MIASU Research seminar

ALL WELCOME

Tuesday 25 February 2020

Natalia Ryzhova

Palacky University, Olomouc

Who is Fighting for the Militarized Islands on the Sino-Russian Border?

It is widely known that the territory of the Russian Far East was highly militarized during the soviet period. As a result, the entire territory was striated, divided into zones, lines, cells, and slices with different types of rights and citizenship. For instance, secret towns’ entrance and exit were physically, bodily controlled by fences, barbed wires, and checkpoints. Those who lived in secret cities did not even have postal addresses. Usually, these cities were named after the nearest city, with a number (like Svobodny-21). Locals of border cities enjoyed free exit while the entrance was also controlled through the transportation system: to buy air or railway tickets, one needed permission, had to show identity documents, and all access roads were blocked by State Vehicle Inspectorates’ checkpoints (like Blagoveshchensk). Only militaries with their family members were allowed to live in military towns (voennye gorodki), while all who lost contact with the army should have been relocated. The resettlement did not always happen because there was not enough housing. However, this still meant that the whole life of the gorodka(like Russkii islandand Ukreprayon) was entirely subordinate for military orders. Thus, these settlements all limited the civil freedoms of different groups of human beings in different ways.  These restrictions, however, turned into advantages that people living in unmilitarized spaces were deprived. For instance, those despite not being able to change residence who lived in ‘secret’ cities often enjoyed the greatest variety of products and services unbelievable in the deficit time. The garrisons and secret towns had their own good schools, kindergartens, children music schools, hospitals, and well-supplied stores.

The social changes that began after the collapse of the USSR affected the properties relations of these garrisons and towns. Infrastructure owned by the military but suitable for civilian needs (apartment buildings, office blocks, canteens, clubhouses, shops) always existed separately from the civilian state. The Ministry of Defense was in no hurry with property reform in post-soviet times. As a result, part of the infrastructure was abandoned and gradually collapsed. Another part was ‘appropriated’ by ‘civilians,’ who became civilian forcibly, as a result of the Army reduction. Finally, part of the property was introduced into commercial circulation, often outside legal norms.

Thus, using ethnographic material collected at four beforementioned militarized settlements, I aim to talk about semi-legal fights over property by businesses, local and federal officials, “ordinary” people, and militaries. In so doing, I argue that there is a paradoxical overlay between the Ministry of Defense sovereignty over the land and infrastructure, and other entities’ sovereignties. The overlay is overarching yet everyday post-Soviet state sovereignty. Post-Soviet sovereignty is by no means fixed, immovable. Players with their actions seek to challenge, appropriate the post-militarized space and redefine the achieved autonomy over which they as sovereigns have control.