Novosibirsk is the third biggest city in Russia after Moscow and St Petersburg. The young metropolis in Western Siberia is regarded as one of the most important cultural, industrial, and scientific centres in the country. Using the example of specific urban transformation processes, like the renewal of a housing estate in Novosibirsk, the private house sector that has existed since the founding of the city, and current plans for Karl Marx Square, the texts and pictures show how legal and illegal, formal and informal mechanisms collide with one another when publicly owned land is turned into private property and state planning is overrun by big money interests. The unruly transition, the change in the system from a socialist to a capitalist city, left behind free zones that were temporarily unregulated—these were appropriated in an irregular manner by small-time entrepreneurs and residents. The book is produced together with the Goethe-Institut Nowosibirsk.
Text and Photos: Tatiana Barchunova, Philipp Goll, Stephan Lanz, Aleksandr Lozhkin, Ivan Nevzgodin, Stefanie Peter, Konstantin Ponomarev, Igor Popovskij, Bettina Vismann, Kathrin Wildner
