On Histories of the Future: Blagoveshchensk Residential Complex of 1985

Student: Kvitkina Linda

Educational Programme: Applied and Interdisciplinary History "Usable Pasts" (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2019

The main focus of the thesis is on late-Soviet and post-Soviet meanings of the future as it can be seen in practices of designing, settling and living in a residential complex, its courtyard and the adjacent park in a Far-Eastern Russian city of Blagoveshchensk. The paper is based on archival materials from Amur Regional State Archive from 1900 to 1993, rumours circulating in Blagoveshchensk, and oral accounts of five women, who started living in the housing complex between 1986 and the early 2000s being the most visible part of the housing complex community. The aim of the paper is to challenge approach to studying utopias of Soviet mass housing accessing it only through documents contained in the archives of central cities, instead this thesis focuses on papers produced by local authorities in city planning, which mainly document delays in construction, and post-Soviet utopia of neoliberal future of free market bringing about improvements.

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