park when I lived near metro
Pionerskaya, Chernaia rechka. But they said these are centers for hooligans. So I
don't want to go. (10/26/06)
Like Mei, a young Chinese student who visited Mikhailovskii Garden for the first time in
my company, Xin had no idea that this small popular park was just two blocks away from
Nevsky. He had been to Mars Field, but didn't understand its connectivity to other areas
he was familiar with. His comments imply that he hesitated to explore the urban texture
beyond his usual routes due to a sense of danger.
Yifang mentioned specifically that she walked at home in China with her family,
but that the conditions were unpleasant in her heavily polluted city; while she saw
Petersburg as a better place to walk in the abstract, she almost never did it:
No, no walking. Because it's winter already. When we finish classes, it's already
dark. You probably know that here lots of men drink beer, and then they are
hooligans. It's dangerous. I'm a girl, it's not very good for me.... I have to be
safe, finish my work, go home, sit at home. (10/22/06)
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These comments pinpoint the specific obstruction of walking-attachment to the city that
Russians articulate; while some aniving Chinese clearly show an inclination to share this
kind of attachment, xenophobic actions that are not stopped by police prevent it from
developing into a spatial practice that they could then share, and perpetuate, along with
the existing residents. While they can share the appreciation for historic preservation,
they cannot all develop the kind of knowledge of fine details of space that characterizes
long-term residents such as Ivan, or Svetlana's educated attention to the auras
surrounding historic sites.
Walking can bring pedestrians into contact with the details of Petersburg's
architecture and with the city's space as constructed for the use of many different kinds
of people; walking and the metro, for example, are part of the egalitarian paradigm of the
city's Soviet past. Cars seem to be part of a new paradigm that avoids the overall texture
of the city in a trajectory focused on the nodes where the car stops.
Driving as spatial practice
On the question of vehicle transportation, though, the Russian and Chinese
interviewees were in virtually complete agreement on the state ofthe city's infrastructure.
Wang and Jihan hailed the bad state of the road system as a looming catastrophe, and had
the same awareness of the temporal cycle of major traffic jams displayed by Rita and
Liza. Yifang and Jun traveled frequently by metro, and had the same praise for its
reliability and the same complaints about the crowded cars as Svetlana, Nina, and Ivan.
Everyone agreed that Nevsky Avenue was "the place to be." Differences also emerged in
the density and intimacy of city knowledge shown by Russians; as with pedestrians,
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similar knowledge did not emerge from Chinese interviews. For example, Ivan and his
friend Fyodor not only described the metro as an expanse of travel, but noted its nodes of
social meaning: they named the major transfer stations where young people tended to
hang out underground in order to meet friends, whereas for Chinese the metro remained a
mode of transport. (However, supplemental fieldwork showed that similar behavior in the
subway seemed to occur in Shanghai.)
Rita, a native Petersburger who had lived in the same building most of her life
described the drive to her workplace: she could go by Nevsky but "all the same I prefer to
drive on the embankment road ... So this is a pretty part of my route, the most grand
embankment, so of course I have that kind of thoughts" (10121/06). Sometimes she
traveled to work via microbus, and expressed a similar interest in her surroundings.
I love to look around me... I like the facades on the buildings, all the more so on
Nevsky.... I like the Eliseev store, its fas;ade. You look at it, and it's beautiful.
And then right afterward is the Beloselsky-Belozersky palace.
Even those who had arrived in the city for school or work could adopt the city and have
similarly favorite places and notice fine details in the built environment. Liza, who came
from Chelyabinsk to study and later work, immediately recounted such detail as part of
her route narrative:
First I pass the Egypt Bridge. Why, because the sphinxes are beautiful. ... Here I
go along this canal embankment, it's quiet, there aren't any traffic jams. Here's
the Lion Bridge... It has beautiful ironwork.... further along Greater Marine
Street, the museum of Nabokov is here, a beautiful building. Then past St. Isaac's,
also beautiful, along the Admiralty Embankment. .. I avoid traffic and try to drive
past beautiful places. (11/5/06)
Overall, Russians interviewed for this project tended to describe more possible routes
than were mentioned by Chinese; this is visible on a map of total routes by individual
273
color (Maps 6.7 and 6.8). The six Chinese students interviewed in total all described a
route to and from their student housing, with the exception of a graduate student who felt
confident about his Russian; Zhang seemed to go to more places as an occasional tour
guide, and seemed to use equally public transportation and metro to get to the city center.
The four adult professionals interviewed had a greater variation. Jihan had routes to two
places of business; she could walk to one of them, but complained about the traffic jams
when she drove to the other. Once, she said, she had to sit for four hours on the
embankment road. Jun kept to a fairly simple route to and from work but, he claimed,
because of driving around the city in a hired car to see clients, "I usually know the city
better than the average Petersburger; I drive around a lot" (3/25/07). By contrast, Wang,
while he claimed to have walked everywhere during his students days, takes his car to
work over a distance that any ordinary Petersburger would find eminently walkable; he is
an important businessman, and it might not be seemly (or safe) for him to walk.
Russians, though, tended to have one route to work and a different route back,
sometimes depending on traffic but often depending on esthetic choices. For example,
Rita often drove to work or took a microbus, but in the summer she might walk all the
way home in order to enjoy the evening on Nevsky Avenue (see Map 6.9). Boris drove to
work along the Neva embankment because he enjoyed the view of the river, but always
came home along the eastern portion of the Ring Road in order to avoid traffic; he might
also take the metro after a short walk across the bridge connecting his neighborhood to
the left balue of the Neva (Map 6.10). Ivan, as implied by some of the quotations above,
might take his bicycle, or get out at one metro station on the way to work and come back
0,5
Rila',. ronl"
,,-alking
driving
2 Kllomettro:
I
IUI,I'S work
274
Map 6.9. Rita's routes to and from work.
to WOrll
/
\ hOIUW4llk
Bori,~'s ronl"
-- by f,','1 1,-, 01"1..,,
- by car
25 10 KHorneten:
Map 6.10. Boris's routes to and from work.
275
li"dmilil'.~ rout",
"';llking
,public lranspc.rl
public lransp,.>rl l~) m..lr~)
Ulldlllilil'S work
0.5 2 Kilometl!r&
Map 6.11. Liudmila's route to and from work, with her metro route to downtown.
276
via another. To get to the city center, Liudmila might take a streetcar down Srednii
Avenue going east, or another one going west to a different metro station, depending on
what showed up; she might also walk a bit north of her apartment to take a bus to the
university (see Map 6.11). The possibility of multiplicity in the routes seemed to be a
cherished feature that many residents took for granted; the spaces of representation of this
city life were the streets, the crowded metro station platforms, and the stops for public
transportation, including a high number of public travel spaces. Chinese did not speak
fondly of this experience, and neither did Russians-but they shared similar frustrations.
No Chinese interviewee mentioned streetcars, which is perhaps significant. As
noted in Chapter V, the "streetcar" refers not only to that form of transportation, with a
history dating back to the end of the Leningrad Siege, but also to a system of
transportation that was widely perceived as easily enabling the kind of visiting between
friends mentioned by "ordinary" interviewees. Thus, it is not only the object focus of a
fetishistic nostalgia (as Boym would have it, 2001) but a "term" for an entire socio-
spatial paradigm that assumes a particular philosophical orientation to enabling the lives
of ordinary people, supported by a subsidized system of transportation. As Liudmila
expressed it:
I like streetcars, but it doesn't follow from that that we must have streetcars here.
It's my opinion that there should be something. But that we must have municipal
transportation. And not just private automobiles! So that each person, no matter
what his material situation, could get around, especially the elderly. (10/30/06)
Whether or not newcomers notice the presence of such a system, or its lack, or mention
this need as something that the city should fulfill, can give us important information
about the long-term interaction between residents and migrants. If the comments of the
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Chinese interviewees for this project are any indication, then the streetcar may not
survive the spatial transformations facing St. Petersburg, but with luck the push for
historical preservation will only receive a greater impetus.
Conclusion
One challenge with resolving potential conflicts between users of the city is that
even residents who share the same ethnic profile do not all agree about the relative value
of various services and urban spaces. The needs and expectations for space introduced by
migrants confront an already complex, contentious set of competing needs and
expectations among city residents. Migrants' ability to grasp a location's spatial
language, or set of codes as Lefebvre would have it, must depend also on the stability of
that spatial language.
This was illustrated well by comments from Aleksandr Karpov. As a legal
activist, Karpov is highly aware of the struggle between elites and ordinary Russians over
city spaces. He sees the problem as one of mutually incomprehensible languages used by
different "tribes" of city inhabitants. I cite his comments at length, in order to draw out
both the philosophical and spatial elements.
If we look at the public hearings from the point of view of an ethnographer, then
we can say that there are two tribes, right? Builders and residents. They speak
different languages. And the terms that they share-points of overlap-are very
limited. It can be summed up, you can simply list those conceptual categories that
are part of that common terminology. Those are: height, insolation, parking, green
spaces. That's about it. And they're supposed to be friends. A very poor set of
terms to use in negotiating a decent transaction [over space].
So, language as a fund of concepts?
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Yes, language as a fund of concepts. And meanwhile, if we look at one side, say
that of residents. Residents have a completely normal fund of concepts about how
they want to live. Not even "what I want to see happen," right? But how I plan my
life, having a family, a personal universe. This includes socializing with friends,
raising children, family ... But builder-developers have a different [fund]. They
have density, economic development, transportation streams, energy supply,
clusters, all that sort of stuff. And these things don't overlap ... You can look at it
as a problem of creating inteifacing. That kind of thing. So in that sense, it begs
the question, properly speaking, about all this urban planning, right? It's
colonization. Because there is no trade, transactions can't take place, but one tribe
stands nearer to the authorities (vlasti or powers) ... In light of this framework,
protests against in-fill construction are just an uprising of the enslaved tribe.
(10/29/06; 'interfacing' in English in original)
In contrast to the residents quoted above, who saw chiefly their own needs in relation to
the city, Karpov recognizes that there are other "tribes" who have a different kind of
stake in the city and whose expectations-and language for describing them-differ
markedly from those of residents. These different languages, I would concede, are not the
same thing as different socio-spatial paradigms; however, it is still plausible to assert a
connection between a socio-spatial paradigm operating in a certain arena (that is, of
designing public urban policy within the city administration) and the language employed
to describe desirable goods in that realm. On the surface, as implied above by journalist
Shuvalov's comments, this implies that residents develop their socio-spatial paradigm
based on very limited expanses: the expanse that they traverse in order to visit their
friends, in which they raise their children, and the physical dimensions of their apartment
building and the sunounding yard. But also contained in Karpov's comments-
particularly in the assertion about colonization-is an equality between the claims made
on city expanses by the different "tribes"; that is, regardless of the difference in scope
between the two (or more) groups, in spite of the different scales of the expanses from
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which they construct an argument about social or economic good, that difference in scale
does not constitute a hierarchy of their entitlement to have their claims met. Of course,
this sort of statement has powerful implications for the incorporation of new residents
into an existing infrastructure and socio-spatial paradigm. Presumably, communication
will be more effective if the paradigm can be conveyed to newcomers; this can ease any
contradictions between the newcomers' paradigms and the local ones. In this case, as
shown by quotations from interviews with Chinese, newcomers show themselves capable
of adapting some of the language so important to locals.
Yet more work could be done on the practices and expectations that arise for
individuals and for various groups as a result of holding certain socio-spatial paradigms.
Individual Chinese will at some point encounter individual Russians, and it would benefit
the host society, too, if it could become conversant with its own paradigm and strive to
engage that of the Other. A particular value can be seen in these one-on-one syntheses of
exchanging spatial experience; then, whether or not a certain space is seen as forwarding
the goals of globalizing the economy, spaces that conserve the social fabric of the city
and its ability to absorb newcomers might better be preserved.
Philosophically speaking, for Anna, the result of attention to the material quality
of an individual person's life is energy unleashed for the growth of the socio-economic
system as a whole.
And a person, when he works, he should understand that he is working, he is
living out his life, he's doing it for a reason. That his labor is valued, and it's
understood how much of himself he is giving. A part of his life, and [there needs]
to be compensation for his efforts. He should have this sensation, whether in a
bakery or in factory for the production of buttons ... Then we would see
something completely different. People would be more free, less bitter, more
280
creative. People would want to change something in themselves, they would want
to do something good not only for their colleagues at work, but just in general for
the city. (3/23/07)
Previewing her assessment of the situation with Russian society's internalization of
migrants, Varya offered a similar suggestion.
When you talk with a person, when that person feels that his opinion is wanted,
that he is significant for the authorities, that he's not a nut or bolt in the general
machine, but an identity. The reaction of any person on life's changes will be
completely different. And there should be institutes that don't fear to do this.
(10/28/06)
The task before someone trying to enable the "transactions" that would in part enable this
liberation of commitment is to discern the different "languages" used by competing
tribes. In the terminology of this research, this implies discernment of the socio-spatial
paradigms that condition, and exist in symbiosis with, material experiences and the
material urban environment, especially when different "terms" are used in reference to
the same expanses.
Struggling over conceptions of"the city": new vs. old
On the horizon, as hinted, is a degree of change that will bring new spaces for
everyone. Some Chinese arrivals bring an orientation towards a new more globally
oriented socio-spatial paradigm that some Russians share as well. Comments from
different interviews have illustrated that the struggle over conceptions of the "urban" that
has arisen in Petersburg occurs in China as well. A contact in Beijing suggested that
Chinese practice had once aimed at near-total preservation of historical areas, as many
propose in St. Petersburg. However, the trend there has been towards a less expensive
practice of razing the old in order to put up newer structures (T. Zhang, interview,
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1/6/08). Jihan (as quoted above about Beijing) knew this about her country, and was
worried that it might affect Petersburg.
They want everything to be new, modem. But how will they show their children
the history? After some years the children won't know anything.... Petersburg is
an architectural city, a museum. It's different, interesting. When I came here in
1994, I didn't know Russian very well, but then six months later I had been
everywhere on the metro and seen every station! (12/2/06)
Zhang felt the same anxiety:
If a lot of Chinese come here, maybe for 10 years it will be fine, it will still be
beautiful. But if more, maybe 15 years, they will want to change things. It's bad, I
don't know how to explain it. In Chinese it's called lang fei. It means, 'While I
have it, I don't want it.' (3/28/07)
Of his native city in China, Xin noted that the struggle for preservation arose after an
overly zealous drive to erase the old.
We have lots of old houses. Before, 40 years ago, when we built a new city, we
destroyed a lot. We razed many old buildings. But then everyone said we need
modem. It seemed normal. But now there are very few such buildings, so we have
to preserve. (10/26/06)
Longtime Petersburg resident Chunping made a strong statement about the need to
preserve the historic downtown: "Not touch anything in the center, only on the outskirts"
(10/28/06). Such quotations would seem to indicate that Chinese interviewees agreed
wholeheartedly with the local orientation towards preservation and maintenance of a
socio-spatial paradigm that valued the built environment of the historical center.
However, Xin also remarked that he didn't really pay attention to architecture: "If
I see a really good building, then I look. If I don't like it, I won't think about it." Unlike
Rita, who noticed all the facades on Nevsky, Xin could not evaluate the architectural feel
of certain neighborhoods; he replied, "I haven't thought about it. I just looked at the
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stores, what they have. Nevskii is a good place. Good stores, good things." Like him, Jue,
a young woman who had arrived two months earlier for a graduate program with St.
Petersburg State University, spoke very little of the influence of the built environment.
Asked where she liked to walk in the city, she replied, "I walk in shops. I think all girls
love to shop. If not to buy, I also walk in stores. Also my friends love stores, and we go
together often" (11/3/06). Her responses to questions about architecture were thoroughly
pragmatic:
Old or new? Usually a person loves a new apartment. Not only apartment, but
usually love new things. First time things are good, but old things aren't good.
Because like a car, it doesn't work. I think it's good [to build new]. In China they
build lots of new apartments.
Although Chunping had lived for almost 20 years in the city and expressed a decided
opinion about not building in the city center, she expressed uncertainty about the popular
view that everything historical should be preserved:
Does it make sense to race ahead? Well, there are natural rules, and we need to
remember traditions. [But] here everything is against the new ... Elderly people
above all ... (10/28/06)
Here Chunping echoes the hesitation of many Chinese involved directly in the Baltic
Pearl, concerned that local attitudes militate against a clear perception of what the
project, once built, will have to offer in the way of new spaces for urban living.
Svetlana about Pik; Ivan about symbolic spaces
Earlier in this chapter I also suggested an equivalency in the claims on and
perceptions of the city by arriving Chinese (and by extension other migrants). At this end
of the chapter, I mean by this that even as the Chinese arrive and possibly integrate into
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the operative socio-spatial paradigm of walking, public transportation, and value placed
on the texture of the historical center, the Baltic Pearl and its ongoing construction are
simultaneously changing the total range of spatial possibilities that Petersburg offers,
possibly making more space for the kind of internationalized, modernized spaces that
urban Chinese know at horne. Currently, Chinese in the city are a minority and find
themselves most often in situations where they are scrambling to master a different
paradigm. Yet even as some Chinese find a way to connect with local values through
their appreciation for the historical preservation in Petersburg-loving the greenery, the
relatively clean air, and the presence of old buildings-their compatriots at another scale
are bringing a change in investment and typical construction practices that may ultimately
accelerate the shift in the sociospatial paradigm.
This chapter begins to reveal one way of analyzing this kind of change through
careful elucidation of sociospatial paradigms. I noted earlier that the terms underpinning
what Karpov saw as different languages "may not be as spatially exclusive as they are
conceptually exclusive." In the context of a fuller analysis of the elements not only of
spatial languages but of whole paradigms (Lefebvrian triads), conflict can be considered
through identifying the non-coincidence between spaces of representation of different
groups as well as contradictions between one paradigm's "space of representation" and
"representation of space." Some subgroups may begin to generate different spatial
practices as well, even as a large pmt of the population harbors the same "representation
of space."
284
For example, Svetlana, who could go into ecstasies over the building on
Griboedov Canal where Dostoevsky had once lived, shared Jue's concern for good
shopping. Adopting this "spatial practice" of shopping in a certain way (probably not at
the open-air bulk produce markets) can be connected to Svetlana's evaluation of the
shopping center Pik, a glass-sheathed construction on Sennaia Square. To many of my
interviewees, this building constituted a violation of Sennaia as a "space of
representation" of cultural history (including a scene from Crime and Punishment by
Dostoevsky) which made many of my interviewees shudder. But Svetlana maintained:
It's tidy, you know, it's fine. We use it. ... The sort of thing that makes life
pleasant, right? Those things win you over all the same, and you stop thinking
about architecture. A city should be modern and comfortable to live in. (3/24/07)
In further evaluating this center, she recognized a spatial feature of its construction that
made her prefer yet another shopping center half a block away.
I don't really like the shopping [at Pik] , I like it at Sennaia Center, the one
opposite. Because Pik was built by a Russian architect and it doesn't have this
American principle of malls, you know? A central space where you can see the
levels and the names of the stores ...
This small adoption of a newly designed space also marks the incremental change that
may ultimately shift Petersburg's "representations of space." Similarly, musing on what
the meaning of a city should be, Ivan suggested his willingness to accept large prestige
projects on the principle of Petersburg's significance as a urban center. "Piter is a wealthy
city," he said, "and it needs many more such interesting, precisely many more of those
symbols, bright promotional objects" (9/17/06). Further research will have to show
whether St. Petersburg can acquire these bright symbols and simultaneously
accommodate more new arrivals even as the socio-spatial paradigms which have
285
provided orientation shift under the feet (and wheels) of all the residents moving around
the city.
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CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION: HYBRID SPACES AND DIVERSITY
This study opened with the assertion that a fuller understanding about the contemporary
Russian phenomena of spatial dispossession and spatial exclusivity (xenophobia) could
be understood better by examining evidence at several scales. While events and figures at
the "privileged scale" of the nation-state often seem to be the most salient, processes at
the so-called microscale reveal the struggles elided by outward political rapprochement.
This conclusion returns to that issue. The first part of the chapter examines what study of
the Baltic Pearl can contribute to our knowledge of "Russia" and "China" at several
scales; the second part evaluates what the microscale evaluation of relations between
individual Chinese and Russians can tell us about the broader relationship between the
states.
Reading the Baltic Pearl Across Scale
In a general way, at the scales that I designated as "privileged" in the introduction,
the story of the Baltic Pearl seems to be a simple one: first of all, inter-city competition
has forced St. Petersburg to increase its economic and symbolic capacities to function in
Northern Europe as both companion in regional development and competitor for trade
routes and financial flows. The Baltic Pearl brings investment to the city, possibly
becoming a catalyst for infrastructural development, and places a node of modernization
287
on the cityscape. Second, global circumstances dispose Russia to create closer ties with
China, and China reciprocates this desire and would also like to gain more favorable
terms for access to Russian oil and natural gas. "China" appears to be doing "Russia" the
favor of building this quarter in exchange for these closer relations and possibly for
resources.
I put the country names in quotation marks above because the scale of the desired
cooperation seems obvious-state to state. However, a closer examination of the
situation, amplified by various elements of research on the Baltic Pearl, reveals that the
situation is not so simple. First, while the central Russian government would certainly
like to cooperate with China in presenting a unified face to the West, particularly the
United States, tensions between the two states remain. A first element indicating Russia's
position less as a receiver of favors and more as a supplicant for aid is mentioned by
several scholars of Sino-Russian relations: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
frequently mentioned as a sign that China and Russia are cooperating more closely over
military and economic issues in Central Asia, is nevertheless not a military alliance.
While some joint military exercises have occurred, the treaty contains no conditions that
would oblige China to come to Russia's aid in the event of an attack. (Recall that China
did not support Russia's recent actions in Georgia.) Thus while Russia may claim a Sino-
Russian axis that will stand against the hegemonic West, it still stands alone more than it
would like. The intelligence and resourcefulness of many Russian people make it a not
insignificant country and one that should not be neglected by diplomacy-but the
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material reality behind its ambitions is uneven. Russia may have to rely on China for
labor as well as infrastructural investment-if it can get and keep both.
A second contradiction to the image of a unified front emerges in the blog
complaints about the Baltic Pearl: the anxiety about Chinese encroachment on "Russian"
space; the concrete experience of Chinese migration to the Russian Far East gets mapped
onto the Baltic Pearl and the same resentments simmer. Russians have expressed concern
that their country would become a resource base for other countries, including for oil and
timber. In terms of relations with China, this concern makes the Far East a complex case.
Most of the prized Russian natural resources are located there or in Siberia to the west.
Rumors abound that China may actually want to take over the territory of the Russian Far
East and parts of eastern Siberia-not as an outright annexation, but as a de facto one,
pushed by economic cooperation and migration from northeast China into Russia.
However, while there is evidence that Chinese are entering the Far East in fairly large
numbers-and are having better success in production of everything from consumer
goods to vegetables-the current regulations for migration and entrepreneurship are not
such as to permit large-scale businesses. Chinese activity is concentrated in trade and
small-scale agriculture. Many local Russians would like closer cooperation with the
Chinese, similarly to the desire of closer cooperation with Japan evident on Sakhalin,
since the Russian power base (with its chief resources) is in Moscow, far to the west.
While the Russian Far East has a feisty loyal population, it has also been losing
population steadily. Chinese migrants seem to know how to thrive there, while many
Russians crave the lifestyle in the western part of their country. Russian scholars realize
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that the Russian state may face a challenge in retaining the Far East simply in terms of
politlcal influence and demographic sustainability. In light of this anxiety, the
construction of the Baltic Pearl may be a gesture of good will, to reassure the Russian
central government of China's desire for benevolent cooperation; however, it also lends
itself to the discourse of Chinese incursion that appeared on the Nevastroyka blog.
The results of my research indicate that Russia is economically more dependent
than it would like to admit. It would like to have China as an ally against the West, but
China has refused to become the kind of ally Russia envisions. It would like for the
connection with China to bring new energy to its economy, but so far there are two
problems: Russia's reluctance to reform key features of the business environment
prevents Chinese as well as its own people from making progress and increasing
productivity, and individual Chinese report unpleasant enough experiences that a steady
and long-term migration stream might be unlikely. Further, Chinese perceive Russians as
petty traders; while Russian officials would like for China to invite Russian specialists in
engineering and other technical fields to help them build Chinese sites, this demand has
not been high, so the economic flow is likely to remain inward for cheap consumer goods
and outward for raw resources. Goods rarely come to Russia for processing; expertise
rarely goes into China to bring income back into Russia.
Close examination of negotiations over the Baltic Pearl brings additional evidence
that the project is a favor that the Russians are doing the Chinese, rather than vice
versa-that is, rather than the Chinese offering a prize in exchange for oil, the Russians
seem to be wooing the Chinese with the gift of a large land parcel on which to build a
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symbolically innovative quarter. The Chinese are making a demonstration of their vitality
in engineering, architecture, and organization-and this is in contrast to the Russian
desire to have their own engineers and architects employed in China as experts, to
complement the outflow of natural resources. The placement of the Baltic Pearl could be
read as a gesture of raising the profile of St. Petersburg in order to please Vladimir Putin,
who reportedly sees it as the mission of his late- and post-presidential years to revitalize
his native city. Putting the quarter in St. Petersburg and not Moscow could be a part of
that plan. Moscow, however, is probably still too tightly controlled by its Mayor Luzhkov
to allow such a large project to happen. Further, the Chief Architect of St. Petersburg at
the time that the Baltic Pearl project was initiated recounted the series of events in such a
way as to indicate that a delegation of Chinese came to Russia seeking a place to build.
This information points to Chinese initiative in the project.
An interesting indicator of this is the Lotus Tower in the Baltic Pearl plan, visible
at low center left in Figure 3.2. The Russian planners with whom I spoke saw this tower
as a contradiction to the desired spatial organization of the district. While they had
managed to negotiate for the wider green courtyards visible in later designs, no one on
the Russian side had been able to affect the question of the tower. The decision was made
in a black box in Shanghai without consultation with any of the Russians assigned to
mediate the project. An informant in Shanghai told me that a separate competition had
been organized for the design of this tower. The Russians perceived it as an interruption
in the newly negotiated space of hybridity, a Soviet-Maoist aberration of propagandistic
form and inhumanly scaled open space. The Russian impression was that someone in
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either the Shanghai municipal government (which provided most of the capitalization for
SHC) or in the firm itself particularly wanted this element, and planners and officials in
St. Petersburg had no power to affect its execution.
Thus, Russia with respect to China has less power than might at first appear.
However, the Baltic Pearl shows that central state influence remains powerful in the
shaping of St. Petersburg's meaning-in the "representation of space" that will dominate
its development. A recent United Nations report asserts that "Territorial regulation has
replaced national regulation because of the limited ability of the state to solve problems
and address issues at lower levels" (Habitat 2001,62). This may be true in the case of
infrastructure or generation of revenue; after all, St. Petersburg (in the persons of
Matvienko and the Legislative Assembly) is in charge of remunerating its own housing
crisis-which the Baltic Pearl will ostensibly help to alleviate. However, St. Petersburg is
clearly not entirely in charge of its own symbols. Residents and local specialists,
including some legislative deputies, continue to lobby for the maintenance of a certain
tenor to infrastructure; the new financial meltdown will likely slow the pace of
development in any case, but the central state (and its local representatives) continues to
push for a globalized vision that harmonizes with its top-down politics. Those involved in
local politics still want to retain a localized vision based in the "spaces of representation"
that anchor a certain loyalty to Petersburg, such as the historical sites and favorite parks.
Thus, examination of the Baltic Pearl reveals the political conflict between the center and
political and social elements in other parts of the country.
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The Baltic Pearl is intriguingly caught between these struggles. It represents the
vision of the centralized state through its existence, as illustrated by several comments
from interviewees that the project would be pushed through "from above" regardless of
local reactions; however, it also has been adapted to local needs through its stated
provision of housing (i.e., it is not solely a prestige site, or a "premium networked
space") and through the implementation of courtyards. Even in its provision of housing,
though, it supports globalized space by planning to focus on affluent buyers-and even in
its attempt to represent a globalized hybrid, it bears evidence of an old-fashioned need to
assert spatial dominance in the monumental space of the Lotus Tower.
I have been concerned here not only with the "functional response to
globalization" (Habitat 2001,62) made by the local authorities but also with the local
spatial culture into which globalization enters, so to speak, in the form of the Baltic Pearl.
The fact that the Baltic Pearl does not impinge spatially on the historical center is not the
main issue: the point is that it affects local governance and the overall existing spatial
culture-it modifies the socio-spatial paradigm employed by city planners and new
arrivals in the city, interrupting the adoption of the paradigm based in collective needs
(sometimes in historical preservation, sometimes in favored public spaces). It is possible
that the district could in fact provide a "new product" for some consumers, but it also
threatens the maintenance of streetcar lines, affordable property values, and local political
viability; it introduces new socio-spatial paradigms focused on a global consumer class in
which very few current residents of Petersburg can participate. Further, the specific
evidence of protest against the quarter are not significant in and of themselves-that is, it
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does not matter that the street demonstrations and blog postings eventually faded and
seem quantitatively negligible; it matters that the type of discourse traceable in the blogs
and other commentary has significant commonalities with the overall discourse of protest
against urban development projects and resonates strongly with overall mistrust of urban
governance as chiefly enacted by the City Governor's office. Just as Matvienko listed it
in 2006 along with other high-profile prestige projects, local residents classify the Baltic
Pearl as one more object in this takeover, even though the presence of housing in the
project actually contrasts starkly with the other projects (which tend to embody cultural
prestige, recreation, sport, or commerce alone).
The Socio-Spatial Paradigm and Othering
A governing question at the scales examined in this study is whether the dominant
"51. Petersburg" sociospatial paradigm can accept Others, or is even open to
appropriation by arriving migrants-of all types, including investment funds as well as
laboring bodies. The same set of local socio-spatial paradigms that underpins resident
efforts to combat dispossession also anchors much of the language of xenophobia. In
order to achieve long-term social sustainability and to design effective compromises that
serve a majority of city residents, 51. Petersburg will have to find ways to confront this
contradiction. To do so, it must first address such questions as:
• Can migrants participate in the most-used spaces of representation?
• Will they be allowed to join the currents and patterns of spatial practice, such as
urban mobility?
• And most interestingly, will they ultimately participate in a restructuring of the
representation of space?
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Vendina expresses concern about the capacity of Russian cities to accept Others. She
suggests that the built environment of Moscow (and by implication, other cities with
similar structures) facilitates integration, since "the multistory residential construction
and the special attachment of Muscovites to their individual apartments retard the
formation of compact ethnic aureoles" (2005b, 71). However, near the end of her
landmark 2005 study of enclaves in Moscow, she notes that the growing tendency to
favor separated, even fenced-off (55) spaces, corresponds to a social reluctance to allow
Others to enter.
The "middle class" is characterized by a surprising conservatism and striving for
social isolation. Evidence of social egoism and lack of openness to alternative
forms of life-if they are not refined by contact with culture, the elegant
'underground' and esthetic dismissal of material prosperity-tum the 'middle
class' into a social layer that closes off the channels of social mobility for
economic migrants, complicates their access to social goods, education, and so
forth. The result of the social strategy of the 'middle class' becomes the
territorialization of social inequality, the spatial consolidation of poverty, and the
stigmatization of city districts that have a poor reputation. The attempt to wall
oneself off from social problems, to avoid "others,' to increase the physical
distance between oneself and those who are perceived as a threat to personal
prosperity-above all, of course, the representatives of ethnic minorities from the
numbers of economic migrants-in the final result leads to segregation in all its
forms. (83)
This conservatism and concern with what is perceived as personal security and prosperity
resonates with Horowitz's warning that multiplicity cannot always be reconciled and
integrated:
If all groups merely wanted inclusion, distrust and anxiety would still make ethnic
conflict serious, but more tractable than it is. What makes it intractable is that
claims to political inclusion and exclusion have an area of mutual incompatibility.
... What is sought is not necessarily some absolute value but a value determined
by the extent to which it reduces another group's share. Demands are often cast in
relative terms, and conflict-reducing proposals that involve expanding the pool of
goods available to all groups typically have little appeal. (1985, 196)
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As quotations from Gel/bras and Vendina suggested in the introduction, the long-term
health of interactions between Russia and China must also be evaluated at the microscale
in order to test evolving trends; here, I have attempted this in a probing of the
compatibility of socio-spatial paradigms.
Challenges to a new socio-spatial paradigm
At the beginning of Chapter VI, I raised the question of the "urban" and its definition for
residents of St. Petersburg. As I pointed out, many long-time residents of the city reject
what might be termed a "rational" understanding of a city as a bundle of goods and
spaces; Ivan, who also rejected the concept of the city as a factory, explained that he
didn't see residents as having to earn their right to live there:
I just don't know anyone who would leave Petersburg because things are bad.
That is, it's just not the normal practice, to abandon Petersburg because you can't
live in it. In general Petersburg seems to be a city in which some way or other, but
you can live-as a homeless person, a drunk, an idler, a poet. ., (9/17/06)
Ivan's words suggest first that native residents of Petersburg should be able to find a
place there regardless of the changes that occur; any other possibility would mean that
something crucial about the city had changed. Second, his words imply that Petersburg is
a place that can ultimately accommodate all comers. Yet his explanation also shows that
he does not quite have the language to describe what he means-which is that Petersburg
is not an abstract space, interchangeable with others, but an absolute space with its
natives and its own immutable identity (Lefebvre 1991). He likely shares with the
journalist Moskvina the idea that Petersburg is a homeland, or rodina, and that the current
changes make residents feel as though "you are losing your homeland without departing
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your homeland" (Pulse, June 2006). Without having words to specify his "representation
of space," he does not have words for the accompanying "spaces of representation" and
"spatial practices" that would support his "representation" or urban conception. Does he
truly mean "Petersburg for those who live in it," or is the implied subtext of his comment
"Petersburg for Petersburgers"? The latter answer would not necessarily mean that he and
other residents are incorrigibly xenophobic, but simply that the language that he has for
expressing himself disposes him to that formulation. Without being able to articulate
what "Petersburgers" know and do as "practices" and "spaces of representation," he has
little other option.
Another "representation of space" that emerged in interviews was the idea of St.
Petersburg as a natural expanse for the mixing of nationalities. For example, Varya
suggested that Petersburg had previously never experienced pogroms or other mass
protests against foreigners, but had always been understood as a multinational city:
All the same, absolutely, you see, Petersburg was founded as a multinational city
from the very beginning. Everyone was here. Foreigners, people who came from
all the provinces. They lived in peace, there were never any big pogroms in
Petersburg. That means that something here was absolutely healthy... (10/27/06)
A forum of sociologists and other specialists held in Petersburg in fall 2006, not long
after a notorious riot in Kondopoga between Russians and Chechens, also concluded that
Petersburg was unlikely to be the scene of such mass conflicts. Still, Petersburg's image
of itself as multinational is historical, involving Italian architects, German merchants,
Dutch shipbuilders, later Central Asians and many other people from all over the Soviet
Union. There is a muddled quality to this historical dimension: people don't remember
the mechanisms that allowed it, and one gets the sense that people believe that absorbing
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Chinese migrants in new economic and geopolitical conditions should somehow occur in
a way that repeats this poorly-remembered "multinationality." In the same conversation,
Varya added,
For the first time the city is going to have a program promoting tolerance, but they
have allotted too little money-55 million rubles. This is only for one year.
Otherwise if now... it's already kind of late, but better now, so that the sickness
that is somehow in the society, so that they can cut it off, and reanimate what we
had before. (10/27/06; emphasis added)
I emphasize this "what we had before" because I heard often about the multiple
nationalities that had called St. Petersburg home, but along with the somewhat mystical
sense that Petersburg "digests" people, the sense of this ethnic multiplicity has a
remoteness to it. Liudmila (70 years) also held to the idea that Petersburg had always
been multinational: "Of course [Petersburg] was multinational. I don't know whether
there were conflicts; I didn't live in that time" (10/30/06; emphasis added). Given her
age, this statement implies that the "multinational" period was pre-revolutionary and
perhaps extended a decade or so past the revolution, but not past 1940. A contemporary
imagination of "multinationality" might need more effort.
The question arises about what specific forms and places will create the "spaces
of representation" for mixing-for a new synthesized culture-whether public,
neighborly, or private. Interviewee Varya suggested the small forms ofresidential spaces:
landings, stairways, buildings, cultural centers. Ivan himself illustrated the ability to
connect with the city (at least its historical center) through other recognizable forms-
"those Petersburg courtyards, those old sidestreets, those two- and three-story buildings"
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(9/17/06). Such comments suggest that a facility in this spatial language is essential for
true integration into Petersburg life.
However, advancing this hypothesis about facility in the St. Petersburg spatial
language immediately requires several caveats. First, as asserted at the end of Chapter VI,
while Chinese interviewees shared some perceptions and experiences of transport, they
didn't employ the same spatial forms to articulate attachment to the city. Ongoing
xenophobia prevents them from enjoying the pedestrian mode of attachment, effectively
shutting them out from the spatial practice of the Petersburgjlaneur.
Second, as cited in Chapter V, Oleg and his wife noted that the neighborly spaces
of courtyard and stairway had not yet had the power to create a sense of community
between Russians and migrants from the Caucasus and other similar regions. One
conclusion that can be drawn from the types of situations that they described is that
passive expectations for community will not materialize without some kind of
educational intervention.
In fact, while the "tolerance program" mentioned above was announced by the St.
Petersburg administration in 2006, it was slated to affect only education in elementary
schools. What may be more needed is a quite different, much more assertive program that
would include more than schoolchildren. Professor Veronika Liang of Herzen Institute
discussed this possibility in an interview. Echoing Anna's comment (see Chapter V) that
cities had used a policy of ignoring their ethnic minorities, she said:
The teachers think that since students have come here to study, then they should
consider our culture, our realities, nothing of their own.... I say that if a person
has come here to study, naturally he will have to adapt to this situation. But if we
receive this person, then we must help him to adapt. This must be a mutual
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adaptation. Don't close your doors and say, If he wants to, he can come, if not,
then go away-I don't need you.
Also emphasizing that Chinese students must learn Russian in order to function on the
streets, she added,
Each country has its specifics. I remember when I came here in 1986: I couldn't
understand how to find stores. Because here, a store is very small. It's located in
an apartment building. There on some corner there's a small store, and that's
where the bread is. I was afraid to go in-how could that be a store? In China a
store would be much bigger. You can see from a long way away that it's a store.
A daily-life orientation point, let's say. (10/27/06)
Her comments imply that if a program of the dominant socio-spatial paradigm could be
prepared for new arrivals, they might find it easier to adapt and to share urban space with
the residents already there. The St. Petersburg school system has in a way attempted
something like this with a new generation of primary and secondary school students,
including the city's history in school curriculum. Liang's remarks suggest a similar
program for foreign students who do not study Russian and local culture as a part of their
degrees.
There is a third problem, though. Of course any Russians in the city would have
this elementary competence in recognizing stores and other basic types of public social
space. But Ivan's friend Mikhail suggested that even Russians in many parts of the city
had no fluency in the spatial language that many of my interviewees used so extensively
when referencing "spaces of representation" for St. Petersburg's culture-and no desire
to learn that language, either. Speaking of his neighborhood (located just southeast of the
Baltic Pearl site), Mikhail said:
It seems to me that the most important negative factor is the people who live [in
Krasnoselskii district], because they have given up on everything and won't do
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anything. And it seems to me that the people (narod) are to blame that there is
filth and disorder. They have the opportunity to change things, but they don't act.
It seems to me that in principle the transformation of the city is possible, but
probably not for long. (10/12/06)
One of the reasons, according to many, that the attitudes of people in the outlying
districts (such as Krasnoselskii) are negative is the built environment. Varya suggested
that aggression against non-Russian foreigners stems from an aggression against human
qualities in the Soviet-built districts; although some residents feel a fondness for aspects
of these neighborhoods, the dominant opinion is that they are debilitating to the soul.
But in the new districts, everything is the same, it's all right-angled, everything is
gray, white, made of glass, right? This mediocritizes people. This psychologically
orients people to a certain aggressiveness. (10/28/06)
Of course, while the environment may indeed have such an effect, it may be a red herring
in part to confront only the architectural aspect of xenophobia. But the two comments
show that while there is a sizable part of the population that wants to sustain certain
"spaces of representation" that enact values in St. Petersburg social and cultural history,
there is also a significant part of the population that may not engage these spaces even if
they could be proven effective in ameliorating social attitudes. There remain challenges
for even a detailed program of spatial education to help create a more flexible
environment for Ruble's "diversity capital" or Hannerz's "heterogeneity."
This study cannot provide any significant proof that increased knowledge of
sociospatial paradigms would in fact reduce "essentialist" hostilities or the sense of
invasion expressed by some Russians where Chinese are concerned. But the situation will
continue to change. As mentioned at the end of Chapter V, once the Baltic Pearl is built
and has residents, future research into the sociospatial paradigms of St. Petersburg could
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consider the perception of the city that arises here. (Similar research could explore
developing conceptions and practices of the city in the growing suburbs, where small
detached houses or "cottages" are a trend among the more affluent.) The elements of
sociospatial paradigms may not change in concert. While the resistance to change within
the Russian state may persist, the "representation of space" that partly underpins its
power may be changed out from under it by shifting "spaces of representation" and
"spatial practices" induced by ongoing migration and the investment project in whose
initiation the state was instrumental.
The Chinese attempt to create hybrid space
While Russian planners succeeded in affecting the design for the Baltic Pearl, the
possibility of the district's participation in St. Petersburg's spatial politics remains
unclear. Its very newness makes it inaccessible to a local politics that relies on the moral
authority of the built landscape to mount protests again government policies. Its
contemporary landscapes may draw a new Russian class that could develop more
political consciousness, but it may also facilitate an amenities-based type of globalized
space that coincides well with authoritarian government behavior (as in true in Moscow,
shown by Argenbright). A brief consideration of the kind of spaces, and attitudes to
space, displayed by Chinese in other locations provides a few hints.
Shanghai's Xintiandi as new spatial practice
Further research in China revealed a model of urban form that many interviewees
mentioned as a powerful and successful combination of pleasing form and positive social
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results: the mixed-use development in Shanghai called Xintiandi. The project provides an
excellent piece of context for the Baltic Pearl, since it is famous throughout China as a
globalized space that is still humanistic in scale and function, unlike Lujiazui on the
Pudong. When I asked a representative of the Baltic Pearl firm for an example in China
of the "new element" that the Baltic Pearl would bring to Petersburg, he answered that I
should see Xintiandi (Li, interview, 1/19/08).
Could this form accomplish the kind of change, the "something new," that people
await in St. Petersburg? There is some basis to think that it has this potential, although
whether the vision accompanying Xintiandi can have a real impact on the spatial
articulation of the city at microscale, making it legible as well as usable, remains a
question precisely because of the socio-spatial paradigm that anchors it.
Xintiandi (which means New-Beaven-Earth) occupies several contiguous blocks
in Puxi, the older part of Shanghai west of the Buangpu River. It lies just a few blocks
south of Buaihai Road, a major shopping avenue in Shanghai that is lined by glassy
skyscrapers housing offices and malls. West and south of the Xintiandi blocks are areas
of European-built villas in the French Concession. The heart of the project consists of
two full city blocks which were formerly filled with lower-class housing (described by
Julie Iovine in the New York Times as an "old rabbit warren of courtyard houses, built by
the French in the 1860's on interlaced narrow lanes," 8/13/06). This type of housing in
Shanghai took its name (shikumen) from the stone-framed gates that concealed the spaces
of daily life in the alleyways (Agus, interview, 1/21/08). About 4500 residents were
evicted (with compensation) in order to create an area of cafes, boutiques, upscale retail
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and dining, a large artificial lake over a parking garage and bomb shelter, and a cluster of
high-rise residential buildings. A historic centerpiece (and the reason that city officials
were persuaded by the project' s premise) is the school where the first meeting of the
Chinese Communist Party took place. Now, several traditional-style two-story buildings
of gray stone surround interior courtyards; several small alleys lead out to side streets and
wide entrance-interfaces with perpendicular streets allow pedestrians in at north and
south. A Starbucks coffee shop occupies the prominent northwest comer entrance and
high-end boutiques and restaurants are scattered throughout the complex. The south block
of the development conserves little of the historic fabric, becoming a typical blank
exterior wall for the mall inside.
Catalyzed by the American architect Ben Wood (the author of Boston's Faneuil
Hall/Quincy Market festival marketplace), Xintiandi has several features that are
important to an evaluation of its potential influence on further St. Petersburg
development. First, while the actual historic preservation is minimal, including extensive
reorganization of the historic elements and synthesis with new elements, observers note
that the development represents a step forward for a Chinese attitude that moved away
from strict historical preservation in the 1980s (Zhang, interview, 1/6/08) to a practice of
razing everything old down to the ground in order to build new. In this evaluation, any
historic preservation at all is seen as laudable. Second, the chief functions of this area are
(as noted above) high-end retail and entertainment, not a reworking of the previous dense
residential function of the blocks; the development thus participates in the upscaling of
the center, creating what Paul Goldberger called "the same finely wrought balance of
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theme park and shopping mall that increasingly passes for upscale urban life in the
United States" (The New Yorker, cited by Iovine). That is, Xintiandi does not necessarily
represent a broad rethinking of the urban residential landscape, but rather a pastiche of
comfortable shopping and eating spaces that serve the affluent. (Ubiquitous cameras on
two rainy-day visits testify that the site has become a popular tourist destination.) Thus,
using Xintiandi as a model in Russia suggests that a few elements of historic architectural
form might be employed to suggest (rather than truly to embody) the social content and
function they originally carried, and that it would be intended to create a space for
affluence rather than a 'new word' in urban residential architecture.
However, Xintiandi offers an additional way of reading into the "something new"
that Chinese investors promise for the Baltic Pearl, the thing that they see as missing in
St. Petersburg (see Chapter IV). Wood has said that "The real point is not the architecture
of the place, but the new life a place attracts" (cited in Iovine). In the small museum on
the site, the statement of Xintiandi's goal reads that "foreigners feel they are in a Chinese
space and Chinese feel they are in a foreign space." The very urban activity of strolling
and observing (the new flaneur) seems what Xintiandi is designed for. An architect
whom I interviewed said that Xintiandi was the place to be in Shanghai: "If a girl buys a
new dress, she wants to go to Xintiandi to show it off, to parade it." He regarded
Xintiandi as a successful model for public space, saying "You need a crowd. You need to
create a space of mixing" (Agus, interview, 1/21/08).
Tongji University researcher Xu participated in the Baltic Pearl's International
Proposal Collection in fall 2005. Pressed to provide more detail about the concept of
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"European lifestyle" driving the project, to which he referred twice during our
conversation, he tried to expand (interview, 1/23108). It means, he said, that the firm
wants to "combine the local culture with the internationallifestyle"-to make it a global
community, not just a Russian community. And how is this achieved? I asked. He
recommended Xintiandi as a good example of his answer:
The most important thing is to provide accessible space. The space will tell the
people that this is a global society.... There are a lot of elements. Pedestrian way,
shops, colors, outdoor space, elevation of buildings, how the service people smile.
This is the kind of comfortable, always-legible, predictable urban space that Starbucks
represents, often and unfortunately linked with a financial dimension of inaccessibility
that may explain why, for example, Massey feels herself discomfited by her own
enjoyment of the new London Docklands development (2007). The spaces have a
familiar and appealing esthetic. And in spite of ethnic conflict, social stratification, and
administrative non-transparency, these spaces do seem to become popular wherever they
are located in the world-suggesting the "most popular, successful European style of
life" along with prosperity and social power. Xu said, with clearly positive connotations,
"The architecture was Shanghainese, but when you come into the space it's totally global.
... Local culture and urban lifestyle." Presumably, then, Xintiandi is a successful
combination of local culture and urban lifestyle, although little of the genuine "local
culture" remains in the opinion of some (He and Wu, 2005). Yet a professor of urban
planning at Fudan University in Shanghai explained why this might be so:
The general trend is for social contact to take place not in the living area but in
walking areas. Social relationships become less intensive. But this is good! In the
old courtyard style, it can be good but it can be bad, too.... Young people want
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shopping malls: 'we are together, we see each other, we don't know each other,
we don't talk to each other.' (Zhuo, 1/22/08)
In a crucial contrast, visible at this microscale of intimate urban forms and social-spatial
assumptions, this series of Chinese interviewees place emphasis not on the social control,
sense of defendedness, and communality created by the Russian "yard," but on "mixing"
of strangers, "crowds," "seeing but not talking," and open, "accessible" urban space. For
both groups, the relative prosperity of Europe as a goal indicated a certain number of
square meters per resident and "Euro-renovation"-the upgrading of amenities, such as
insulated windows-in individual apartments. At a more symbolic level, though, for the
Chinese planners with whom I spoke, "Europe" was the new lifestyle and comfortable
urban space that promoted openness and accessibility, while for the Russians with whom
I spoke, "Europe" represented the intimate human scale of yards and the communal
belonging that yards supposedly induce, the "mixing" of at-first-strangers into neighbors
and friends. At this scale, a certain non-communication means that overlapping socio-
spatial paradigms in confrontation do not have the language fully to articulate their goals,
or to read the local spatial problems and offer a solution.
Chinese creation of new global spaces of representation
Many of the Chinese with whom I spoke, including three representatives from the
Baltic Pearl, acknowledged the appeal of St. Petersburg's Europeanness, which for them
can be presumed to mean human-scaled architecture. Indeed, an architect interviewed in
China in early 2008 commented precisely that Petersburg is a city of "human scale."
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Whether or not this scale will be replicated and developed in the Baltic Pearl remains to
be seen.
As noted above, planners in St. Petersburg did not understand the social or spatial
function of the Lotus Tower, especially in view of its size. An interviewee in Shanghai
offered a hypothesis:
This is urban sculpture. For example, where there is an unknown soldier, there are
many towers. This is a form to make something permanent. In Chinese culture
understanding, this is the way of making something special. If we want to make
someplace important, something grand, we make a tower.
(Zhuo, interview, 1/22/08)
If this professor of plalming is correct, then the Chinese investors want to mark this space
as important, as a "space of representation"-but representation of what? What sort of
spatial practice will be concentrated here? It is possible that the production of this
particular space is not focused on daily human movement, but on the migration of
Chinese presence and influence to Russia and further around the world. After all, a high-
end development created by SHC in Shanghai (about which I learned from the Fudan
University professor) had no such imposing spaces; it, too, had a Starbucks, whimsical
small-scale public art, and human-scale spaces. The lotus-tower square in the current
design of the Baltic Pearl functions in a different socio-spatial paradigm, taking us back
to the context-scale of the nation-state.
Based on Chapter IV, which showed the architectural and "universal" aspirations
of Chinese designers, we can say that many Chinese designers want to break out of the
stereotyped fears that confine their actions, just as they would like to break out of the
spatial circumscribing that is often associated with "Chinatowns" (note that Kay
308
Anderson particularly reveals the way that Vancouver city fathers selected and managed
the space of Chinatown; 1991). While the lotus-tower may hearken back to the oversized
communist-(re)conceived spaces of Tiananmen and Red Squares, it may serve to
represent a new Chinese ability to shape global space-which, in spite of Russian
stereotypes and fears, may have many positive elements to bring.
Pal Nyiri discusses the issue of concern among existing populations (in his case,
in Europe) at various locations of Chinese in-migration that the Chinese migrants will
still think of themselves not merely as transnationals but as active members of the
Chinese polity. As with Gelbras and Vendina, he ultimately explores the way that new
arrivals appropriate space in their adopted cities. Discussing the potentially threatening
transnationality of an investment project in Budapest, Nyiri includes the following
passage about its Chinese developer:
When asked how his project was different from old Chinatowns, Song Wuqiang, a
migrant from Northeast China to Budapest who is in charge of Asia Center, a
complex he promises to be Europe's largest shopping center, answered
characteristically:
The old generation of migrants was, in some ways, passive ... The Asian
Center's site has been selected after having studied the investment and
market environment of various countries ... [It is] based on large-scale
modern trade... The Asia Center is an active initiative, not a bigger or
smaller market that serves the livelihood of strangers in a foreign land.
[Zhonghua Shibao (Budapest), 'Yazhou ZhongxinAsia Center'
(advertorial), 20-26 July 2000: I]
On another occasion, the Asia Center's own newspaper called Shije . .. claimed no
less than that 'the Asia Center will increase the reputation of Hungarian
enterprises and the country; at the same time, it will help Hungary's Olympic
bid'!
In sum, both official and lowbrow publications present a view of 'new migrants'
as people who remain part of the Chinese economy and polity, strengthen the ties
of overseas Chinese to China, and, as highly skilled professionals and successful
businesspeople, who improve the standing of Chinese in their host societies.
(Nyiri 2002, 330)
309
Nyiri focuses on the project's sustained connection with China. What I see in this
quotation is the assertion that Chinese now choose the place where they want to build -
they don't just accept the corners that host societies dole out to them (cp. Anderson's
description of Chinese pushed here and there in Vancouver). They also make this
decision based on the very "best and latest" in international thinking, and they create
spaces that are "European-modeled" but that have attained the status of generalized,
globalized. They don't just serve their own kind with the historically stereotypical blend
of laundries and restaurants, they serve a general population and add generalized
symbolic value to places. In particular, the newspaper quotation that the new Chinese-
financed center in Budapest will "help Hungary's Olympic bid" should catch our
attention: not only did China succeed in winning the chance to hold the Olympic games
in its own capital city, but it can now contribute spaces that will enhance the ability of
other cities to compete for that highest of world-city honors. This would be a statement of
new creative power, a sign that the Chinese have joined the (Euro-American) leaders in
the global production of space, and that they could win their own game for them.
Whether or not Russian residents of St. Petersburg understand this or can conceive of it,
the Baltic Pearl project gives ample evidence of such an ambition.
New spatial understanding of "Russia"
As quoted near the end of Chapter V, Harvey described two approaches to city
management in his seminal article on urban managerialism compared with urban
entrepreneurialism (2001). The latter tends to "focus on the political economy of place
310
rather than of territory" (2001, 352) where a territorial approach is "designed primarily to
improve conditions of living or working within a particular jurisdiction" (2001, 353). Of
urban megaprojects such as the Baltic Pearl and other large-scale prestige projects,
Harvey writes, "Place-specific projects of this sort also have the habit of becoming such a
focus of public and political attention that they divert concern and even resources from
the broader problems that may beset the region or territory as a whole" (353). This
dichotomy is a powerful way to critique the dominant focus of urban planning regimes,
especially when those regimes emphasize megaprojects as "motors" of urban
development. (Newman and Thornley 1996).
As Harvey notes, "economies of place" also tend to privilege certain kinds of
spaces that come to represent the "world economy" (cite Harvey 2001; Marshall 2003),
such as stadiums, etc. (Saito 2003). These "places" become anchor points for a set of
global assumptions about the spaces that a good city should contain; they are "spaces of
representation" for the global good life, functioning for individuals with a global reach
and financial power. At a finer scale, a Lefebvrian analysis also requires study of lower-
scaled spaces that support an "economy of territory," and calibrates the connections made
possible by the "spatial practices" that connect them.
The supplementation of approaches pioneered by Harvey, Massey, and other
critical geographers with Lefebvre's triad for spatial analysis allows a finer focus on a
whole range of spaces in the city and their relationship to activities and connections at
different scales. Harvey's broad argument suggests how certain approaches to urban
planning are displaced by a focus on "motor" projects, but the analysis must go further to
311
demonstrate on a wider range of spaces how holders of certain socio-spatial paradigms
find themselves dispossessed not only of their paradigm's societal legitimacy but of
material spaces themselves. We can deepen an analysis of xenophobia as not only fear of
"Others" but distrust of "their" spaces; we can include the question of whether attempts
to provide a less xenophobic city will include more "territorial" or "placey" spaces, and
how we will know the difference.
In the case of St. Petersburg and possibly Russian cities in general, this diversion
of concern masks serious problems with infrastructure and the changing fabric of
sociability in many city districts. This is illustrated by arguments in the Nevastroyka news
forum reviewed in Chapter V, which sparred over whether any investment project was
good or whether St. Petersburg should focus its resources on the broader amelioration of
social problems. As Graham and Marvin note, city development is often conditioned
quite powerfully by its existing infrastructure (2001); as Sykora reminds observers of the
post-socialist transformation, new developments often become "path dependencies" for
future choices (2008). Whether the city spends its resources to construct a new skyscraper
or to subsidize the replacement of substandard housing and roads has constraining
influences on how the rhythms of urban life will develop.
This study of the Baltic Pearl suggests an agenda for further research in multiple
sites that will take account of individual voices and socio-spatial paradigms as well as the
"representation of space" promoted by the centralized national government. Kaganskii
suggests that the way forward for such study might be slow, since the government is not
interested in acquiring such knowledge (2004, 2007); however, it promises rich and
312
fascinating results because-as Kaganskii suggested about the growth in kitchen
gardening outside Moscow-these are "real processes" that will have perhaps
incremental but still definite effect on the ultimate results in Russia's transformation.
Kaganskii himself pointed to the persisting need for a more elaborated analysis of
Russian space in his 2007 talk, when he listed questions that could have been inspired by
Lefebvre. Discussing the frustration he felt upon reading an analysis of the long-standing
debate between "Westemizers" and "Pochvenniki,,,1 he suggested that scholars should
ask:
How do Pochvenniki and Westemizers conduct themselves in the landscape?
Do they exhibit particular or different landscape practices?
How are they distributed in space?
Where are the two groups located on the territory of Russia, either by conviction
or for pragmatic reasons?
Staying inside the categories that have been developed so far will cause us to see only
what these categories predict, including the assumption that the Russian state is the only
source of change. The seeming dominance of the state's vision derives from the ease of
describing it, and the tempting simplicity of the subsequent critique. Discussing the
contrast in Latin American cities between the favelas and the ordered districts created by
planners, Lefebvre notes that
The result-on the ground-is an extraordinary spatial duality. And the duality in
space itself creates the strong impression that there exists a duality of political
power: an equilibrium so threatened that an explosion is inevitable-and in short
I Debate over Russia's political course was extended in the nineteenth century between groups called the
zapadniki (Westernizers) and pochvenniki, those who advocated a "return to the soil" or pochva in Russian.
Andrzej Walicki, a prominent historian of this debate, does not attempt to find an English translation in one
word. Walicki, 1975, The Slavophile Controversy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), see
p.531.
313
order. This impression is nonetheless mistaken-a measure, precisely, of the
repressive and assimilative capacity of the dominant space.
(1991,374; second emphasis added)
Even as he himself focuses chiefly on state-initiated monumentality above all other types
of space (see e.g. 1991,220-227), Lefebvre here suggests that the apparent duality of
political power in space is not necessarily real, but is a function of how the state reads. In
contrast to the hope cherished by Massey, the state with its mode of abstract space is
catastrophically unable to let things coexist. It sees impending conflict and even rebellion
where there is none; its focus on homogeneity tricks it.
Even though there are problems with the process surrounding the Baltic Pearl,
particularly as described in Chapter V, the project may ultimately be able to initiate an
intervention into the conceptions of space in St. Petersburg that could at certain points
reinforce citizen activism for historic preservation and provide alternative spaces for self-
conception, including a new multinationality. While Kaganskii and other Russian
scholars (see Rivkin-Fish and Trubina, forthcoming) have recently turned their attention
to the resurgence of unitary conceptions of space in Russia and to the concept of the
"power vertical," a truly globalized Baltic Pearl may quietly introduce a "horizontal,"
polycentric element that will change the city's fate.
314
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