Our field visit to Slavyanskiy Mir revealed a place quite different from what we experience within the center or even the MKAD borders of Moscow. It exists in stark contrast to nearby global shopping markets which are also like mini cities, like Ashaan, IKEA, and Stockmann.
Today we zeroed in on a case study for our workshop – the Slavyanskiy Mir market, cafe and bus terminal eco system which lies just beyond the outer limits of Moscow, accessible by bus from metro Tyopliy Stan.
Evgeniya Nedosekina’s comprehensive research of the former Cherkizovsky market, which opened after the fall of the Soviet Union and operated as one of the largest informal markets – perhaps in the world.
Slavyanskiy Mir is an informal, partially open air market and bus station in Moscow. It sits at the “border” of what is considered old and new Moscow.
In identifying the sets of invisible urban borders, we came to see the important role of personal experiences crossing borders, thresholds, divides in the city. Urban borders are not self-evident in the built environment as they are on maps. The boundaries become visible through personal experience, border stories reveal the hidden lines.
Invisible Borders Lab is a 5-day co-design, performance and learning experience hosted at the Strelka Institute, examining unseen borders (urban, social and mythical) in Moscow. Participants will investigate people’s perceptions of borders in the city through techniques such as urban mapping, social research, game design, location-based digital narratives, social network analysis, visualization, dance and performance.
Marijka Semenenko shared her investigation surrounding the relationship between nationality and the state. Her research focused on the Friendship University in Yugozapadnaya.
Moscow is a city without ethnic enclaves, but it has ethnic nodes in the form of local cafe communities. Anna Rocheva has been working with a team to study migrants’ perceptions of Moscow.
Natalia Melikova shared the Constructivist Project whose mission is “to raise awareness of the threat to cultural heritage and to promote the preservation of avant-garde monuments.”
Petr V. Ivanov of the Higher School of Economics shared his experience studying courtyards using a hand-drawn visual.