Survival, Exotica and Emptiness: The Evolution of the Post-Soviet open Market in Urban Narratives

Abstract

This article analyzes the transformation process of ideas about the functionality and the social content of the open clothing market of a large “post-Soviet” Siberian city in urban narratives by the example of Shanhajka, the Irkutsk open market. Based on material from 60 semi-structured interviews, described are the functions that are assigned to the market depending on the period in question, the idea of its typical groups and their role in the city’s daily life. It is hypothesized that the market space per se is a marker showing the borderline state of the “post-Soviet” city as a whole. Being one of the urban mobility concentration points, the open market responds primarily to any significant changes in the urban environment. The question is whether it is correct to consider the open market to be an adaptation mechanism of the population of “post-Soviet” cities to the situation of social chaos, as a space where “guerrilla” adaptation tactics of citizens to the rapidly changing city are acceptable. This article also describes such a category as “ethnic markers”, as well as its role and significance in the context of an open market. I. Hoffmann’s dramaturgical metaphor, M. De Serto’s “strategies-tactics” dichotomy and E. Laclo’s and S. Muff’s approach to the analysis of discourse are used as ideas for researching the open market in urban narratives. The open market is regarded as an “unstable sign”, the meaning and connotations of which are transformed over time, depending on the social context and the period cited by the respondent.