‘Looking West?

Youth and cultural globalisation in post-Soviet Russia’

Presented to panel on

‘Youth in contemporary Russia’

BASEES Conference, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge,

27-29 March 1999

This is unpublished work in progress, please do not cite without permission of the

author

Hilary Pilkington

CREES

The University of Birmingham

52 Pritchatts Rd

Edgbaston

BIRMINGHAM

B15 2TT

[e-mail]

‘Looking West?

Youth and cultural globalisation in post-Soviet Russia’1[1]

Identity formation occurs within communities but in the late

twentieth century the factors that shape identities increasingly

transcend the boundaries of locale. (Liechty 1995: 167)

Talk of ‘globalising’ processes which shape our economy, society and

everyday cultural interactions has become commonplace in the west in the last

decade of the twentieth century. This talk - especially of cultural globalisation

- is frequently discussed at the macro, theoretical level only, however, and the

relationships between individual, community, national and global identities are

rarely discussed in their full complexity. This paper argues that this failure, in

part at least, is embedded in the occidentalist nature of theories of cultural

globalisation themselves consolidated by limited empirical research rooted in

(‘peripheral’) locale as opposed to (western) centre. This paper attempts to

redress that balance. The first section of the paper addresses the general

problems raised by applying cultural globalisation theory to the particular case

of Russia. The second section draws on fieldwork conducted in three Russian

cities between September 1997 and April 1998 to explore what actually

happens to global cultural products in the everyday cultural practice of young,

1[1]

An earlier version of this paper was presented to the CREES Annual

Conference, Cumberland Lodge, Great Windsor Park, June 1998.

urban, provincial Russians. On the basis of this empirical research, the third

section addresses the question of cultural globalisation directly by analysing

how young people adopting different youth cultural strategies perceive and use

cultural products from ‘the west’ and what this might tell us about where they

see Russia as placed within, or indeed outside, current global cultural

networks.

Cultural globalisation: Structure, power and agency

Even before Russian reality is permitted to sully western theory, attempting to

operationalise contemporary globalisation theory in the study of non-western

youth cultural practice casts doubt on the universality of two aspects of that

theory: the centre to periphery model of cultural exchange which underpins it;

and the agency, often unconsciously, attributed to youth in globalisation

processes.

Cores and peripheries

Although cultural globalisation is a process, it also has a structure. This

structure is generally described in terms of the relationship between

centres/cores and peripheries; a relationship premised not on functionality but

on power. At best, globalisation is assumed to come about via a lopsided

process of cultural exchange between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ (Hannerz 1991).

At worst, globalisation is posited as consisting of a one-way flow of

commoditised culture from core to periphery whose end result is world-wide

cultural homogenisation. In its latter (political economy or modernist) guise

cultural globalisation might be more crudely termed ‘Western cultural

imperialism’ or ‘Americanisation’. In its former (post-structuralist)

manifestation, globalisation theory suggests that greater cultural interaction at

the global level, on the contrary, could lead to greater toleration of diversity

and the release of local differences. In this interpretation globalisation -

accompanied by localisation - might in fact counteract the homogenising

tendencies of nation-statism which have driven the search for coherent cultural

identities over the last two centuries (Featherstone 1995: 89).

Models of global cultural ‘homogenisation’ and of ‘diversification’

are, in practice, little more than ideal types and theorists of cultural

globalisation who retain a connection to ‘the field’ have sought more sensitive

ways of conceptualising the outcome of ‘one-way’ cultural exchange. The

most resonant of these theoretical resolutions are cultural ‘hybridization’ (Hall

1990: 234; Bhabha (ed.) 1990; Clifford and Marcus (eds)1986) and

‘maturation’ or ‘creolization’ (Hannerz 1992: 264). The concepts of

creolization and hybridization envisage a process whereby the periphery

receives but reshapes the metropolitan culture to its own specifications

thereby allowing for a model of cultural exchange in which the ‘periphery’

shows culturally differentiated responses to the western version of modernity

being exported without ignoring the actuality of the power relations involved

in (especially economic) globalisation.

Despite this apparent resolution, the core/periphery model of cultural

exchange remains problematic. In practice ‘reworkings’ of contemporary

western cultural messages are not spontaneous but already filtered through

state level ideology and the experiences, memories, imaginations and fantasies

that accumulate individually and collectively. The subjective positioning of a

particular nation state within the world order is thus central to making cultural

sense of globalisation processes.2[2] In the case of Russia this subjective

positioning is highly complex since past experience, memories and

imaginations associated with cultural isolationism and ‘most developed

country’ ideology,3[3] are now challenged by conflicting messages of rapid

and ‘catch up’ entry into global markets and communications networks. At the

same time the political collapse of the USSR makes the promotion of a

distinct, coherent, post-imperial but ascendant Russian national identity high

on the government’s list of priorities.

In studying actual cultural practice of young people on ‘the periphery’

therefore, it is essential that we recognise that they are not naive day-trippers

to a western wonderland but approach western cultural messages through

layers of imaginations and fantasies, especially in relation to their images of

‘the west’. The failure to recognise or study this fantasy level of cultural

globalisation stems from globalisation theory’s inherent occicentrism. While

2[2]

This is, rather surprisingly, ignored by most theorists of cultural

globalisation. Liechty’s study of youth experience in Kathmandu is a rare
exception (Liechty 1995).

3[3]

I use this term in direct contrast to Liechty’s characterisation of Nepalese

national identity as forged around a notion of ‘least developed country’
(Liechty 1995: 168).

the west is just beginning to perceive the impacts of ‘globalisation’, the ‘west’

has been present (physically and symbolically) for those outside ‘the core’ for

much longer (King 1995: 123; Morely and Robins 1995: 217-8).

The core-periphery model of global cultural exchange is further

problematised in the case of Russia in that the latter’s large domestic market

for cultural products - together with her diaspora in the ‘near abroad’ and, to a

lesser extent, beyond - allows Russia to export as well as import culture. In

effect Russia is simultaneously both core and periphery. Moreover, the sheer

size and geographic placement of the country, together with past policies of

controlled modernisation and movement have created well-defined, internal

notions of centre and periphery, having concrete manifestation in different

levels of access and response to global cultural flows. Indeed, Russia’s entry

to ‘the west’ may take a variety of forms: consumer commodity flows come

primarily not from the west but from the east (clothes bought by young people

come mainly China and Turkey, for example ) whilst global flows in what

Appadurai refers to as the ideoscape (Appadurai 1990: 308) come from

America and, to a lesser extent, Europe.

It was one of the aims of the empirical project described below,4[4]

therefore, to explore whether the inclusion of the subjective level (what we

have called ‘images of the west’) in the study of the contemporary cultural

4[4]

The fieldwork referred to in this paper was undertaken as part of the

project ‘Looking West? Reception and resistance to images of the west among
Russian youth’ under the joint management of the author and Dr Elena
Omel’chenko of Ul’ianovsk State University with the financial support of the
Leverhulme Trust. We are grateful to the trust for its support of our work.

practice of Russian youth can sharpen our understanding of concrete processes

of cultural ‘hybridization’.

Globalisation and agency: A special role for youth?

It is worth at least noting here that, despite widespread socio-cultural

stereotypes about the relationship between youth, modernity and progress,5[5]

young people are not essentially and necessarily more receptive to

globalisation processes. Our expectation of young people’s ‘receptivity’ to

global culture stems from the positioning of youth in late-industrial societies

as consumers of precisely that part of culture which is most strongly

associated with the trans-national flow of cultural commodities, that is popular

culture (Hannerz 1992: 239). The stereotype is reinforced by a perceived

generation gap in some areas of social and cultural experience, especially

media and IT familiarity. In reality, however, there is a frequent lack of natural

fit between youth and agency for cultural change. In fact, on the contrary,

ethnographic studies suggest that youth can adopt culturally conservative

practices (Caputo 1995; James 1995; Pilkington 1996). Moreover, while

globalisation theory provides an alternative to attributing a ‘marginal’

(whether that margin be interpreted as socially vulnerable or culturally

progressive) position to youth in specific (national) cultures, at the same time

we cannot detach youth cultural practice from the discursive positioning of

youth in a particular community. The range of cultural situations and

5[5]

This association exists in both western and Soviet paradigms of

modernity.

exchanges on offer to young people in different social localities varies and

both this actuality, and the awareness of it, will shape the cultural practice

adopted by young people.

An essentialised view of youth as situated at the leading edge of a new

stage of modernity will bring only self-satisfied confirmations of a global

youth culture; for we will recognise only that which we are looking for. In

contrast, a genuine cross-cultural study of youth cultural practice affords an

excellent opportunity to chart the reworkings of global messages at a local

level and thus contribute to attempts to understand better the relationship

between production, text, reading and lived culture in the cultural process.

Russian youth cultural practice: The impact of cultural globalisation

The empirical project from which the data presented below is taken was

designed to work simultaneously at two levels. Firstly it seeks to map,

compare and contrast reception and resistance to western cultural products

(texts, images, cultural commodities) being accessed by young people in both

the capital and provincial cities in Russia. Secondly, it explores youth cultural

practice, that is how cultural products and messages originating in the west are

reworked into the everyday cultural practice of Russian youth. It is this second

level of the work that is addressed in this paper.6[6]

6[6]

Although the research employed a triangular method of data gathering -

using an interview based survey, focus groups and in-depth interviews - the
material drawn on here comes primarily from the latter. Ethnographic
interviews were conducted with young people aged 15-25, accessed at a range
of sites: schools, dvory, clubs and courses for young people, cafes, discos and
well-known sites for hanging out. These sites were chosen using local
informant knowledge and with regard to gaining a cross-section of youth

Mapping youth cultural worlds

Figures 1 ,

2

and

3

constitute a preliminary attempt to give visual shape to how

young people in the three cities of our fieldwork (Moscow, Samara and

Ul’ianovsk) talk about the cultural worlds they inhabit.7[7] Although the

main focus of the project is the spatial variation in contemporary youth

cultural practice, there are a number of general definitional issues which merit

a preliminary note.

Neformaly and tusovki

There has been a fundamental shift in the meaning of the signifier neformaly

in the last decade due to the changes which have ensued from the sudden

including both those active on the youth ‘subcultural’ scene and those who
spent their free time at more organised sports or leisure activities or at home or
in the dvor. The activities in which the young people were involved were
observed, at the time of interview and before or afterwards. Interviews were
taped (except in one case at the request of the respondent) and ethnographic
notes recorded. Repeat interviews were conducted with about one third of
respondents. A total of forty-one young people were interviewed in this way in
Ul’ianovsk during September and October 1997, twenty-two in Moscow in
January 1998 and thirty-seven in Samara in April 1998. In addition a number
of expert interviews were conducted with DJs, young journalists, club
promoters and organisers in each of the three cities.

7[7]

Respondents were specifically asked about their leisure time activities,

their friends and the places they hung out rather than their work and family
lives. The diagrams thus represent not all of the cultural space they inhabit, but
that part which is relatively uncontrolled by the social institutions which
usually shape young people’s lives (school, college, family, work place).

dismantling of barriers to the import of cultural commodities (material and

ideological) from the west since 1991. The term ‘neformaly’ was originally a

label rather than a term of authentic self-identification - since it was invented

precisely by the formal structures (political institutions, media etc.) to describe

those with whom they had lost touch - but it was quickly adopted by those on

the youth cultural scene and thus subsequently acquired authenticity. Today

the division between formaly and neformaly is no longer meaningful, although

the term neformaly does retain significance.

In smaller provincial cities, such as Ul’ianovsk, the youth cultural

world remains bifurcated between neformaly and anti-neformaly, where the

latter are not formaly, but gopniki,8[8] or territorial gang formations. Indeed,

the tusovka9[9] (central to Moscow and St Petersburg ‘informal’

communication) was never the dominant mode of interaction in Ul’ianovsk;

the city conformed rather to the Volga model of territorial gang formation of

which the ‘Kazan’ phenomenon’ is the most widely publicised (Pilkington

1994: 141-60; Omel’chenko 1996). Even today, although it is possible to

locate tusovki in central cafes and on central squares in Ul’ianovsk,

respondents repeatedly referred to the absence of the range of styles and

movements they knew to exist in other cities. There is rather a single, central

8[8]

‘Gopniki’ is a term widely used by young people to refer to provincial (or

capital peripheral) ‘louts’ who gather around the courtyard of their blocks of
flats, close to their school or in the basements of one of their houses and
whose hostility towards ‘alternative’ (tusovka) youth often brings them into
physical conflict with them.

9[9]

Tusovki are centrally located, style-based youth cultural formations. Their

members are not necessarily from privileged backgrounds but their claiming
of space in the centre of cities certainly signifies an upwardly-oriented strategy
and desire to leave the territorial gang formations of the periphery.

tusovka composed of hippies, punks, heavy metal fans and rock musicians

who may be collectively referred to as neformaly (see Figure 1). In Samara, a

larger but nonetheless provincial Volga city, individual, style-based tusovki

are distinct but there is recognition of a commonality between neformaly (see

Figure 2). In Moscow, in contrast, individual tusovki are significantly more

established and independent of one another (hence the depiction of individual

groups outside rather than inside the neformaly box in Figure 3) and there is

much wider reference to differentiation, even, conflicts between neformaly

groups (for example between rappers and ravers) than elsewhere.

Gopniki

Gopniki (also known as gopa and gopota) are increasingly difficult to define.

This is partly because the term is completely non-authentic; it is used by those

in centrally-based tusovki of those who make their lives on the street difficult.

It is not used, and often not even recognised, by those who are labelled as

gopniki by others. While in Ul’ianovsk gopniki remain the significant ‘other’

to neformaly, in the larger cities of Samara and Moscow gopniki no longer

make their presence felt in the way they did in the late 1980s and early

1990s.10[10] Some gopniki have been incorporated into more widely

accessible forms of popular youth culture (such as the rave scene, see

10[10]

Even in Ul’ianovsk there has been a recent decline in internecine

warfare between gruppirovki based on territorial affiliation. This is attributed
by some to more effective action by the police, by others to the greater use of
drugs by gopniki which, in contrast to alcohol use which often incited conflict,
has a mellowing effect.

below),11[11] but their gradual demise is largely attributable to economic

change. The peculiar nature of the Russian market has meant that the black

market operators of the late Soviet period have merged with the gopniki to

produce new figures on the youth cultural scene: byki, bandity, brigady, novie

russkie and britogolovie12[12] (see Figures 1, 2 and 3). The terms bandity and

brigady are particularly common in Ul’ianovsk where respondents see a direct

age progression out of gopniki into brigady and bandity and almost always

equate the latter with ‘new Russians’. In Moscow and Samara this is not the

case. In Samara, for example, the term ‘new Russians’ was used very rarely as

respondents talked rather about ‘bogatie’ in a much more value-neutral way.

In attempting to give structure to the amorphous youth cultural scene,

however, it is important not to label all non-neformaly as gopniki (as tusovka

respondents tend themselves to do). There are very many young people in

Russian cities who spend most of their time in the dvor or in friendship groups

who have no interest in a particular genre of music or style and prefer to listen

to pop music (usually a mixture of Russian and western) and/or are engaged

in more or less organised sports or other leisure activities. These young people

cannot be labelled ‘gopniki’ unless they have a strong anti-neformaly

orientation and are thus included as separate entities in the diagrams.

11[11]

‘Byki’, however, are not depicted as overlapping with the dance/club

scene (see Figure 3) as, although they frequent expensive night-clubs, their
use of them is not related to any interest in dance music.

12[12]

This term is used like ‘lysie’ to signify tough, small-time racketeers or

other ‘businessmen’ but is also used by those on the neformaly scene as a
direct translation of ‘skinheads’ in the western sense.

Clubbers and the dance scene

The major new addition to the youth cultural scene since 1991 are those

associated with the dance or club scene: ‘ravers’ (reivera), ‘clubbers’

(klabera), ‘progressives’ (progressivy), ‘acid heads’ (kislotniki), and ‘freaks’

(friki). Usage of these terms varies between cities and types of youth and in

Moscow, in particular, there are additional sub-categories related to those who

follow specific kinds of music, for example, jungle (dzhunglisty), or hard-core

(khardkorshchiki). The emergence of a plethora of venues for young people to

meet, dance, drink and have fun has significantly changed the youth cultural

maps of Russian cities and, for this reason, it is the dance/club scene upon

which the rest of this paper focuses.13[13]

Dance music/ the club scene

If the tusovki of the late 1980s and early 1990s hung out in city squares, metro

stations and parks, then today’s followers of the latest music trends have been

(partially at least) displaced into the controlled environments of night-clubs.

While it is tempting to see the arrival of clubs in Russia as evidence of the

direct import of a commercialised, corporatised, western youth culture, the

spatial stratification of the club scene and the localised uses of the music

13[13]

Strictly speaking the rap and hip-hop movements have also become

established since my fieldwork in 1991 (Pilkington 1994) and in part overlap
with the dance and club scene whilst retaining also a distinct identity as ‘street
cultures’. They have never become as popular as rave or rock across the youth
scene as a whole, however.

which is played there suggests a more complex reworking of dance music in

urban provincial Russia than one might expect.

The club scene is most developed in Moscow where clubs, as in the

west, cater for a range of musical tastes and scenes; from expensive, but

mainstream, progressive house mixed with pop (Utopia, Metelitsa), designer

and trendy (Titanik, Master) to lesser known youth-oriented clubs where the

music (jungle, drum and bass, gabba, hardcore, trance) is harder (Plasma,

Luch (formerly Ptiuch), Les ).14[14] Young promoters use these clubs -

especially in the early evening (until 11pm) - to put on their own particular

sets, make their names and give their particular tusovki a base. There is also a

vibrant ‘alternative’ scene in Moscow. Clubs such as Krizis Zhenra, Vermel’,

4 komnati, Ne bei kopytom, and, increasingly, Propaganda, pride themselves

on providing a space for live bands to play and a relaxed, unthreatening, even

semi-intelligentsia atmosphere. The gay and western ex-pat scenes also have

particular homes; the former at Shans, Chameleon, Kino Imperiia and,

increasingly, Liuch, the latter at the infamous Canadian-owned Golodnaia

Utka and the more expensive Mankheten Ekspress. Flier and face control

systems are well-established and many clubs are free or have minimal

entrance charges unless there is a special event taking place.

In Samara the club scene has developed rapidly over the last eighteen

months (when the first clubs opened). There are currently two youth-oriented

14[14]

The club scene is of course rapidly changing and clubs open and close

temporarily and permanently constantly. The individual clubs referred to here
related to the situation in Moscow in January 1998, Samara in April 1998 and
Ul’ianovsk in September-October 1997.

clubs - Aladdin and Tornado - which charge from $1-$5 entrance fee when

there is a visiting DJ from Moscow or St Petersburg.15[15] There are four

expensive central clubs for new Russians with money (Mankheten, Dzhungli,

Eqvator and, the latest addition, Aisberg) which charge $10-$15 for entrance

at weekends, although these clubs do stage live gigs which attract youth and

on cheap midweek nights a youth crowd may gather. There are also a number

of more peripheral clubs drawing specific crowds (e.g. Sandra and Panter)

and local ‘houses of culture’ across the city hold discos at weekends.

In Ul’ianovsk it is hard to talk of a ‘club’ scene as such although there

are around twenty DJs in the city dividing up work in the six clubs/discos

(Sensatsiia, DK Chkalova, KT ‘Pioner’, U Ivanova, Pilot, Sev Klub) and

developing their own ‘alternative’ projects usually on specific nights at these

venues. The distinction between clubs and discos is significant; the term

klabera (see Figure 2), for example, was not used in Ul’ianovsk. The failure of

a club culture to develop in Ul’ianovsk - despite the wide popularity of ‘rave’

music - is explained by three factors:

•

Physical environment.

The buildings currently being used for the dance scene in Ul’ianovsk are old

‘houses of culture’ or ‘youth palaces’, constructed to Soviet dimensions and

far more suited to their current daytime use (for example children’s ballet

classes) than their weekend, evening use as discos. There is no possibility

of housing different types of music (for example ambient or trance) in

15[15]

All clubs in Samara also operate special rates for students via a ‘student

disco card’ scheme.

different rooms and bar areas are limited and often unpleasant. The large

halls mean minimal interaction with the DJ and too much space to ‘lose

yourself’ in the mass. A greater self-awareness (consciousness) in dance

practice results, reinforced by the ubiquitous mirrors, towards which

dancers gravitate to check out their movements. The less commercial clubs

in Samara share some of these problems; Tornado is housed in a

refurbished cinema and Aladdin is situated within the much larger DK

Zvezda. Nevertheless they are refurbished and now have exclusive use as

clubs.

•

Political/economic climate

In Ul’ianovsk there is significant resistance on the part of the local

administration to private enterprise which makes it difficult to gain the

permission necessary to open clubs. In addition a plethora of local

administrative ‘norms’ mean that discos are only allowed to stay open

until 11pm and that teenagers under 16 years of age are not allowed on the

street after 9pm (unless accompanied by an adult).16[16]

•

Socio-cultural climate

The extreme conservatism in economic reform and highly paternalistic social

policy in Ul’ianovsk has minimised the differentiation in income and social

stratification which has overtaken many of Russia’s large cities. Consequently

there is a general perception that the prime users of clubs and discos are

16[16]

In Autumn 1997 we found that even those discos and clubs which were

surviving were under threat from a new directive from the regional governor
which sought to return the buildings to their original usage.

bandity rather than ‘normal’ youth which deters the latter. In contrast, young

people in Samara are more likely to aspire to having ‘proper’ clubs (on a par

with Moscow) and, although respondents clearly distinguish between those

who go to night-clubs because they have money rather than when they have

money, they tend to characterise them scornfully as ‘diadinki i tetinki s

bolshimi puzami’ rather than as threatening individuals spending ill-gotten

gains.

‘Clubbers’ and ‘ravers’: one music, two narratives

Undoubtedly the dance (rave)17[17] scene has saturated the Russian youth

cultural scene unlike any previous youth cultural trend from the west. Given

the almost complete lack of vinyl culture in Russia prior to 1991 and the

ongoing technical lag (in Ul’ianovsk DJs do not even have turntables to work

from), it is also more directly derivative than most of its predecessors. ‘Rave’

has been adopted in its post-subcultural (commercialised) form and although

two well-publicised open-air rave events take place annually (one in St

Petersburg and one in Crimea) these are well marketed, corporate affairs and

very far from the original rave scene. There are still only a handful of Russian

dance music labels (all based in Moscow or St Petersburg) and very few

17[17]

Rave, as understood in the UK, is a global dance party; the music comes

from a mix of Acid House from Chicago, techno from Detroit and garage from
New York but took off in Britain as an attempt to recreate a Mediterranean
(Ibiza) holiday experience (Rietveld 1993: 41). Rave (reiv) in the Russian
sense is a generic term for a range of electronically created music styles
ranging from progressive house and hip hop to hardcore techno, jungle and
trance. It is a club-based scene which has been around in Moscow and St
Petersburg since the early 1990s but arrived in provincial cities from 1996.

musicians create their own compositions as opposed to producing

compilations for release on compact disc or tape.

This is all rather predictable; what is interesting about rave in Russia

are the different ways in which it has been appropriated and worked into

existing youth cultural strategies. ‘Rave’ in urban, provincial Russia has two

distinct narratives and in the process of unravelling them it becomes clear that

rave culture acts not as alternative to, but within pre-existing Russian youth

cultural practices.

The clubbers’ story: Rave as tusovka

The tusovka narrative of rave is centred not on ‘rave music’ but club life; it is,

to quote a 19 year old male clubber from Samara, ‘a way of life’, ‘a whole

youth culture’ [237]18[18]. It centres on those who work in clubs (DJs,

promoters, club dancers) and those around them. Club-going is often

combined with active, creative or money-making activity such as DJing,

dancing,19[19] flier distribution or promotion. Proximity to the core of the

tusovka thus allows ‘access’ to cultural events central to tusovka life, just as it

did in the 1980s. Indeed current club prices make this function of the tusovka

even more important, as one 16 year old female clubber from Moscow

explained:

18[18]

Respondents are identified by the codes assigned to them for analytic

purposes.

19[19]

A number of respondents performed regular slots in clubs designed to

provide visual stimulation as well as encourage dancing from the floor.

... in the Teatral’naia tusovka20[20] every

second person is a DJ, every third is a promotor,

those who organise [the parties/club nghts] and

every second [sic] is a dancer. This means you

can get in free practically anywhere you want to.

[54]

The clubbers’ narrative of rave is based on who you know (the

tusovka) but also what you know; being up on the latest developments in the

electronic music scene and ahead of the ‘mainstream’ is central to tusovka

hierarchy. In contrast to the ‘neformaly’, however, there is relatively little

internal differentiation within the scene along, for example, musical lines. In

Moscow those who preferred jungle and hardcore techno were singled out,

but, in general, clubbers like to think of themselves as above petty divisions

and identify simply as ‘progressivy’ or ‘prodvinutie’, opposing this to

unenlightened ‘locals’ who ‘listen to pop’.

In line with tusovka strategy, these young people are drawn to ‘the

centre’. Even if the clubs preferred are not located in the centre of the city (as

for instance with the smaller alternative clubs in Moscow), then the tusovka

gathers centrally (for example, at Teatral’naia metro station) before going on

to the club. For clubbers in the provinces, Moscow and St Petersburg are the

20[20]

This refers to the tusovka meeting place at metro station Teatral’naia in

Moscow; a practice also continued from the early tusovki of the 1980s.

tangible centre,21[21] while those in Moscow make trips to the west

(especially London, Amsterdam and Germany) to gather records, equipment,

clothes and ideas. Fliers and posters promoting club nights draw on ideas from

Moscow and western clubs and often use the English language in pure and

russified form. Much club slang is of English derivation (friki, flaer, chil-aut)

and DJs adopt names often with reference to the west, for example, DJ E, DJ

Baks, DJ Slem, DJ Jemp. Despite this centripetal pull, however, only in

Ul’ianovsk did young people characterise their own city as impeding their

cultural practice, declaring the city to be ‘provincial’, ‘backward’,

‘unprogressive’, ‘conservative’, ‘red’ and ‘inhibited’ (zakompleksovanii). In

sharp contrast, Samara was described as enjoying the perfect combination of

the buzz of a large city and the friendly, caring atmosphere of a provincial

town; almost all respondents in Samara said they would be happy to spend the

rest of their lives in the city. In Moscow, moreover, it appeared a matter of

pride to insist that there was no lag in dance culture between Moscow and the

rest of Europe. One 17 year old who was organising his own jungle nights

stated:

With regard to England, for example, in jungle

culture we don’t lag behind at all, we have

everything that is in England, all the records, we

order them from England...our friends bring

them...[60]

21[21]

As one respondent in Samara noted, ‘I try to live like in Moscow’ [237].

For

tusovka clubbers style is an individual matter with no strict rules.

Most attention is paid to footwear and the battle between lovers of Grinders

and Doctor Martens is already well-established. Creating your own image is

important and there are discernible styles amongst clubbers (unisex style, body

piercing and the extravagant club creations of the ‘friki’) but most tusovka

clubbers adopt a comfortable dress style which mixes (often second hand)

designer labels with clothes borrowed or bought in local shops or

markets.22[22] Unlike neformaly, respondents from the club scene did not

report conflicts arising with other youth as a result of their style; one male

respondent in Samara did note that he had had questions about his ‘sexual

orientation’ because of his unisex style of dress, but appeared not at all

unnerved by this.

The dance scene does differ from the tusovki of the 1980s, however.

Internal communication within the group is more exclusively focused on

dance and music than many earlier tusovki and thus sites of tusovki are

established in a more goal-oriented manner.23[23] The new economic

circumstances of Russia mean that those on the club scene are likely to fuse

their ’fun’ with some form of income generation (main or supplementary) and

thus the activity takes on a different meaning. The siting of youth cultural

activity in clubs, where spaces are often strictly controlled by security

22[22]

The skill of second-hand buying is already well-developed in Moscow

and Samara and the clothes come mainly from Europe, especially Germany as
‘humanitarian aid’ according to those who engage in second-hand buying. The
art of shop-lifting expensive club gear was reported only in Moscow.

23[23]

Clubs are chosen on the basis of who and what is likely to be playing on

a particular night.

personnel, money and cultural capital, also has a significant impact on the

mode of communication which takes place.24[24] Nevertheless, for the

section of club-users described here, dance music is used broadly within a

tusovka youth cultural strategy. Specific ‘sets’ of people still gather in

particular places: regulars at the Aladdin club in Samara talk of a regular

tusovka there of around fifteen, rising to thirty or more on big nights; and the

Teatral’naia tusovka in Moscow brings together fifteen to twenty people even

on weekdays through the winter, while in the summer usually around fifty and

sometimes up to 100 gather. These sets are highly fluid, however, and change

rapidly, especially with age. The sites of tusovki are also frequently changed;

if in the 1980s this was a result of being ‘moved on’ by the police or hassled

off your territory by other groups (gopniki),25[25] then for clubbers it is

usually due to the sudden closure of a club following drugs-related conflicts

with the administration, racketeers or police.26[26] Perhaps most

24[24]

The interaction of space and power on the club scene deserves more

focused study. Access to clubs is controlled by ticket prices and, in Moscow,
by cultural capital systematised via flier and face control systems. In almost all
clubs there are so-called ‘VIP rooms’ or spaces to which access is controlled
via payment, although some of those who work in the club may be allowed to
use these perks. Drink prices also effectively work to exclude young people
from bar areas and most young clubbers sit in the armchairs or on stage areas
around the dance floor when they are not dancing rather than use the bar
seating which is viewed as the territory of ‘diadinki s den’gami’. Most striking
of all to the western eye is the high profile of - often uniformed - security at
clubs, the presence of elaborate metal detecting equipment and the thorough
searching of bags and strict controls on what can be brought into clubs. It is
one of those paradoxes of Russian life, however, that it is in those clubs where
security is apparently tightest that drugs are most commonly seen in use.

25[25]

Interestingly, however, the tusovka at Teatral’naia metro station in

Moscow had been hassled off a former meeting place on Pushkinskaia by a
rap tusovka in the summer of 1997.

26[26]

Drug and alcohol use is viewed as an individual choice and among

clubbers there is no evident peer pressure to do as others. Emphasis is also

significantly, in summer, when those young people still studying can devote

themselves wholly to having a good time, the night-clubs empty as people

hang out and dance in the parks and squares on the banks of the Volga.

The ravers’ story: Volga style

The second narrative of rave is a self-consciously peripheral one. It is the

narrative of the majority of young people in provincial Russia whose access

to the global dance party comes via television and radio, video clips and,

mainly pirated, cassette recordings. In their narrative ‘rave’ is not a global

dance party but a music genre. ‘Rave’ essentially means any electronically

created dance music, although particularly popular are commercial variants of

house and techno, primarily produced in Germany, but crossing over with

Soviet pop (for example in the group Ruki vverkh). Whilst it would be easy to

follow tusovka respondents in writing off such ‘ravers’ as culturally

impoverished and essentially uninteresting, in fact the way in which non-

tusovka youth27[27] rework rave into their everyday cultural practice to

reinforce their difference from both neformaly and dance scene tusovka youth

placed on control; drinking and drug-taking, respondents insist, ‘depends on
your mood’ that is, it is not a habit or a way of life. MDMA (ecstasy) is not as
widespread as in Western Europe, probably because of its high street cost; in
Samara, in April 1998, this was 200 roubles ($20) for one tablet as compared
to 50 roubles ($50) for two doses of a snortable form of heroine. Anti-
depressants, however, are used (Prozac, if you can afford it, local variants if
not). Drug use among young people in Russia varies widely both regionally
and socially and the above relates to the tusovka side of the club scene in
Samara only.

27[27]

In some instances, but not all, these people might be identified as gopnik

or anti-neformaly youth.

provides a fascinating illustration of how the same global cultural

commodities can be mobilised within very different, localised, youth cultural

strategies. The discussion below focuses on two aspects of the cultural practice

of the Volga ravers: music use; and style.

Music

For the ‘Volga raver’ music, or knowledge about it, is not an end in itself for

music taste is not a valid stratifier on the non-tusovka youth scene. Non-

tusovka ravers do not make friends on the basis of common musical interests

and are not embarrassed that they do not know the names of tracks they listen

to, still less the origins of the music. They are able to define their music tastes

via the labels of ‘rave’ or ‘house’ but they are most likely to buy cassettes of

‘super dance hits’ released by the local tv/radio company and do not recount

favourite genres, ‘mixes’, or DJs. Above all rave is liked because it is ‘fast’, it

is ‘lively’ and you can dance to it, as this 15 year old lad in Ul’ianovsk, whose

main leisure time activity was kick-boxing, explained:

The rhythm, you see, it’s good to dance to of

course. You can use your legs, not like the

neformaly. If you put their music on, they go

crazy, they don’t know what to do... But with

this, it is easy to dance, you see... and if a person

is drunk or high, they can still dance... [3]

Most importantly, however, rave music and attendance at discos is a

backdrop to other activities (meeting friends, drinking, smoking dope and

picking up girls/lads). In particular central discos provide an opportunity to

meet people of the opposite sex from outside the district and slow tracks for

paired dancing are the most popular part of any set.

In Moscow the flier and face-control system effectively segregates

tusovka and non-tusovka users of dance music. In Samara and Ul’ianovsk the

situation appears to be one of silent stand-off, couched in a rhetoric of mutual

scorn. In Samara, non-tusovka ravers tend to frequent weekend discos in local

Dom Kultury rather than the central clubs, although they also appear at clubs

like Tornado on Monday nights when entrance prices are minimal. In

Ul’ianovsk the non-tusovka element is dominant at almost all club/disco

venues and they impose their own dress code and territorial practice.28[28]

Style

In contrast to the self-consciously individualistic and ‘alternative’ styles

adopted by tusovka clubbers, Volga ravers collectively adopt a highly

conservative dress style. Characteristic are black jeans, ‘Olympic’ tracksuit

tops (olimpiiki) and tracksuit bottoms for lads, while the girls sport make-up

and lacquered fringes and a ‘market’ style of dress; the olimpiika is exchanged

for a smart shirt and the trainers for shoes when going out to a disco.

Although, to a certain extent, young people in provincial Russia are

dependent upon what the shuttle-traders bring from Moscow, Poland or

28[28]

At the disco at DK Chkalova, for example, our group of four female

researchers was hassled off a table by a group of lads who wanted to seat
‘their’ girls; an unopened bottle of vodka and plates of sliced lemon and salted
peanuts were placed firmly on our table, when we did not take the ‘hint’, we
were instructed more directly to ‘clear off’.

Turkey, the ‘lack of individuality’ or ‘herd mentality’, as it was referred to by

one Samara respondent [215], is more than a result of external factors.

Respondents in both Ul’ianovsk and Samara expressed a strong resistance to

‘standing out’ through style (a tusovka strategy) whilst maintaining their own

strict dress code. This code is built around principles of:

•

fashionability (where fashion is understood as what is being sold at the

market) but not ‘standing out’. One 16 year old female respondent in

Ul’ianovsk explained how she dressed thus:

comfortably, attractively and preferably not to

stand out too much... long skirts, a cardigan,

with a v-neck, I could wear a dress of course and

heels...[7]

•

Smartness and ‘best clothes’. Volga ravers adorn tracksuits for

everyday wear but jeans and shirts for going out; commenting on

pictures and photos of club scenes in Moscow and the west, such

respondents expressed disbelief that people could go out to a disco

in a T-shirt. Girls also ‘dress up’ to go out, a style referred to as

dressing smartly (‘strogo’).

•

Short hair. Despite complaints that teachers and other adults falsely

interpreted their predilection for short hair as a sign they belonged to some

organised crime gang, short hair cuts remain the key signifier of anti-

neformaly identity for young men. Many tusovka respondents in

Ul’ianovsk still recount recent confrontations with gopniki due to the

length or style of their hair or their own decisions to have it cut in order to

avoid such confrontations.

‘Rave’ is, therefore, not a minority subcultural phenomenon in Russia

but a mass cultural form; in all three cities of our study ‘rave’ was identified as

the most popular music currently among young people. Indeed it has become

so popular in provincial Russia that local neformaly equate ‘reivera’ with

gopniki and while this side of the dance scene may not be pushing back the

boundaries of style, it tells us much about the everyday ‘reworking’ of

western cultural products in youth cultural practice.

Global messages, local interpretations

Charting the concrete ways in which western cultural commodities are

appropriated and ‘re-worked’ by Russian youth has suggested that, far from

uniting young people around a set of globally homogenised cultural values, the

adoption of rave music has served to highlight an ongoing chasm between

distinct youth cultural strategies demarcated by the young people’s own life

horizons and, in this sense, their position in the spatial hierarchy.

Those I have called the ‘Volga ravers’ adopt youth cultural strategies

rooted in the periphery, from where the centre of Ul’ianovsk may be barely

visible, let alone beyond. Despite their consumption of western cultural

products such as rave music, such respondents find it difficult to imagine ‘the

west’, and the horizons of their own lives are severely restricted. One 16 year

old female respondent, who said she had never travelled outside Ul’ianovsk

region, encapsulates the roots of peripheral youth strategies when she explains

the differences she imagines between western youth and herself:

[western young people] are busier, they are more

focused. At a certain stage in life they already

know what they will be, what occupation they

will have, where they will study, what they will

need in the future... but we take what we can

get... where Mum can get us in... [7].

Despite this, the concrete manifestations of cultural globalisation -

such as rave music - are not ‘resisted’ as alien or subordinating cultural forms

but worked into a long-standing Russian youth cultural strategy based on

cultural conservatism and territorialism. The object of ‘resistance’ for the

‘Volga ravers’ is not any abstract notion of western cultural imperialism,

therefore, but their old enemy - the neformaly. One 15 year old anti-neformal

in Ul’ianovsk, who enjoyed rave music, summed up the antipathy still felt

towards these ‘aliens’ within:

They [neformaly] have their own language. If

you’re a Russian, I think, if a person is Russian,

then he should speak Russian, like any normal

person. But they, I don’t know, they pile on all

these [imitates the widely used neformaly sign

using index and little finger]... Well, people

normally greet you with a handshake, but they

greet each other like, I don’t know, you can’t

make head nor tail of it...29[29] [3]

The object of resistance for peripheral urban youth, therefore, is not

‘the west’, the ‘core’, or specific western cultural forms but those other young

people who position themselves symbolically at the ‘centre’. The objects of

this animosity - those young provincial Russians who adopt a tusovka identity

- tend to be more acutely aware of the global differentiation in opportunities

for young people and perceive a clear hierarchy of access to global cultural

products. As three teenage breakdancers from Ul’ianovsk made clear, the

distance between Russia and the West is only half the problem, to this must be

added the cultural lag between Moscow and provinces:

Everything is fully developed there [the west].

Here, of course we are ten or fifteen years

behind...If you look at Moscow you could even

compare it with England. There you could even

say they are at the European level, like the west.

They have good clubs generally. But, if you

compare Ul’ianovsk with Europe, it would be...

well, you just can’t compare them... they are

worlds apart... [34, 35, 36]

29[29]

The sense of exclusion felt at the different greeting ritual of the

neformaly is significant; Russian young men have a distinct greeting ritual and
to reject this is un-Russian and unmasculine.

The sense of cultural isolation or peripheralisation is most pronounced

among provincial respondents, and particularly Ul’ianovsk youth whose

frequent use of the phrase ‘to chto doshlo do nas’ when describing the media

and cultural commodities available to them illustrates their awareness of the

structure of global cultural exchange and where they are positioned by it.

However, Muscovites were not immune to subscribing to the belief that

Russians are reduced to ‘consuming’ what is produced elsewhere as this 16

year old catering student and roller skater suggests:

I think that in principle we [in Russia] could

[do] something so that we set the example, but

by the time things get to us, usually people are

already inventing something else... I think we

are just a bit behind. [53]

Ironically,

articulated

resistances to global cultural forms come

primarily from the (apparently westernising) tusovki or neformaly. Indeed the

more contact with the west respondents have, the more critical they prove to

be. This is how one 22 year old Muscovite and former hippy who had

travelled to the west a number of times interpreted the arrival of clubs in

Moscow:

They [discos] are appearing in Russia not

because we need them but they are being planted

from above because it is money... There is an

Americanisation taking place here, it’s the same

with advertising in foreign languages. There are

foreign goods coming in, being dumped on us

and, whether we like it or not, we are becoming

Americanised... [57]

Indeed, the growing popularity of western dance music has led

neformaly to refine their identity, claiming a kind of new authenticity for their

‘alternative’ style rooted in appeals to real, creative musical forms (as opposed

to commercially driven popular music) and to the need for cultural forms

appropriate to contemporary Russian culture. Electronic music is thus

frequently declared to be ‘without meaning’ or too ‘aggressive’ for Russia, as

one 16 year old grunge fan from Samara termed it [206]. Perhaps most striking

is the suggestion that although (western) dance music is good for the ‘body’ it

leaves the (Russian) ‘soul’ unsatisfied. This is how a 19 year old neformal

rock fan in Ul’ianovsk explained why he did not like rave:

I can understand rave of course. But it doesn’t

really grab me. The words have no meaning...

For the soul, for example, I still prefer Russian

[bands] - ‘Corrosion’ maybe. Maybe they play

worse. But they play from the soul...[32]

Remarkably, this is a feeling shared by tusovka-style clubbers who admitted

that when they got home after the club they preferred to listen to Russian rock

or alternative bands (such as Mummi Troll) or Splin) rather than techno.

What is fascinating about the diverse pronouncements of respondents

concerning how they viewed the west in general, and the mass of western

cultural products now saturating Russia in particular, is the complexity of their

thoughts about how Russia receives and absorbs or resists western cultural

products, irrespective (although not independent) of social background.30[30]

Whilst it is difficult to reduce diverse individual attitudes to a single

‘position’, the following two statements from young people with very different

social backgrounds indicates some of the common ground:

So much comes from there [the west] but

movement in the other direction is difficult. But

maybe that is for the best. Because our culture is

fundamentally Russian [rossiiskaia] but there...

it is understandable that the Beatles spread

round the whole world straight away, it is

something all people share not something purely

English. [51]

I don’t think they [Russian rap and Russian

rave] are different at all except that the Russians

speak in Russian and the others in their own

languages. But they aren’t different at all, it

seems to me... I don’t agree that everything

comes from the west. People take what they

30[30]

Young people, just as the older generation, quite often complain that

‘youth today’ takes everything from the west, but go on to explain their own -
more sophisticated - approach to what they adopt.

like... It doesn’t matter whether it is west or

east... They take it from them, ‘nick it’ off them

as they say and do it themselves, for

themselves... [53]

The commonality of these statements - the first by a 24 year old postgraduate

student, the second by a 16 year old technical college student - lies in the

belief that western cultural commodities are somehow culturally neutral (can

be shared by all, have no content in their form) supplemented by the

conviction that Russianness, on the contrary, is not for sharing. Whilst, to a

certain extent, this might be explained by the greater knowledge of and

emotional affection the respondents will have for their ‘own’ culture, there

may be some significance here for thinking about whether ‘hybridization’ or

‘creolization’ adequately expresses the cultural processes taking place in the

reworking of global cultural forms by Russian youth.

‘Creolization’ and ‘hybridization’ focus on the outcomes of interaction

between indigenous and alien material cultural forms and while these concepts

have great value in describing processes which have taken place over a long

period of time and which are manifest in crafted cultural forms (language,

music genre), they capture little of the contemporary meanings and conflicts

tied to current reworkings of often relatively transient cultural products. What

is interesting about young people in urban provincial Russia, and perhaps

elsewhere on the ‘periphery’, is that they feel no need to create Russian rave,

they are quite happy to take the clubs and the drugs and the fun in their

original western form, while remaining confident that that which is ‘Russian’

is preserved. Since the latter is largely spiritual rather than material culture,

what is ‘theirs’ is safe from ‘creolization’. Enjoying the (limited) material

pleasures of the west without relinquishing Russian spirituality is part of

everyday cultural practice among young Russians and, arguably, not a

response to globalisation but a skill which has been practised by Russians for

centuries. How this is expressed in concrete cultural practice can be no better

articulated than in the words of a 16 year old clubber from Moscow:

You must dance to it [techno, trance etc.]... to

just listen to it on a tape, it is somehow soulless.

Although I do like to clean up to it. At home I

switch on some trance and it’s really good. I

used to like to [hoover] to hard-core but my

neighbour would bang [on the wall]... the [club]

culture is really about this, about going to the

night clubs, because many of those who go to

the clubs don’t listen to this music at home at

all.... I listen to pop at home...Our [Russian] pop

is simple music and has just what is missing

from this [techno] music - words. Our pop has

words you can listen to. Some song by

Ivanushki, an intimate one which maybe reflects

what you are thinking about or suffering at that

moment. It’s not that I like it, I wouldn’t buy the

cassette and listen to it for days, but ...[54]

Conclusion

Youth are undoubtedly caught between the global and the local (Liechty 1995:

9). Young people in provincial Russia enter the world of trans-national

commodity culture via an array of media sources and their right and need to

be part of this global space is reinforced by a state ideology of progress and

the weight of authenticity attached to the west because of Russia’s recent

history of cultural isolation. Rave music has entered the youth cultural world

in Ul’ianovsk via the media in a way no previous western music could. The

uses and meanings attached to it, however, are mediated by existing youth

cultural strategies which facilitate the formation of locally workable class,

ethnic, gender and sexual identities. Our understanding of contemporary

Russian youth cultural practice, therefore, must be rooted - despite

globalisation - in social structures of class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality

and - because of globalisation - in space. Placement within the structure of

global cultural exchange will have a significant impact upon access points to

‘global’ cultural products and thus upon ways in which they are ‘reworked’ in

everyday cultural practice.

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