Research report 2013/14. Studio Cars

ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНАЯ ПРОГРАММА 2013/14: ПОВСЕДНЕВНОСТЬ

Жители российских городов ездят на машинах по загруженным улицам, сидят перед компьютерами в конторах и офисах, встречаются в кафе с друзьями, покупают в магазинах вещи и продукты, а дома — воспитывают детей, делают ремонт и смотрят телевизор. Всё это привычные будни, огромный и сложный мир обыденного, на самом деле очень мало исследованный и слабо отрефлексированный.

В 2013/14 году «Стрелка» выбрала темой своей образовательной программы «Повседневность», или Urban Routines.

Из чего складывается обыденная жизнь города? Как наша новая реальность соотносится с прошлым и каких изменений можно ждать в будущем? Возможно ли, исследуя структуру обыденного, прийти к масштабным выводам и сделать на их основе инновационные проекты?

Эти и другие вопросы находились в центре внимания пяти проектно-исследовательских студий «Стрелки» — Жилье/Dwelling, Офисы/Offices, Автомобили/Cars, Магазины/Retail и Связи/Links.

В этой публикации представлены результаты работы студии «Автомобили».

Электронный вариант публикации и результаты работы других студий доступны на issuu.com/strelkainstitute

EDUCATION PROGRAMME 2013/14: URBAN ROUTINES

Every day city dwellers drive their cars through over-populated streets, sit in front of their office computers, meet friends at local cafes, buy goods and groceries in stores and shops, at home educate their children, renovate, watch TV. The very usual routine, a gigantic and complex world of the ordinary, is in fact quite under-researched and poorly analyzed.

In 2013/14 Strelka chose Urban Routines as the theme of its education programme.

What defines the daily life of a city? How does the past influence our present reality and what will the future entail? By researching the fabric of the ordinary, is it possible to arrive at ambitious outcomes and create on their basis innovative projects?

These and other issues were the focal point of five of Strelka’s research and design studios: Dwelling, Offices, Cars, Retail and Links.

This publication presents research outcomes of studio Cars.

This and other studio publications are available for download at issuu.com/strelkainstitute

ДИРЕКТОР Тео Дойтингер

РУКОВОДИТЕЛЬ ПРОЕКТА Сергей Чернов

ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛИ Виталий Авдеев, архитектор, Украина; Александр Аюпов, программист, Россия; Ирина Еременко, проектировщик образовательных институций, Россия; Олена Гранкина, архитектор, Украина; Елена Мазина, архитектор, Россия; Джулио Маргери, архитектор, Италия; Сабина Маслова, географ и аналитик, Россия; Рул ван Херпт, специалист по вопросам культурного развития, Нидерланды; Джеймс Шредер, архитектор и урбанист, США.

ЭКСПЕРТЫ-КОНСУЛЬТАНТЫ

Алексей Белянин, Международный институт экономики и финансов, доцент, ВШЭ; Анна Броновицкая, кандидат искусствоведения, доцент МАРХИ, редактор журналов «Проект Россия» и «Проект International», специалист по архитектуре и градостроительству советского периода; Виктор Вахштайн, Центр фундаментальной социологии, ВШЭ; Максим Воеводский, руководитель направления клиентской аналитики, Мегафон; Вукан Вучич, профессор университета Пенсильвании, ведущий эксперт министерства транспорта США; Максим Дубинин, директор компании NextGIS, эксперт по геоинформационным системам; Екатерина Герасимова, художник, специалист по автомобильной аэрографии; Петр Иванов, научный редактор журнала UrbanUrban; Максим Кац, политический и общественный деятель, депутат муниципального собрания московского района Щукино; Иван Климов, кандидат социологических наук, руководитель методического отдела Фонда «Общественное мнение», доцент ВШЭ; Ростислав Кононенко, старший преподаватель кафедры общей социологии, ВШЭ;

Вадим Коровин, координатор Федерации автовладельцев России; Антон Лисовец, дизайнер автомобильного стиля, владелец интернет магазина "rue parts; Александр Медведев, основатель автоклуба Mazda в России; Федерико Паралотто, специалист по транспорту и системам мобильности, член экспертного совета по устойчивому мастер-плану транспортной системы Милана, партнер в Mobility in Chain; Роман Постников, директор по сегментному маркетингу и клиентской аналитике ОАО «МегаФон»; Константин П., эксперт по Шанхаю, владелец гаража; Денис Ромодин, историк архитектуры, краевед, кандидат политических наук; Анна Соколова, Институт этнологии и антропологии, РАН; Михаэль Шиндхельм, консультант по вопросам культуры; Артур Шахбазян, департамент транспорта и развития дорожно-транспортной инфраструктуры; Александр Шумский, руководитель проекта «Пробок.нет»; Алексей Хохулин, ведущий программист Центра Digital October; Андрей, Сергей, Артур, Вадим, водители-таксисты.

DIRECTOR Theo Deutinger

PROJECT LEADER Sergey Chernov

RESEARCHERS Vitaliy Avdyeyev, architect, Ukraine; Alexander Ayoupov, programmer, Russia; Irina Eremenko, educational designer, Russia; Olena Grankina, architect, Ukraine; Roel van Herpt, cultural strategist, the Netherlands; Giulio Margheri, architect, Italy; Sabina Maslova, geographer and research analyst, Russia; Elena Mazina, architect, Russia; James Schrader, architect and urbanist, USA.

EXTERNAL EXPERTS

Aleksey Belyanin, assistant professor, head of Laboratory for Experimental and Behavioural Economics at the Higher School of Economics; Anna Bronovitskaya, professor of Moscow Architecture Institute (MARKHI), editor of the magazines Project Russia and Project International; Maxim Dubinin, director of NextGIS, GIS-expert; Yekaterina Gerasimova, artist, car aerography specialist; Pyotr Ivanov, scientific editor of UrbanUrban.ru project; Max Katz, political and social activist, Municipal Assembly of Moscow member for the district of Shchukino; Alexey Khokhulin, lead programmer at Digital October Centre; Ivan Klimov, Ph.D. in Sociology, senior researcher, Institute of Sociology RAS, lecturer at Faculty of Sociology at the State University Higher School of Economics; Rostislav Kononenko, senior lecturer, Department of Sociology at Higher School of Economics; Vadim Korovin, coordinator of the Federation of Automobile Owners

of Russia; Anton Lisovets, car stylist, owner of the "True parts" online shop; Alexander Medvedev, founder of the Mazda Car Club in Russia; Federico Paralotto, transportation expert, Mobility In Chain; Roman Postnikov, director of segment marketing and customer analytics at Megafon; Konstantin P., Shanghai guide, garage owner; Denis Romodin, architectural historian; Michael Schindhelm, cultural advisor; Arthur Shakhbazyan, Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development; Alexander Shumsky, CEO of Probok.net project; Anna Sokolova, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS; Viktor Vakhstein, Centre for Fundamental Sociology, HSE; Maxim Voevodsky, Customer Analytics Team Lead, Megafon; Vukan Vuchic, professor of University of Pennsylvania, lead transportation expert for the US government; Andrei, Sergei, Artur, Vadim, taxi drivers, Moscow.

ГОРОД, АВТОМОБИЛЬ И ЖИТЕЛИ

Эта книга представляет результаты деятельности исследовательской студии «Автомобили» Института медиа, архитектуры и дизайна «Стрелка» за 2014 год. Основной задачей студии и, как следствие, этой книги стали поиск и проявление скрытых связей между Москвой, ее жителями и автомобилем. Результаты исследования представлены как альтернативная московская реальность.

Транспортная инфраструктура Москвы стала своего рода увеличительным стеклом, помогающим прояснить противостояние индивидуального и коллективного, запланированного и случайного, управляемого и управляющего. С точки зрения водителя, автомобиль представляется как некая «машина свободы», позволяющая людям распространять их свободу и власть. Это заставляет их выбирать между нападением и побегом: покуситься на закон, нормы и привычный уклад города или убежать от них. В таком городе, как Москва, населенном людьми, чрезвычайно ценящими личную свободу, но в то же время находящимися под постоянным чрезмерным политическим давлением, борьба между личной свободой и коллективной властью становится очень яркой.

В следующих частях книги мы представим вам особенности жизни с этой «машиной свободы» и без нее.

Для москвичей автомобиль — очень недавнее дополнение к жизни, вследствие чего владение им воспринимается без лишней рефлексии, и сервисов кар-шеринга — совместного пользования автомобилей — практически не существует. Парадоксально, но Москва находится в авангарде общественного транспорта среди европейских городов, благодаря ее великолепной системе метро, которое продолжает расти в ответ на увеличение автомобильных пробок.

Что же уникального в городской повседневности, порождаемой автомобилями и другими видами мобильности? Как может исследование повседневности дать новый взгляд на город или показать его будущее?

Как часть исследования, поездка студии в Казань раскрыла изолированный характер московских особенностей дорожной инфраструктуры. В нескольких километрах от МКАДа асфальт высокого качества внезапно исчезает и дорожное полотно испещряется выбоинами. В официальной и простой речи эти

THE CITY, THE AUTOMOBILE, AND THE RESIDENTS

This book summarizes the results of a research studio at the Strelka Institute for Architecture, Media, and Design in the spring of 2014. The primary focus of the studio and subsequently this book has been to discover and show explicitly the intrinsic relationship between people, the car, and the city of Moscow. The newly gained insights are reinterpreted as alternative, Moscow-specific, realities.

The most striking finding exposes the car infrastructure as a magnifier of the struggle between the individual and the collective, the unplanned and the planned, the controlled and the controller. To drivers, the car seems to be a kind of “freedom-machine”, which enables people to accelerate their liberty and power. This intoxicating mixture provides a choice between attack and escape: to attack or escape the law, the rules, and the city.

In a city like Moscow, inhabited by people with an extreme desire for personal freedom and ruled with extreme political power, the clash between individual freedom and collective power becomes highly visible.

In the following chapters, the virtues of a life with and without this “freedom-machine” will be revealed.

For Muscovites the car is a very new addition to their lives, which is why car ownership is something beyond question and car-sharing services are virtually nonexistent. Paradoxically, Moscow is also at the forefront of public transportation among European cities due to its magnificent Metro infrastructure, which continues to grow in response to Moscow’s massive automobile traffic jams.

What is unique about the city’s urban routines by car and by other forms of mobility? How can studying routines help us to reinterpret the city or to imagine a future for Moscow that is specific to its own unique conditions rather than simply adopting international standards and predictable strategies?

Part of the research process, a studio road trip to Kazan unveiled the nature of Moscow’s unique island condition in terms of Russian road infrastructure. A few kilometers beyond the MKAD, Moscow’s largest urban ring road and municipal border, high-quality asphalt soon comes to an end and the road becomes perforated by potholes. Officially

дороги считаются «трассами». Если применить мировые стандарты, их смело можно назвать просто дорогами. Светофоры и пешеходные переходы часты, ограничения скорости встречаются каждые 10–15 километров из-за того, что дорога идет сквозь деревни, и раздельные многополосные автомагистрали практически не существуют. Можно сказать, что Россия еще догонит, еще разовьет систему автомагистралей до мировых стандартов в обозримом будущем. Но есть также вероятность, что она умышленно не работает над дорогами и относится к планированию с пренебрежением. Плохие дороги на окраинах Москвы препятствуют высокому уровню субурбанизации, поездки выходного дня затруднены и гражданская мобильность в целом ограничена.

Если рассматривать Москву снаружи, становится более понятно, как город определяется мобильностью. Мобильность (или, напротив, — остановки) — это и есть сам город; контролируя мобильность — контролируешь город.

— Тео Дойтингер, Сергей Чернов

and in common language, these roads are considered to be ‘highways’ but compared with international standards, one would simply call them ‘roads’. Traffic lights and pedestrian crossings are frequent, speed restrictions occur every 10–15 km whenever the road passes through a village, and separate freeways of more than one lane per direction are virtually non-existent. One could say that Russia will catch up, will develop a highway system of international standard in due time. Yet there is also the possibility that Russia deliberately refuses to work on its road system and is planning through negligence. Bad roads in the outskirts keep Moscow rather compact and prevent large scale suburbanization, weekend visits are reduced to a minimum, and civil mobility in general is naturally restricted.

Seeing Moscow from the outside, from the countryside, it becomes ever clearer how a city is defined by mobility. Mobility (or its antonym — “stops”) is the city itself; being in control of mobility is being in control of the city.

— Theo Deutinger, Sergey Chernov

This book is designed for personal, non-commercial use. You must not use it in any other way, and, except as permitted under applicable law, you must not copy, translate, publish, licence or sell the book without the consent of Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design.

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Strelka In�ituteEducation programme 2013/14: Urban Routines/Car

Table of Contents

ADRIVE

DAtlas

BSTOP

CGO

Introdu� ion aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaP. 24

State of the Road aaaaaaaaaaaaaP. 28

Pocket Article: Moscow-2 aaaaaaaaaaP. 44

MKA aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaP.46

Pocket Article: Exit MKAD aaaaaaaaaaP. 56

The Car is the Medium aaaaaaaP.60

Pocket Article: How To Wear Kit Look aP. 70

Introdu� ion bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbP. 74

Stops And The City bbbbbbbbbbP. 78

Pocket Article: Ithaka bbbbbbbbbbbbbP. 86

Shanghai Moscow bbbbbbbbbbbP. 88

Pocket Article: Shanghai Routines bbP. 100

Introdu� ion cccccccccccccccccP.104

Nodal City Moscow cccccccccP. 108Pocket Article: The Rawness ofNon-Routine ccccccccccccccccccccP. 122

Nightlife Carrier cccccccccccccP. 124

Pocket Article: From 1986 to 2014 ccP. 136

Moscow WalkccccccccccccccccP. 138

Pocket Article: Field Diary cccccccccP. 148

Theo Deutinger: The City, the Automobile, and the Residents wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwru P. 12

Mikhail Blinkin: City Tran¤ ort Strategies: Hi� ory and Evident Conclusions for Moscow wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwru P. 16

Imprint finfinfinfinfinfinfinfinP. 199

Night Race cccccccccccccccccccP. 158

Jammed in

Tra c aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaP. 162

Behind Moscow rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrP. 164

Mobile User Heatmap 3 AM P. 178


Accessible Territoryas Nodes dddddddddddddddddddddP. 180

Parallel Sy� ems dddddddddddP. 181

Hi� oric Growth 1935 ddddddP. 182

Hi� oric Growth 1980 ddddddP. 183 Metro In The Physical Space of The City 2014 ddddddddddddddP. 184

Future dddddddddddddddddddddP. 185

Future Territory And Parks dddddddddddddddddP. 186

Park And Ride dddddddddddddP. 187

People’s Garage dddddddddddP. 188

Police Control Map ddddddddP. 189

Pede� rian CrossingsddddddP. 190

Garages with Individual

Boxes 2014 dddddddddddddddddP. 191

Mona� eries As Defense Outpo� s ddddddddddddddddddP. 192

Density of Crossings by Di� ri� s ddddddddddddddddP. 193

Car-related Services ddddddP. 194

Petrol Stations Logo dddddddP. 195

Car Dealers Logo ddddddddddP. 196

Mega� ores LogodddddddddddP. 197

Glossary wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwruP. 171

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✕Table of Contents

ADRIVE

DAtlas

BSTOP

CGO




MKAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaP.46


The Car is the Medium aaaaaaaP.60

Pocket Article: How To Wear Kit Look a Pocket Article: How To Wear Kit Look a Pocket Article: How To Wear Kit LookP. 70





Pocket Article: Shanghai Routines bbP. 100

Introdu� ion cccccccccccccccccP.104

Nodal City Moscow cccccccccP. 108Pocket Article: The Rawness ofNon-Routine ccccccccccccccccccccP. 122

Nightlife Carrier cccccccccccccP. 124

Pocket Article: From 1986 to 2014 ccP. 136

Moscow WalkccccccccccccccccP. 138

Pocket Article: Field Diary cccccccccP. 148

Theo Deutinger: The City, the Automobile, and the Residents wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwru P. 12

Mikhail Blinkin: City Tran¤ ort Strategies: Hi� ory and Evident Conclusions for Moscow wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwru P. 16

Imprint finfinfinfinfinfinfinfinP. 199

Night Race cccccccccccccccccccP. 158

Jammed in

Tra c aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaP. 162

Behind Moscow rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrP. 164

Mobile User Heatmap 3 AMP. 178

Mobile User Heatmap 11 AMP. 179

Accessible Territoryas Nodes dddddddddddddddddddddP. 180

Parallel Sy� ems dddddddddddP. 181



Metro In The Physical Space of The City 2014 ddddddddddddddP. 184

Future dddddddddddddddddddddP. 185

Future Territory And Parks dddddddddddddddddP. 186

Park And Ride dddddddddddddP. 187

People’s Garage dddddddddddP. 188

Police Control Map ddddddddP. 189

Pede� rian CrossingsddddddP. 190


Boxes 2014 dddddddddddddddddP. 191

Mona� eries As Defense Outpo� s ddddddddddddddddddP. 192

Density of Crossings by Di� ri� s ddddddddddddddddP. 193

Car-related Services ddddddP. 194

Petrol Stations Logo dddddddP. 195

Car Dealers Logo ddddddddddP. 196

Mega� ores LogodddddddddddP. 197

Glossary wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwruP. 171

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Table of Contents

ADRIVE

DAtlas

BSTOP

CGO




MKA City aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa P.56


The Car is the Medium aaaaaaa P.70

Pocket Article: How To Wear Kit Look P. 80





Pocket Article: Shanghai Routines bb P. 110

Introdu� ion cccccccccccccccccc P.114

Nodal City Moscow ccccccccc P. 118

Pocket Article: The Rawness ofNon-Routine cccccccccccccccccccc P. 132

Nightlife Carrier ccccccccccccc P. 134

Pocket Article: From 1986 to 2014 cc P. 146

Moscow Walkcccccccccccccccc P. 148

Pocket Article: Field Diary ccccccccc P. 158

Theo Deutinger: The City, the Automobile, and the Residents wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwr P. 22

Mikhail Blinkin: City Tran¤ ort Strategies: Hi� ory and Evident Conclusions for Moscow wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwr P. 26

Imprint finfinfinfinfinfinfinfi P. 209

Night Race ccccccccccccccccccc P. 168

Jammed in Tra c aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa P. 172

Behind Moscow rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr P. 174



Accessible Territoryas Nodes ddddddddddddddddddddd P. 190

Parallel Sy� ems ddddddddddd P. 191

Hi� oric Growth 1935 dddddd P. 192

Hi� oric Growth 1980 dddddd P. 193 Metro In The Physical Space of The City 2014 dddddddddddddd P. 194

Future ddddddddddddddddddddd P. 195

Future Territory And Parks ddddddddddddddddd P. 196

Park And Ride ddddddddddddddP. 197

People’s Garage ddddddddddd P. 198

Police Control Map dddddddd P. 199

Pede� rian Crossingsdddddd P. 200


Boxes 2014 dddddddddddddddd P. 201

Mona� eries As Defense Outpo� s dddddddddddddddddd P. 202

Density of Crossings by Di� ri� s dddddddddddddddd P. 203

Car-related Services dddddd P. 204

Petrol Stations Logo ddddddd P. 205

Car Dealers Logo dddddddddd P. 206

Mega� ores Logodddddddddd P. 207

Glossary wrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwrummmmwr P. 181

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1818

Detour

1818

Detour

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Introdu� ion

R ACE:

I N

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1/2 � RACE: IN

The City, the Automobile, and the Residents

This book summarizes the results of a research �udio at the Strelka In�itute for Archite�ure, Media, and Design in the ¤ring of 2014. The primary focus of the �udio and subsequently this book has been to discover and show explicitly the intrinsic relationship between people, the car, and the city of Moscow. The newly gained insights are reinterpreted as alternative, Moscow-¤ecific, realities.

by Theo Deutinger

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23

ForewordThe City, the Automobile, and the Residents

The mo� �riking finding exposes the car infra�ru�ure as a magnifier of the �rug-gle between the individual and the colle�ive, the unplanned and the planned, the con-trolled and the controller. To drivers, the car seems to be a kind of “freedom-machine”, which enables people to accelerate their liberty and power. This intoxicating mixture provides a choice between a±ack and escape: to a±ack or escape the law, the rules, and the city.

In a city like Moscow, inhabited by people with an extreme desire for personal freedom and ruled with extreme political power, the clash between individual freedom and col-le�ive power becomes highly visible.

In the following chapters, the virtues of a life with and without this “freedom-machine” will be revealed.

Please note: For Muscovites the car is a very new addition to their lives, which is why car ownership is something beyond que�ion and car-sharing services are virtually nonexi�ent. Paradoxically, Moscow is also at the forefront of public tran¤ortation among European cities due to its magnificent Metro infra�ru�ure, which continues to grow in re¤onse to Moscow’s massive automobile tra¨c jams.

What is unique about the city’s urban routines by car and by other forms of mobility? How can �udying routines help us to reinter pret the city or to imagine a future for Mos-cow that is ¤ecific to its own unique conditions rather than simply adopting interna-tional �andards and predi�able �rategies?

Introdu�ion

Nothing changed the modern city as dra�ically as the arrival of the car. In fa�, with the introdu�ion of the car to the city, the modern city was born. Compared to other cities, this arrival happened in Moscow with a considerable delay. Yet the city has caught up within a decade and Moscow’s current car ownership rate is on the same level as that of Paris.

Today, tra¨c jams are the mo� visible signs of Moscow’s successful mass auto-mobi-lization. The explosive growth of road-related services and the high social �atus of car ownership underpin its immense economic and cultural impa�.

The Freedom Machine

Le Corbusier loved to place cars in front of his buildings when they were being photo-graphed to emphasize his �atement that buildings are machines for living. Today, archi-te�s have trouble ge±ing rid of all the cars in front of their buildings to take decent pic-tures of their ma�erpieces. Cars have shiµed from being a luxury good to being a ju�

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another commodity and their usage has shiµed from the excitement of driving to the normalcy of routine. Looking for a parking ¤ace, being �uck in a tra¨c jam, and refill-ing the gas tank are among the mo� mundane happenings in the world for car users.

De¤ite the delays and inconvenience of Moscow’s mind-boggling tra¨c jams, car ownership enjoys a high �atus here, unparalleled in any other country. There is some-thing indescribable about the ability to accelerate, something beyond the technical ¤ecifications, that makes people feel a sense of boundless freedom. Already the bicy-cle, as low as its ¤eed might be, in�igated a feeling of liberation and was recognized by 19th-century femini�s and su¶ragi�s as a “freedom machine” for women. Ameri-can Susan B. Anthony said in a New York World interview on the 2nd February 1896: “I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the pi�ure of untrammeled womanhood.”

The impa� of the introdu�ion of the car cannot therefore be limited to urban design or economics; the car has to be recognized as an important element in the national democratization process. Though tra¨c jams dampen the feelings of joy and magni-tude of freedom, Moscow experienced this democratization process rather late and so the memory is �ill �rong of times before such individual mobility and individual free-dom. Muscovites enjoy the freedom of working in the city and living in the countryside, of going on vacation wherever they please, and of shopping on the other side of the city.

The car seems not only to accelerate people but also to accelerate changes throughout the city. It forces local politicians to plan, forces entrepreneurs to address tra¨c flows, and forces drivers to organize with and again� each other.

Today, the relationship between the car, Moscow, and its citizens is in a �ate of transi-tion, perhaps on the brink of crisis. We are at a point at which personal freedom is be-coming re�ri�ed by the individual freedom of others ,and sometimes even by the �ate. According to Andrei Sharonov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow, “The city’s current road plan was laid out 50 to 60 years ago and was based on a car ownership rate of three vehicles per 100 people. Car usage has grown rapidly in Moscow and now �ands at 38 vehicles per 100 people.”

Asymmetric Planning

With the motorization of society, car-related fun�ions �art to appear throughout the city. This reinforces and therefore �imulates car usage. Yet Moscow’s ¤ecific political and cultural landscape will prevent development that simply imitates other European cities; mo� likely, Moscow will find its own Moscow-¤ecific expressions.

In order achieve Mayor Sobyanin’s ambition for Moscow to really be a metropolis and a world-class city comparable to London or Paris, one needs to work within the Russian-¤ecific context. This currently entails a situation where night tran¤ort is

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ForewordThe City, the Automobile, and the Residents

served predominantly by illegal taxis, where roads used by the President are in be±er shape than other roads, and where mo� of the cheap labor is done by unregi�ered im-migrants who live in former automobile garages. Asymmetry is part of the daily routine; since the car is a mobile private ¤ace within the public domain, the larger the di¶er-ences within a society, the higher the degree of asymmetry. In a city like Moscow, where the poor and the rich live extremely separate and di¶erent lives, the �reets and high-ways are ¤aces of confrontation where these di¶erent life�yles can collide. The pow-erful are confronted with the weak, the rich with the poor, and the fa� with the slow.

A �udio road trip to Kazan unveiled the nature of Moscow’s unique island condition in terms of Russian road infra�ru�ure. A few kilometers beyond the MKAD, Moscow’s large� urban ring road and municipal border, high-quality a¤halt soon comes to an end and the road becomes perforated by potholes. O¨cially and in common language, these roads are considered to be ‘highways’ but compared with international �andards, one would simply call them ‘roads’. Tra¨c lights and pede�rian crossings are frequent, ¤eed re�ri�ions occur every 10-15 km whenever the road passes through a village, and separate freeways of more than one lane per dire�ion are virtually non-exi�ent. One could say that Russia will catch up, will develop a highway sy�em of international �andard in due time. Yet there is also the possibility that Russia deliberately refuses to work on its road sy�em and is planning through negligence. Bad roads in the outskirts keep Moscow rather compa� and prevent large scale suburbanization, weekend visits are reduced to a minimum, and civil mobility in general is naturally re�ri�ed.

Seeing Moscow from the outside, from the countryside, it becomes ever clearer how a city is defined by mobility. Mobility (or its antonym — “�ops”) is the city itself; being in control of mobility is being in control of the city.

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City Tran¤ort Strategies: Hi�ory and Evident Conclusions for Moscow

The hi�ory of the city’s coexi�ence with mass-produced automobiles began in 1908 with the assembly line produ�ion of the fir� Ford Model T. The search for adequate �rate-gies for adapting the city to the impa� of mass automobilization, or on the contrary, adapting the aggregate tran¤ortation behavior of citi-zens to the city’s exi�ing potential for mobility has been ongoing ever since then, continuous-ly for more than one hundred years.

Professor at Higher School of Economicsby Mikhail Blinkin

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City Tran¤ort Strategies: Hi�ory and Evident Conclusions for Moscow Key Essay

The theoretical concepts and field experiments are divided into two main categories:

● E�ablishing a su¨cient supply of ¤atial resources necessary for the growing number of car journeys; in other words, the adaptation of city fabric to the domination of car mobility.

● Reducing the demand for car journeys; in other words — discouraging the use of private cars for the benefit of improving the built environment and according to the principles of “nonde�ru�ive mobility”.1

Expanding Supply

The author of the mo� ambitious and relatively successful experiment on the complete adaption of the city to the mass car was Robert Moses.2 The experiment was condu�ed during the continuous growth of annual private car mileage that occurred in American cities every year since 1908. The core of the experiment corre¤onded to the “common sense” of the city admini�rator and civil engineer: as private car mileage grows, it is necessary to expand the ¤ace of the �reet and road network in order to accommodate this growth. A well-known car apocrypha says: “Henry Ford gave Americans cars and Robert Moses gave car drivers the cities”.

The final results of this grand and highly expensive experiment have been reexamined in recent years. Here is an approximate li� of the findings:

From a physical point of view (i.e. engineering and planning), the city is capable of adapting to a level of automobilization up to 800 – 900 units per 1000 inhabitants. In other words, the city is able to accommodate a number of cars comparable to the size of population and the cars will �ill maintain a socially-acceptable driving ¤eed.

From a socio-political point of view, the key condition of such adaptation lies in the public agreement of citizens to live in a car-oriented city. Under the conditions of such public agreement, the basic parameters of se±lement, land use, planning, and housing mu� support car dependency.

From an engineering point of view, the key condition for adapting the city to cars lies in the development of a dense multi-conne�ed �reet and road network that would take up 30–35% of the city’s land area. The network has to be �ratified with �ri� di�in�ions between �reets (which feature sidewalks, pede�rians, frequent tra¨c lights, and are oµen adjacent to dwellings) and highways, which are separated from the dwelling areas.

1 This is sometimes referred to as the principle of “su�ainable mobility” which defines the typology and quality range of citizen mobility that the city is able to with�and or su�ain without decreasing the comfort of the built environment, visual appearance, cultural identity and eco-logical safety. The idea of “Su�ainable mobility” was fir� proposed by We�ern urbani�s in the 1980s; nowadays it is already in use by urban communities in progressive cities around the world. The traditional Russian equivalent of “u�oychevaya mobilno�” (su�ainable mobility) gives a di�orted definition; the more corre� definition is “nerazrushaushaya mobilno�” (nonde�ru�ive mobility).

2 Robert Moses (1888–1981) — American civil engineer and city manager, formed the face of the modern New York City and made a decisive influence on the development of urban planning in the United States in 1920–1970.

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The se±lement parameters and road network parameters outlined above bring forward an important empirical norm: according to Robert Moses’s city planning, each car needs 150–200 square meters of communal paved territory.

The third condition is the confirmation of a not-so-pleasant axiom: “Highway users mu� pay their way”. The va� and well-planned ¤ace for driving cars in cities built according to Robert Moses mu� be paid not by the �ate, but by the car users’ taxes included in the price of fuel.

A city that would live in such an experiment for 50–80 years would become car- oriented by default. This city can fun�ion, but it cannot re¤ond to the modern criteria of “a city comfortable for living” as there will be a lack of public ¤aces and suitable pede�rian environment.

Reducing Demand

Contrary to the idea of expanding supply, conceived and firmly e�ablished on the “common sense” level, the idea of reducing demand for driving cars has a “more honourable scientific origin. The theoretical groundwork for this idea was fir� outlined by the noted American economi� William Vickrey and was published 50 years ago.3

The solution proposed by William Vickrey lies in a sy�em of payments for using �reet and road networks that is di¶erentiated by time and location (“Marginal Co� Road Pricing”)4: the more tra¨c load there is in a particular place, at a particular time of day, the more the user mu� pay. Vickrey assumed that such payments would allow many road con�ru�ion proje�s to be abandoned, because the car drivers facing new pay-ments—which show the true co� of such proje�s—would switch to public tran¤orta-tion or car pools5. Those who are going to enjoy roads without tra¨c would have to pay a fair price. In order to realize this mechanism in pra�ice (later called Vickrey’s Toll), the author brought forth an idea that in 1963 was thought to be futuri�ic: to equip all cars with ele�ronic ID’s that carry monetary value.

Later, Vickrey’s ideas laid the foundation for another more radical field experiment on reducing car use in Singapore, initiated by legendary mayor Lee Kwan Yew.

Although Singapore has many advantages, it is a very dense city; the �reet and road network accounts for only 11% of the city area, which is slightly higher than in Moscow, but three times lower than in any North American city.

3 William S. Vickrey (1914–1996) — Nobel Prize Laureate for Economics in 1996, the author of one of the mo� famous works in the hi�ory of tran¤ort economics: “Pricing in Urban and Suburban Tran¤ort.” American Economic Review 52, 1963, no. 2: 452–465.

4 “Road pricing” in this context means the pricing of road con�ru�ion. Therefore, to avoid confusion, one has to use longer definitions such as “pricing for road use” or “pricing policy for road use”.

5 Car Pool — the colle�ive use of cars for daily labor trips “periphery — center.” Such car behavior leads to a redu�ion in the number of cars car-rying one person (Single Occupancy Vehicle, SOV) and, consequently, increases the number of cars with greater cabin load (High Occupancy Vehicle, HOV). The pra�ice of the colle�ive use of cars is encouraged by the city authorities by allocating separate lanes on city freeways marked with signs “HOVlane” or “2 +”.

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Singapore has done everything possible to adapt the city to cars within its condition of limited ¤ace. Specifically, the network �ru�ure completely corre¤onds with American planning �andards and pra�ice: there are no hybrid con�ru�ions (�reets and freeways are separated). For any future massive road con�ru�ion proje�s, there would always be ways to find financing but never ways to find more physical ¤ace.

Subsequently, a sy�em of �ri� limitations on owning and using cars was e�ablished. This approach assumes an absolute and broad public agreement.

A �ri� growth quota for the number of cars was introduced, aimed at artificially maintaining the level of automobilization to be no higher than 200 cars per 1000 inhabitants. In pra�ice, this quota is implemented through regular au�ions for the right to purchase a car. Based on the 2013 au�ion price of the voucher, purchasing a car was a �aggering three times as high as the price of the same car in a showroom.

The defined quota has a clear physical implication: with �ri� compliance to their rules, one Singapore car accounts for about 75 square meters of paved public ¤ace. Of course, it is far below Los Angeles, but much higher than in Moscow, Kazan, or in Johannesburg.

In order to further reduce the demand for purchasing cars, a series of high excise rates and a regi�ration fee were introduced. In comparison, in cities such as Tokyo or Shanghai, the key condition for regi�ering a car and receiving a license plate is having a legal ¤ace to �ore your car at night.

Finally, for the fir� time in the hi�ory of the world, Singapore implemented Vickrey’s idea to the fulle�: a sy�em of online payments for the use of �reet and road networks was introduced (ele�ronic road pricing) which would be dynamically determined by tra¨c load.

The demand for using cars was further reduced by designing one of the world’s be� public tran¤ortation sy�ems, including modern high-¤eed trains, e¨cient taxi sy�ems, and Car Sharing6.

Mixed Strategies

In pra�ice, the “pure” �rategies described above — expanding supply and reducing demand — have been used together in di¶erent proportions relative to one another, according to the city’s position in world automobilization levels and of course to national urban planning and fiscal traditions.

6 Car Sharing — a club model for cooperative car use. Members can take and mu� return a car to ¤ecial parking areas. Each member has a key-card. When the ignition is switched on, the club computer checks the payment �atus of the client and whether there has been an advance booking made at this time. If the answer to both que�ions is positive, the car �arts. Assessments made by analy�s from The Econ-omi� magazine, show that the mechanism of car sharing can dra�ically reduce the level of automobilization: one “club” car can replace up to 15 private cars.

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The British tran¤ort policy of the 1960s followed the fir� proposal for e�ablishing a su¨cient supply. The idea was called “Predi� and Provide”, meaning that supply (based on the capacity of the �reet and road networks) would be provided that is enough to satisfy the calculated demand for car journeys.

In 1964, professor Reuben Smeed7 presented a report to the Prime Mini�er which said: “…in order to increase the national welfare, it is recommended to implement road pricing, in ¤ite of the common belief that roads are goods of public use.” Later on, a document signed by Prime Mini�er Sir Alec Douglas Home was found in the Mini�ry of Tran¤ort which �ated the following: “…let us take a vow that if we are re-ele�ed we will never again set up a �udy like this one”.8

Thus, the idea of reducing demand was received with dread and bewilderment by the political elite of the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Likewise, for American politicians, the idea of reducing demand was deemed absurd. It took many years and many millions of hours wa�ed in tra¨c before the expert elite (and then the political elite) finally under-�ood the “revolutionary” idea:

● Highways and cars are an indi¤utable benefit for realization of inter-city and inter-regional tran¤ortation;

● The car isn’t always necessary (and sometimes is even harmful!) for city and inter-agglomerative tran¤ortation.

British professor Phil Goodwin was one of the brighte� representatives of the expert elite who “brought in the verdi�” on the ideology of adapting cities to cars. Here are the hallmark quotes from his inaugural le�ure given in 1997 before �epping into the position of Professor of Tran¤ort Policy at University College London (UCL):

○ “…we built roads (increasing thereby the budget expenditure, losing votes, causing damage to the economy and environment …), but we could never come to a balance between supply and demand for road capacity. It seems that we shouldn’t do it.”;

○ “…we do our children no favours if we confine them to a car-dependent mobility. And I think our grandchildren will wonder what took us so long.”9

Nowadays, the need to free cities from car dependence has become a common goal in all developed countries around the world. At the same time, the once highly popular discussion concerning the ¤eed and scale of city road con�ru�ion has �opped; people are no longer debating which of the two �rategies (“E�imate and Provide”, or “Predi� and Provide”) is more corre�—It became clear that neither is. The mo� safe

7 Reuben Jacob Smeed (1909–1976) — one of the mo� reputable tran¤ort scienti�s of the 20th century. He was the fir� professor of tran¤ort �udies in hi�ory at University College London (UCL)

8 Quote by Phil Goodwin. Solving conge�ion. Inaugural Le�ure for the Professorship of Tran¤ort Policy, University College London, 1997.9 Phil Goodwin. Solving conge�ion. Inaugural Le�ure for the Professorship of Tran¤ort Policy, University College London, 1997.

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and rich cities of the world are following a new trend which 10–15 years ago would have been thought unbelievable: the mass demolition of multi-level jun�ions and overpasses con�ru�ed half a century ago in the city centers.

The mo� evident quantitative re¤onse to these new tendencies is the collapse of the century-rising course of automobilization. For example, in Milan, once the mo� car-driven city in Europe, the turning point came in 1990: on average, 1000 Milanese had more than 700 cars, which is 8 times more than in Moscow at that time. Today Milan is on the “500” mark again� Moscow’s “400”. If the trends which have developed in our cities remain, in a couple of years we will certainly overtake the proud Italians.

Let’s sum up the results. The ideology of “expanding supply” has become the domain of tran¤ort and urban hi�ory. In contra�, the ideology of “reducing demand” is recog-nized as the be� and mo� useful �rategy around the world. In the majority of cities in the developed part of the world, the ¤atial resources which are providing for car jour-neys is decreasing, giving way to modern sy�ems of public tran¤ortation, pede�rian zones, and bicycle infra�ru�ure.

Conclusions for Moscow

Addressing dome�ic realities, I will note that Moscow has no chances to experiment in the ¤irit of Robert Moses’s �rategy because we have an 80-year time lag from when we�ern countries began their automobilization.

I have no doubts that Moscow city managers are no less passionate and persevering than their classic transoceanic colleague Mr. Moses. The trouble is that Moscow will never be able to find the land and financial resources that would be necessary for creat-ing a car-oriented city. Today, no more than 10% of Moscow’s urban area is made up of �reet and road network. The only way to reach the �andard 30–35% would be to �art the mass demolition of old housing and reduce the green field area, but I can hardly imagine a politician who would �and for such a plan.

As for our own a±empts at recon�ru�ion of “outbound highways”, or con�ru�ion of tran¤ort corridors traced dire�ly along old Moscow �reets, they corre¤ond to Robert Moses’s plans approximately in the same way as the needlework of Ellochka the Cannibal10 corre¤onds with the fashionable acquisitions of the Vanderbilt family11.

I will add that less than 25% of the grand inve�ments into Moscow road con�ru�ion proje�s circa 2012–2013 were paid by Moscow car drivers (through a petrol excise and a car tax). The other funding came from the general budget; it is evident that in the conditions of the forthcoming decrease of the national budget, less and less will be allocated for road con�ru�ion. In these conditions, we won’t get anywhere near accomplishing something akin to Moses’s plan.

10 Ellochka the Canninbal is chara�er in the satirical novel by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov “The Twelve Chairs” (Editor’s note).11 The Vanderbilt family is an American family that was prominent during the Gilded Age, whose wealth expanded into various areas of indu�ry

and philanthropy (Editor’s note).

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About 25 square meters of paved public area accounts for one Moscow car today. The ambitious aim to double this �andard would co� the city (in the current prices of con�ru�ion) about 70 billion dollars. Meanwhile, even 50 square meters per 1 car is not nearly enough to improve the city’s conditions for mobility; simply put, this shiµ wouldn’t even be noticed by the majority of car drivers.

The tough conclusion for many drivers is that unlike the Russian periphery, big-scale road con�ru�ion proje�s are not advisable for Moscow. Of course, the capital should use the obvious therapeutic methods at its di¤osal, such as increasing the density and conne�ivity of the road network within the “bagel” of panel housing between the Third Tran¤ort Road and MKAD (Moscow ring highway) and thereby increasing the appeal of this territory This would also reduce excess mileage and reduce reliance on the city center for tran¤ortation fun�ions.

In all the re� of Moscow, we should take the path of reducing demand for car use and expand public tran¤ortation, closely following not ju� the German, but be±er yet the Singapore methods.

What kind of ob�acles might we encounter?

■ Fir�—mental: The va� majority of Muscovites, including chief urban planners and engineers, believe in the arrival of a bright car-driven future along with massive road con�ru�ion. This belief is �rong and will not be swayed by any technical arguments to the contrary.

■ Second—socio-political: The methods of the admini�rative and fiscal plan for reducing demand for car use are unpopular. As was already noted above, such measures will only be accepted by society under one indi¤ensable condition: the total universality of these measures.

From this per¤e�ive, there is a rather exotic (compared to world pra�ice) problem, related to the overall fleet of cars in Moscow, which is �rikingly di¶erent from all foreign analogues.

There are two main clu�ers of cars in Moscow that are impervious to any kind of regulatory influence used in international pra�ice. The fir� one consi�s of o¨cial and personal cars that are daily and intensively operated with hired drivers. The second non-�andard clu�er (which oµen overlaps with the fir�) consi�s of the cars of privileged users li�ed in admini�rative regulations of the tra¨c police.

The total number of cars in both clu�ers amounts to no less than 200 thousand units, which is about 5% of the total number of cars in Moscow, according to the mo� conventional calculations. However, owing to obvious circum�ances of exploitation, the density of these clu�ers in daily city tra¨c (and, e¤ecially, tra¨c in the city center) is much higher.

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I believe that in the foreseeable future, the city won’t be able to abandon the overuse of privilege in tra¨c and parking, de¤ite how these privileges are provided not to kings and presidents but to numerous and quite ordinary “privileged users”.

Overcoming the two described ob�acles, mental and socio-political, is possible in two ways described by Denos Gazis12. This remarkable American scienti� once wrote that the cities solve their tran¤ort problems the same way people learn how to use ele�ri-cal equipment: you can either read the manual, or you can touch the bare wire. Gazis had reason to believe that cities pra�ice the second way much more oµen.

Moscow is on a path toward solving its tran¤ort problems, through lots of trial and error. Moscow isn’t the be� city by far but is definitely not the wor�. Waiting for miracles is futile. We simply need to learn—and in one way or another, we will learn.

12 Denos C. Gazis (1930–2004) — American scienti� in the field of applied mathematics, operations research, the hi�ory of Greek philosophy. Supervised tran¤ort proje�s at IBM Research Center for over 20 years. Author of the concept of Intelligent Tran¤ortation Sy�em (ITS).

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DRI VE !

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Se�ion A

State of The RoadPocket Article: Moscow-2

Mkad CityPocket Article: Exit MKAD

The Car is the MediumPocket Article: How To Wear Kit Look

1

2

3

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Moscow’s ring roads have origins as key elements in the city’s defense sy� em. Today, in times of weak communal defense mechanisms due to ‘inside � rangers’, the car has partly taken on the task of prote� ion. Consequently, cars are operating like individual, private ¤ ace ships. However, lingering problems, from technical to democratic, make driv-ers realize the potential and necessity of unity. Eventually this could lead to a new democratic movement.

The large� element of municipal Moscow’s sy� em of concentric ring roads is the MKAD. This ring that initially was designed as a circulation road changed throughout the pa� 20 years into a densely-packed � rip of de� inations which potentially could become a city itself, circling the old city.

The MKAD and other major roads in Moscow are clu± ered with advertisements competing for the drivers’ a± ention, while digital media is conquering more and more terrain inside the car. However, the car always has been a medium itself by extending the driver’s body; in fa� , driver and car are continually merging more and more together into a kind of Franken� ein.

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№ 1

38

Humans are unprote�ed creatures by nature. Hence, humans surround themselves with de-fensive technology. Everything created by hu-mans, from clothes to �ate borders, are in fa� tools for prote�ing themselves from their dan-gerous environment.

State of The RoadHumans Need Defense

According to the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the autocratic �ate was invented by humans as a tool of defense. In his mo� known work “Leviathan”, wri±en at the time of English civil war (1642-1651), Hobbes argues that “war” is a “natural �ate” for humans, combining three main natural features: competition, di�ru� and hunger for glory. Because of these features, humans have a latent tendency to make war. In order to avoid war, humans need to create the �ate as an in�itution, which re�rains the individ-ual through rules and laws, according to Hobbes. Subsequently the main purpose of the State is to provide safety for its citizens.

Following Hobbes’ theory that the State is “Leviathan”—, an autocratic mon�er, created by humans to defend themselves; a mon�er that reveals human features — it mu� have the same desire for “competition”, “di�ru�” and “hunger for glory”. This would explain the exi�ence of inter-�ate wars. Leviathan, the humanoid mon�er that consi�s of individual humans, has to deal with two tasks. Fir�, to keep a tight rein on humans inside the State to prevent them from fighting each other; second, to defend itself from external danger, based on inter-�ate (multi�ate) competition and di�ru�. This observation explains two types of defense sy�em and two types of enemy: “the outside enemy”, which means the fight again� the danger outside; and “the inside enemy”, which means re�raining each individual by rules and law.

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A DRIVE!

by Olena Grankina

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Outside Enemy

City walls are the very fir� primitive defense sy�em the �ate provided to defend itself from external enemies. Moscow’s fir� walls appeared in the XII century, represented by wooden walls around a li±le roadside working se±lement. This was the time of city-�ates. Wars happened oµen and at random, and neighbors fought with neighbors. Each small city defended itself with its walls. Roads between cities were developed along lines of a±ack and o¶ense as well as for the reason of trade. In the XIII century, when Moscow rapidly gained power, its defense sy�em improved. From the very center, the Kremlin, roads have been built to mona�eries located around the city. They were out-po�s that enabled Moscow’s empowerment and growth through providing safety.

→ [see fig. 1]

This concept was later adapted to the centralized �ate of the Russian Empire. The mona�eries around Moscow were exchanged for fortresses in Kiev, Baku, St. Peters-burg, Riga and elsewhere, and what had once been a tool for o¶ense was turned into a tool for defense. To have more land meant to be more secure. Roads were expanded hundreds kilometers we�, south, ea� and north, aiming for a con�ru�ion of fortress outpo�s as far from the empire’s heart as possible.

→ [see fig. 2]

The fortress lo� its meaning with the invention of new weaponry: �arting with artillery and later aircraµ and atomic bomb. In 1911 the Russian garrison artillery, whose task was to defend the walls, was abolished.

→ [see fig. 3]

City walls were gradually disappearing only to come back in the form of road infra�ruc-ture. Old “Belgorodskaya” and “Zemlyanaya”1 walls in Moscow turned into the Boulvard Ring and the Garden Ring. In the XX century, road network became a core element of the State defense �rategy.

→ [see fig. 4]

In the Soviet Union the secret police, KGB, were put in charge of road building since roads were considered a �rategic tool in warfare. Road building parameters were based on tanks, but not on small Soviet cars. Out of �rategic considerations, roads were oµen disguised on the map. Two new ring roads, con�ru�ed in the Moscow region in the 1950s and conne�ing anti-balli�ic missile obje�s, were not shown on the civic map until 1980. It also became important to know the road network of the enemy, as roads are fir� of all the means for evacuation and movement of troops. Thus, the Soviet government �arted a huge “World mapping” program, aiming to have each city road network on the table. We�ern cities were mapped in the scale 1:10000 or 1:20000 with an unprecedented detailed classification of the roads. There are many diverse types of road to be found, such as “road with or without fence”, “ground road”, “dirty road”, or “concrete road”.

1 Belgorodskaya wall surrounded the city since the end of XVI century, Eart wall was built in the XVII century as a result of expanding of the city. Both were demolished in XIX cent to be transformed into the ring city boulvards.

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Main ArticleState of The Road

№ 1

40

Politics of Real Time

The importance of the road in the XX century as a part of defense �rategy can be explained by the global shiµ in world politics. Paul Virilio described the governance of the XX century as a “politics of real time”. He argued that weapons, being developed enormous scale, devalued the meaning of ¤ace. The ability of nuclear bombs to de�roy entire cities, countries or the planet made the que�ion “how far?” meaningless, while the que�ion “how fa�?” became of utmo� importance. In order to win the fight, the �ate needed to be quick, to be the fir�, and to be on time. Major parameters have become: how fa� is it possible to a±ack How fa� is it possible to take defense? How many min-utes are needed to evacuate an urban centre? How many seconds are needed to evacu-ate the government? Speed became a key point. Roads provided the means for ¤eed.

The “¤eed” concept embraced inter-�ate relationships in general. The Soviet Union put all its technological resources into being fir� country in ¤ace, claiming in this way its power on ¤ace itself.

→ [see fig. 5]

Originally, the word “¤eed” came from “to succeed”.Speed: from Old English �ed “success, a successful course; pro�erity, riches, wealth; luck; opportunity, advancement” from Old Saxon �odian “to cause to succeed”2

To be fa�er became ju� as important inside the State. Initially it came from the ¤eed concept of weaponry and was later introduced in everyday life. The concept of “¤eed” in people’s daily routine has been refle�ed in the world’s growing car ownership. The car allowed people to ¤eed, to succeed.

→ [see fig. 6]

The individual’s success is a �ranger to the autocratic �ate and the �ate tends to control this success, reinforcing the control on citizens inside the borders. As soon as the car entered the city, the control of “¤eed” inside the State became necessary.

Inside Enemy

Stalin asked engineers of his own car to make it 20 horsepower fa�er than for other possible owners. However, under�anding that the car is a potential tool for incrasing an individual’s ¤ace and time, the Soviet Union applied a more successful way to control ¤eed, through simply re�ri�ing car ownership in general. By the end of the Soviet Union, there were only 560.000 car owners, thanks to the political oppression of the Soviet regime. To control the 60.000 km of the Soviet border would have seemed impos-sible if citizens had cars. The period when N. Khrushchev was the Fir� Secretary of the Communi� Party of the Soviet Union (1953–1964) was marked by the political �atement “the roads are not needed”. “I refuse to inve� people’s money in roads,”3 claimed

2 Online Etymology Di�ionary h±p://www.etymonline.com/3 Cars for Comrades. The Life of the Soviet Automobile, Lewis H. Siegelbaum

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N. Khrushchev. Even if someone had a car, there were no roads to drive on. The lack of roads completed citizens’ imprisonment. As soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, car own-ership rates “broke the ¤eed control”. In 10 years, the amount of cars in Russia increased four-fold. The car enabled people to choose their own ¤ace and to control their own time.

→ [see fig. 7]

Together with growing car ownership, the �ate reinforced the sy�em of ¤eed control by the police. Not being able to re�ri� “¤eed” in general, the State controls it. Simi-lar to the named e-ticket sy�em for air and train conne�ions, which allows the control of each movement inside the State, car number plates allow control of individual tra¨c movement. The sy�em of radars, cameras and police po�s on the road are not only for road safety, but also for controlling the ¤ace by monitoring each car that goes in, goes through or goes out. Each crossing of a radial road with the MKAD in Moscow is under the police control.

→ [see fig. 8]

The fa� that the police po�s are represented physically in buildings turns them into permanent outpo�s, like the mona�eries around the city. The archite�ural typology of Moscow’s police control po�s is similar to that of an ancient watchtower, with the only but major di¶erence being that it is oriented inside the city.

→ [see fig. 9]

The “Inside” itself becomes more and more dangerous in the context of a globalized world and the development of world-¤anning networks. Today the danger comes from inside, because there is no “outside anymore”. “Who can deny, that in its primary as-pe�s, the we�ern world [...] embodies such a great interior today?” This is how Peter Sloterdejk4 sees the world, as an endless Paxton palace with all its danger and diseases.

Moscow is a perfe� case �udy in the context of a dangerous urban environment. It is the city in which, in the pa� 18 years, 23 terrori�ic a±acks have taken place. The police force, which ought to provide safety in such an environment, is commonly met with dis-tru�, and turns again� its etymological roots: the word “police” comes from the Greek “polis” [city], which in Latin transformed into the “policy” as “city admini�ration” and in the middle ages in French into the “police” as “to keep in order”. The word “police” di�anced itself from “polis”, and the police as an in�itution has di�anced itself from citizens. The level of police control in Moscow is very high in comparison to other cities. There is one policeman per hundred citizens, while in Paris the ratio is one to 500. But the level of tru� in the police among� Muscovites is lower than average, since less than half believe in the police in�itution. The feeling of di�ru� is reinforced by the gradual militarization of the police. Aµer the terrori�ic a±acks in Volgograd in 2013, the Russian government �arted a program of safety precautions in tran¤ort, part of which is the education of Russian police by Israeli colleagues5. This can provoke a new method for keeping order in the city, which is, according to Israeli politics, very similar to the violent manner used by the army.

→ [see fig. 10]

4 Peter Sloterdijk “In the Interior of the capital”, Wiley-Blackwell, 20135 According to … Israel police is the mo� militarized police in the world, which exports the method of control on the city in USA, Kenia, Nigeria,

India

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In such a dangerous environment, the car is the perfe� tool for individual defense in a public ¤ace. “The car is defending from the fear. Radically ignoring their wider surround-ings, cars [...] become, in the process what De Cauter calls ‘capsules on networks’.”6 In the context of aggressiveness, the car is transforming from a mechanical horse for ¤eed into a knight for fighting.

→ [see fig. 13, 14]

Resi�ance to The City

The extreme growth of car ownership, together with the resi�ance to an aggressive environment, has helped to develop a very Moscow-¤ecific and rapidly growing car society. The fir� car clubs in Russia appeared at the end of 1990s but developed very fa� and, within 10 years, a big car movement has emerged.

→ [see fig. 15]

The original reason for founding a car club was the lack of information about the car itself in the context of late automobilization in Russia. The absence of car dealers encouraged people to come together in order to share information at ¤ontaneous car parts markets in Moscow. As soon as o¨cial dealers appeared in Moscow, the process of car shopping and maintaining became easier. Already united, car owners turned to the que�ions of car and road infra�ru�ure. The �ruggle for be±er car infra�ru�ure �arted out with the fight again� potholes and the evaluation of road interchanges.

→ [see fig. 16]

Large and e�ablished car communities were able to fight for drivers’ rights, intera�ing dire�ly with governmental �ru�ures. The high level of danger on the roads gave reason to fight for driver’s rights both in the context of crime and di�ru� of �ate in�itutions. The car organizations found their mo� powerful tool for controlling police violence and drivers’ rights was the dashboard camera, which has been imported to Russia thanks to its a�ive car community. In Russia, more than 3 million cameras have been sold from 2011 to 2013. Today every third driver in Moscow has a dashboard camera, enabling him to shoot each accident and defend his rights in court.

The next �ep for car communities is the fight for citizens’ rights. In 2010–2011, the car communities of Moscow organized a prote� movement that promoted hone� presiden-tial ele�ions. Hundreds of cars were driven through Garden Ring to promote their right to vote. In their aim, drivers are very ambitious. “My aim is to create civic society in Russia”, - says Vadim Korovin, former member of the Car Owner’s Federation.

Together with the heads of Moscow’s bigge� car clubs, he is currently working on a community scheme, which is based on car clubs and, with the help of independent experts, has to influence the political processes in the city. Such a community can po-tentially grow into a powerful political arm for civic control, similar to ADAC7 in Germany. This means that the car society can become a civic representative to be considered by government not only in tran¤ort and driver’s que�ions but also in politics. If the la±er

6 Stephen Graham “Cities under siege. The new military urbanism”, Verso 20117 ADAC - Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club, found in 1903 and counts 8 million of members

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doesn’t happen, the car army can explode with a fight similar to the Automaidan prote� on wheels, which took place in Ukraine during the revolution in 2013/2014. In this fight the car fully unfolds its knight’s sense and forces the State to be afraid of it.8

De¤ite the fa� that the car is foremo� an individual’s defense shield, it has the power to transcend to the next level. Creating a common car army, together drivers can challenge the State.

→ [see fig. 17]

8 During the prote� again� the government in Ukraine, car movement played a great role blocking the road infra�ru�ure on the governmental way, creating the tran¤ort infra�ru�ure for rebels. In reply, the government passed the law, which limited the movement of more than five car in the row.

43


References:

1. Andrew Garnar, “Portable Civilizations and Urban Assault Vehi-cles”, Virginia Tech, Vol 11, no. 1 (Fall 2007)

2. Archis Volume #11: Cities Unbuilt, Publisher Stichting Archis, May, 2007

3. Archis Volume #26: Archite�ure of Peace, Publisher Stichting Archis, December 2010

4. Ben Highmore, “The everyday life reader”. Available online: h±p://lc�3789.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/highmore-the-everyday-life-reader.pdf

5. Chris McNab, “A hi�ory of the world in 100 weapons”, O¤rey publishing, 2011

6. Dimitris Dalakoglou, The road: An ethnography of the Albanian–Greek cross-border motorway, University of Sussex.

7. George Monbiot, “Driving into the abyss”, The guardian, Tuesday 6 July 2004

8. Henri Lefebvre, “Critique of everyday life”, volume 1, translated by John Moore, Verso, 1991

9. Jeremy Packer, Automobility and the driving force of warfare: From public safety to national security, Conference le�ured at the Symposium „Archite�ures of fear. Terrorism and the Future of Urbanism in the We�“ CCCB 17-18 May 2007. Available online: h±p://www.public¤ace.org/es/texto-biblioteca/eng/b032-au-tomobility-and-the-driving-force-of-warfare-from-public-safe-ty-to-national-security

10. Jeremy Packer, “Mobility without Mayhem. Safety, cars and citi-zenship”, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2008

11. John Urry, “Inhabiting the car”, published by the department of sociology, Lanca�er university, available online: Lanca�er at h±p://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/urry-inhabit-ing-the-car.pdf

12. Kri�in Ross, “Fa� cars, clean bodies: decolonization and reor-dering of French culture”, MIT Press, 1995

13. Lieven De Cauter, “A short Archeology of the new fear”, Open 2004/No. 6/(In)Security

14. Lieven De Cauter, “Capsular Civilization. On the city in the age of fear”, NAi Pub., 2004

15. Lewis H. Siegelbaum “Cars for comrades. The life of the soviet automobile”, Cornell university, 2008

16. Michiel Dehaene and Lieven De Cauter, “Heterotopia and the City. Public ¤ace in a po�civil society”, Routledge, 2008

17. Michelle Provoo�, “New towns on the Cold War frontier”, the article is part of the research proje� „The New Town“, published 2006. Available online: h±p://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-06-28-provoo�-en.html

18. “Military forces in transition”, p.30-47, US Governmental Printing O¨ce, 1991

19. “Military operations as urban planning”, By Phillip Misselwitz and Eyal Weizman, 28 Augu� 2003. Available online: h±p://www.met-

amute.org/editorial/articles/military-operations-urban-planning20. Paul Virillio, “Speed and politics”, translated by Marc Polizzo±i,

Semiotext(e), 2006 21. Paul Virillio, “Fahren, Fahren, Fahren…”, Merve Verlag Berlin22. Peter Sloterdijk “In the interior of the capital”, Wiley-Black-

well, 201323. Shane Gun�er, “‚You Belong Outside‘: Advertising, Nature,

and the SUV”, Ethic and Environment; Fall 2044; 9,2; Re-search Library, p. 4-32

24. Ste¶en Böhm, Campbell Jones, Chris Land and Ma±hew Pat-erson “Again� Automobility”, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006

25. Stephen Graham “Cities under siege. The new military urban-ism”, Verso 2011

26. “Soviet Topographic Map Symbols”, Headquarters, Depart-ment of the Army June 1958

27. Timothy Mitchell “Carbon Democracy, Economy and Society”, 2009, available online: h±p://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085140903020598

28. Thomas Hobbes “Leviathan: Or the Ma±er, Forme, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesia�icall and Civill, Yale University Press, 2010

29. , «Поводив хоровод», блог РадиоЭхоМосквы , 29 ÓÓÓÓÓÓ 2012. Available online: h±p://echo.msk.ru/blog/b_akun-in/853623-echo/

30. В. В. Косточкин. Государев мастер Федор Конь. М., издательство „Наука“, 1964.

31. В.В. Косточкин. Русское оборонное зодчество конца XIII - начала XVI веков. М., Издательство Академии наук, 1962

32. Г.Д. Дубелир, «Грунтовые дороги», Киев, 191433. И. Карпюк, «Больше трех авто уже митинг», article at polit.

ru, 29/04/ 2010. Available online: h±p://www.polit.ru/arti-cle/2010/04/29/auto/

34. Захаров, «Парад и пробки или Путин играет Брежнева», article at polit.ru, 27/04/2012. Available online: h±p://polit.ru/article/2012/04/27/parad/

35. Н.Н. Воронин “Московский Кремль (1156-1367 ÓÓ.)”, Материалы и исследования по археологии СССР, №77 (Метательная артиллерия и оборонительные сооружения), 1958 г. стр. 57-66.

36. П.А. Раппопорт, “Древние русские крепости”. М., 1965.37. Р. Кононенко “Автомобильность а России”, М. : ООО

«Вариант», ЦСПГИ, 2011.

fi g. 1

fi g. 2: Russian tsar Nikolai II is building the road to Siberia

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fig. 5: Soviet po�er from 1960, ‘Glory to soviet people, pioneer of the Space’

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fi g. 8: Police � ation on the Moscow roads

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fig. 9

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fi g. 10: Russian road police 49

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fi g. 12: ‘Audi’ advertisement in 2014

fi g. 11: ‘Audi’ advertisement in 1970s

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image 13

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fi g. 16

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Urban planning during Soviet times meant planning for war. Moscow, at the heart of the Soviet empire and the mo� defended city, refle�s this �rategic planning to its full extent. Its broad pro¤e�s and boulevards �ill recall emergency landing runways, while baseless deep metro tunnels recall emergency bomb shelters.

De¤ite the new �rategic war concept based on information technology1, Russia has �ill not moved on from the urban planning of the pa�, which aims to provide safety for the heart of the empire in case of nuclear war. There are approximately 150 war-�rategic obje�s (o¨ces, polygons, houses) within the border of the city, which are not accessible to citizens. Together with the “�rategic” road network, which includes two rings, all main radial roads and ¤ecial deep subway lines, they create a city within a city, providing a quick and secure means of evacuation for the leadership of Moscow.

Additionally there are command po�s deep underground in urban Moscow. One is located adjacent to Moscow State University. It is e�imated to be 200-300 m deep and can accommodate an e�imated 10,000 people.2 The ground surface above these facilities is covered with garages. Former garage cooperatives con�ru�ed in this area, designed not to a±ra� the a±ention of citizens, have been transformed into a migrants’ ghe±o called Shanghai.3 Being a dangerous enclave of the city, Shanghai is the perfe� camouflage for what lies underground.

The vice president of TransStroy [Tran�ort Con�ruion], the company in charge of tran¤ortation con�ru�ion, met us in his o¨ce, housed in one of seven Moscow skyscrapers built in the 1950s. Mr. Sbitnev has worked in the same room for 27 years and has done his be� to keep its original interior. “As long as I am alive, I will keep it unchanged.” This position is common for any que�ion we ask, including the main concept of city development.

1 The Net-centric warfare based on information technology and robu� networking of well-informed geographically di¤ersed forces information network was fir� introduced in 1990s by United State Department of Defense and highly used by global �ate forces to influence the war confli�

2 According to the material published in 1991 in Military Forces in Transition magazine, Washington, USA3 See proje� “SHANGHAI MOSCOW” by ELA MAZINA

Moscow-2 by Olena Grankina

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…

O: “Your organization built the metro in Moscow. Does Metro-2 exi�?”Mr. S.: “Yes”O: “Can we see/ have some material on it (schemes etc)?”Mr. S.: “I receive a 25% bonus to my salary because I keep it a secret”4 O: “When was the Metro-2 built?”Mr. S.: “Always, since the very beginning of Soviet Union”E: “I’m researching the garages behind MSU. Is it true that Metro-2 is under these slums?”Mr. S.:”I recommend you not to research it. From 10 to 25 years in a prison.”

→ [see image below]

E: ... “Thank you”Mr. S.: “And you are asking about this... Tell me; do you want Russia to exi�?”E: “Yes” Mr. S.: “THEN WE NEED METRO-2, WE NEED MOSCOW-2! THIS IS THE STATE! THIS THE WAY TO KEEP IT THE STATE!!!”

4 There was a salary sy�em in Soviet Union, which provides higher salary for those who dealt with secret materials

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Moscow-2 Pocket Article

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MKA City

№2

→ [see fig. 1]

fig. 1

by Giulio Margheri / Roel van Herpt

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Opened to the public in 1962, the 109km MKAD ¤ent decades as a countryside ring road for redire�ing tra¨c around the city of Moscow. However, aµer the USSR collapsed, the area around the road �arted to urbanize rapidly and the ring became more and more conge�ed. Numerous petrol �ations, repair shops, mega malls, leisure centers, and o¨ces turned the MKAD ring road into a Po�-Soviet City: a place filled with de�inations, all conne�ed by the ring and accessible by car.

MKAD Border Road

Throughout hi�ory, the city of Moscow has experienced a concentric growth, with the Kremlin always at its core. As the city population grew, radial roads that led outside the city were framed by new and increasingly larger concentric borders that added land to the exi�ing city.

From the city’s founding in the 12th century until the end of the 19th century, the border of the city was defined by walls and ramparts that defended the city from outside forces. Aµer the invention of mobile artillery in the 18th century, defense walls gradually lo� their prote�ive fun�ion and were converted into concentric boulevards. In 1960, a new ring became the admini�rative border of Moscow. This time the border was not a defense �ru�ure, but a 109km ring road for redire�ing incoming tra¨c around the city. The ring was called Moskovskaya Koltsevaya Avtomobilnaya Doroga, be±er known as MKAD.

→ [see fig. 2, 3]

The MKAD was designed in the second half of the 1930s. However, due to World War II, a simplified road was quickly built in 1941 to tran¤ort troops and military equipment. In the mid-1950s, con�ru�ion �arted to make the MKAD accessible to the public and in 1962 a completed four-lane MKAD opened. Aµer the dissolution of the Soviet Union, plans emerged to improve road safety and future tra¨c circulation on the MKAD. An upgraded MKAD opened in 1997. The road was enlarged to 10 lanes, all tra¨c lights were removed, and pede�rian bridges and a concrete barrier were added. Until today, the MKAD ring road is the mo� important physical and mental border of the city. This ring is the key element that separates Muscovites from people living outside the city.

→ [see fig. 4]

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Main ArticleMKA City

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From Ring Road To Urban Ring

Tra¨c jams are the principal urban routine for people who regularly drive along the MKAD. Circumventing the MKAD takes on average twice as much time as it should do in free-flowing tra¨c. This is the irony of the ring road: although built to improve tra¨c circulation, the MKAD has become a heavily conge�ed ring. A major source of conge�ion is the urbanization of the land along the MKAD. Nowadays, in a radius of 500 meters around the road, approximately 430 services can be found, including petrol �ations, car dealers, car repair shops, shopping malls, mega�ores, hotels, cinemas, and o¨ces. These ubiquitous services are a contemporary phenomenon. In the fir� three decades of its exi�ence, the MKAD ho�ed ju� a few petrol �ations. Only aµer the collapse of the USSR in 1991 did more and varied services begin to appear along the ring. In particular, aµer 1997, when the MKAD was enlarged from 4 to 10 lanes, the number of services boomed.

→ [see fig. 5]

Land politics have influenced the urbanization of the MKAD. Although enlarged aµer 1984, the admini�rative border of Moscow �ill followed the MKAD to a large extent when the boom in services took place. In this period, the adjacent region Moscow Obla� o¶ered lower land prices to proje� developers. Their new and oµen large development proje�s, including IKEAs, large shopping malls and entertainment halls, took place on the outside of the ring. As a result, the city of Moscow grew outside its border.

→ [see fig. 6]

Surprisingly, many of the services on both the inside and outside of the MKAD are dire�-ly conne�ed to the ring. Of its 336 exits in total, 192 exits immediately lead to an enclave ho�ing di¶erent services. This condition is absolutely unique in the world: compared to ring roads in cities like Beijing, Caïro, Paris, and Washington DC, the MKAD on average has 14 times more dire� exits per kilometer. These type of exi�s symbolize the trans-formation of the MKAD from a road for improving tra¨c circulation into an urban ring full of de�inations. Over the la� two decades, the MKAD has become a po�-Soviet city. Whereas life in the USSR was chara�erized by limited choice for consumption and re-�ri�ed car ownership for the majority of people, MKAD City is all about cars and con-sumption. An ecle�ic mix of fun�ions accommodate di¶erent life�yles: the less well-o¶ shop at the cheap Sadovod immigrant market, the middle class is served by IKEA �ores and their MEGA shopping malls, and wealthy Muscovites go shopping at the luxurious Crocus City Mall. And everything in the mix is conne�ed through a conge�ed ring.

→ [see fig. 7, 8, 9, 10]

An Urban Boulevard

Moscow continues to grow. The population of Moscow and Moscow Obla� combined is expe�ed to increase from approximately 19 million today to 21.5 million by 2030. The physical size of the city is also growing. In the summer of 2012, New Moscow — an area southwe� of the exi�ing city — was added to the city’s admini�rative border, thereby multiplying the size of Moscow by 2.35. In addition, the 525km CKAD ring road is planned to open in 2025 to redire� incoming tra¨c around greater Moscow. With these measures, the city appears to continue its concentric growth �rategy.

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However, planned development proje�s in Moscow reveal a di¶erent image. New o¨ces and retail centers do not follow the 2012 border extension, nor are they appearing along the new ring road. All development proje�s are planned within or close to the exi�ing city. Part of these new developments will take place on the MKAD, causing MKAD City to grow further, to a±ra� more tra¨c, and become increasingly conge�ed.

→ [see fig. 11]

The MKAD is on the brink. Either it develops into a highway according to international �andards, or it embraces its peculiar and unplanned condition. The fir� �rategy requires a top-down approach to improve jun�ions and seriously reduce the number of exits. In exchange for improved circulation, the accessibility of de�inations along the ring will be decreased. An alternative solution seems more fit for the already city-like but heavily conge�ed MKAD; a solution that improves tra¨c flow and at the same time reinforces the current qualities and ongoing transformation of the MKAD.

The MKAD’s future is that of an urban boulevard. In this scenario, two of its current car lanes on both sides are redi�ributed to modes of public tran¤ort. Urban railways and fa� buses increase the amount of people using the MKAD by 5 to 6 times. The outer lanes are dedicated to slower car tra¨c, thereby easing tra¨c flow for cars that aim to exit the ring. Moreover, a set of new transferia integrate the boulevard in the larger traf-fic network of Moscow. These transit nodes, built on places where new metro lines and exi�ing car and rail roads interse�, allow people to change between di¶erent types of tran¤ort. Finally, new developments enlarge the exi�ing urban enclaves along the ring and create new ones. To increase their accessibility, new road conne�ions in-between enclaves are created. These redire� de�ination tra¨c from the boulevard and improve circulation for drivers on the ring.

→ [see fig. 12]

Although designed as a circular highway, the MKAD has become a continuous �rip that conne�s a multitude of de�inations sca±ered around the city. Unintentionally, it has created a unique opportunity for hyperaccessibility. This opportunity, although current-ly fru�rated by tra¨c conge�ion, should be embraced and amplified. The MKAD is not the highway it once was and returning it to this condition seems implausible. Ju� as the former defense walls were converted into boulevards and absorbed by the city, so the MKAD is transforming from a ring road into an urbanized area with its own car-based culture. As Moscow expands, the MKAD urban boulevard is not a border road anymore, but forms an integral part of the concentric city.

→ [see fig. 13, 14]

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fi g. 2

MKAD 1941 MKAD 1997

MKAD 1962 fi g. 4: MKAD 2014

fi g. 3: Concentric borders of Moscow throughout hi� ory

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fi g. 5: Development of services along the MKAD

fi g. 6: MKAD developments inside and outside the admini� rative border of Moscow

fi g. 7: Exits on ring roads around the world61


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fi g. 8: MKAD exits

fi g. 9: Enclaves with services, all conne� ed through the ring62

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fi g. 10: MKAD City — images with help of Sergei Chervakov and Saveliy Lobanov

fi g. 11: New retail and o ce developments in Moscow (leµ ) and at the MKAD (right)

fi g. 9: Enclaves with services, all conne� ed through the ring 63


64

fig. 12: Di¶erent modes of transit increase the capacity of the MKAD New transferia improve the conne�ivity of the MKAD New road conne�ions increase the accessibility of the enclaves

fig. 13: MKAD 2030 — an urban boulevard

MKAD 2014 — a shopping �reet for cars

MKAD 1997 — a road in the countryside

fig. 14: MKAD Urban Boulevard64

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65fi g. 14: MKAD Urban Boulevard

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→ [fig.1: US highway design manual]

The mo� unique and remarkable feature of the MKAD is its exits. The exits are ¤ecial both in number and design. Comparing the amount of exits of the MKAD with similar ring roads around the world, the Moscow ring on average has 3 times more exits per kilome-ter. Considering only the exits that give dire� access to services conne�ed to the ring, the MKAD has 14 times more exits.

The Moscow ring road and its exits form the ¤ine of a car-based sy�em that conne�s all kinds of services, from cheap markets to middle-class shopping malls and high-end shops. Every service or clu�er of services is located on a kind of a¤halt island, an enclave that is dire�ly conne�ed to the ring and accessible only by car.

The relationship between the designed ¤eed on the main road and the designed ¤eed on interse�ing roads is very particular on the MKAD. In regular highway design pra�ice, road exits and entrances should enable vehicles to leave and enter the main road at no less than 50% of the highway’s designed ¤eed (70% is usual, 85% is desirable). On the MKAD, however, exits lead oµen to services or smaller �reets by crossroads or T conne�ions that force car drivers to dra�ically reduce their ¤eed, while at the same time a proper lane for ¤eed redu�ion is non-exi�ent. This inconvenience in design creates problems also for drivers who are forced to quickly accelerate when entering the MKAD’s main road. It happens because in many places the exits and entrances overlap, rather than being separated, as with typical highway design.

Exit MKAD

by Giulio Margheri /

Roel van Herpt

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→ [fig. 2, 3: Short MKAD exits force drivers to dra�ically reduce their ¤eed]

The exits become even more intere�ing when looking at the de�inations they lead to. At MKAD km 45, an exit leads dire�ly onto a dirt road that runs through dense vegetation to a set of rural houses. Similar situations of dirt road that enter on the MKAD can be found at other places along the ring, for example at MKAD km 97 where the MKAD interse�s a small road that disappears into a tunnel made out of vegetation.

→ [fig. 4: MKAD exit km 45]

At MKAD km 42, the main road gives dire� access to an open-air market. Here, in ju� a few meters from the regularly-occurring tra¨c jams, it is possible to buy fruits, vegeta-bles, and to see dogs hanging around.



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At MKAD km 35, an exit, which is a�ually ju� a broadening of the road, creates a small parking area where drivers can �op immediately next to the main road to have some fa� food or drinks.


At MKAD km 5, a blue gate located on the main road provides access to a series of Soviet garages.


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At MKAD km 14, the exit leads dire�ly to a very busy and cheap market. On the main �reet near the interse�ion, taxi drivers wait in a line for clients to load their shopping bags into the taxis.


The exits of the MKAD already �and out for their number and design. Their eccentricity becomes even more apparent when zooming in at the de�inations they lead to. The exits represent anything but good highway design. The enormous boom of the pa� 20 years around the MKAD is refle�ed on the road by the number of exits. At the same time the exits of the MKAD are a peculiarity and a potentiality of the road which should be devel-oped rather than changed.

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Pocket ArticleExit MKAD

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The intention of this �udy is to under�and the process of communication between car, driver and the environment (city). The a�empt is to in-ve�igate all possible a�es of how the car is related to di�erent types of media. How has this relationship developed? Is the car itself a medium? Or ju� the message?

Media: (single: medium) — an agency or means of communication process. If we think about the car it would be all agencies of communication between driver, car and environment.

Driver: a person who is using the car in the city for di¶erent purposes.

Environment: all a¤e�s, obje�s and interconne�ions of the city that are related to the driving process.

The Car is the Medium

by Irina Eremenko

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Inside / Outside

While driving, one is surrounded by the huge quantity of media: outside and inside the car.

“Outside the car” media “containers” di¤lay an abundance of information, which presents itself during driving time. We have got so used to the media that we do not appreciate it anymore. Analysing it individually, one realizes what a massive flow of information targets the driver.

In a single moment, the driver has to deal with information about:

● driving code● di�ances and dire�ions● advertisements● car services● entertainment services● parking● information about other cars: plates, aerogaphy● security sy�em warnings etc.

Information is also provided to the driver by “inside the car“ media. Since the 1960s, “inside the car“ media has dramatically developed and is refle�ed in many types of digital gadget:

● car audio sy�ems● radio● navigation sy�ems● security sy�ems● dash cam● mobile phone etc.

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Intere�ingly, the development of inside and outside the car media was totally di¶erent.

“Outside the car“ media developed in content and size but not in mediums. For example, di¶erent types of billboard �ill exi�. They do not change their fun�ion, only their content. So do magazines and new¤apers. Granted, magazines now have digital versions, but they don’t have additional features. One can’t use a billboard to change people’s daily routines. It is �ill ju� an image.

Trying to under�and how this pi�ure developed throughout time, one can analyse its mo� prominent expression: the �rategy of car placement in advertisements. This image permanently changed due to the �ate of society. Via their advertisements, car producers provided di¶erent messages to the population. It is their refle�ion on how society wants to use the car: as a sign of pro¤erity, or a symbol of your intention to be eco-friendly.

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In the prerevolutionary period, the car was considered a luxury item. At that time, all cars were imported. The Soviet period was chara�erized by incredible indu�rial growth, so the car became a symbol, representing the idea of a “brilliant future”. It was also a sign of a freedom in a very re�ri�ed country. In the 1980-90s, in general the technical develop-ment of car slowed down and turned into modernization of a particular a¤e� of the car: new eco-engines, ¤eed, price forming. Today the mass trend is to sell to all possible options by using di¶erent price policies.

On the contrary, “inside the car” media accumulated ever-new fun�ions over time. For in�ance, the navigation sy�em is �ill a digital version of a paper map, but it has the fun�ion of creating and monitoring routes. You can change your journey according to the analysis of the road situation.

“Inside the car” media is also very widely used in terms of personalisation of the car, e.g. a driver can decide for himself what features he wants inside the car.

Since the invention of the car radio, the number of digital devices has increased dramat-ically, culminating in today’s key invention, the navigation sy�em. If one tries to under-�and the di¶erence in communication with the city before the navigation sy�em, it ap-pears that the navigation sy�em has allowed the car to produce new information for the city. This �atement could be the basis for the following one: while trying to research all the media conne�ed to the car retro¤e�ively, one discovers that from the time of the introdu�ion of the navigation sy�em, the car has made the transition “media obje�” to “media subje�”. Given the fa� that through the navigation sy�em the car itself �arted to produce and add information to the city, now it can draw many di¶erent pi�ures of it.

The Car as a Media Subje�

Today we use cars to invent and give fun�ions that allow us to communicate with the environment.

The car itself become a medium between environment and driver, because it forms the relationship between the driver and the city. The car is no longer perceived from outside, but gets internalized as a live performer.

In other words we delegate some of our a�ions and fun�ions to the car and, of course, methods of gathering and perceiving the information have changed due to that. The car gives us a new context in isolation. Previously we were supposed to �ep out from the car and ask people on �reets “How to find the library?”, for example. There was a chain of info kiosks, “Mosgor¤ravka“, where we could find all information we needed by asking a di¤atcher. Now we drive through the city like “cosmonauts”, ju� typing addresses into our navigation sy�ems and going from A to B. So we sub�itute using our real voices for using a gadget.

Another new context lies in the field of communication between cars, represented by “Yandex tra¨c application”. We inform each other about tra¨c jams or accidents.

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Franken�ein

Step by �ep, “inside the car” media and services were included in the car. For example, the mobile phone was fir� used as a hand-held device; thanks to Bluetooth technology, it was later integrated dire�ly into the dashboard. You can even leave the phone in your pocket and use it. It represents how we have incorporated our voice into the body of the car. The dashboard has become a continuation of our vocal apparatus.

The more this process of implantation increases, the more we delegate tasks to our cars. If “inside the car” media (gadgets) are supposed to be extensions of the human body, we can hypothesize that the car itself is the media extension of the human body.

John Urry explains this phenomenon in his book “Inhabiting the Car” with the claim that “Automobility is a Franken�ein-created mon�er, extending the individual into realms of freedom and flexibility…” Of what parts does our Franken�ein consi�? What exa�ly are we using to extend our abilities?

One can divide all extensions into ➂ types according to their fun�ion.

Physical extensions. This category includes the car itself as a technical solution to enable us to cover longer di�ances. This is an extension of our legs. Humans can travel 5 kilo-metres per hour; a contemporary ¤orts car can travel 388. Di¶erent types of gear box allow us to use our hands less in our driving process. Onboard computers have enlarged the “size” of our memory. Now drivers do not need to calculate the amount of kilometres passed before they have to change the motor oil; computer sy�ems do it for them.

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Another category is about extensions of our senses. Radio extends our hearing. Navigation enablesour eyes to see beyond the horizon. Dash cams can keep our eyes open all day long.

And the mo� diverse category is performance extensions. We use tinting on windows in the same way we wear sunglasses. Aerography is our new ta±oo. The colour of the car refle�s our ta�e in clothes. We can show o¶ our power through the muscle car. And size also ma±ers. You can buy a big Jeep or a li±le Smartcar. We use di¶erent pieces of dec-oration to add a sense of �yle to our “clothes”. We can reveal our identity through the car plate. We can even modify the logo and say “I am a Batman” to everybody.

How can this typology be used? So far we have di¶erent parts of our body and can draw the anthropometric portrait of a car. The Moscow car, for example. Stati�ical research will give us a pi�ure of a Muscovite male who wears black clothes with small decoration elements; big eyes; loud voice and… short legs. It can be interpreted in the way that, due to the �ate of the tran¤ort sy�em, the car in Moscow is becoming increasingly a means of performance, a symbol, but not a means of tran¤ortation.

On average, no one part is leading. It is invisible how much we are delegating to di¶er-ent extensions. But in terms of finding di¶erent types of cyborgs, it is intere�ing to look to the maximum deviations from the average. The following interviewees represent the mo� “unusual” extensions.

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Physical extensions: BMW 5 series Touring.

“The only one tuned BMW 5 series (E61)Touring in Moscow…” At the fir� sight this is normal car. However, it contains a hidden treasure. Engine, brakes and su¤ension are handmade by the owner. “My car should have a kit look: from outside it should be �ylish but serious. No useless bright �ickers and other decoration. All additions are hidden inside.” Looking at this car from the point of view of fun�ion delegation, we see that this driver wants to be the one who is leading in the driving process. He will never hand over re¤onsibility for decision making to his car. Even the parking help sy�em was broken a year ago and he totally forgot about it. It is intere�ing, by the way, that aµer all these extensions have been added, the driver’s perception of freedom has immediately increased.

Extensions of senses: Ford Explorer. Proje� “Sens-o-car”.

This car is “…the in�rument for �udying the human as a driver... Without di�ra�-ing the driver’s a±ention from the road, the car can analyse his/her a�ivity and sug-ge� some services…” It can even make a po� on Facebook on your behalf and was designed to be a life hack for the driver: to analyse, for example, your routine trip from home to work and sugge� the be� decision for today — what road you should choose, where it would be fa�er to buy a co¶ee, and what time you need to finish your work in order to be at the gym in time. It can send you a SMS with all this information. In con-tra� to the previous car, this one is supposed to take part in human refle�ion. Not only the fun�ions, but even the decision making. We can infer that this cyborg is very self-su¨cient and that the driver is under the control of the devices — however, he imagines his life has become more free and flexible.

Anton Lisovets. Owner, car �yli�

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Performance extensions: Daewoo Nexia with aerography.

“This car is a refle�ion of my passions: drawing and horses... ”. In this case, the car was used as a canvas; it visually refle�s the driver’s personality. The owner also mentioned that her perception of freedom aµer adding this extension increased.

The interviews show that de¤ite the fa� that the adopted “media” were completely di¶erent, the drivers’ perception of freedom increased aµer adding the extensions.

However, the delegation of human fun�ions to the car in these three groups is totally di¶erent.

Alexey Khokhulin. Proje� developer

Ekaterina Gerasimova. Owner, arti�

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Conclusion

Considering the idea of the car as an extension of the human body, the relationship between the participants in the communication process — car, driver, environment — has changed. The car and the driver have merged into one: the anthropocar. Communication is now happening between the anthropocar and the city. While the driver is inside the car, they are a�ing as one subje�.

One needs to rethink the common usage of word “media” in terms of cars and the theory of extensions of the human body. It seems that the car media in this discourse could be any part or unit of the car which was added or modified in order to send some message to the outside world. It could be either a powerful engine, which produces a loud noise and occupies the city’s sound ¤ace, or it could be a life hack sy�em, which communi-cates with the city on your behalf .

This li±le switch in under�anding car media can a�ually explain a whole new world of communication. People are using their cars to create and follow their own ways of intera�ing with the city. And it is di¶erent in every case.

Keeping this in mind we can say that every car media is creating a new “¤ecies”. Global trends are leading us to the driverless car, and this technology could result in new, and even larger, Franken�eins.

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How To Wear The Kit Look

Interview with Anton Lisovets by Irina Eremenko

Anton is a ¤eciali� in car �yling, owner of the “True Parts” online shop.

Name of The Car: SarayModel: Bmw 5 series Touring (E61)

Date of Birth: 2005Engine: 3.0 TD/280 HP

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How did you come up with the idea of making cars your hobby?This �ory �arted in my childhood, when I was 12 years old. Fir�ly I was intere�ed in auto ¤ort - drag races, then circuit races. I broke my fir� car aµer two weeks of driving. I �art-ed to read a lot and �udy the subje�. I came to realise that all sources were saying pre±y much the same thing, but I wanted to find something exclusive, which muscovite and Russian car drivers in general do not deal with. I �arted to �udy foreign forums. Of course, in the very beginning I used Russian cars, VAZ. At some point my driver’s license expired and that became the turning point, when I got really intere�ed in car tuning. I �arted to modify the engine, brakes and su¤ension. I in�alled a compressor engine, handmade brakes, a ¤orts �eering wheel. I got rid of all the seats, besides the driver’s one. A�ually only a few details would reveal that this was a VAZ-2108.

Then I switched to foreign cars — “inomarki”. The level of the task’s complexity increased immediately. Every time, you need to find very rare parts from all over the world. Now I only look for really exclusive car parts; I do not use mass market produ�s.

What car do you have now?I have the only tuned BMW E61 Touring in Moscow, with remote-control air su¤ension con�ru�ed from car parts from di¶erent models. This technical solution allows me to make a car with minimum clearance. This is the mo� intere�ing a¤e� for me now. In the highe� position, the su¤ension makes the car even lower than the �andard one; in the lowe�, your car is ju� lying on the ground.

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Also, when you have a modified su¤ension sy�em you cannot use ordinary wheels. It leads us to the new �yle — “�ance”. It means that the tyres are wider than the disks. Then you have a fa� car, and it means that you need to carry out a chip tuning to increase horse power. I have increased this amount from 210 to 300 hp. Then you have a powerful engine and su¤ension. And what about brakes? I think that brakes are the fir� thing you need to think about. If you want to have a good ride, you need to have good brakes!

What is more important about the car: to look �ylish or to be technically modified? Both. It’s complex. It should have a “kit look” outside, to look serious and �ylish. No useless �ickers and bright pi�ures. From inside it should be exclusive and hand made. At the end you have very good-looking and dynamic automobile. But �ill the priority for me is to modify the technical a¤e�s.

Are there any re�ri�ions which appeared a�er adding all these technical solutions? A�ually I am always asked how I can drive when my car is ju� 2cm from the a¤halt. It does not �op me. I believe that the car was made for driving and there is no sense modifying it and then ju� �oring it somewhere.

As far as I know your hobby transferred into work at some point. Is that true? Yes. I have an internet shop called True Parts. Again: no mass market produ�s, only good quality, rare car replacement parts. I don’t have any decorations, only unique body kits.

What do cars mean for you in general? Is it freedom, self-realisation, ¡ort, or something else?My car is a self-expression, because I do not like to be similar to the majority and I am saying it through cars. I don’t under�and how others can use totally the same cars as thousands of people do. It is a failure for me. I want to create something that others can’t. I am expressing myself in car �yling.

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Drivers o�en become very close to their cars. When do you know that it’s time to buy a new one? To be hone�, I’m in love not with the car but with the tuning that I have done. That’s why when everything is finished it becomes less intere�ing for me. Another way to decide is to under�and that even if I have the idea of further improving, I ju� can’t do it physically, because of the technical re�ri�ions.

Does your current car have a name? Saray. Because it is a Touring version and it is a very rare car to be tuned. A�ually from the very beginning nobody under�ood why I had turned from hatchbacks to touring models. Particularly because of this: it is intere�ing to do things that are not so obvious to do. To tune the Touring.

Have your ever heard that your car looks similar to you? Like dogs sometimes looks similar to their owners? Not oµen. Sometimes a very un�ylish guy owns a really cool car and vice versa. A�ually I am well-known in the internet community and of course my car is too. So, people ju� know me and then they are associating my personality with a particular car.

If you think of a car as an in�rument of freedom, did all this technical additions influence your feeling of freedom? In what way?I can say that all these additions increased that feeling, but on di¶erent levels. Fir� of all, other drivers sometimes give way to me ju� because they are looking at my car. The other level is that this car is helping me in self-realization; I have become pre±y well-known in certain communities.

Cars are developing very fa� in general. A lot of di¥erent gadgets, which are supposed to carry out tasks for us, are appearing all the time — automatic parking sy�ems or emergency brake sy�ems, for example. How many human fun�ions are you ready to delegate to your car? A�ually I used to have cars with no supporting sy�ems. I prefer a mechanical gearbox in�ead of automatic. It is funny, but my parking help sy�em broke 18 months ago and I totally forgot about it. I don’t need it. I want to a�ually DRIVE the car, to be the one who is controlling the whole situation.

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Se� ion B

Driving. Stops. City.Pocket Article: Ithaka

Shanghai MoscowPocket Article: Shanghai Routines

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STOP!B

Considering the urban routine of si± ing in a tra c jam in Moscow, the routine of driving is a� ually a routine of � opping. This urban routine is a perfe� example where the drive, as Paul Virilio explains, “… turns into a sheer indi¤ osition of waiting till the arrival”. Yet one needs to be aware that it is the � ops, the high density of de� inations, that creates importance for a place.

When arrived at its fi nal de� ination, a car immediately becomes a burden: where to park it? In Moscow, cars seem to be parked everywhere except in garages. These hi� ory-loaded private garages seem to have been too valuable for parking ever since their beginning, as ‘Shanghai’, Moscow’s mo� famous garage dwelling, shows. Recognized as a valuable urban typology, garages have the potential to become an o cial tool for development in Moscow.

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This research is dedicated to �ops. Stops are a particular moment in driving routines that conne� the city and a person.

The city itself is a produ� of and a tool for human a�ivity. While participating in city life, a person follows their own in�in�s, needs and wishes. These recurring a�ivities become pa±erns and thus become urban routines.

Moscow is the bigge� city in Russia, and one of the world’s mo� conge�ed metropolises, having somewhere between 300 and 380 cars per 1,000 citizens. Over 12 million inhabitants drive almo� five million cars — ¤ending a total of more than 600 million hours per year si±ing in tra¨c jams. This mode� e�imation leads to the under�anding of Moscow as a car city. Car-related a�ivities, such as driving, si±ing in tra¨c jams and le±ing pede�rians cross the road, are the main components of urban tra¨c routines. From the driving per¤e�ive, the city is a place where you have to �op.

Driving. Stops. City.

in memoriam Nata

by Alexander Ayoupov

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Driving A�ivity

… they remind you of the beauty of pre�y simple things. You forget, because you’re so busy going from A to Z, that there’s 24 le�ers in between…

-- Infe�ed Mushroom, Drop Out

In fa� we can see driving as a process of �opping. Driving a�ivity can be perceived from two �andpoints: as ‘ge±ing from point A to point B’ and as ‘ge±ing from point A to somewhere’. Driving a�ivity is rarely performed for the sake of the a�ivity itself, ju� for pra�ice. In this regard, the focus of the current research mu� be refined and detailed.

Driving a�ivity forms the driving routine. A person drives from home to work, from work to shop, from shop to home. Driving routine has its own time scale: to buy groceries for the whole week, to visit family, to see a country house. Driving requires a vehicle and a ¤ace to drive in. In terms of ¤ace, the driver travels from one point to another, but barely notices the �ops he makes while driving. To intera� with the city, to participate in other city a�ivities, a driver has to �op. The whole experience of driving consi�s of the �ops.

This research is aimed to prove that a �op is ➀ an opportunity for a driver to gra¤ and claim the ¤ace; ➁ an indicator of urban a�ivity; and ➂ a tool for identifying a driving city.

From Space to Place

Found himself out into the road -- the du� up to his nose --put that anchor downto find a place where he could go,‘cause he was looking for the shelterfrom the �orm.

-- Patrick Watson, The Storm

Place is a private ¤ace. A car is privacy itself, a mobile place. When a driver �ops and gets out of the car, he ¤reads his privacy to the surroundings. The �op therefore is a possibility for a person to create a place out of ¤ace.

Fig. 1 represents the model of ¤ace to place transition. Although this model was in¤ired by ideas of Henri Lefebvre and Marc Augé, it has �rong conne�ion to the ¤atial frame-work of Robert Sack: “Place implies ¤ace, and each home is a place in ¤ace. Space is a property of the natural world, but it can be experienced. From the per¤e�ive of experience, place di¶ers from ¤ace in terms of familiarity and time. A place requires human agency, is something that may take time to know, and a home e¤ecially so. As we move along the earth we pass from one place to another. But if we move quickly the places blur; we lose track of their qualities, and they may coalesce into the sense that we are moving through ¤ace.”

→ [see fig. 1]

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Main ArticleDriving. Stops. City

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When a person plans his trip to a familiar de�ination, he has a mental map of the route. Usually there is no place for �ops in this route; driving is automated and, therefore, a driver does not perceive �ops. But eventually �ops happen, expe�ed or not. Then a driver has an opportunity to relate to the ¤ace, produce a place out of it and update his mental map with a new ¤ot. The �op is a crucial point when a driver can change their focus from the transition to the location. Creation of a place out of a ¤ace is a change from continuous feeling to concrete. A driver may have to �op o¶ several times to e�ablish the link between the ¤ace and mental map. To claim the ¤ace, a person has to change it physically.

On one of our field trips, we discovered a ¤ecial place on the 3rd tran¤ort ring. It is a ¤ace intended for technical �ops, but people ju� �op by there. Later, we found three references to that place from di¶erent people, defending this ¤ot as a nice observation point. This ¤ot is a border place: on the one hand, it o¶ers the perfe� opportunity to admire the controversy and �aleness of Moscow-City business di�ri� archite�ure; on the other hand, an observer is locked in by the intense tra¨c behind him. It is worth paying a±ention to the source of this pi�ure: it was taken by a Google car, by chance, and put on Google Street View.

→ [see fig. 2]

Terminal �ops, which end with the death of a person, are another way to claim ¤ace. Aµer an accident happens, relatives and friends of the deceased mark the place with cenotaphs1, flowers and personal items. Thus a place of tragedy is translated into one of memorial, from mental map to the ¤ace. According to research by Anna Sokolova from In�itute of Ethnography and Anthropology, 80-90% of memorial places are marked. These marks have no chance to survive in Moscow as they are removed by communal services very quickly. Some places are even receiving archite�ural expression. The example on Fig. 3 shows 25km of the Moscow-Crimea road with a cenotaph and chapel to Shandor, the late gypsy singer.

→ [see fig.3]

It is in human nature to conquer and modify a ¤ace. Even throwing an empty can from a car window changes the environment. Once the place has the markers of a dump, people add more and more garbage to it. Similar to the processes of relieving oneself, dumping is contradi�ory in its social nature — it has to be done in secret, but if everyone does it in one place, then you can li±er freely.

→ [see fig. 4]

Stops create places. People who share their places with others create common places and then — possibly — social ones, by defining the rules and rituals. For in�ance, car races on Vorobyevy Gory �arted as a meeting point for a few enthusia�s. Now this place, which exi�s only at night, is supported by hundreds of drivers. The mo� inter-e�ing thing is that it is temporary — aµer the initial gathering, di¶erent groups di¤erse themselves around the city.

1 Cenotaph — literally ‘empty tomb’ from Greek, a tomb or monument without a�ual remains of deceased, usually con�ru�ed on a place of death.

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Framing The City By Stops

Get in the car, get in the car!We keep it running but you won’t get far!We got velocity!The next �op is Atro City!

-- Lo�prophets, Next Stop Atro City

The city may be one big place, but on a larger scale it is merely a �op in a journey across the country. Approaching the que�ion from a fun�ional per¤e�ive, we can define the city as a place of high density and frequency of events. Here are two pi�ures framing the city using di¶erent tools: fir� is a NOAA-NASA aerial photo of Moscow lit by night; the second is a Twi±er map created using geodata of computer users. The fir� shows more the ‘o¨cial’ city — density of the mo� basic urban commodity — while the second o¶ers a map of internet-conne�ed citizen events.

→ [see fig. 5]

If a car �ops, something happens; an event occurs. An event is a combination of three things: where, when and what. Assuming that the �op o¶ers a possibility of interac-tion with environment, the analysis of big data of �ops could be used for identification of places. In 2013, there was a major release of GPS-tracks from OpenStreetMap (OSM) which allowed the extra�ion of 466,000 �ops from 160 million track points and pro-cessing them with GIS soµware.

City of Density

Without going too far into qualitative analysis of reasons for �ops, the aggregated big data represented by the heat map of �ops shows that possible intera�ion and the driving city ¤rawl includes not only the Moscow MKAD Ring Road, but several kilometers of radial roads a±ached to it. Small, but identifiable, red dots represent villages and satellite towns.

→ [see fig. 6]

Grouped by time of day, these maps represent di¶erent temporal framings of the city. Morning driving city rushes to the center; daytime city is framed inside the Garden Ring and South-We�; evening city propels drivers back to the outskirts; and night city is almo� dead, having only a few anomaly ¤ots. Although this data should be taken with minor reservations2, improvements are necessary.

→ [see fig. 7]

It is possible to have an automated map of city issues with the use of obje�ive data taken from o¨cial sources. For in�ance, tra¨c police regi�ering the accidents could enhance their �ati�ics capabilities by under�anding the problematic ¤aces where accidents happen more oµen, and by taking care of it.

The density of �ops shows the density of places and depi�s the city of �ops. The higher the density, the more urbanity we have.

2 Taking into the account that this data is from relatively small number of OSM enthusia�s, it has some su¤icious tracks that needed to be filtered out.

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City of Frequency

If we take a look at definitions of urban areas, we find that this concept varies across dif-ferent countries. Main approaches include definition by the number or density of popula-tion, o¨cial recognition of an area as urban, fun�ional or the rather vague term ‘center’ (these are the analyzed definitions used by the UN and UNICEF). These approaches give li±le under�anding of the intera�ion that happens in cities. The proposal is to go from density to frequency: the more frequent �ops are, the more urban the area is. Thus a new measurement tool emerges — �ops per minute (¤m) or — for a larger scale — �ops per hour (¤h).

According to a report by Ilya Zalivukhin (Jauzaproje�, 08 April 2014), one of the problems of Moscow tra¨c is the lack of di�in�ion between city �reets and highways. Another issue is the mix of transit and public tran¤ort sy�ems. The idea that a driver does not need to �op on the highway can serve as a key point of di�in�ion between roads. The �ops-per-minute measurement unit could be used as a tool for the identification of a�ual urban or highway use of the roads.

Mo� of the �ops are elusive, not only from a driver’s per¤e�ive, but from GPS trackers too. Given the amount of time it took to condu� the research, fir� a±empts to regi�er �ops and calculate their frequency were simple: si±ing in the passenger seat and put-ting a dot in a notebook for every complete �op we made while simultaneously marking the approximate time when the �op took place. The tricky part was the choice of time slicing of the observation. Any �op could take from one second to 30 minutes. A minute was taken as the minimum amount of time. This method helps reveal hidden �ops, but is nonetheless time-consuming and not error-free.

The members of Strelka Car Studio made several field trips, which formed the basis for method application. I joined my colleague in her routine trip from pro¤ekt Vernadskogo to Strelka and back. As Moscow is famous for its tra¨c jams, we took the opportunity to experience morning and evening high conge�ion. The 43-minute jouney from Vernadskogo to Strelka had 49 �ops (¤m = 1.14). The return journey took 64 minutes with 76 �ops (¤m = 1.19). Although one can expe� a correlation between average ¤eed and ¤m value, there is no visible one. This can be explained by the fa� that each �op takes a varying amount of time.

Another example is from a day-long field trip around Moscow. Spm values were di¶er-ent on di¶erent se�ions of the road: up to 2 ¤m in tra¨c jams to the minimum of 0.24 ¤m in the late evening when the only �ops were caused by tra¨c lights and pede�rians crossing the road.

Car Studio made a trip from Moscow to Kazan and back, which gave an opportunity to calculate ¤h value for urban areas and highways. This time the data for the research was taken from a dash cam in�alled in one of the cars. The ¤h value for urban areas varied from 12 in Nizhniy Novgorod to an unexpe�ed 31 in Vladimir, when we got �uck in a tra¨c jam due to the road works. Highway values varied from 0.24 (Nizhniy Novgorod – Vladimir) to 1.8 (Nizhniy Novgorod – Kazan).

→ [see fig. 8]

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As a result, the comparison of the maximum ¤h value for the highway (1.8) and the minimum value for the city (12) reveals almo� a seven times di¶erence, which identifies the city on a larger scale.

Therefore, �ops per minute and �ops per hour values can be used as a tool for identifi-cation of the driving city from bo±om-up data on di¶erent scales.

Conclusion

Driving routine is a trip through a set of �ops. Encountering a �op creates an opportu-nity to claim the ¤ace, to turn the ¤ace into a place. The pra�ical outcome could be in finding small clues that make ¤ace more suitable for �ops to allow citizens and touri�s have more diverse places they can call their own.

As a continuation of the idea of personal ownership of a ¤ace, any person has the possibility to share the place by marking it and sharing the information, thus creating common — and, eventually, social — places.

To discover such personal and common places, the big data could also be used. Di¶er-ent scales and filters of �op data can help to identify promising places: from a ¤ot in the fore� as a ¤ontaneous discovery to the city as a metaplace. Density of �ops provides information on the quality of places, if the researcher bears in mind that there is a reason for every �op.

The other indicator gathered from individual trip �ati�ics — the frequency of driving �ops (�ops per minute) — could be used to define urban a�ivity areas. The more one �ops in the area, the more urban-a�ive the area is.

As for possible further inve�igations, an integral indicator of ‘urbanity’ — �ops per minute per meter — could be introduced as a combination of three components: ¤ace, time and an implicit reason. Stops per minute and derivative units could be an a±empt to use the bo±om-up data to make top-down decisions.

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fi g. 1: Model of ¤ ace to place transition

fi g. 2: Sightseeing place, Moscow 3rd Tran¤ ort Ring

fi g. 4: Garbage dump, ‘Shanghai’ garage village in Moscow

fi g. 3: Cenotaph and chapel of late gypsy singer Shandor, 25km of Moscow-Crimea road

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fi g. 5: Moscow night lights and Moscow Twi± er a� ivity map

fi g. 6: Heat map of � ops based on OSM data

fi g. 7: Snapshots of � ops grouped by time of day

fi g. 8: Combined density and frequency map of � ops, Moscow – Kazan – Moscow

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Ithaka

by C.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithakahope the voyage is a long one,full of adventure, full of discovery.Lai�rygonians and Cyclops,angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:you’ll never find things like that on your wayas long as you keep your thoughts raised high,as long as a rare excitement�irs your ¤irit and your body.Lai�rygonians and Cyclops,wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter themunless you bring them along inside your soul,unless your soul sets them up in front of you.Hope the voyage is a long one.May there be many a summer morning when,with what pleasure, what joy,you come into harbors seen for the fir� time;may you �op at Phoenician trading �ationsto buy fine things,mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,sensual perfume of every kind—as many sensual perfumes as you can;and may you visit many Egyptian citiesto gather �ores of knowledge from their scholars.

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Keep Ithaka always in your mind.Arriving there is what you are de�ined for.But do not hurry the journey at all.Be±er if it la�s for years,so you are old by the time you reach the island,wealthy with all you have gained on the way,not expe�ing Ithaka to make you rich.Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.Without her you would not have set out.She has nothing leµ to give you now.And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,you will have under�ood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

(C.P. Cavafy, Colle�ed Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip

Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition.

Princeton University Press, 1992)

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Cars: we imagine them always in motion, but 80% of the time, they are parked. Ever since the fir� cars arrived in the city, there has been a problem of �oring them. Open air parking was not an option at that time, as early cars were scarce and ru�ed easily. Thus a totally new building type emerged: the garage.

Shanghai Moscow

by Elena Mazina

fig. 10

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Garages

Di¶erent perceptions of car ownership require di¶erent types of garages. At fir�, cars were an exclusive item that only a few could a¶ord. At that time, converted carriage houses were common for car �orage. When public tran¤ort and trucks were introduced in the 1920s, they were �ored in big ground-level garage complexes. In the 1930s, com-pany cars appeared, and they were �ored in multi-�ory parking garages.1 Aµer World War II the mass motorization of the country began. This was when the problem of �oring personal cars fir� became a huge problem. As the personal car was �ill considered a luxury item, the Soviet government didn’t provide car owners with garages. Therefore, to solve the mass shortage of garages, authorities adopted a very cheap and e¶e�ive solution: not to interfere with the cooperative movement. This a±itude determined the trend of �oring personal cars in the city for next 40 years.

→ [see fig. 1]

Garage Cooperatives

In 1960 the Decree № 1475 “On organization of cooperatives for the con�ru�ion and operation of colle�ive garage — parking for private cars” was published. This allowed people to pool their money, acquire land from the government and build coopera-tive garages.2 Relevant departments prepared several types of parking garage designs and prefabricated garages to choose from.3 The cheape� and easie� to build were ground-level garage boxes. They were set in line, thereby forming �reets. Since this has proven to be the mo� a¶ordable type they became commonplace.4,5

→ [see fig. 2]

Land for garage cooperatives was usually allocated in areas not suitable for capital con�ru�ion: on the slopes of ravines, under power lines, along railways or over commu-nication facilities.6 Like pioneers, car owners moved into the urban “frontier zone” and ma�ered these territories.7 Nowadays, as the city has grown, the frontier line has moved. And many of these cultivated territories have become economically valuable. They are recognized as suitable for capital con�ru�ion, and garages are being demolished.

→ [see fig. 3, 4]

Space for Freedom

When not moving, the car is a large thing to �ore. Logically, the fir� �orage for cars was a room where previously people �ored other obje�s which were not suitable for home �orage — namely, — a shed.8

The sheds’ hi�ory goes back to the di�ant pa�, when living ¤ace was too precious and scarce to be used as �orage. And homes were always accompanied by outbuildings

1 Interview with D. Romodin Apr.14, 2014 in Moscow2 Decree № 1475 “On organization of cooperatives for the con�ru�ion and operation of colle�ive garage — parking for private cars”3 Za rulem, no.6 (1966)4 Za rulem, no.22 (1929)5 Za rulem, no.8 (1993)6 Ve�nik MGSA, no.12 (2013) h±p://www.roomgsa.info/gazeta/materials/MGSA1213.pdf7 Za rulem, no.3 (1967)8 Za rulem, no.13 (1935)

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for dome�ic needs. Until the Khrushchev era, Moscow courtyards were full of rows of sheds. Mo�ly they were used for �oring firewood, but they were also used as bedrooms, henhouses, warehouses, craµ workshops, etc. Only with the advent of mass con�ru�ion, with its �ri� shapes and tough land di�ribution, did barns disappear from the yards.9 At the same time, garages �arted to be a�ively built, so some additional fun�ions moved from sheds into garages.

→ [see fig. 5]

For Russians, a real garage was never ju� a parking place. It was a personal Man ¤ace. The place where he is free – where there was no wife, no superiors and no government. Moreover it was a service ¤ace where he could ¤end hours repairing his car by himself, as there was no alternative.10 Generations men and boys ¤ent all their free time there.

→ [see fig. 6]

The desire for an additional ¤ace was so �rong that even parking garages built in Soviet times were “privatized” and subdivided.1 These garages are a purely Soviet phenomenon, which evolved because of the absence of private property. Along with dachas, garages o¶ered the only opportunity to acquire non-governmental property in Soviet times. The garage became a plaÝorm for people to pra�ise management and civil self-organization.11 — a private ¤ace in a communi�ic environment. The shiµ to capitalism triggered the potential of hidden processes that were going on there before.

Shi�

Nowadays the number of cars has increased dramatically. This a¶e�ed all a¤e�s of car routine. One of the mo� �riking outcomes of mass motorization is that the car has become less precious. People now are not afraid of parking their car open-air in the yard, and yards have a�ually become parking lots. Garages which already had premises of additional fun�ion during Soviet times are now used in a great variety of ways. The mo� edgy example of this shiµ is Shanghai garage city.

Case Study: Shanghai Moscow

In Russian slang the word Shanghai means slum: big, tight clu�er of con�ru�ions (garages, houses, huts). Oµen these buildings are the result of self-trapping of land.

Shanghai is situated on expensive land south-we� of the main building of MSU. The reason that it �ill exi�s is that below Shanghai lies Moscow’s large� underground bunker. It was designed to accommodate 15,000 people for 30 years in the event of nuclear a±ack, and is conne�ed with other �rategic obje�s via Metro-2.12 Besides the bunker there are other FSB-related �ru�ures (see diagram). Garages have been there since the con�ru�ion of high-rise buildings in the 1970s. It is believed that the Shanghai was built ¤ecifically to make this territory an abandoned zone.

→ [see fig. 7]

9 V. Fedorov, O�ankino sheds, Moscow 2013 h±p://www.proza.ru/2013/03/29/59610 L.H. Siegelbaum, Cars for Comrades. The Life of the Soviet Automobile, Ithaca, NY 200811 A. Razmahnin, USSR garage cooperatives as a school of civil society Moscow 2011 h±p://svpressa.ru/society/article/35823/12 Military forces in transition, Washington 1991

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Shanghai includes over 10,000 garages; hundreds of multi-�ory unauthorized con-�ru�ions; dozens of illegal car services, shops, etc. There is a large probability that the area houses gambling dens, brothels and places of produ�ion of drugs.

The main indu�ry is everything related to the car. There is a great diversity of car ser-vices: carwashes, workshops, tyre fi±ing, etc. Genuine garage craµsmen skills are �ill present. However, it has turned into business.13 Some garages are reprogrammed into cafes and shops (household goods, automotive parts, food, alcohol, etc.)

Oµen car service garages have buildups on top of them. This second floor is usually used for dwelling of migrant workers, yet living rooms can also be on the underground level. Some garages are turned into townhouses — all done without building permission.

Not all garages in Shanghai are converted. Services, shops and cafes are primarily concentrated along the main �reets from the main entrance to the garage cooperative.

Buildup is the mo� visible sign that a garage has been converted. Sometimes these �ru�ures reach unbelievable scales. Another option is to demolish garages and rebuild from scratch according to the new needs.14

→ [see fig. 8, 9, 10]

Unearthing a typology

The way one can rebuild depends on the basic �ru�ure. Garages can be metal single, metal linear, concrete linear or brick linear �ru�ures. Each type has its particular advantages and disadvantages. Garage can be added to with a cellar, a block container, a concrete block �ru�ure or a metal �ru�ure. The freedom of adding adjacent units adds a lot to the diversity of the se±lement. An intere�ing feature: everyone aims to a±ach No Man’s Land if only there is an opportunity to do so.15

→ [see fig. 11, 12, 13, 14]

The qualities that make garages so a±ra�ive for alternative use are: simple �ru�ure; cheap co�; everyone has his own front door: dire� access to �reet; independence from neighbors: opportunities to dig down or build up; flexible plans; possible independence from city supply; negle� of formal regulations.

→ [see fig. 15]

This “village-like” blocked garage typology ¤read throughout the city because of the car. Over time it showed that it can be useful for many other purposes — perhaps because the �ru�ure of the garages looks very similar to those of old marketplaces and warehouses.

13 Ana�asia Barshchevskaya, Interview with one garage ma�er, Minsk 2014 h±p://www.abw.by/news/157411/14 Interview with Kon�antin P. Mar.27, 2014 in Shanghai Moscow15 S.M. Shumilkin, Shopping complexes of European part of Russia late XVIII - early XX centuries: typology, archite�ural and ¤atial development,

Moscow 1999

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Similar typologies in the pa�

Carriage houses. The predecessors of cars in the city were horse-drawn carriages. They were �ored in �able yards. Stable yards usually included �ables, carriage houses, sheds for other �a¶ and dwelling units for �ablemen.

Marketplaces. Trading rows were the main elements of marketplaces. In the XVI century a trading row was a series of one-�ory wooden �alls set in line.

Warehouses. Tran¤ort is one of the mo� important fa�ors for the warehouse. Storage areas were located in close proximity to docks and railway lines.

Conclusions. As we can see from the table, there is a very �rong similarity between these typologies. But non of these examples can provide what the garages o¶er: an intimate, private ¤ace.

→ [see fig. 16]

Similar typologies eventually turned into big multi-level boxes: markets into huge malls; warehouses into big containers with shelves operated by fork-liµ trucks; garages into multi-level parking lots. Carriage houses entirely disappeared from the city. This whole scale and typology is going away from the city. Now these garages are obsolete for �oring cars, as it is impossible to �ore all the cars in one ground level.

→ [see fig. 17, 18]

Sum up. Proposal

The way life in the city is developing is all about increasing density. People used to have not only a living unit, but also an additional ¤ace for freedom. This culture has survived within the garage. In these places a new pa±ern of a�ivity developed over time. In fa�, the exi�ing garages are less important than the pa±ern itself, and the cultural and archite�ural typology they inherit. This research identifies the main qualities that let this model exi�. These qualities can be used in a be±er way – either by reviving exi�ing garage cooperatives or building new �ru�ures according to these qualities. These garages cannot be leµ as they are now; there are certain elements that don’t work well. However, these places cannot be totally formalized, as one of their main values is the “negle� of formal regulations”.

I propose that the creation of ¤ecial zones of freedom in the city would encourage freedom of use. A ¤ecial legal, admini�rative, tax and con�ru�ion regulations could be arranged there. The freedom of these small-scale economic zones would be re�ri�ed to the typology. Here economic freedom is under�ood as the freedom to produce, trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theµ.

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Value of Small Entrepreneurship

The incentive for government to arrange these ¤ecial zones could be small-scale entre-preneurship. Informal processes can compensate for what formal �ru�ures miss. Small businesses provide su�ainability to the economy. They are easy to manage, very flexible and easily adapt to economic changes.i16 Small businesses’ share in the Russian econo-my is much lower than in the world’s leading economies.17 Small businesses help generate employment opportunities. While big corporations hire people with many qualifications, small firms hire people even with unimpressive resumes.

→ [see fig. 19]

In the hi�ory of capitali� countries there are many examples where the garage has served as a launching pad for business. As it turns out, a garage is a great place to �art a company. Some of the world’s mo� known businesses �arted in garages: Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Harley Davidson, Hewle±-Packard, Ma±el, etc. Everything �arts from nothing. None of these companies began by trying to create Amazon, Apple, and Google. They �arted by creating an online book�ore, a computer, and a search algo-rithm.

→ [see fig. 20]

Housing, Oªce, Theater, …

A clear urban policy, allowing to preserve the be� features of this environment and add a new qualities, is needed. Each zone needs to create its own solution. Whatever is need-ed for the territory can happen in a garage. It depends very much on the people around it. The precious feature is that these places always o¶er a mix of fun�ions.

→ [see fig. 21]

We should recognize it o¨cially as a building typology. We usually don’t see the value of these small things, but they can make a huge contribution to the city.

16 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD h±p://www.oecd.org/russia/Russia-Modernising-the-Economy-EN.pdf17 Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring

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fig. 1: Di¶erent types of garages in time

fig. 2: Ground-level garage boxes

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fi g. 3: Map of individual box garages. Main trend: the less valuable territory — the more garages. Large garage patches are � retched along roads

fi g. 4: Satellite image of garages, 2014. This very ¤ ecial type of con� ru� ion makes almo� no confusion to recognise

fi g. 6: A real garage for the Russians is not ju� a parking place, it is a closed personal men ¤ ace

fi g. 5: Hi� ory of the additional ¤ ace in the city

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fi g. 7: Bunker city in Ramenki

fi g. 8 fi g. 9 fi g. 10106

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fi g. 11: Basic � ru� ure options

fi g. 14: Diverse fun� ional program

fi g. 13: Freedom of blocking adjacent units gives the diversity of plans

fi g. 12: Additional � ru� ure options

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fig. 15: The qualities that make garage so a±ra�ive for alternative use

fig. 16: Comparison of similar typologies in the pa�

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fi g. 17: This whole scale and typology is going away from the city

fi g. 18: Now these garages are obsolete for � oring cars fi g. 19: Value of small entrepreneurship

fi g. 20: California Hi� orical Landmark # 976 fi g. 21: Potential of the typology

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Shanghai Routines

Interview with Kon�antin P., Shanghai guide,garage owner, Mar. 27, 2014

by Elena Mazina

We met Ko�ya when our motley company came to Shanghai for the very fir� time. When we went there, none of us knew what to expe�, but we certainly did not anticipate that everyone we talked to would ¤eak English. That field trip leµ a vivid impression in our memories. Following is a conversation between Ko�ya and I, which took place the next time I visited Shanghai.

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E: To begin with, how did you end up in Shanghai? K: I did mountain biking, and decided to take up motorcycling. I asked my friend to find me a motorbike. Once he found it, he told me to colle� it from here. That’s it. And now I have two garages here.

It’s convenient: there is a very big crowd. You’ve probably noticed there are no universal centers; it’s predominantly small garages. Well, ju� next to the entrance there are several big centers. Some well-known services have moved there lately. Still, in mo� cases everyone does what he is mo� skilled at. Someone solely painting, someone solely bodyshop, someone solely ele�ronics, and that’s cool. In this regard, Shanghai is a very good place.

E: Speaking about services, when did this alternative usage theme �art? K: I think it always was here. I think it’s from the Soviet era, when people were repairing their cars by themselves. Almo� all garage cooperatives in Moscow have it to a greater or lesser extent. Once services appear, you need a car parts shop. Then you need to buy cigare±es, drinks, alcohol. As soon as the migrants came they brought their national cui-sines. There are many local cafes, very ta�y by the way.

E: And when did illegal immigrants come? K: When I arrived seven years ago there were some already, but not so many. I think they came at the same time when they appeared in Moscow. Ju� some of them carved a niche in car services in�ead of sweeping the �reets or doing vendor’s work.

E: Which nationalities inhabit Shanghai? Are there any pa¬erns of se¬lement according to nationalities?K: Yes, there is some ethnic di¶erentiation. On the fir� line ju� aµer the entrance there is the Caucasus. All of Asia (Tajiki�an, Kyrgyz�an, Uzbeki�an) is located higher (further along).

E: And what about the police, do they visit this place? K: Yes, con�antly. Periodically they arrange raids to catch criminals and take illegal immigrants. (Sharif, the guy whom I was going to talk to, was caught by the Federal Migration Service only a couple days ago)

E: Do any Muscovites live here permanently? K: Yes, but very few. Muscovites and migrants use garages di¶erently. Migrants work here, live here, equip everything with the necessary facilities. Muscovites use it as garages, rehearsal ¤ace, warehouses. For example I keep all the ¤orts gear for our team here.

E: And what is the approximate ratio of garages to converted garages? K: My rough e�imation is that more than half are used as garages. Generally all service places can be seen from the �reet. If you see car parts �acked on the roof, then there is a service. Many large services rent neighboring garages as warehouses. Oµen car service garages are built up. The second floor is usually used as dwellings for migrant workers. Living ¤ace can also be on the underground level.

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E: We’ve talked a lot about what’s going on here, but what about the pra�ical side of things: ele�ricity, water. How are these issues solved?K: There is the city ele�ricity supply, but it is not enough. Services consume a lot of ener-gy, so in addition there are diesel generators. There is no city water supply, and we can’t drill a well due to the underground bunker. Therefore people illegally cut into urban net-works. Dry closets usually �and in the �reets with a�ive life. As I said, not all garages are converted; many are used for their original purpose. Life (services, shops, cafes) is primar-ily concentrated along the main �reets from the main entrance to the garage cooperative.

E: Shanghai creates an impression of a closed place, not for everyone…K: Yes, �rangers are not really welcome here. If you’re �anding out from the normal pi�ure, mo� likely you will be asked what you doing here and asked to leave. And it’s not a good idea to visit this place at night.

E: Does the closeness to FSB a¥e� this place in any way? K: Once there was a case. We gave the car keys to a friend. He was supposed to take it from Shanghai. So he called, said: I’m coming, I’m almo� here, and then he disappeared for three hours. It turned out that he got lo� and accidentally wandered on to the FSB territory where he was immediately taken by four people with guns.

A�ually, everything under the sun can happen here. Recently APC visited a repair shop. It has already leµ, but I can send you pi�ures. I was amazed. I went into the garage, and saw there APC and workers welding something. It was �range.

E: What do you think it means for the city have places like this? And how long will they remain? K: There is a circulation of used cars which otherwise would simply clog up all the �reets of Moscow. Why do these people repair in garages, and not in o¨cial services? Because the o¨cial ones take crazy money. That’s why the tra¨c in these artisanal services is so big.

There have been many rumours about demolition, but almo� nothing has been demolished. Garages continue to be bought and sold.

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Se�ion C

Nodal City MoscowPocket Article: The Rawness of Non-Routine

Nightlife CarrierPocket Article: From 1986 to 2014

The Car is the MediumPocket Article: Field Diary

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7

8

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Pede� rians form the large� group of participants in Moscow’s tra c. The mass-automobilization of Moscow did not leave pede� rians una¶ e� ed. Pede� rian-only zones, like Arbat Street and Gorky Park, gradually turned into ‘environments’ that emit a public feel-good atmo¤ here, competing with atmo-¤ heres inside a car. More than 70% of the city’s sur-face is covered with Microrayons, large-scale residen-tial di� ri� s with limited car access. Mass motorization forced its way into the courtyards and created an inverse reality, an involuntary-shared ¤ ace for pedes-trians. Rethinking these ¤ aces and the approach to shared ¤ ace has the potential to unleash a new pede� rian landscape for Moscow.

The Microrayons together with the Metro formed the basis of Soviet urban planning of Moscow. As the ma� er planning of the Microrayons fundamentally changed due to the car, so did the Metro also change through the impa� of consumerism and o ce labor. E¤ ecially the above-ground areas around � ations became urban magnets for shops, re� aurants, amuse-ment, and o ces. The high concentration of people and a� ivity near � ations makes these nodes a key element for Moscow’s polycentric future planning.

Between 1.00am and 5.30am, no Metro is working. During this time, Moscow becomes a di¶ erent city, which perhaps could be called a village. The lack of public tran¤ ort works in the favor of the taxis and in particular for the illegal taxis called Bombilas. Like no-mads, they roam the � reets of the city looking clients to occupy their night and to fund their livelihoods.

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Rereading Moscow Through its Metro

Nodal City

by James Schrader

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The City Is Not As It Seems

We think of mo� cities as continuous physical urbanization. We theorize the city as parallel to how a car moves: as a fabric of varying conditions extending across the ground plane in all dire�ions, interrupted only by water, topography, and infra�ru�ure. In Moscow, the city extends from its center at the Kremlin to its periphery at MKAD and beyond, organized in the minds of many by the pun�uations of the meandering river and the concentric ring roads.

This conception of the city �ands in �ark contra� to the daily experience of urban reality in Moscow. Because the majority of Muscovites travel by Metro — there are nine million rides on an average workday — it is the Metro experience of fragmentation and disorientation that determines the leading perception of the city. Being hidden under-ground, the Metro is not obviously legible in the physical form of the city, but it �rongly a¶e�s how people use and perceive the city.

Life by Metro is a routine of con�ant disappearance into black holes and reappearance at other, seemingly disconne�ed places throughout the city. These places, which could be called ‘nodes’, play ho� to intense a�ivity in the areas surrounding Metro �ations. The organization of life around these nodes is so significant that Moscow can be consid-ered a ‘nodal city’ rather than the continuous city implied by its physical form.

Metro As Critical To Life In Moscow

Plans for an underground subway sy�em, now known as the Metro, began in Moscow before the Fir� World War but were delayed due to war. Con�ru�ion finally began in 1933, around the same time that plans for a 10-line, 80-kilometer sy�em were approved by the Soviet leadership. The fir� segment of the red line opened in 1935 with an 11-kilo-meter, 13-�ation route.

The sy�em was expanded in numerous phases over the course of the 20th century, de¤ite major events like the Second World War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As of March 2014, the Moscow Metro sy�em has 12 lines with 194 �ations and a route di�ance of 325.4 kilometers. The sy�em serves nine million passengers on workdays.

Metro began in the 1930s, in the hi�orical context of rapid population growth due to indu�rialization, which was transforming the urban and social �ru�ure of Moscow. Metro was an ideological proje�: a tool for demon�rating Soviet expertise to the world and for in�illing Soviet values in young workers who came from throughout the USSR. Metro was also a ‘palace for the people’, an important venue for di¤laying ideological art that people could engage with every day.

The elites also had their own Metro: a super-deep ‘Metro 2’ sy�em supposedly conne�s key o¨cial in�allations for usage in the event of a nuclear crisis.

For the non-elites in times of crises, the deeper �ations of Metro served as air-raid shelters during the 1941 Siege of Moscow. Later, many Cold War-era �ations were equipped with life-su�aining features for use if the surface ever became uninhabitable.

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But the shelter can also become a ba±lefield: a number of a±acks on the Metro in the po�-Soviet era indicate that it continues to be a site of ideological confli�.

How The Metro Makes Moscow A Nodal City

A number of hi�orical precedents form the basis of theorizing Moscow as a nodal city. In 1896, the British Sir Ebenezer Howard proposed a ‘Garden City’, comprised of seven urban nodes that would be physically separated from each other by agriculture and nature. In 1957, the Situationi�s depi�ed Paris, a physically continuous city, as being experienced by its citizens as disconne�ed nodes. In 1977, Oswald Ma±hias Ungers the-orized a �rategy for downsizing We� Berlin into physically isolated enclaves, each with very di�in� identities. In a similar idea on the scale of an individual building, in ‘Delirious New York’, Rem Koolhaas describes the di¶erent floors of Manha±an skyscrapers as be-ing di�in� worlds, isolated from each other and conne�ed only by the lifeline of the ele-vator; this idea parallels the way that the Metro conne�s together di¶erent nodes.

In Moscow, the Metro sy�em is not a continuous fabric throughout the city but is made up of clearly defined paths which lead to �ations that are points of entry into the city. This can be seen in the ubiquitous diagrammatic map of the Metro, but looking at the Metro in a less commonly seen geographic plan view allows a more accurate under-�anding of the ¤atial relationship between Metro and the city.

Time and ¤ace are collapsed along each individual line, conne�ing its �ations into a linear city. But a more useful way of looking at the Metro is as an integrated network, where a rider can move from any of the 194 �ations to any end point and the routing does not ma±er. This integrated network can be seen simply as a sy�em of 194 access points in the city that create a field of varying density. The 194 �ations create access to their nodes, the area immediately adjacent to them and accessible by foot or by other modes of ground tran¤ortation.

Since its 1930s inception, the Metro’s hi�ory can be seen not ju� as an expansion of train lines but also as a continuous expansion of the territory accessible to public trans-port riders. This expansion will continue into the future, as the Metro executes numerous line extensions as well as a second ring line and the integration of an underused railway ring into the Metro network.

When using the city by Metro, a rider cannot easily access the area outside of a �ation node. Travelling underground, a rider is also unable to perceive the city between �ations. Metro is like a horizontal elevator or a teleportation device, moving people from one place to another as if the in-between ¤aces do not exi�.

Metro Nodes As Urban Typology: Case Study Universitet

A node is the territory around a Metro �ation which contains the urban a�ivity that exi�s in relation to that �ation. The node of Universitet �ation on the red line will be examined as a case �udy of how: ➀ infra�ru�ure enables access to a node; ➁ walkability creates the heart of a node’s territory; ➂ a node’s territory is extended by surface tran¤ortation; and ➃ a full range of content and a�ivity is a±ra�ed to the node.

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The exi�ence of the node is enabled by underground infra�ru�ure of tunnels, tracks, trains, and �ations. Each �ation is like a magnetic wormhole in the city, a±ra�ing people into an area and into the mobility infra�ru�ure. Every node is a link to the entire Metro sy�em, and has the potential to tap into the huge amount of people who use this sy�em every day. Each �ation is also like a pressure valve that releases people from the sy�em out into the �reets. The deep underground hidden network of motion leads to a long ascent up escalators that emerge into the node at a ground-level plaza.

People arriving at and leaving the node by Metro over the course of the day make up two di¶erent ecosy�ems of passenger. Many di¶erent kinds of urban routines are inter-twined; a node may be home for one person, the o¨ce for another, shopping for another, or home, o¨ce and shopping together for someone else.

The �arting point for defining the heart of a node is a typical 500-meter walkable radius from each �ation exit. Car, taxi, bike, bus, trolleybus, tram, and marshrutka each extend the node’s territory in their own way. Bus shelters prote� waiting passengers from the elements. Marshrutkas crowd the bus �op areas but are much more disorganized and informal. The tram occupies its own lane but only goes in a very limited range of direc-tions. Parking seems to be everywhere, and also provides a place for taxis to pick up passengers. The few bike lanes conne�ing the node with other a±ra�ions haven’t quite caught on yet.

The idea of nodes extending beyond walkable territory can be approximated on a city scale by using a Voronoi diagram, a mathematical model for dividing ¤ace into areas belonging to their neare� point, which in this case would be the neare� Metro �ation. The Voronoi model in this �udy was further refined by assigning MKAD and the river as hard edges that a node could not cross. When a line extends beyond MKAD, each node was assigned a maximum radius of 8km from its �ation.

The Metro’s 194 �ations are magnets for retail, o¨ces, dwellings, and recreation facilities. Within the Universitet node, we can see that the 1957 microrayon housing area, which slightly pre-dates the Metro �ation, is an even carpet of buildings which does not orient itself toward Metro. In contra�, the 1971 circus and the newer buildings of Moscow State University seem well-positioned to take advantage of their proximity to the Met-ro. Po�-2003 apartment buildings and shopping malls also seem to be clearly a±ra�ed to the access the Metro a¶ords. Perhaps the central planning of the Soviet era could not address the usefulness of the Metro as e¶e�ively as the new capitali� era.

An old outdoor market is bu�ling on the plaza next to the Metro �ation, with informal merchants hawking their pickled vegetables and flowers on its fringes. Shops in old housing blocks face the Metro, while similar blocks further away have no shops; the same typology has di¶erent usage in di¶erent locations. Across the �reet, the new housing blocks have the same general typology as the old blocks but are denser, taller, and closer to the Metro. A recently built small shopping center literally hugs the Metro �ation building. At the edge of the 500-meter walkable area, seemingly positioned to a±ra� both Metro riders and car drivers, there is Kapitoliy, a large mall with international shops, entertainment, and an Ashan hypermarket.

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Based on these observations of the typical-seeming node at Universitet, we see that with the exception of o¨ces and government, the Universitet node has all the basic elements of a self-su�aining city.

The View From The Ground: An Urban Routine In The Nodal City

Everything described so far is ju� a model of the city based on observations. The maps shown represent the theoretical ideal aggregation of urban routines of every Muscovite who travels by Metro. But a single individual’s urban routine for life in Moscow is much more unique, much more subje�ive, and much harder to precisely define. The real city is much more chaotic, unpredi�able, lively, and complex than these models can predi�.

There may be a great deal of tension between Metro �ation nodes in the city center where they are fairly close together. If you as an individual are choosing how to get from your home to your de�ination, there may be two or more Metro �ations within a tolerable walking di�ance. You might choose your route to your de�ination based on many more criteria than ju� which Metro �ation is neare�. These criteria might be the time of day or time of year, the weather, which Metro �ation o¶ers the mo� dire� conne�ion to your de�ination, or what your priorities are for the day. For example, you might choose to walk to a farther-away Metro �ation if it’s a beautiful sunny day and that �ation o¶ers a dire� conne� to your de�ination. On the way home at night you might choose to arrive at a �ation from which the walk home seems safer and more pleasant than from another �a-tion. Although the macro-scale city map from this analysis depi�s nodes as pure circles, many fa�ors a¶e� or extend the borders of a node and may be con�antly changing.

In your daily urban routines, you probably only have three or four nodes that you are in-tensely familiar with, such as the node where your home is, the node where your work is, and perhaps a node where you go shopping or meet your friends frequently. These are the nodes where you know the �reets and buildings very well and where you know exa�-ly which exit to take from the Metro �ation to get to the right �reet corner. Every other node in Moscow remains somewhat of a my�ery for you; there are some you go to occa-sionally but don’t know every nook and cranny of, and there are others that you’ve never been to. Any journey into these lesser-known or unknown nodes could be considered an exploration.

Implications For Moscow’s Network Stru�ure And Urban Routines

Moscow can be reread as having a nodal organization rather than a geographically continuous organization. If the Metro could be seen as the mo� significant network �ru�ure in Moscow for determining how people use the city, then we can take advan-tage of this as an organizational tool for craµing the future of the city.

In 1956, Italian Communi� politician Palmiro Toglia±i proposed the term ‘polycentrism’ to indicate a form of political organization for the Soviet Union in which individual nations would intera� with each other as a network of equals. This idea �ood in �ark contra� to the exi�ing Stalini� mode of intera�ion where everything had to go through a central party organization. Toglia±i’s principle of polycentrism could be used on the much small-

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er scale of the city of Moscow to guide a new organization of nodes in the city as independent, discrete entities.

The Voronoi territory map sugge�s a municipal political organization where each territory belongs to its neare� Metro �ation. Each territory could be replanned with a heightened unique identity and a heightened focus on having the full ¤e�rum of urban routines: dwelling, o¨ce, retail, recreation, and mobility. The e¨cient and dire� conne�ions o¶ered by Metro lines among themselves could be a basis for organization or alliances along each individual line. Within the city center, this method of analysis yields a complicated patchwork of territories, each with its own unique chara�eri�ics and ambitions.

The next �eps would be to ¤ecifically define criteria for how to propose changes to the city that would take advantage of this analysis, perhaps by building soµware based on a GPS plaÝorm. Urban planners could use it to give analytical weight to their schemes. Real e�ate developers could use it to under�and their markets and guide the placement of their proje�s. The local government could use it to adju� their municipal sub-bounda-ries and to dire� their resources to the mo� useful places.

Compared to many other cities, Moscow has much more of a vibrant diversity of identities and urban conditions, each of which can be associated with di�in� Metro nodes. To intelligently influence the future progression of Moscow, we need to get beyond superficial appearances and under�and the deep inner mechanisms of how it works as a nodal city.

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1311934 Po� er: “Entire Moscow is engaged in building the Metro. Let us complete the fr� line of the world’s be� Metro for the 17th anniversary of the O� ober Revolution”

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Every time I go somewhere new by Metro in Moscow, I feel overwhelmingly lo�. Even if I’ve meticulously planned out my route and know exa�ly on which corner of which �reet my de�ination is, this sense of complete disorientation is inevitable.

The train’s brakes screech almo� deafeningly as we pull into the �ation. The doors jerk open, and I �ep out of the train onto the plaÝorm. I’m surrounded by the worn-out glory of grandiose mid-century Soviet �ation design, with shiny gold ornamentation and circular lights above ¤ewing out what is meant to be artificial sunlight but of course doesn’t change over the course of the day. I’m deep underground, maybe 50 meters below the surface, and have no idea which dire�ion I’m facing.

The Rawness of Non-Routine

by James Schrader

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Above me are way-finding signs with typography reminiscent of an indi¶erent bureaucra-cy from a bygone era, slightly swinging from the breeze created by the departing train. I can read enough Russian to under�and what the signs say, but the names of the �reets and landmarks they are pointing to mean nothing to me. I mull over which end of the plaÝorm to walk towards.

All the others arriving here seem to know where they are going. As I’m pushed aside by the crowd, my primitive ¤atial in�in�s take control: I’m on the green Zamoskvoretskaya Line at Mayakovskaya �ation, travelling away from the city center. My friend’s apartment where I’m heading for a party is north-we� of the �ation, so I should walk along the plaÝorm in the same dire�ion as the departing train.

There’s an escalator at the end of the plaÝorm, which perversely goes even farther down into the earth. I ride down it, then have to turn right, leµ, right, and right again. There are so many turns that, again, I have no clue which dire�ion I’m facing. Then there’s a long escalator going upwards: three parallel moving �airways with glowing vertical torches like nothing else in the world. The �ation is so deep underground that it seems to take hours to ascend. On the ceiling above the top of the escalator there’s a huge mosaic of a blue sky with a few cumulonimbus clouds and a single black bird flying in the center.

I �ill feel like I’m underground, though I can’t possibly �ill be very deep. I have to turn right, walk a li±le bit, then up a single flight of �airs. Suddenly, there’s daylight peering in from the clere�ory windows above the end of the �airs. This mu� be the surface of the Earth.

I turn to the right and push through a heavy, unwieldy door. Now there’s full sunlight and the smell of fresh air pun�uated by car exhau� fumes. An urban boulevard that’s been hijacked by eight lanes of tra¨c unfolds in front of me, blocking my way. This mu� be the famous Tverskaya Ulitsa. And I know that my friend’s place is a few hundred meters northwe� along this �reet.

But which way is northwe�? The city isn’t giving me any clues. Again, my in�in�s take control. It’s nine o’clock in the evening and the sun should be se±ing somewhere between the south and the southwe�. The sun is dire�ly in front of me, so I need to turn right.

Aµer a few minutes’ walking, with ¤eeding car tra¨c mere centimeters away from me, I ¤ot my friend’s house, a heavily ornamented 1950s Stalini� block. But it’s on the other side of the huge boulevard and there’s no zebra crossing in sight. I guess I’ll have to keep walking until I can find an underground passageway, one of the common but never quite common enough Moscow ‘perehods’, to get to the other side.

Now I’m running late. I hope the party waits for me.

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Moscow is the megacity, known for enormous tra¨c jams by day and e¤ecially during rush hours. In the daytime Moscow is �uck in conge�ion and you can hardly move in a car, but at night it can easily ‘breathe’ and the whole city can be driven through in half an hour (it can take up to 2-3 hours to do the same during the day).

by Vitaliy Avdyeyev

Nightlife Carrier

Moscow roads during the rush hour

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For a long time, night-time a�ivities were oppressed by the elites and authorities. At the time of tsari� rule, only elites used the night for leisure purposes, while regular peasants didn’t think about doing anything at night except sleeping. During the Russian Empire, balls and other varieties of night entertainment would happen any day of the week and a sign of a successful person with high �atus was the ability to sleep during the day on any day of the week. In the times of the USSR this culture reversed. The night was reserved for sleeping only and in this sense it was sacred; breaking the night re� would have been unaccepted by the general public and the �ate. Right aµer the collapse of Soviet Union the monopoly of the �ate on the night vanished and people �arted to invade the night time again. The daily routine of a successful person significantly changed compared to 100 years ago; today, a successful person works a lot and has time to re� and socialize. In this regard, the weekend became the time when people could a¶ord to party the whole night and sleep till noon. But what is “the night”?

“Moscow Night”

In our culture, the night is generally defined as the dark side of the day. Since ancient times the night was associated with danger and evil. At night all the paranormal rituals were performed by the light of the moon. Gho�s, vampires and werewolves also appear only at night time. Almo� every culture has myths where the night is shown as a cover for evil.

Next to metaphysical descriptions it is possible to, technically, divide the 24-hour day into day time and night time. It is not con�ant and changes due to calendar day, latitude, longitude and time zone. In Russia, and Moscow in particular, night time can be di�in-guished in three additional ways. Lingui�ically, the day in Russian language is divided into four parts: night time (0:00-3:59), morning time (4:00-11:59), day time (12:00-17:59) and evening time (18:00-23:59). For alcohol consumption, the night time �arts at 11pm and finishes at 8am, since, according to Russian Federation law, within this period of time shops are not allowed to sell alcohol. For ge±ing around in the city the Metro is an extremely important tran¤ort mode in Moscow’s life and many Muscovites define the night in terms of Metro working hours, which is closed from 1 am to 5.30 pm. Thus in the core of the night (1:00-3:59) no alcohol is sold in �ores and no Metro is working, while all night bars and night clubs are opened.

Megavillage Moscow

At night, Moscow metaphorically turns from a megacity into megavillage. As workers rush in the morning to the o¨ces in the central part of the city, so night owls at the end of the day rush to the center for meeting friends, dancing, drinking and other a�ivities that can’t bear the sunlight. This megavillage has a di¶erent sized population depending on the day of the week and the time of year.

According to Federico Parolo±o and Davide Boazzi’s article ‘Gridlock, the Donut and Intelligent Solutions’ in the book Archaeology of Periphery, within the boundaries of the designated Moscow Ring Road (MKAD), 90% of Muscovites live in the area between the MKAD and the Third Ring. At the same time 70% of all job places and 65% of the leisure facilities (bars, re�aurants and nightclubs) are located within the Third Ring. So during

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the day time people commute to work and back home and this is known as commuting migration. At night, e¤ecially on the weekend, Muscovites show pre±y much the same pa±ern in moving from periphery to the city center, but for leisure migration. Additional-ly to that intensity heat map in Yandex, the taxi report “Taxi in Moscow” (November 2013) says that at night mo� of the orders come from the center to the periphery and vice versa. For many Muscovites weekend party or a glass of wine/beer aµer work with friends became somehow a new ritual of relaxation.

Some people have to work at night (service providers) and some use the night for social-izing (consumers). According to a January 2014 Yandex report, which analyzed Russian companies’ working hours, 8 percent of all companies work in Moscow at night in the year. Obviously, mo� of them are bars, re�aurants, nightclubs, petrol �ations, grocery �ores and flower shops. However, among this number, there are such unusual places for non-Muscovites as jewelry �ores, ¤orts �ores, book �ores, po� o¨ces, notaries and pawn shops.

The consumers visit bars and night clubs and they are the drinkers and dancers, smokers and ¤e�ators and players. Bartenders, waiters, �rip dancers, and other members of �a¶ provide the service for those who are willing to ¤end their money and relax. Policemen, cleaners, pro�itutes, shop assi�ants and of course taxi drivers also belong to service providers and play an important role of facilitating Moscow night life.

At night Moscow creates unique conditions, where the nightlife routine became possible. This is the underworld time of my�erious night-owl protagoni�s, invisible and undiscov-ered to mo� of us.

How Do Night Owls Move Around?

Night Public Tran¡ort

Currently, 9 night public tran¤ort routes across a total of 177 kilometers operate in Moscow. They conne� the central di�ri�s of Moscow with areas on the periphery by using the main radial �reets. 5 of 9 routes begin their work at midnight and end at 5:45 am. The re� are at about the same time range with a half an hour range. The Department of Tran¤ort in Moscow e�imates 1,000-1,500 passengers as the daily capacity for the whole night public tran¤ort.

Hi�ory Of Night Tran¡ort In Moscow

Daytime public tran¤ort was introduced in Moscow at the end of 19th century, while it took until 1964 for night public tran¤ort routes to be introduced. Ten routes linked bus �ations, railway �ations and interchange nodes of central part of the city with bedroom suburbs, operated by iconic ‘RAF’ shu±le buses. Surprisingly enough, at a time when nightlife was virtually nonexi�ent in the USSR, the night tran¤ort net-work was much more developed than it is now. City borders were moved to Moscow Ring Road (MKAD) only in 1960 and before that area of Moscow was 360 sq km and

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length of routes in 1964 equaled 80 kilometers1. Aµer the collapse of the Soviet Union night public tran¤ort in Moscow entirely disappeared until 2004, when the city authorities decided to experiment with adding 5 public tran¤ort routes at night. Because of a negligible amount of passengers the experiment was considered a failure and halted in 2006. In Augu� 2013 the Moscow authorities decided to imple-ment night public tran¤ortation again by introducing 9 bus routes that would serve the entire city of Moscow.

Night Public Tran¡ort Around The Globe

Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, repeatedly talked about the high ambitions of the Russian capital in his ¤eeches. “[A] new wave of Moscow development will help it to fulfill its global potential and become one of the global megacities among New York, Tokyo, London, and Paris. Moscow should become a comfortable global megacity,” he said at the World Political Forum in Yaroslavl on 7 September 2011. During the day, Moscow is able to match these three cities in terms of public tran¤ort, yet at night the comparison is farfetched. With 9 night routes, Moscow is seriously behind Paris (48 routes), London (52 routes) and New York (105 routes + metro).

Taxi

Where Moscow di¶ers from these three cities, and where it might indeed be considered a megacity, is in the scale of its night taxi service. The mo� important role of night trans-portation for Moscow nightlife is played by taxis, which position themselves between private car and public tran¤ort. The taxi is a personal vehicle, which can be rented with a driver for a short period of time. This type of tran¤ort is the mo� popular among users of the night and it has a considerable hi�ory of operating in Moscow.

Taxi Hi�ory

Horse cabs can be called the prototype of the modern taxi. It �arted at the end of the XVI century, when peasants from the surrounding villages with their own horses and sledges �arted to come to Moscow in winter. As there was no public tran¤ort at that time peasants took on the role of taxi drivers to make a living. At the same time there were o¨cial sledge drivers who were paying a particular amount of money to the city for the opportunity to �and next to the theaters. So peasants at that time played the role of informal taxis.

However, taxis in Moscow in the conventional sense of the word2 appeared only in 1908 and were represented by the French car brand Peugeot. Aµer the Soviets came to power, the number of taxis increased significantly and this type of tran¤ortation became much more a¶ordable than before the revolution. Neverthe-less, horse cabbies leµ the �reets of Moscow only in 1938 with the introdu�ion of the card sy�em for goods, which was planned only for citizens, but not for horses.

1 now 900 sq km within MKAD and 177 km of night routes2 a motor vehicle licensed to tran¤ort passengers in return for payment of a fare and typically fi±ed with a taximeter (Oxford di�ionary)

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Taxi use peak in the po�war period, when the GAZ fa�ory began producing vehicles used exclusively as taxis. Aµer the war the inherent a±ributes of the Soviet taxi appeared: check board pa±ern and green beacon on the windshield, indicating whether the driver is free or not. During Soviet times taxi drivers were well re¤e�ed and somehow played the role of informal KGB agents as they knew what to show to foreign people and what to avoid. Also they knew where to get imported tape record-ers, jeans, watches and other produ�s, which couldn’t be bought in the shop. Pere�roika and the collapse of the Soviet Union became significant for taxis and had a lot of influence on the current �ate of a¶airs. During Pere�roika taxi drivers began to give a ride to Muscovites for money (bombit). Smoking drivers were ok to take the payment for the trip in the form of a pack of Marlboro cigare±es. The collapse of the USSR and the fir� years of the new Russia massively introduced the concept of gypsy taxi or bombila. All this took place during the process of mass motorization of the population, which enabled people to freely buy a personal car. Unemployment and immigration were the two major driving forces of bombilas. The Russian Federation economical default in 1998, and the world financial crisis of 2008, coincide with the bigge� number of illegal taxi drivers. Every crisis and increased unemployment in Moscow has been chara�erized by an increase in the number of illegal taxi drivers, who have lo� their usual work and wanted to earn real money.

Nowadays, a large-scale campaign again� illegal taxi drivers is ongoing in Moscow. Local drivers are compelled to obtain a five-year license and subsequent legalization. When the 40,000th taxi license was issued in April 2014, the head of Moscow Depart-ment of Tran¤ort, Maxima Liksutov, commented that the number of illegal taxi drivers has decreased significantly, from 40,000 in 2010 to 15-20,000 in 2014.

Types of Taxi Driver

At night cars get a lot of freedom and dozens of taxis, the mo� convenient means of tran¤ortation in the city aµer midnight, go to the city �reets. The taxi is a kind of driver-less car that can be rented for relatively small amount of money. Mo� taxi drivers work in the evening and at night because people can easily move on night roads, without wa�ing time and money because of conge�ion, and because of the lack of public tran¤ort. The taxi driver knows the city be±er than anyone else and for a passenger he can be a navigator, companion and guide. He can also show where to find a pro�itute, a shop that sells illegal alcohol or a bar that is �ill open.

One can di�inguish between three types of night taxi drivers: nomads, se�lers, and on demands.

Nomads never �and �ill. They con�antly roam the �reets of Moscow because of their safety model (when you move it’s harder to track and catch you), and search for clients. Nobody knows where they are, but almo� certainly they know where you are. This type of taxi driver rea�s fa�er than anyone else on the current demand. If a nightclub or a large bar opens anywhere, the same day nomadic taxi drivers will be periodically passing by looking for clients. Nomads are oµen informal and sometimes unsafe. They are operated mo�ly by immigrant drivers and with cars brought from the Baltic countries to avoid pay-

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ment of tran¤ortation tax and road control fines. The price for a ride is always much lower than with other types of taxi, but you should not forget to bargain. They probably do not know how to drive to the address you name, but they know very well all the crowded places of Moscow at night.

Se�lers do not like to ride around the city without a passenger. They consider this nomadic behavior ungrateful and wa�eful. These taxi drivers se±le on the mo� profitable points, including the end of metro �ations, railway �ations and nightclubs. They are lazy and only su¨cient payment, which is oµen at lea� two times higher than the price from the nomads, will encourage them to drive you. Legal taxi drivers say that this group comprises half of the licensed taxi drivers and half of illegal immigrants. Each driver pays a ‘fee’ for admission to such an exclusive profitable place. Sub¤ecies of se±lers are regional taxi drivers who �and near all Metro �ations outside the Moscow central area. Usually they are residents of the adjacent sleeping di�ri�s and always se±le in the same place. Their earn money by giving a ride from the metro �ation to the housing block for a relatively small price (around 150 rubles).

On demand taxi drivers work with the help of internet applications or walkie-talkie radio. They receive an order and, aµer finishing it, wait for the next one. This group consi�s mainly of licensed taxi drivers. Waiting for the next order may be accompanied with a violation of the parking law as within the Garden Ring free parking is possible only in the designated parking areas. In all other cases, you need to pay for parking or ‘accidentally’ cover the license plate with paper.

Roles In Nightlife Carriers And Their Coexi�ence

Due to price, the level of legalization and informal support, nomads are de�ined to be on the lowe� rung of Moscow’s taxi hierarchy and consequently payment for their service is the lowe�. They fight aggressively for clients and may even �art to yell if anyone is ungentlemanly enough to �eal their client. They are highly disliked by all other types of taxi driver, who claim that driving with them appears to be insecure due to bad car condition and their bad under�anding of the city outside the Garden Ring. However, they �ill fill their particular niche and they will approach you the fa�e� if your hand is raised, if necessary by breaking a couple of Highway Code rules.

Taxi drivers on-call �and on the next �age of this hierarchy. These drivers are consid-ered to be the mo� peaceful and the safe�. They don’t pick up passengers at the curb and prefer to wait for the next call.

The highe� level is taken by the se±led taxi drivers, who have tight conne�ions with the mafia. They pay for their place, get a decent amount of money from clients and in a way have a �able job.

Night buses, trolleybuses and trams do not compete with the taxi drivers. Their target audience covers migrants and young people for whom, serendipitously, the public tran¤ort route can take them home.

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Taxi vs. Night Public Tran¡ort

Moscow has di¶erent means of tran¤ortations at night, but only taxis could be called Moscow’s night public tran¤ort and are the safe� and the mo� beneficial mode of mobility aµer midnight. This can be explained in several ways.

According to the sociologi� David Gratian article Urban Nightlife, Social Capital, and the Public Life of Cities, pub crawlers who move from bar to bar make the �reets safer. Taxi drivers, by being nomads or by tran¤orting people from one place to another at night, make these �reets safer as, in a way, they carry out surveillance.

Moscow’s harsh winter climate, which is the third in the li� of the colde� capitals in the world (aµer A�ana and Ulan-Bator)3, also needs to be taken in consideration. Even assuming that the network of public tran¤ort will eventually be the mo� developed and cover the entire city, the time period between buses at night increases to half an hour and if one misses a bus, one would wait 30 long, cold minutes at the bus �op. Taxis in this sense can pick up passengers much fa�er.

Personal safety is another advantage of the taxi over public tran¤ort. Night buses, trams or trolleybuses are closed capsules, which at night can tran¤ort a group of people. Since the nightlife is oµen tied with alcohol consumption, certain groups of people can get caught up in group fights or a±ack innocent passengers. On the Ea�er holiday, at 0:50am, I witnessed a drunken a±ack on a male passenger by a separate group of peo-ple, who shot him in the head with a traumatic gun and �abbed him in the �omach. As an “unmanned” vehicle that can be rented for a while, the taxi can avoid this sort of scenario.

Taxi drivers are one of the mo� sociable groups of people. They know many urban ru-mors and are willing to share them with anyone wishing to chat. Taxi driving is oµen not their primary profession; they were either previously engaged in another a�ivity or now work during the day in their profession and drive in the evening and at night to making an additional income. Unlike public tran¤ort, in a taxi you have someone to talk to (unless you don’t want to communicate). Scienti�s e�imate driverless cars to appear widely in 10-15 years in We�ern world and 20-25 in developing countries. So maybe Moscow has to wait only a couple of decades more to have romantic night rides and talks before cars become robotized.

Endangered Species

Sticking to the metaphor of the animal kingdom while observing Moscow’s night trans-portation, one can point out the nomads as endangered ¤ecies. The absolute majori-ty of Muscovites do not like the nomad-bombilas. Nowadays the �ate is dire�ed again� them in order to squeeze them out of the market. However, these kinds of informal phenomena are mo� e¶e�ive because of the absence of a top-down approach. Nomadic taxi drivers build their night route according to popular places. Some of them make a very complex sy�em out of their route, including visiting railway �ations at the exa� time a train pulls in.

3 WorldClimate.com

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International experience shows that full legalization of taxis eventually could lead to a serious rise of the co� of a license. For example, in Paris, at the moment the co� of a license for one car is 200,000euros; in I�anbul, it is $650,000; and in New York licenses are sold at au�ion for $1 million. This may lead to cartel agreements and a consequent increase in co� per ride.

Problem, Opportunity, Peculiarity

Diverse means of tran¤ortation occupy and use night roads in Moscow. They have their own models of behavior, ways of using the ¤ace and impa� on the night city.

Moscow’s taxi world shows a perfe� model of how formal and informal economies can �imulate each other. Informal taxis are known to be a problem for monopolies and car-tels, but by being the only opposition to them they are the only deterrent from price rise. And price rise could lead to a decrease in night mobility, as if bombilas leave Moscow’s roads, prices will inevitably grow, which will lead to people not using taxis.

Nomads are a�ually a big opportunity for Muscovites as they can be found on every relatively big road. There is no need to remember complicated night bus routes as the Moscow citizen’s mental map shows where the routes of the nomads are. Informal taxis are one of the city’s bigge� peculiarities, as almo� nowhere else in the world is it so easy to find a cab on the �reet at night.

Along with nomads, se±lers and on-demands appear to be the my�erious protagoni�s of an undiscovered underworld of the Moscow night, who become important chara�ers of Muscovites’ night routine and who in a way symbolize nightlife in the city.

Level of car mobility increases at night

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Defi nition of the night

24/7 or Night Services

Awake population during the 24 hour day

Day and night migration in Moscow

Di� ri� di� ribution of night clubs and bars

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Night public tran¤ ort network and city borders in 1964 and 2013

Night public tran¤ ort routes in Moscow, London, Paris, New York

Length of routes during the day and night

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144

Types of night taxi drivers

Communal safety with night taxi surveillance

Nomad in search of a client

On demand is waiting for a passenger

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fi g. 8

Complex routes of night nomadic taxi drivers

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146

From 1986 to 2014

by Vitaly Avdeev

Yevgeni Yelizarov is a nuclear physici�, living during the �art of Pere�roika in the USSR. His extreme fear of a nuclear holocau� leads him to build an enormous self-su�aining fallout shelter beneath his dacha.

Based on ‘Bla� from the Pa�’ movie plot

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Chernobil explodes, Yevgeni, his pregnant wife Vi�oria, and his brother Alexander move into the shelter. A pilot loses control of his airplane and eje�s; the plane crashes into the Yelizarov home and de�roys it, leaving their friends and family to believe the Yelizarovs have died. The locks on the shelter are timed to open in 28 years and cannot be overridden by anyone inside or outside the shelter — for their own prote�ion, according to Yevgeni.

During the 28 years they are in the shelter, the world above dra�ically changes, while the Yelizarovs’ life remains frozen in 1986. Alexander, who was 20 in 1986 and enjoyed dancing, is ma�ering new moves and dreaming about the prominent communi� future. The family passes time watching black and white films and kinescopes of television programs via a proje�or rigged to look like a television.

In 2014, the timer releases the locks, and Yevgeni ascends to the surface in full protec-tive gear. The suburb in which they once lived has turned into the Third Ring Road of Moscow, which Yevgeni mi�akes for a po�-apocalyptic world. He wants his wife and brother to �ay in hiding while he colle�s supplies. When he su¶ers from che� pain, Alexander is sent for supplies in his �ead.

Alexander is unfamiliar with the life�yle and slang of 2014 and unaware of the value of money. He meets a girl, Larisa, and she is amused by him. Alexander meets Larisa’s gay housemate and be� friend, Stas, who is amused by Alexander’s naivety but o¶ers advice, gives Alexander a fashion makeover and wants to show him Moscow’s nightlife.

Larisa and Stas decide to take Alexander to a nightclub, but at fir� he doesn’t want to leave the house aµer midnight because night is time for sleep. They persuade Alexander and catch an illegal taxi on �reet. On the way they see �reet racers overtaking them at high ¤eed and making dangerous moves. Next to the night club Alexander sees a long line of people and he thinks that clothes and food can now be bought at night, but Larisa and Stas are laughing at him. Aµer entering the club Alexander hears �range music, but decides to show his ma�ered moves. They are amazed by his dancing skills, with which he immediately gains the a±ention of several desirable women. Larisa kisses Alexan-der and he tells her the truth about his pa� and �ates that he wants to take her “under-ground”. She doesn’t believe him and invites him to her place. Stas is forgo±en. On their way in the night taxi they �op and enter a 24/7 supermarket. Alexander is so a�onished by the variety of produ�s and lack of queues that it takes some time for Larisa to take him away. In the morning Alexander realizes that everything that happened to him was true and makes a proposal to Larisa, but she calls a team of mental health profession-als to have him commi±ed. He sadly cooperates at fir�, but escapes as they leave the house. Larisa realizes that she has feelings for Alexander, tracks him down and throws herself into his arms. He takes her to meet his parents.

Alexander tells his parents that he and Larisa can’t �ay in a shelter. He asks them to set the lock timer for only two months this time, and then he will return for them. He and Larisa use the money from selling copper and golden wire to build his parents a new home in the country, identical to the home that was de�royed. Alexander privately breaks the news to Yevgeni that there was no nuclear war, and that the Soviet Union has collapsed without a shot being fired. Vi�oria is overjoyed to be able to see the sky again; Alexander and Larisa become engaged to be married.

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Pocket ArticleFrom 1986 to 2014

148

Moscow Walk

by Sabina Maslova

Inhabitants and visitors in Moscow are all pede�rians fir�. Even a driver becomes a pede�rian as soon as s/he gets out of the car. While pede�rians comprise the mo� nu-merous con�ituent of the city’s tra¨c1, Moscow’s Department of Tran¤ort a±ributes the highe� priority to carsA. Yet only less than a third of Moscow’s population owns a carB2.

→ [see fig. 1 ]

It is �riking to see that Moscow’s leading map service provider, Yandex, which is designed to provide the mo� accurate tra¨c information for cars and public tran¤ort, doesn’t o¶er dire�ions and journey times for pede�rians. As elements of pede�rian infra�ru�ure, the numerous pede�rian underpasses and overpasses illu�rate that the main player on the roads is the car, while people on foot have to find their way using bypasses under and over the ground.

The city of Moscow is totally negligent towards its pede�rians. People have to �ruggle with a ho�ile environment, trying to weave their way through the tra¨c. This inve�igation aims to help pede�rians discover a number of unprecedented advantages from within this harsh daily reality.

1 Daytime population of Moscow varies from 16 to 18 mln people. Daytime population composed of permanent residents and additional popula-tion, which includes visitors from Moscow region towns and areas coming with labor, cultural and everyday purposes and temporary population (touri�s, city gue�s, transit passengers, etc.).

2 According to GIBDD (State In¤e�ion for Road Tra¨c Safety), 5 mln cars were regi�ered in Moscow in 2013.

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From Shared To Divided

From a legal per¤e�ive, pede�rians are considered to be not only those traveling on foot, but those on bicycles and motorbikes, or pulling a sled or a cart, too3.

→ [see fig. 2]

With the growing number of cars, it has become important to think of safe areas for pede�rians with enough comfortable ¤ace. The under�anding of the needs of pedes-trians came to Russia relatively late. This process represents the typical dynamics of developing tran¤ort sy�em. Segregation of ¤ace on the road by in�alling curbs, road surface markings, tra¨c signs, implementing tra¨c regulations and other demarcations between vehicles and pede�rians is introduced to increase safety, road capacity and control the ¤eed modes.

Only 100 years ago every city was car-freeC. In the 19th century when the cars didn’t yet exi� on the roads of Moscow, all the ¤ace on the road was mixed and occupied with horses, carriages, carts and even trading places. Road-sharing was common. With the introdu�ion of the car, the di¶erence in ¤eed on the road increased by more than 12 times4. Gradually, for reasons of safety, the ¤ace on the road was separated into two zones — with cars and without.

→ [see fig. 3]

As the number of cars continued to grow rapidly, the segregation of the road ¤ace has been further elaborated, and by 20105 had resulted in an unevenly di�ributed, car-orient-ed ¤ace. However, the late� initiatives and current �rategies of the city governmentD show that the dire�ion towards a more balanced sy�em has been chosen, further favor-ing the separation of ¤ace, by allocating equal priority for each tra¨c user, so that not only pede�rians have their se�ion on the road, but also the cycli�s and public trans-port. This is how one of the major principles of successful management — ‘divide and rule’ — which is pra�ised in many European countries, is being implemented in Moscow. With the coexi�ence of the divided parallel flows, no major problems occur. Possible confli� zones can appear when the flows interse�. As a solution to avoid the confli�s in interse�ion points, pede�rian archite�ure was created: zebra crossings, underpasses, overpasses. However, their network is unevenly di�ributed across the city, and it doesn’t provide opportunities for pede�rians to cross busy highways everywhere. In the city center, interse�ions in the divided ¤ace have been improved, but in large areas on the periphery, the shortage of these elements has become more evident.

→ [see fig. 4, 5]

Divided In Space

Division of the ¤ace between vehicle tra¨c and pede�rians can be implemented as a �rategy not only in the se�ion of a road, but also on the scale of the city. Some zones, such as MKAD and the Third Ring Road, have almo� no pede�rian infra�ru�ure and

3 According to the Chapter 1 of Tra¨c Regulations of Russia, a pede�rian is “person on the road outside of the vehicle who doesn’t produce any con�ruion works”. Pede�rians include people traveling on wheelchairs, riding bicycle/motorbike/motorcycle, pulling a sled/cart/buggy.

4 Assuming average pede�rian ¤eed 5 kph, of car – 60 kph.5 In 2010 Sergey Sobyanin was assigned to the position of the mayor of Moscow and aµerwards he has significantly changed tran¤ort develop-

ment �rategies of the city.

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150

represent mo�ly de�inations for car users. As a pede�rian, it is only possible to feel unhampered by cars in certain isolated areas, which can be reached only by personal or public tran¤ort. The mo� extreme vision of car-free zones in the city is pede�rian- only �reets. In Moscow they appeared rather late; before 2011 the city had ju� one pede�rian-only �reet — Arbat.

→ [see fig. 6]

Since then the number of these ¤aces has increased significantly and the total length of pede�rian-only �reets in the city center will reach 18.8kmE by 2014. Other zones, where cars are not welcome and one can experience being a pede�rian and walk, relax, shop and meet people, are huge shopping malls, airports and public parks.

→ [see fig. 7]

These types of pede�rian environments have many common features: several crossing �reets, public squares (sometimes with a fountain or a skating rink), and no dead ends. The division of ¤ace looks similar: narrow �reets; a high density of people in the center; shops and cafes towards the edges; many benches, lights, greenery and rubbish bins; expensive paving material.

→ [see fig. 8]

In pede�rian-only �reets, malls and airports, the dominant fun�ion is commercial, whereas in public parks the dominant ¤ace is green.

However, ¤atially divided pede�rian areas �ill represent only a few isolated car-free islands, and this concept can’t be applied to the whole city.

→ [see fig. 9]

Pede�rian environments are created for a certain group of users — people walking plus shopping. But there is a much larger seion of users, beyond flaneurs and shoppers, who use the city to travel with a purpose, transferring from point A to point B in a certain period of time, and this issue relates to pede�rian mobility in the city. This second group of users has other requirements for ¤ace, which include time ¤ent to cover the di�ance, continuity of the movement, and the quality of the surroundings.

Everything Else Is Shared?

Spaces only for cars form a sort of car city, where the role of the capital is taken by MKAD; and the considerably smaller ¤ace of Moscow can be a±ributed to the car-free city with its pede�rian capital in Arbat. These two poles are extremes. The relationship between cars and pede�rians in between these two worlds is unclear. Is it a shared ¤ace?

→ [see fig. 10]

In We�ern countries, shared ¤ace came aµer the segregation of the road to raise peo-ple’s awareness and encourage mutual re¤e� by removing the demarcation between vehicles and pede�rians. The highe� priority is given to people and children and a±en-tion on the cars is minimal. Generally in We�ern countries shared ¤ace is the exception to the rule of segregated ¤ace. On the contrary, in Moscow undefined shared ¤ace is not an exceptional phenomenon, but a general concept for the large� part of the city.

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It is assumed that in Moscow ‘shared’ ¤ace is created by cars taking over ¤ace from people on the sidewalks, in the yards, near the bus �ops and metro exits. But the oppo-site is also true — pede�rians oµen use car roads in�ead of the sidewalk and cross the road at inappropriate places. And if in an absolutely regulated tran¤ort sy�em of segre-gated elements this wouldn’t be possible, in Moscow this weird shared ¤ace gives more freedom of movement to walking people and helps overcome the ob�acles of the poorly designed pede�rian sy�em.

In the periphery of Moscow the concept of shared ¤aces is represented even more widely. It consi�s of a large number of shared residential yards and shared sidewalks, which are disconne�ed by wide impassable highways. In this sense the periphery, with its wide roads, can be compared to Venice with its channels. Highways are similar to channels and pede�rian crossings are the bridges over these channels. Ju� as Venice is pede�rian within the islands, Moscow has shared ¤ace for pede�rians within its micro-di�ri�s.

→ [see fig. 11]

On the �reet scale, an inverse reality can sometimes be observed: cars are �ru�urally parked over the sidewalks and people walk on the road.

→ [see fig. 12]

Sharing of ¤ace with cars is not the main threat to pede�rians per se; it is in reality pede�rians’ major non-manife�ed quality, their primary source. In many places informal self-organized shared areas, where informal laws work quite e¶e�ively, turn into a bigger advantage for people travelling by foot in Moscow.

It is mo�ly relevant to the second group of users – people who travel from point A to point B — who can minimize their commute time by using dire� routes without extra bypassing. This quality of Moscow’s shared ¤ace is a certain way of adaptation to the imperfe� and fragmented sy�em of segregated ¤ace. By sharing ¤ace, vehicles and the pede�rians also share the ¤eed, compared to the divided model of flows of di¶erent ¤eed, shared ¤ace is in a way safer because of that.

Copying We�ern models of divided ¤ace does work, but it will take decades or even longer to transform the whole of Moscow according to We�ern pede�rian guidelines, and it will also reduce the diversity of pede�rian infra�ru�ure’s forms to a minimum, resulting in an uncountable number of signs, sidewalks, crossings, etc.

There is a way to identify and use hidden local advantages of pede�rian ¤aces. The idea for a possible future of pede�rians in the city is to �art appreciating exi�ing exam-ples of shared �ru�ures. The main necessity is to switch the reality by changing the priority in key controversial areas of cars-pede�rians coexi�ence. Simply pu±ing the sign of a shared ¤ace in all de-fa�o shared yards can initiate the improvement of the current situation. As with yards, similar a�ions can be performed with other already informally shared locations — sidewalks.

Shared zones of sidewalks, yards, forbidden parking and unauthorized crossings are negatively perceived in Moscow; meanwhile they appear quite common from the outside.

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152

So the situation can be improved only by changing the per¤ e� ive, by admi± ing and accepting the exi� ing qualities. The a� ual conditions are already there; now a shiµ in opinion is needed.

Potential For Sharing

The potential of shared ¤ ace for people in Moscow is huge. Starting with yards in micro-di� ri� s, changes can be applied to almo� 60% of the city area6. The remaining percentage can be fi xed by dealing with shared sidewalks, and the re� will get fi xed with the continuing segregation policy.

The area of Moscow occupied by the roads comprises only 8.4% of the total area, whereas in American cities (New York, Los Angeles), the fi gure is 35%, and in Europe (Paris, London, Munich), 20-25%. There is no ¤ ace to widen the roads or build new ones, therefore we will have to e¶ e� ively share the exi� ing roads, zones, and share roads both in ¤ ace and in time.

To face the exi� ing fun� ioning pa± erns and informalities of the pede� rian environment and embody the potential qualities of its ¤ ace would defi ne new levels of improvement for pede� rians and city mobility.

6 E� imations based on the map of microrayons from Archeology of Periphery, 2013

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References:

A Department of Tran¤ ort and Road Infra� ru� ure Development of Moscow, Presentation for Moscow Urban Forum (04/12/12)

B h± p://foxtime.ru/news-view/v-moskve-ra� et-koliche� vo-mashinC Carfree Cities, by J.H. CrawfordD State Program of Moscow “Strategy for the Development of

Tran¤ ort Sy� em in 2012-2016” (h± p://s.mos.ru/common/upload/tran¤ ort_gos_programma_depr_i_df1.pdf)

E Department of Tran¤ ort and Road Infra� ru� ure (h± p://dt.mos.ru/Doc/itogi2013_plans_2014.pdf)

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fi g. 1: Hierarchy on the road and the number of users

fi g. 3: Evolution of the road ¤ ace

fi g. 4, 5: Pede� rian crossings

fi g. 2: A Pede� rian

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fi g. 6: Timeline

fi g. 7: Pede� rian environments

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fi g. 8: Value of pavements

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fi g. 10: In between

fi g. 11156

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fi g. 13

fi g. 12: Inverse reality

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168168

Detour

Night Race

by Irina Eremenko / James Schrader

169

169

Night Race

As a group, Strelka cars �udio engaged in embedded journali�ic research: we tried to briefly become part of the closed community of young people who are deeply intere�ed in cars, car racing, and tuning.

There are rumors around the city about drag races being held on certain nights near Vorobyevy Gory. But nobody knows where the race is a�ually taking place. To find out, you need to track down and infiltrate the crowd, and then follow them to the night’s location. They say that they need to hide from the police, but of course the police all know about this and look the other way, le±ing the metaphorical children play their game. The whole process has a feeling of deep my�ery.

At Vorobyevy Gory before the race, it looks like some sort of show. Loud music from portable boomboxes accompanies two scantily-clad girls dancing with �art flags. Nearby, some car trunks are open for serving hookah to ¤e�ators. An organizer is gathering the drivers and warming up the crowd.

Soon, hundreds of cars move slowly along the road next to Moscow State University, one by one ge±ing the information flier from one of the girls about the location of the race. Approximately 300 cars gather with blanking emergency lights, waiting in line to move as a convoy to the secret location of the race.

It is a wonderful pi�ure of colle�ive consciousness when so many cars are driving together through the night, all with their emergency lights on. At fir� we thought nobody could get lo� because everyone �icks together. But we soon found ourselves mi�akenly in the parking lot of one of the Ashan malls. Aµer ten minutes of waiting we realised our error and some new friends told us how to find the race. But again we got lo�: five minutes from the final location we had to slow down for a red light because of the presence of a police o¨cer and we lo� the car in front of us. Aµer 15 minutes of confused driving on an empty road and twenty phone calls we finally found the right place.

And here the show �arts! The drag races. Cars racing two by two aµer each swing of the beautiful girl’s flag. We used the top of a �urdy metal fence as a grand�and for watching the a�ion. Soon, however, the lively drama of the night ended abruptly: the organizer announced that the race is over because of the police nearby. Four hours of inve�igation, research, and driving led us to an exciting fiµeen minutes of a�ual racing.

Every Muscovite knows Vorobyevy Gory as a place for one of the be� views over the city. Thousands of people come every day to take a look over Moscow from the height of a bird’s flight. But at night this place switches to a very di¶erent regime: it becomes a �range symbiosis of a car racetrack and a nightclub.

170170

Detour

171

171

Night Race

172172

Detour

Cars are one of the phenomenon imported into Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union that has caused huge changes in the city. In this short time period, the growing presence of cars has �rongly influenced the daily routines in the city and the experience of being in the city.

Jammed in Tra¨c

by Giulio Margheri / James Schrader

173

173

Jammed in Tra¨c

Since the end of Soviet times, the number of the cars on the �reets of Moscow has risen dramatically. According to the Conge�ion Index created by TomTom in 2012, Moscow is considered the mo� gridlocked city in the world; tra¨c in Moscow makes an average journey 66% longer, with peaks of 106% during the morning rush and 138% during the evening rush. Compared to the Conge�ion Index’s other mo� gridlocked cities, Moscow only has 380 cars per 1000 inhabitants, while Los Angeles has 540 and Palermo has 745.

One of the main causes of car conge�ion in Moscow is the unequal di�ribution of working places in the city: around 40% of jobs are concentrated in 6.5% of the territory, mo�ly in the city center. The va� majority of Muscovites, however, live in the periphery of the city and need to commute into the city center for work. Whether they travel by car or by Metro, work-places being far from dwelling places creates many more trips--and longer trips-- than would be necessary if people lived closer to where they work.

Another significant issue is that the quantity of roads compared to the inhabitants and surface area of the city. According to urban �andards, there are three times fewer roads than there should be.

An additional problem is parking ¤aces: there are not enough parking �alls for every car in the city, not to mention all of the cars that come into the city every day from the suburbs. This leads to improvised solutions like parking on the sidewalks--blocking pede�rian move-ment--and also to additional tra¨c from people driving in circles with their cars looking for somewhere to park.

Paradoxically, Moscow authorities already ¤end more money on road issues than any other city in the world. According to M. Blinkin, “the problem remains because the solutions being o¶ered are based on traditional Soviet thinking”.

All these issues create a number of �range phenomena in the city. For example, because the tra¨c jams make it di¨cult to how long one’s journey will take, people oµen drive toward their de�inations very far in advance. When they have good luck and don’t get caught in gridlock, the early arrival of commuters to work leads to a long line of cars parked in front of their de�i-nations. Near the Moscow City business center in the early morning, a large number of smart-ly dressed people sleep inside their cars. Some of them have blankets, others have iPads with movies, others mugs of co¶ee and a mobile breakfa�. In this case, the car is not ju� a fetish obje�; it has become an extension of their private homes. Cars are not ju� for covering dis-tance but also a room of your house that can be taken with you.

Simple trips can la� far longer than one might expe�. It might be a fru�rating surprise for the uninitiated, but the expe�ation of gridlock and the reality of oµen moving along at a snail’s pace has simply become part of the condition of exi�ing as a driver in Moscow.

174174

Detour

This trip �arted from the heart of Moscow and led to Kazan, the capital city of the Tatar�an Region 1.000 km Ea� of the Moscow Kremlin. We leµ the familiar city center of Moscow in the early morning and moved into the dire�ion of the megacity’s border.

The radial-concentric �ru�ure of Moscow, the small size of its hi�oric center, the city’s ex-plosive growth in the twentieth century, decades of Sociali� urban planning — all influenced the extreme development of Moscow’s periphery, which makes up 7/8th of the city. Its land-scape is defined by va� microrayons: �andardized housing di�ri�s with huge building blocks that have turned the periphery into the dormitory suburbs of Moscow. Its monotony and refusal to adhere the tight-knit �reetscape of the ideal city makes it “non-places”.1 Va� faceless ¤aces that fail to provide any form of orientation in the city. They immediately �art aµer leaving behind Moscow’s city center. The Third Ring, like the city walls of the pa�, creates a border inside Moscow between its diverse and multifun�ional hi�oric center and the enormous, monotonous residential landscape of the periphery. Once the car enters the peripheral zone, the road itself becomes the reference point in the landscape. It absorbs all services of the microrayons and, like a linear city, goes on for kilometers with a �ring of fun�ions on both sides: recurring shopping malls, re�aurants, cinemas. All is the same for a minimum of 40 minutes until the next border is reached—the MKAD.2

→ [see fig. 1]

As soon as the MKAD border is crossed, the road belongs to trucks. While they are only allowed to enter the MKAD at night, during the day they are waiting in a long line on both sides of the radial road that leads into the city. This daily, hours-long truck parking is supported by all infra�ru�ure needed: motels, cafes, re�aurants, shops. At the same time, this is the moment during our trip to check whether all necessary supplies are on board — enough water, food, gasoline. Aµer the line of trucks, ‘nothingness’ emerges.

→ [see fig. 2, 3]

1 Ju�in McGuirk, Life on the edge, Archeology of periphery2 Moscow Ring Auto Road

To exit Moscow by car is a unique experience. It gives an insight into Moscow’s hypercentralized �ru�ure, the changing city as you drive from its center to its edge, and the huge di¶erence in landscape between Moscow and Moscow Obla�, the region behind the city border.

Behind Moscow

by Olena Grankina / Roel van Herpt

175

175

Behind Moscow

fig. 1

fig. 2

176176

Detour

fig. 3

fig. 4

Exiting Moscow feels like exiting urbanized Russia. Suddenly empty fields and fore�s follow, for mo� of the hundreds of kilometres ahead. Here, even the road lacks a highway designa-tion. It leads from Moscow to the next city, cu±ing all villages on its way into two parts. These villages almo� died out. Nothing happens here, houses are blackened, their wood is decay-ing. The people that used to live here seem to be drawn into Moscow, into the city’s endless periphery. From this di�ance, in the middle of nowhere far away from the growing megacity, Moscow appears to absorb everything around, leaving nothing behind.

→ [see fig. 4, 5, 6]

177

177

fig. 5

fig. 6

Behind Moscow

RACE:OUT

179

180

180

Glossary

181

181

Glossary!

Antropocar: An anthropometric portrait of a car.

APC: Abbreviation of Armoured Personnel Carrier.

Arbat: The fir� and large� pede�rian-on-ly �reet of Moscow that appeared in 1986.

Bombila: A driver who provides informal taxi services for Muscovites.

Border: A line separating one area from the other, in the case of Moscow separating the city from Moscow Obla� (Moscow Re-gion). For mo� of its hi�ory, the city border of Moscow was defined by defense walls. In 1960, the MKAD Ring Road became the admini�rative border of the city. Although the admini�rative border of the city has been increased, the MKAD remains the mo� important physical and mental bor-der of the city.

Buildup: An upward extension of an exi�-ing �ru�ure above a baseline.

Car club: A group of people who share a common intere� in motor vehicles, flour-ished in Russia on the internet in the end of the 1990s.

Car medium: A means of communication between a driver, a car and an environment.

Cartel: A coalition or cooperative arrange-ment between service providers intended to promote a mutual intere�.

Circuit race: A mass-�art race of several laps on a closed circuit.

City: A metaplace of high density and high frequency of events.

Clearance: The di�ance between two obje�s, for example between the car and road surface.

Concentric city: The urban development typology of Moscow. Thoughout its hi�ory, radial roads that led outside Moscow were framed by new and increasingly larger con-centric rings that added land to the exi�-ing city. All these rings share the city’s ini-tial core: the Moscow Kremlin.

Continuous city: A city in which the urbanization is ¤read over an even carpet across the landscape rather than concen-trated in places of intensity.

Cyclops: One-eyed giants from Greek and Roman mythology.

Dacha: Seasonal or year-round second homes, oµen located in the exurbs of Rus-sian and po�-Soviet cities.

Dashboard camera: A camera put on a car’s dashboard or windshield to film the inside or outside driving process. Being imported to Russia by its a�ive car com-munity, it is used as the mo� powerful tool to control police violence and drivers rights in case of road accidents.

Glossary

182

Divided �ace: The segregation of the road ¤ace between pede�rians and traf-fic vehicles designed to increase safety, road capacity and ¤eed modes.

Drag race: A race between two or more cars �arting from �and�ill. The car that accelerates fa�e� wins.

Driving: Ge±ing from point A to point B.

Economic freedom: The freedom to pro-duce, trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theµ.

Enclave (MKAD): A portion of territory with one or more services and located next to the MKAD Ring Road. The di¶erent en-claves are only conne�ed with each other through the ring.

Exit (MKAD): A short road leading o¶ the MKAD Ring Road, oµen to a (group of) ser-vice(s) located immediately along the ring. The va� amout of exits and their typical design make them the mo� peculiar as-pe� of the MKAD.

Flaneur: From the French noun “flâneur”, meaning �roller, lounger, saunterer or loaf-er. French philosopher Baudelaire charac-terized the flâneur as a “gentleman �roller of city �reets”.

FSB: Abbreviation of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.

Garage cooperative: A type of common property ownership of residents of a mul-ti-unit garage complex.

GIS: Abbreviation of Geo-Informational Sy�ems.

Horizontal elevator: A metaphor for de-scribing how the Metro sy�em is a point-to-point tran¤ortation sy�em taking people from one node to another without addressing the inbetween ¤ace.

Inomarka: Russian slang for cars pro-duced outside Russia.

Ithaka: A Greek island, home of Odysseus.

Lai�rygonians: A tribe of giant cannibals.

Leviathan: An image of a Biblical mon�er, used by English philosopher Thomas Hob-bes to describe the autocratic �ate, which according to him was invented by humans as a tool of defense. Hobbes wrote that the only way to provide citizen security was to create a �rong and undivided government.

Magnetic: A±ra�ing things irresi�ably, like how a Metro �ation a±ra�s people and urban development.

Megacity: A city with 10 million inhabit-ants minimum, which is chara�erized by such fa�ors as global importance, tra¨c conge�ions, gentrification, 24 hourness and good public tran¤ort.

Megavillage: A di¶erent condition of the megacity at night, where some particular fa�ors are ina�ive. For example, bad night public tran¤ort makes Moscow a megavil-lage.

Mental map: A mental representation of ¤ace and places.

Metro: A sy�em of underground trains in Moscow that swiµly moves people be-tween its 194 �ations.

182

Glossary

183

METRO-2: An uno¨cial underground tran¤ortation network in Moscow, created for the fa� and secure movement of �ate authorities.

MKAD: Abbreviation of the Moscow Auto-mobile Ring Road. A 109 km ring road that since its opening in 1962 redire�s cars around the city of Moscow.

Nightlife: Social a�ivities or entertain-ment available at night in a city.

Nodal city: A city in which much of the life and development of is organized around intense nodes of a�ivity, such as around Metro �ations.

Node: The territory around a Metro �ation that is filled with a�ivity related to people going to and from the �ation.

Nomad: An uno¨cial taxi driver who moves around Moscow in search for pas-sengers.

Nordic walking: A walking a�ivity that can be enjoyed both by athletes as a ¤ort and by non-athletes as a health-promoting physical a�ivity. The a�ivity is performed with ¤ecially designed walking poles sim-ilar to ski poles.

On demand: An o¨cial taxi driver in Mos-cow who receives orders via a di¤atcher or online application sy�em and works on charters only.

Pede�ran-only �reet: City �reets re-served for pede�rian-only use and in which some or all automobile tra¨c may be prohibited.

Pede�rian: A person on the road outside the car. Pede�rians in Moscow include people travelling on unpowered wheel-chairs, bicycles and motorcycles, and peo-ple pulling a sled, cart or buggy.

Periphery: The outskirts of a city.

Place: A personal, private ¤ace.

Politics of real time: The concept of glob-al world politics that was introduced by Paul Virillio in the 1960s. It describes the domi-nance of time over ¤ace since the begin-ning of the 20th century. He argued that being the global weapon developments de-preciated the meaning of “where” and rein-forced the que�ion “how fa�”.

Polycentrism: The idea of any sy�em, in this case a city, having multiple centers rather than one single center.

POS: Abbreviation for Pede�rian-Only Street.

Poseidon: Greek god of the ocean.

Po�-Soviet City (MKAD): An urban ty-pology based on car usage and multiple choices for consumption, two main cultural a¤e�s of the period aµer the collapse of the USSR in 1991. See the area around the MKAD Ring Road.

Prote� on wheels: A form of civic prote� in the 21� century, marked by participation of drivers in a prote� with their cars. The car movement plays a role blocking the road infra�ru�ure on the governmental way and creating the tran¤ort infra�ruc-ture for rebels

183

Glossary!

184

Release valve: Something that releases pressure into a larger vessel; for example, how Metro �ations have concentrations of people that emerge into the neighborhood surrounding it.

Ring road: A circular road that aims to re-dire� cars around a city and releave traf-fic flows inside the city. The four ring roads of Moscow, linked by several radial roads, make up the basic car road infra�ru�ure of the city. From inside to outside, the ring roads are called Boulevard Ring, Garden Ring, Third Ring, and MKAD.

Se�ler: Both o¨cial and uno¨cial taxi drivers who wait for passengers next to the mo� crowded places in Moscow.

Shanghai: Russian slag for slums. A big and tight clu�er of con�ru�ions, such as garages, houses and huts, sometimes at di¶erent levels on uneven terrain.

Shared �ace: An urban design approach which seeks to minimize demarcations be-tween vehicle tra¨c and pede�rians, of-ten by removing features such as curbs, road surface markings, tra¨c signs and regulations.

Shared yard: A residential area yard where pede�rians are allowed to move through the roadway and where the maxi-mum ¤eed for the vehicles is 20kph. The highe� priority is given to pede�rians.

Shed: A simple, single-�orey �ru�ure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for �orage, hobbies, or as a work-shop.

Stop: ➀ A possibility for a driver to create a place. ➁ An indicator of urban a�ivity. ➂ A tool to identify the driving city.

Stops per minute: A measurement unit of driving events.

Su�ension: A sy�em of ¤rings and shock absorbers through which a vehicle can absorb bad road conditions.

Typology: The comparative �udy of phys-ical or other chara�eri�ics of the built en-vironment into di�in� types.

Urban Boulevard (MKAD): A proposed typology for the future MKAD Ring Road. The urban boulevard is open for di¶erent means of transit, integrated in the larger tran¤ortation sy�em of the city and Mos-cow region, and allows for dire� access to a va� array of urban fun�ions.

VAZ: Abbreviation of Volzskiy Car Fa�ory.

Voronoi: A mathematical sy�em for divid-ing ¤ace into a set of territories, the area of each being close� to a point in an array of points.

World Mapping: A program �arted by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, aimed to map all cities in the We� on scale 1:10.000 or 1:20.000 to under�and their ways of of-fense and defense. At the same time, simi-lar maps of Soviet cities were not available.

Wormhole: A hole in which one descends and emerges somewhere else; for exam-ple, how a Metro �ation is a hole in the ground that leads you to another part of the city.

184

Glossary

185

185

Glossary!

186

D ATLAS

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187

ATLASD

Mobile User 3 AM

Heatmap

Within this physically continuous city, we can see diferentiation at the macro scale, with users in their homes at night clu� ered on the periphery of the city.

188 Source: Megafon; data processed by Alexander Ayoupov

D ATLAS

Mobile User

Heatmap11 AM

A daily migration occurs to the city center for work.

189Source: Megafon; data processed by Alexander Ayoupov

ATLASD

Accessible Nodes

Territoryas

The 194 � ations create access to the territory immediately adjacent to them. 500-meter circles are an approximation of the average di� ance someone would be comfortable walking to Metro. The territory accessible from each � ation is a ‘node’ of area that belongs to that � ation.

LegendRed-fl led circles: 500m radius around metro � ations.

190 Source: Moscow Metro, Google Maps, Yandex Maps

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Parallel Sy� emsThe major roads of Moscow have the same logic as Metro of radiating out from the center. In many places, they overlap, but in others, they cover diferent territory.

LegendOrange: Major roadsGrey+Red: Metro lines + 500m/1000m radius

Source: Moscow Metro, Google Maps, Yandex Maps 191

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Hi� oric Growth 1935Over the course of the pa� century, Metro undergoes a continuous expansion from a single line into an extensive network.

Source: Moscow Metro, Google Maps, Yandex Maps192

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Hi� oric Growth 1980Over the course of the pa� century, Metro undergoes a continuous expansion from a single line into an extensive network.

193Source: Moscow Metro, Google Maps, Yandex Maps

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Metro In The Physical

Looking at the Metro in a geographic plan view allows a more accurate under� anding ofthe ¤ atial relationship between Metro and the city.

LegendCircles: Train � ationsBlack � itches: InterchangesBlack circles: Ring roads

Source: Moscow Metro, Google Maps, Yandex Maps

Space of The City 2014

194

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FutureMetro is planning numerous line extensions as well as a second ring line and the integration of an un-derused railway ring.


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Future And Parks

Territory

The location of major park and natural ¤ aces in Moscow explains why some areas are not included in Metro’s expansion plans.

196 Source: Moscow Metro, Google Maps, Yandex Maps

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Park And RideDuring morning and aµ ernoon peak hours authorities expe� these parkings to be used by drivers who work in the centre. They will leave their cars here and travel to work by public tran¤ ortation. At night it will be used as a regular parking by the drivers from the neighbouring area. The parking is municipal and the city authorities say charges will be low, as the enterprise isn’t working for profi , but to improve tra c conge� ion. Around 250,000 cars come every day to the city from outside Moscow. This park-and-ride promises to be a good � art in relieving conge� ion in the capital.

The Goal to reduce the number of trips by private cars in rush hour by 33% between the MKAD and the Third Ring (need to create intercept parking for 30 000 cars); to reduce the number of trips by private cars in rush hour by 31% at the entrance to the MKAD (need to create intercept parking for 80,000 cars)

~15,000 parking ¤ aces Now

30,000 car ¤ aces needed between the MKAD and the Third Ring80,000 car ¤ aces needed at the entrance to the MKAD


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People’s GarageIdea of building “People’s garages” appeared in City Hall in 2003 to combat the numerous “rakush-kas”, fooded Moscow neighborhood. The program was launched in 2009.

The idea of the program — to build parking garages and sell them to residents at prime co� . Spaces in “people’s garages”, planned to be sold at a fxed price of 350 thousand rubles which is signifcantly lower than the market co� . This was allowed by ¤ ecial order of granting land plots for garages. How-ever , Moscovites did not show “People’s Garage “ any intere� .

In December 2010, Moscow authorities acknowledged that the program has failed . Reason for the fail-ure: bureaucratic delays, the high price, bad location out of walking di� ance from the areas of residen-tial neighborhoods.

198

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Police Control MapEach crossing of a radial road with the MKAD in Moscow is under police control.

Source: Wikimapia and Google Maps, 2014

● Permanent road police● Temporary road police po� s

199

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Pede� rian CrossingsUnderpasses are mainly a± ached to the main radial roads and Garden Ring, overpasses are generally located on MKAD and Third Road Ring, the ¤ ace in between is covered with zebras

● Pede� rian overpass● Pede� rian underpass● Pede� rian zebra crossing

200 Source: OSM Maps, Wikimapia Categories, 2014

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Garages with IndividualBoxes 2014Main trend: The less valuable territory — the more garages. Large garage patches are � retched along roads and rail-roads. Small garage patches are located in close proximity to houses.

Source: wikimapia.org

~ 520,000 garage boxes

201

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Mona� eries As Defense

In the XII century, the time of Moscow’s gain of power, its defense sy� em got improved. From the very center, the Kremlin, roads have been built to mona� eries, located around the city.

Outpo� s

202 Image: Moscow and surrounding mona� eries, 1300s

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Density of Crossings by

Lack of the elements of pede� rian infra� ru� ure is e¤ ecially represented in the periphery of the city

Source: OSM Maps, Wikimapia Categories, 2014

Number of pede� rians crossings per di� ri�

35 60 95 145 245

Di� ri� s

203

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Car-related ServicesAll car-related services, di� ributed over Moscow.

204 Source: Wikimapia and Google Maps (2014)

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Petrol Stations LogoOn this map, the petrol � ations are represented by their logo.

Source: Wikimapia and Google Maps, 2014 205

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Car Dealers LogoOn this map, the car dealers are represented by their logo.

206 Source: Wikimapia and Google Maps, 2014

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Mega� ores LogoOn this map, the Mega� ores are represented by their logo.

Source: Wikimapia and Google Maps, 2014 207

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Detour

Dire�ors Theo Deutinger, Sergey Chernov

ResearchersVitaliy Avdyeyev, Alexander Ayoupov, Irina Eremenko, Olena Grankina, Roel van Herpt, Giulio Margheri, Sabina Maslova, Elena Mazina, James Schrader

Editing & Design Lukas Feireiss, Floyd E. Schulze

209

Education programme 2013/14: Urban Routines/Car

Imprint

210

And if I only could I’d make a deal with godand I’d get him to swap our placesbe running up that road be running up that hillbe running up that building if I only could

Kate Bush, Running Up That Hill ( A Deal With God), 1985

Research report 2013/14. Studio Cars

Documents

Transcript of Research report 2013/14. Studio Cars