Interrelation Between Biographical Narratives of Residents with Space of Shibenets Microregion

Although researchers have been calling for some time for scholars to explore the ‘cultural landscape’ of Russian territory (Kaganskij, 2013) still there are many uncertainties in the sphere of studying of Russian small towns. In this study I propose to look at the ‘life’ in the small town through the interpretation of its inhabitants within the analysis of interrelation between biographical interviews of residents of a particular microregion and the features of space of the microregion. The object of my research - a microregion called Shibenets which is a part of Fokino monotown in Bryansk region with an overall population of around 13.000 inhabitants. There are different ways to talk about monotowns in research from affirmation of crises of industrial territories (Dimke and Korukhina, 2013; Mihajlova, 2016) to acknowledgment of the importance of local community, their interpretation and actions (Mah, 2013; Morris, 2016). In this study performative conceptions of "space" (Löw, 2016) and "narrative" (Ostin, 1986; Ricoeur, 2008) applying for analysis of 17 biographical interviews of two generations of Shibenets inhabitants. Such a theoretical frameworks allow to see the role of residents in shaping both historical and contemporary ‘cultural landscape’ of the city.