Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The author aims at revealing how the elements of rural environment and the rural way of life influenced the social sphere and lifestyle in the cities of Western Siberia in the 1930s. Within the stated period a number of industrial urban settlements in Western Siberia increased significantly. As conceived by the country’s leaders and theoreticians of urban development the formation and development of the new industrial cities was to be in accordance with a clear plan. While carrying out these projects the authorities faced a number of difficulties that prevented the full implementation of the projects. The difficulties lay in the lack of material resources for the projects, as well as in the fact that citizens were unprepared for such work. A significant percentage of the new city dwellers were born in the rural areas. Migrants from the rural areas that had settled in the West Siberian towns tried to adapt to the new living conditions and to the emerging urban environment while reproducing their usual behavior patterns. Moreover, the former peasants influenced the formation of the urban area and social relationships in the new cities. In their turn, the authorities both at the regional and national levels attempted to adapt the behavior patterns of the «new urban citizens» so as to solve the tasks of economical and social modernization according to the plans of industrial development. Upon that, the authorities not only stimulated modernization factors affecting population, but also strove to take control of the «chaotic» elements of the traditional style of life and to incorporate them into the space of the emerging industrial towns. As a result, urban space included elements of social environment, extraneous for the industrial cities. Some of these elements were the legacy of the rural way of life, others were the product of rapid urban growth.