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geography of the Geospatial Internet’, Geography Compass 2(6), 2011–2039. Harding, T., 1998. ‘Viva Camcordistas! Video Activism and the Protest Movement’ in McKay, G., (ed) DIY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties Britain. London: Verso (79-99). Harley, J.B., 1988. ‘Maps, Knowledge and Power’, in Cosgrove, D., Daniels S., (eds), The Iconography of Landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (277-312). Harley. J.B., 1989a. ‘Deconstructing the map’, Cartographica 26: 1-20. Harley, J.B., 1989b. ‘Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modem Europe’, Imago Mundi 40: 57-76. Harris, L.M. and Hazen, H.D., 2005. ‘The Power of Maps: Counter-Mapping for Conservation’, ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 4(1): 99-130. Heffernan M., 1996. ‘Geography, Cartography and Military Intelligence: The Royal Geographical Society and the First World War’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series, Vol. 21, No. 3. 504-533. Hennessy, P., 2003. Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War. London: Penguin. Herb, G.H., 1997. Under The Map Of Germany: Nationalism and Propaganda 1918-1945. London: Routledge. Hodson, Y, 1999. Popular Maps: The Ordnance Survey Popular Edition OneInch Map of England and Wales, 1919-1926. London: The Charles Close Society. Huggan, G., 1989. ‘Decolonizing the Map: Post-Colonialism, Post-Structuralism and the Cartographic Connection’, Ariel 20: 115-31. Keefe, P.R., 2006. ‘I Spy’, Wired Magazine February. Kidron, M., Segal, R., 1995. The State of the World Atlas, Fifth Edition. London: Penguin. King, G., 1996. Mapping reality: an exploration of cultural cartographies. Basingstoke, Macmillan. Kingsbury, P., Jones III. J.P., 2009. ‘Walter Benjamin’s Dionysian adventures on Google Earth’, Geoforum 40(4): 502-513 . Kitchin, R., 2002. ‘Participatory Mapping of Disabled Access’, Cartographic Perspectives 42: 50-60. Kitchin, R., Dodge, M., 2007. ‘Rethinking maps’, Progress in Human Geography, 31(3): 331-344. Kitchin, R, Perkins, C., Dodge, M., 2009. ‘Thinking about maps’. In R Kitchin C Perkins M Dodge (Eds) Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, 1-25 London: Routledge. Latour, B., 1986. ‘Visualization and cognition: thinking with eyes and hands’, Knowledge and Society:Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present 6 : 1-40. Leszczynski, A., 2012. ‘Situating the Geoweb in political economy’, Progress in Human Geography 36(1): 72-89. Lin, Y-W., 2011. ‘A qualitative enquiry into OpenStreetMap’, New Review Of Hypermedia And Multimedia 17(1) 53-71. Livingston, S., Robinson, L.W., 2003. ‘Mapping Fears: The Use of Commercial High-Resolution Satellite Imagery in International Affairs’, Astropolitics 1(2): 3-25. Mann, S., Nolan J., Wellman B., 2003. ‘Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments’, Surveillance & Society 1(3): 331-355. Meng, L., 2005. ‘Egocentric design of map-based mobile services’, The Cartographic Journal 42(1): 5-13. Monmonier, M., 2002. Spying With Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Monmonier, M., 2005. ‘Cartography: Distortions, World-views and Creative Solutions’, Progress in Human Geography 29(2): 217-224. Monmonier, M., 1996. How to Lie with Maps. Ed 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Paglen, T., 2006. ‘Late September at an Undisclosed Location in the Nevada Desert’, Cultural Geographies 13: 293-300. Parks, L., 2001. ‘Satellite Views of Srebrenica: Tele-Visuality and the Politics of Witnessing’, Social Identities 7(4): 585-611.
Parks, L. 2009. ‘Digging into Google earth: an analysis of ‘‘crisis in Darfur”’, Geoforum 40 (4): 535–545. Parry, R.B. and Perkins, C.R., 2000. World Mapping Today. London: Bowker Saur. Perkins, C., Dodge, M., 2009. ‘Satellite imagery and the spectacle of secret spaces’, Geoforum 40(4): 546-560 . Phadke, R., 2010. ‘Defending place in the Google Earth Age’, Ethics Place and Environment: a Journal of Philosophy and Geography, 13(3) Pickles, J, 2004. A History of Spaces: Mapping Cartographic Reason and the Geo-Coded World, London: Routledge. Postnikov, A.V., 2002. ‘Maps for Ordinary Consumers Versus Maps for the Military: Double Standards of Map Accuracy in Soviet Cartography, 1917-1991’. Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29(3): 243-260. Richelson, J.T., 2003. Eyes on Saddam: U.S. Overhead Imagery of Iraq. National SecurityArchive Electronic Briefing Book No. 88, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB88. Rød, J., K., Ormeling, F., van Elzakker, C. 2001. ‘An agenda for democratising cartographic visualisation’, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography 55(1): 38-41. Schienke, E. 2003. ‘Streets into Stages: An Interview with Surveillance Camera Players’ Bill Brown’, Surveillance & Society 1(3): 356-374. Stony, W.E., 2006. Guide to Land Imaging Satellites. American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, www.asprs.org/news/satellites/. Tatham, A. F. 1978. ‘German Military Mapping—an Exploratory Survey’, The Cartographic Journal 15 (1): 20–27. Tombs, R.B, 2005. ‘Policy Review: Blocking Public Geospatial Data Access is Not Only a Homeland Security Risk’, URISA Journal 16(2): 49-51. Warf, B., Grimes J., 1997. ‘Counterhegemonic Discourses and the Internet’, The Geographical Review 87: 259-274. Wood, D., 1992. The Power of Maps. New York: Guilford Press. Wood, D. 2010. Rethinking the Power of Maps. New York: Guilford Press. Yusoff, K., 2005. ‘Visualizing Antarctica as a Place in Time’, Space and Culture 8(4): 381-398. Zellmer, L., 2004. ‘How Homeland Security Affects Spatial Information’, Computers in Libraries 24: 6–8, 37–40. Zook, M., Graham, M., Shelton, T., and Gorman, S., 2010 ‘Volunteered Geographic Information and Crowdsourcing Disaster Relief: A Case Study of the Haitian Earthquake’, World Medical & Health Policy 2(2) DOI: 10.2202/19484682.1069. Figure Captions Figure 1 Maps and image sources relating to the same site can reveal strongly contrasting geographies: part of Secret Bases Web Site, using contrasting imagery and maps for the same area from different dates to expose the unmapped status of Britain’s nuclear weapons factories, http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan-turnbull/secret2.htm#atomic. (Footnotes) 1 Harley, 1989a; Pickles, 2004; Latour, 1986. 2 See Perkins and Dodge, 2009. 3 Meng, 2010. 4 Hakklay et al, 2008. 5 Lim 2011. 6 See Board, 1991; Hodson, 1999: 157-168. 7 Zellner, 2004. 8 Dehqanzada and Florini, 2000. 9 Stoney, 2006. 10 See Perkins and Dodge, 2009. 11 Denis Wood, 2010.
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ZATO Soviet Secret Cities during the Cold War
How To Open a “Closed City” Case Study: Sverdlovsk #44 U;Lab, Spb. Katya Larina After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “closed cities” called (ZATO) were in a particularly difficult position. Due to new, more tenuous economic and political circumstances, many ZATOs were left without sufficient central control and without funding. This resulted in a significant loss of population and a period of stagnation in the ZATOs that had flourished (though secretively) throughout the years of the Cold War. The story of the ZATOs (Soviet ‘secret’ cities) is a story of the city in under very unique conditions: utopian, totally isolated, and hidden even from maps for five decades. However, extremely important and valuable scientific research and production continues in these centers that is deemed essential for modern Russia. These centers were secret and well hidden, their research campuses, production, and test zones were isolated. Even their entire, adjacent support city, vital to the on-going research and production pursuits of the ZATOs, was typically enclosed by concrete walls and barbed wire. In 2011 with the support of ROSatom Corporation, U:lab.spb organized a set of events to address this ‘problem’ including a conferences, a series of public lectures and an architectural workshop entitled “Novouralsk 2.0”, that took the example of one, such former ZATO, Sverdlovsk #44, and used it as a case study. At the gathering were specialists from ROSatom and from the ZATO-system --architects, urban designers, futurologists, and economists. Sverdlovsk #44 was but one example, chosen here as a typical case study of the ZATO phenomenon, a city at once highly strategic, highly important, and linked to the network of other highly secured research centers in the system. Throughout the meeting they worked collaboratively on an array of projects, and thus underlined the kind of vibrant, interdisciplinary interactions that made the ZATOs interesting, self-sufficient, and vital during their heyday. In order to answer the question, what is the future of such closed cities, and by what means might the ZATOs be revitalized, it is important to explore the historical, social, economic, and urban factors that gave rise to them. Among 43 officially acknowledged “closed” cities in the Russian Federation, Sverdlovsk #44 is one of 10 in the “atomic” zone -- cities built solely to further the Soviet nuclear program. As in other ZATOs, Sverdlovsk # 44, brought together in one place elite scientists and technicians meant to work and live in total dedication to this one, singular cause. These atomic “closed” cities were/are complex places, made all the more so for being dependent upon just one major industry. Today they are managed by “ROSatom” a state-owned corpany formerly known as the “Federal Agency for Atomic Energy”. Along with maintenance of the nuclear industry, “ROSatom” also has to manage all other state-run subsidiaries located within the confines of the atomic-zone ZATOs. Though only one in 4 ZATOs is in “atomic zone” city, three quarters of the ZATO system population lives in an atomic-zone city. For these reasons “ROSatom” has a large task, maintaining research, production, and safety related to nuclear energy, as well as maintaining the fabric of social structure in Sverdlovsk #44. ZATO #44, formerly known as Sverdlovsk #44, now known as Novouralsk, is situated on the eastern side of the Ural Mountain range, 57
kilometers to the north of Ekaterinburg (former Sverdlovsk). Its history began at the outset of the World War II when a factory for light metals used in military aircraft was built there. Local residents, soldiers, refugees, and prisoners built it upon remains of a previously existing settlement called Verh-Nievinsk. At the beginning of the war a large army hospital was relocated there from Moscow. Later, it was a factory, then later it was evacuated in 1943. With an increase in the number of the refugees settling in the area the authorities began building temporary, ‘veneered’ housing blocks. Three settlement areas were built: “Postoyanni” (permanent), “Vremennii” (temporal), and “Fanernii” (plywood). At the same time a GULag camp (another kind of ‘secret’ city with a very different specific purpose) was also built in the area. In 1946, in accordance with the “nuclear shield” program of the Soviet Union the party started began building the new, secret, industrial complex. Its code name at that time was “Industrial factory #813”. The high-enriched uranium for the first Russian nuclear bomb was produced there. After the war, in 1949 another new industrial complex was established there, -- the Ural Electrochemical Factory. Soon after the first of a succession of master plans was developed for the area. By the end of the 1950s residential housing was started, “along with 19 new stores, a school, a net of kindergartens and a hospital”. “Even though, according to some sources, the development of social infrastructures often lagged behind the growth in its population”.
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ZATO Soviet Secret Cities during the Cold War
unique character and flavor, with each connected by a long, central promenade. The promenade was meant to be a gathering place for the culmination of events -- special ceremonies and parades -- intended to underline a specific sense of moral centeredness and city unity. The first square one is the “Entrance” square, situated in front of the park with a Lenin monument facing the wall and checkpoint that leads to the official entry-point of the city. The other side of the square leads to the main factory, and the place where corporative festivals and events might take place.. Walking down the promenade, one finds the second square – the “Theatre Square” -- constituting the civic center of the city, where is assembled the theatre, the main library, and a city museum designed around a fountain. The third city square is at the end of the promenade, on top of the hill, right in front of the main government building. This square connects the propylaeum of the sport stadium and the boulevard leading to the national house of culture, the park, and an outdoor dance floor. The cityscape is purposefully romantic, purposefully boastful, purposively celebratory, purposefully enthusiastic, and purposively aspirational. The second stage of the development of Sverdlovsk #44 started in 1970-80s, in the era of so-called “developed” Socialism. Following the previous stage of “rebuilding” the country from the ruins of the war, this was a period when the Soviet Union achieved relevant social stability and a rather high standard of living. This layer of Soviet utopianism was designed by Leningrad architects from the State Institute of Urban Design, it highlighted enhanced ideals of social security, wealth, and healthy well-being. It was characterized by green public spaces connecting retail, health, and social facilities, as well as playgrounds and sport centers. The new urban zone faced the lake, its shape taking the form of sinews and tissues fanning outward along the spines of an essential new creature – the green islands of nature such as: the “alley of the heroes”, a park, and an urban promenade, the latter of which bridged over a serpentine road, and forming a new local center for the district. This mega-structure of the urban promenade contained various stores, small shops, and local services terracing up the hill, embodying high Soviet ideals. Playgrounds, nurseries, schools, and the rest of essential social structures were all here, while also offering the vistas of the artificial lake, although cut off from the city by a concrete wall, itself a symbol of the new Soviet, utopian way. The project was meant to be accomplished in a quite utopian way -- with a bridge breaking through the “perimeter” of the ZATO wall and finally connecting the city with the natural beauty just beyond the lake. That was the plan, but this part of the ZATO design was never realized. In the 1990s the country went through other more significant changes, and hence the overall image of this utopian place has again changed dramatically. The synonym of “ideal” became the formation of “mickroraion” – a mono-functional residential district normally with about 10000-8000 residents, structured around a hierarchy of primary social and education facilities. The public centers of such “microraion” initially, were the schools, usually placed away from the busy avenues and situated in the very core of the district. Today the center of the public life is based upon commercial activity, and the schools have been replaced by “multifunction centers”. Such hybridized centers usually combine the shopping malls with a mix of public structures and activities – mainly corporate offices and general small businesses. Such was the idea. In reality the bitter, cold climate
In 1954 the city was already encircled by a 6-meter high concrete wall and received thea official ‘secret city’(ZATO) designation, code name, Sverdlovsk#44. Industrial Factory #813 is now known as Novouralskiy Ural Electrochemical factory, and it is still where much of the research and development for nuclear fuel technology and fabrication for both civilian and armed purposes takes place. The origin of the code name #44 is unknown. In Soviet times all ZATOs were listed under a combination of codes and numbers, sometimes with the name of the closest administrative center. In 1994 during the early days of the new post-Soviet Russia, by order of the Council of Ministers, all “coded” cities were declared to now be ‘open’ cities. In the case of Sverdlovsk #44 its name was changed to its old informal name - Novouralsk. Today Novouralsk is a city of 120 sq. km territory, with a population of about 100,000 civilians who were isolated from the rest f the world for more than 50 years. Though now deemed ‘open’, Novouralskt still remains a city which can be entered only with a special pass, or by being listed on the official city roster of ZATO residents. 3 layers of the ideal city #44 From the beginning closed cities embodied the idea of total isolation from the entire world for all their inhabitants. For this reason ZATOs had to represent the utopian ideal as a place to live and work. ZATOs were privileged places for the privileged few, most especially when compared to other Soviet cities during the timeframe in question. Verdant, with extraordinary appointments, highly maintained, and with well-stocked shelves – such were the features of a typical ZATO. Other Soviet cities could not boast such features. Built in the 50s and 60s the ZATOs walled utopia was designed in the svelte Soviet modernist urban tradition, which combined the features of the natural landscape within the city with highly developed social and civic infrastructure. During the history of Sverdlovsk #44 one can identify three different expressions of the ideal city, each conceptualized by the socio-political contexts of their specific times, and each comprising a specific layer in ZATO fabric. The urban complex is based on three main squares, each with its own
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ZATO Soviet Secret Cities during the Cold War
along with other economic considerations have tended toward keeping the variety of public programs in one building under one roof. In Sverdlovsk#44 the most active center is a multi-use structure consisting of a shopping mall, a library, a local exhibition space, and an array of small businesse offices -- usually rented to stylist studios, a clinic, a fitness center, a copy shop, a post office, cafes, and a nightclub. Three layers of the ideal city, spanning different eras, each being strongly influenced by its predecessor, have given #44 a complex, strong identity as a clean, safe, green oasis with a high standard of living. But the image is being altered again, at least on paper, Today the image of the “ideal” has changed again. Newer ideas of the “ideal” proposed by architects and planners sketch out expansive “noble” parks with endless promenades, enormous sport and cultural centers, etc., all forgetting that the ZATO cannot afford this even loftier image of utopia. Being established, controlled and constantly maintained by the Soviet state, the ZATOs now find themselves today in the context of a free market economy, even though they are still entirely dependent upon constant government subsidies and over-sight. The annual budget of the typical ZATO exceeds the budget of an ordinary Russian city of the same size, threefold. In order to decrease the dependency of ZATOs from vertical control and make them operate in self-sufficient ways, the State gradually is transferring various social and cultural facilities to the local governments. The challenge for local officials is great. For the most part these cities are not capable of maintaining the amazing wealth of social infrastructure given to them -- cultural centers, the whole system of public spaces, sport, health and care facilities. The assets are too large, and the resources for managing them are too limited. Too often the former ZATOs have been left desolate, or rented by private developers with no public vision, or they have been closed, or what has been given to the city to manage has been left desolate or rented by private developers, or closed.
Perimeter One of the key elements necessary to understand the idea of a “closed” city is the notion of “perimeter”. “Perimeter” is the official term for the ZATO boundary. A 3-6 meter concrete wall that includes a military base and several checkpoints. ZATO’s perimeter usually surrounds the city and the secret industry of the ZATO in question (with its own even more tightly secured perimeter), as well as adjacent villages, forests, lakes and agriculture land. The Perimeter of Sverdlovsk #44 encircles the city and the nuclear fabrication factory along with three villages, woodlands, the aforementioned lake and hectares of fields. Perimeter circumscribes that a ZATO is by definition an infrastructure limited by a boundary, and with highly restricted access to and from the city. Beyond that boundary lies the governmental and legislative threshold, which defines a completely different mechanism of the city economy as well as the different social and psychological characteristicss. Perimeter frames ZATO as an over-determined environment, where not only the urban system has to operate in a particular fixed and controlled way, but each of the individuals has to act according to a set of rigid rules. Until recently all the programs of social-economic and spatial development of the ZATO have to be coordinated with the special consulate for federal regulations. Perimeter also defines the special land ownership conditions of ZATO. Most of the ZATO’s land and property is owned by the state along with the on--going process of forwarding it to municipal control. Where private developers are operative they can use any of ZATO’s property only for long-term leases. These unusual conditions of ownership along with restricted access to the city, especially for international companies, totally restrain the development of local business and squelch outside external business. There is an anecdotal story about one local restaurant which recently opened in Sverdlovsk #44. Because of legislative
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ZATO Soviet Secret Cities during the Cold War
requirements and conditions it is almost impossible to run any kind of business inside the wall. The owners of a small restaurant moved their “Shashlychnay” beyond the wall, just outside near the checkpoint. This restaurant was so popular that everyday the ZATO residents were crossing the border of “perimeter” with all the checkpoint procedures just to have a lunch there. Despite restrictions within the perimeter, there have still been strides bridging the interests between closed and open territories. Informally, the zone in front of the perimeter became a place for networking and for pursuing external interests other than that pertaining only to the ZATO. The railway station and the market are situated by the lake, near the checkpoint, recently became a vibrant public space -- a meeting point, trading space, informal gathering-place, and small business development zone. Opposite this, the local market in the center of the city proper has been left completely abandoned. The idea of perimeter has over time given rise to a de facto social experiment -- two generations born behind the wall have developed a specific ZATO-resident psychology. During our recent work with Sverdlovsk #44, we were specifically asked in our conversations with local authorities and residents not to mention the term “open up” in relation to the term “closed city”. Surprisingly even talking about the idea of “perimeter” creates anxiety. The majority of the ZATO residents are afraid to lose their “perimeter” as a symbol of self-exclusiveness and as a kind of illusion of protection. Chosen to work for highly strategic state projects, highly strategic goals, and given access to the artificially comfortable conditions of life within, ZATO residents comprise a kind of roster of “voluntary prisoners”. In this city built for the elite, the percentage of those who are well-educated specialists is much higher than in other Russian cities, not surprizingly. At the same time a high percentage of them, upon leaving the ZATO have found that they are redundant, and new work elsewhere is difficult to find. Two reasons perhaps explain why – first, the industry in which they have been involved, and secondly, ZATO residents who have been privileged for a long period of time find it difficult to motivate themselves to provide for themselves when times are hard. Being exceptionally well supplied by the infrastructure of social services, even 20 years after the end of communist era, the residences of ZATO have kept a strong feeling of the collective and of the local, working community. As a vivid example they still prefer the huge factory cantinas to the smaller restaurants and cafes that arose after the period of openness began. Public spaces vital to most other cities are almost absent inside the ZATO. Another reason of dependency from the concrete perimeter surrounding the city is the idea that the wall will protect them from strangers. However the crime statistics in ZATOs is almost equal to crime statistics elsewhere. The idea of a perimeter has so far proven to be an obstacle for ZATO residents in terms of acclimating to the modern, New Federation. It has had a stifling effect upon social and economic creativity and transformation.
ing 90% of the Novouralsk needed output, what making the city totally dependent upon the industry controlled by ROSatom, while at the same time the industry also depends upon the city. It is obvious that the development of commercial projects like “techno-parks” on the basis of the existing industry would benefit both the city and the industry, generating the new ideas and the innovative products. Non-governmental investment suffers from the fact that ZATOs remain extremely secretive. As a matter of fact the liberation from the “perimeter” restrictions has not been sufficient in sparking innovation. It will be necessary to create a fertile milieu for the development of creativity before innovation can take hold. After the period of openness began, there was a serious “brain drain”, many highly specialized workers left, and working in the ZATOs markedly decreased. Another problem of the closed cities, like in other post-Soviet institutions is a significant loss in the youth population. As mentioned before, “closed” cities have developed excellent primary schools, and excellent health facilities, and worker-focused infrastructure. But what is missing is sufficient entertainment and leisure initiatives, and there not enough colleges and universities. Closed cities are most comfortable for families and the elderly. They are not inviting, places for the youths and young adults. Thus there is a youth gap in the population of ZATOs. If they have to leave the city after high school for college and other practical reasons, and likely never come back, how can an economy survive? Initiatives to revitalize ZATOs must address how this missing generation can be held onto? How might a new generation be lured to spend their lives in a closed city? At the same time how might others be attracted to the environment of the “closed” city? It is impossible to answer this questions apart of strategizing an new urban environment of ZATO.
ZATO Soviet Secret Cities during the Cold War
model --– the city as an “open system”. The “active environment where indeterminate processes happen and drives the evolution of the system,” and the environment where actors absorb, participate, and adapt to change,” is what is meant by this. The challenge for future strategists of the city is first to transform the “closed” city Sverdlovsk#44 to a new, better urban system of better quality – to create in essence a new “open city”. In this way within this new strategy it is important to propose a structure of new initiatives aimed for re-catalyzing the social economic life of ZATOs. Inserted in the points of overlapping potential interests within the city, these initiatives will be designated to bridge the activity of the internal and external actors into the interconnected self-sufficient system. Each initiative or project assembling a new strategy and new image of the future “open city” has to follow three main “vectors” of transformation of the ZATO environment. The role of the first “vector” is to develop a means of communication and interaction in the city with external interests, and even more importantly to connect internal interests within the city. Having branches of prestigious institutions and universities and other rich, cultural places like theaters, and museums cannot be restricted by a sense of, restricted by “perimeter” thinking. ZATO could never realize such potential to become a cultural and education center for the local region. Within a new strategic framework it is necessary to utilize this potential benefits ZATOs could offer a creative community. Also it is important to break the information vacuum which could be fatal for business and civic activity inside the ZATO. Now all important initiatives on the innovation front come from the top (State). That needs to change. The role of the second vector is to define the future of the industry of the various ZATOs , in other words, what will people do there for work? How can ZATO-based industries be further developed? How might a re-
conceptualization of ZATOs re-focus research and production inside the city? How might the matter of redundancies be addressed? Considering a significant decline in the population (about 3000 in the last year) and a catastrophic loss in the youth segment of the city, it is important to design an environment that would generate opportunity for personal development, and to otherwise attract motivated and highly qualified inhabitants. The third vector defines the “open city” as an urban environment. How the urban landscape can become an impetus that would provoke a new kind of open-ended and responsive system instead of the rigidity inside the ZATO is a vital question. Within this in mind it is necessary to rethink public spaces (like the promenade and the squares in Sverdlovsk #44) and to propose their transformation and integration into a more dynamic environment, that would in turn promote business and production. The strategy of the transformation of ZATOs has first of all to break the stereotypes that have held them back, and draw from alternative visions of the the future. For many years the images of ideal cities within the ZATO “perimeter” contested each other, each one completely rejecting the old model it sought to replace and proposing a new one. In this case a new strategy for ZATO development should not become another template of the “ideal” city, but rather become a mechanism of qualitative transformation of the city. Therefore it would gradually erase the notion of the “perimeter” from the social and economic environment of the city and replace it with something else, something open and craetive. Today the prospect of opening the ZATO “perimeter” remains fragile. Even if Sverdlovsk #44 were to continue to be surrounded by a concrete wall, it is still important to introducing elements of a more vital, selfsufficient urban outlook in order to kick-start start the transformation of the closed city to the “open city”.
“Closed” city as an open system The official state structures together with the State Corporation ROSatom today are looking for the new strategies of development for ZATOs. One of the sharpest questions - is how to decrease their dependency on vertical control and to make ZATOs self-sufficient entities as well as to enable them to feed into the new social and economic contexts of today’s Russia. In order to achieve this ZATOs sooner or later need to lose their “perimeters” or at least move it back far away, perhaps to only encircle around the local nuclear facility, as in the case of atomic cities. This would send a strong signal that the closed/open city is no longer closed at all. “Closed” cities might then disappear, along with the associated exclusiveness and vertical and otherwise external funding and support. Therefore the city would be forced to rethink and change itself. The majority of the ZATO residents are against this idea. Only small business owners and the younger generation, who are not able to imagine themselves fitting into the present confines of the closed city are open and tolerant to this idea. However, it is clear that ZATOs will need to lose their privileged status before they will be able to operate independently. The main question is how the needed “opening up” process should be organized, and how ZATOs need to be transformed first from within the “perimeter” in order to be prepared to lose it. Richard Sennett in his essay on “opening the city” blames contemporary urban designers and architects for over determining the environment they create in order to control it. He calls this the “closed system“ or the “Brittle city”. Using Jane Jacobs’s ideas he juxtaposes idea against this to an alternative
Corporation ZATO Today the Ural Electrochemical Factory is the industrial center of the city, mostly involved now in producing civilian-use nuclear power, employing about 13,000 workers. The factory output is responsible for produc-
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