A city in postsoviet space

The topic of the article is disputed social processes flowing in a Russian industrial city. The authors use results of field researches on Perm social problems (Perm is a big industrial city, the regional center with the population of about 1 million people. Its sociodemographic and economic parameters make it a typical example of the kind). The city witnesses the expansion of dormitory rules (adopted in private life) to public life. The analysis of managerial situations in many small and medium Perm companies reveals a flat and simplified management style. A small company becomes a closed world, the scale and behavioral norms of which remind a family (We thank O.Y. Andreeva, the associate professor of Perm State Technical University Culture Study Department, for providing us with the necessary information on the management situation in Perm small business). Contemporary city life generates 'home' forms of non-traditional culture which now predominate in the economic sphere. Home rational economic culture is heterogeneous. It cradles undeveloped and rude local forms of contemporary market culture mechanisms. At the same time it originates in socialistic culture. So today Perm is a socialistic type settlement, ruled by the processes of primary bourgeois accumulation. From the social point of view, they imply the polarization of population by economic criterions. The poles are connected with the help of fatherly practices which alienate a considerable part of Perm population from achievements of the city civilization. The spreading of private practices in public life deprives social city life of openness and definiteness. It is now split into disconnected autonomous closed formations, and each of them has its own rules. So today a collection of isolated townsfolk who are trying to solve their individual problems with the help of home-made means make up Perm city community. Reprinted by permission of the chief editor of the journal Mir Rossii