Rural gentrification in Russia: Renegotiating identity, alternative food production and social tensions in the countryside

Abstract

In this paper, processes of rural gentrification are assessed in the post-Soviet context. In-depth, qualitative interviews were undertaken with 22 dacha (second country home) owners and 11 rural dwellers in two Russian regions. We draw on Bourdieu's concepts of capital exchange to assess processes of capital investment, social-up grading, landscape change and population displacement. Findings demonstrate a diverse range of approaches to dacha occupation, grounded in the Soviet legacy of elite and subsistence dacha cultures. Gentrification processes are distinguished in three types of dacha settlement: (1) the spread of gated communities through supergentrification and the ‘new dachniki’ movement, (2) transformations within dacha and garden comradeships through inheritance and reorientation of dacha food practices, and (3) gentrification in traditional villages, which features seasonal migration of urban offspring and a growing ‘back to the land’ movement. We focus on the ‘demand side’ of Russian gentrification and distinguish multiple pull factors, such as acquisition of a status symbol, access to rural pursuits, spaces for family reunion, production of ‘ecologically clean food’, and an escape from consumerist society. The authors argue that the analysis of the Russian case identifies areas for further development of rural gentrification literature more broadly, particularly ‘super-gentrification’, alternative food production movements in the countryside and the potential for gentrification from within locales through inheritance and rural wealth creation (in multiple forms).