Adaptation Practices of Blindfolded People in a Big City and a Town: Comparative Analysis

This work focuses on the adaptation strategies problem of city adaptation of blindfolded people to the urban environment. Therefore, it combines two fields,: health sociology and urban studies. The data was collected by interviewing blindfolded people from two cities,: Saint-Petersburg and Gatchina, a town in the St.Petersburg area. These two cities were chosen to fulfill the goal of comparing adaptation practices and analyzing the experiences of interaction with the small town and big city. Preliminary results show that there are two different patterns of interaction with the city. One of them is the “active strategy”, where people tend to be more open to changes and exploration. Another The other one is the “avoiding strategy” the followers of which try to minimize their use of the city to avoid any kind of stress related to it.