The Rise and Fall of the Russian Shopping Mall in the Putin Era

自苏联时代结束以来，俄罗斯的建筑环境发生了重大变化，在许多方面都指向了这个国家对资本主义的拥抱。如今，俄罗斯的城市到处都是巨大的广告牌；世界上一些最大的公司都在超高层摩天大楼里办公；全国各地出现了大量的购物中心。事实上，俄罗斯现在拥有的购物中心空间比任何一个欧洲国家都多（Roberts, 2016, p.30）：自2000年以来，俄罗斯购物中心的数量爆炸式增长，可以被视为普京时代城市化的一个决定性特征。然而，这并不是一个简单的“成功”故事：2018年，西伯利亚克麦罗沃一家购物中心发生火灾，造成数十人死亡，其中许多是儿童。这一事件将购物中心推到了国民愤怒的中心，引发了关于政治腐败的问题，并对普京统治下的俄罗斯这些空间的繁荣产生了负面影响（Kliment'eva和Chevtaeva, 2018; Oreshkin, 2018; Revzin, 2018）。越来越多的评论员现在呼吁或预测商场对俄罗斯城市空间的统治将会结束（Ershov, 2020; Kovtun, 2019; Tarasova, 2019）。这些空间是如何以及为什么如此深刻地融入俄罗斯社会的，它们的“黄金时代”真的要结束了吗？本论文试图考察莫斯科和圣彼得堡旁边的省级城市，从而“去中心化”这些城市中心根深蒂固的统治地位，而不是忽视它们：因为它们是“中心”而将它们排除在外，将使这些类别之间存在根本对立的想法永久化。它还将质疑人们普遍认为购物中心只是西方舶来品的看法，考虑到普京时代城市主义的某些前身，比如莫斯科红场上的前苏联拱廊GUM；苏联百货公司Mostorg；以及克里姆林宫旁边的后苏联地下购物中心Okhotny Ryad。这些历史比较将使我们能够审视这些空间中明显的“俄罗斯”或“后苏联”特征。作为一篇位于城市研究领域的论文，它的方法必然是跨学科的：城市和商场都是多个学科交叉的空间，这意味着这种方法对于理解它们的功能是必不可少的。我的研究将集中在五个中心案例研究上，并将使用一系列工具，包括话语分析、建筑调查和档案搜索，以及对以前未经检查的购物中心进行广泛的原始实地调查。这将使人们能够从社会学、人类学和文化等不同角度来考虑这些空间。因此，该项目旨在为过去二十年来在俄罗斯蓬勃发展的城市空间提供一个跨学科的视角，质疑导致其快速扩张的条件，并质疑这些空间正在衰落的概念。通过这种方式，它旨在通过这一普遍存在但尚未得到充分研究的现象的镜头，为21世纪俄罗斯城市化提供一个新的视角。为了构建本文的研究框架，本文提出了以下研究问题：自2000年以来，购物中心的快速增长是否代表了一种范式的转变，或者是对根植于俄罗斯城市历史形态的既存的城市主义的转变？这些空间能告诉我们俄罗斯城市和公共空间最近的变化吗？3. 政治/经济腐败在这些购物中心的发展中扮演了什么角色？

BackgroundRussia's built environment has changed significantly since the Soviet era ended, and in many ways which point towards the country's embrace of capitalism. Today, Russian cities are covered in giant advertising billboards; super-tall skyscrapers host offices for some of the world's biggest companies; and vast numbers of shopping malls have appeared across the country. Indeed, Russia now possesses more shopping mall space than any European nation (Roberts, 2016, p.30): since 2000, the number of shopping malls in Russia has exploded to such an extent that they can be regarded as a defining characteristic of Putin-era urbanism. However, this is not a simple 'success' story: in 2018, a fire at a shopping centre in Kemerovo, Siberia, killed dozens of people, many of them children. This incident thrust the shopping mall into the epicentre of national outrage, opening questions about political corruption and casting a negative light on the boom in these spaces in Putin's Russia (Kliment'eva and Chevtaeva, 2018; Oreshkin, 2018; Revzin, 2018). An increasing number of commentators are now calling for or predicting the end of malls' domination over Russian urban space (Ershov, 2020; Kovtun, 2019; Tarasova, 2019). How and why have these spaces become so deeply integrated into Russian society, and could their 'golden age' really be coming to an end? Aims and Methodology This thesis seeks to examine provincial cities alongside Moscow and St Petersburg, thus 'de-centring' the deeply entrenched domination of these urban centres without ignoring them: to exclude them because they are 'centres' would perpetuate the idea that there is a fundamental opposition between these categories. It will also query the popular belief that shopping malls are simply a Western import, considering certain precursors to Putin-era urbanism, such as GUM, a pre-Soviet arcade on Moscow's Red Square; Mostorg, a Soviet department store; and Okhotny Ryad, a post-Soviet underground shopping mall next to the Kremlin. These historical comparisons will enable an examination of what is distinctly 'Russian', or 'post-Soviet', about these spaces. As a thesis located within the field of urban studies, its methodology will necessarily be interdisciplinary: both the city and the mall are spaces in which the vectors of multiple disciplines intersect, meaning such an approach is essential to understand how they function. My research will focus on five central case studies, and will use a range of tools, including discourse analysis, architectural investigations and archival searches, as well as extensive original fieldwork surveys of previously unexamined shopping malls. This will enable a consideration of these spaces from various angles, including sociological, anthropological and cultural. This project thus seeks to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on these urban spaces which have blossomed in Russia over the last two decades, interrogating the conditions which have led to their rapid expansion and questioning the notion that these spaces are on the decline. In such a way, it aims to provide a new perspective on 21st century Russian urbanity through the lens of this ubiquitous yet under-researched phenomenon. To frame its investigation, this thesis posits the following research questions: 1. Does the rapid increase of shopping malls since 2000 represent a paradigm shift or a transformation of a pre-existing urbanism rooted in the historical forms of Russian cities?2. What can these spaces tell us about recent transformations in Russian urbanity and public space? 3. What role has political/economic corruption played in developing these shopping malls?