Making a Home on the Neva: Domestic Space, Memory, and Local Identity in Leningrad and St. Petersburg, 1957–present

Abstract

This article discusses the process of home-making in Leningrad during the post-Stalin era, a period characterized both by the growing importance of the individual one-family apartment, as opposed to the kommunalka, and by a rise of interest in local history. Discussion focuses on the extent to which this new interest in the past, and memory practices more generally (whether locality and family-specific), affected the organization and decoration of the domestic environment. In English, extensive summary in Russian.