PROJECT DESCRIPTION

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Since I was little, I have been fascinated by the atmosphere of old houses. I felt an air of mystery and enchantment as I entered a gloomy old building, roamed through its long corridors that reminded a labyrinth, heard the creaking floorboards, admired the fine architectural details on the walls...It felt as if each of those houses had a unique character, almost like a living being, and that, if you listened carefully, it could tell you stories of the long-forgotten days. As I began studying cultural analysis and anthropology, I became curious to know what made me feel this way.

What is this secret attractivity of old houses, even those that look aged and worn-out?  And what does urban anthropology have to say about it? 

 

A few years ago I started a research project to find the answers to these questions. Below you can read some excerpts from it.

I used the example of a small historic district in Minsk called Traktorniy, which is now threatened with demolition in favour of modern high-rises. I tried to find out what locals feel and value about the place and how they experience its architecture and atmosphere. Based on this, I figured out the key features that distinguish the district and that kind of historical architecture in general.

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Keywords: place experiences; experiencescapes; dreamscapes; urban anthropology; sensory ethnography; phenomenology; post-soviet cities.

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APPROACH

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My project was inspired by perspectives such as micro-urbanism, sensory ethnography and phenomenological anthropology. These involve studying the experiences, senses, little details and trifles of urban life to understand how people perceive their daily lives in a city. It allows taking into account all the sensory, material, emotional and imaginary elements that form part of it. It also implies that the researcher needs be present in the field in person so that they can experience everything through their senses.

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My empirical research was divided into several stages. In the 1st stage, I studied online materials on Traktorniy, which included journalistic interviews, Instagram, social network communities, and looked for any mention of the way people experience Traktorniy.

 

In the 2nd stage, I conducted fieldwork in Traktroniy itself and talked to local residents. I was asking them to share their experiences of living there and to elaborate on the themes I had identified in the first stage of the fieldwork. I also worked with previous research on Traktorniy conducted by other Belarusian academics and journalists. All of this was complemented by my autoethnographies.

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After that, I picked up the common themes in my materials and interpreted the findings with the help of cultural theory concepts.

 

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RESEARCH SITE

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Socialist Towns

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Traktorniy settlement was erected in the late 40s - early 50s of the XX century, during the construction of the Tractor Plant. It can be classified as an example of a socialist town - relatively large residential areas that were extensively built in the USSR in the 1930s, mainly next to large enterprises. They were provided with all the necessary social infrastructure and built up mainly with typical 2-5-storey houses, and at the same time represented a single architectural ensemble. In the second half of the 1940s, the construction of several socialist towns like this began almost simultaneously in the city, the largest of which was the Traktorozavodsky village. And now it probably remains the best and most integral example of an ideal “socialist town” within the borders of the Minsk.

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INSIGHTS

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My research has shown that the value of historical places, among other things, is that they can accommodate a variety of experiences, impressions, memories and daydreams. In the case of Traktorniy, these experiences range from the impression of going back in time, porosity, a sense of nostalgia and place attachment, daydreams, a sense of mystery and a portal into a fairytale.

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The Spirit of the Days-Gone-By: Experience of the Past in Traktorniy

 

What is special about Traktorniy is that it has managed to preserve the atmosphere of the 1950s when it was erected, as well as the feeling of those times. Unlike other parts of the city, it has not been much affected by reconstruction yet. Visiting it now feels almost as if you went back into the previous century, and nothing has changed since then. This atmosphere permeates everything - the architecture, organization of space, infrastructure, the names and layouts of streets.

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Referring to Traktorniy, people often say its greatest value is that it works as a kind of a “time machine”. In a lot of texts and comments about Traktorniy, there is an allusion to a different era, different time, strong distinction from modern-day life. Here are some examples of metaphors that people use to describe the way they experience the district: “an escape from the modern daily life in a city", “a time mirror”, “a separate island in the modern world”, “a serene urban oasis, transferred to our time from the past”, “an open-air monument of a whole era”, “a road to an epoch”, “memory that is soaked in the air”.

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People often associated the old houses in Traktorniy with an old book or library as a repository of secret stories that completely plunge you into a different world. This experience may also be evoked by the abundance of historical layers in the district that are perceived directly through the senses, i.e. the sensory richness, which echoes the concept of porosity and multilayeredness in the city (Benjamin, 1986; Boym, 2016).

 

Porosity is a reflection of the different layers of time and social life in a place, or  in other words - its temporal dimensions. 

 

Applied to Traktorniy, porosity manifests itself in the multilayered and shabby paint on the house walls, a wealth of sensory qualities (sounds, smells, colours, tactile impressions). Touching the uneven porous walls of these houses, inhaling the smell of dust and decaying wood or listening to the creak of old floorboards, you begin to physically sense the touch of time, to imagine the rich experience those buildings have “absorbed” into their walls, the numerous events they witnessed, and the numerous people who had lived here and visited before you. The houses sort of fill you with the sense of that rich experience and history, depth and wisdom, reverence for the bygone days. This reverence is sometimes reflected in the way people go about things like renovating their old apartments in Traktorniy, for example, making sure they preserve something from the original building.

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Experience of Nostalgia and Place Attachment

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When people who had spent their childhood in Traktorniy shared their experience, the recurring theme was the feeling of nostalgia and personal attachment to the place. 

They often said that returning to the village helps them restore fragments of their memory of the past, parts of their own life story:

 

 "Do you remember Proust? “In search of lost time?” It’s all about it - you come to a      place, and a fragment comes back that you couldn’t remember otherwise. When  I returned here I had a feeling that I became 30 years younger."

- Marina, a local resident

 

My informants described a lot of situations like this when they came to someplace in the village and an associative series of childhood memories fell upon them. Sometimes even a small detail, a sound or smell could work as a trigger. For example, Nellie told a story about how she attended a tour of the area called “The Stories of an Old Porch”, and after that was flooded with emotions and childhood memories about the games they played in the yard, about childhood friends, a store with jam buns where she enjoyed going to as a child and other things.

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This means that places have a kind of an ability to absorb or accumulate emotions and memories of the past, lived experiences, old habits and life stories of the inhabitants which then “haunt the city like a ghost” - radiate special atmospheres and moods based on these past experiences. 

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This way, a city becomes a part of a person’s biography. Navigating familiar sites, filled with familiar objects and personal landmarks, and moving through the stream of associations that they evoke, is like leafing through a diary or a personal photo album. It helps you transcend the here-and-now.

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As silent witnesses of our past, places unearth important biographical experiences, ghosts of the people, events and stories that happened to us once and had been rendered forgotten. So it turns out that the preservation of all these old houses, architectural details, infrastructure and the spirit of antiquity in Traktorniy has the potential to strengthen the sense of connection between the place and the locals who had spent a part of their life there.

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Tuan (1974) believed that if people stay at a certain place for a long time, they invest a piece of their soul into it so that it becomes a symbol of emotionally charged memories. As personal acquaintance with it grows, and as it becomes filled with memorable events and impressions, familiar people, smells, sounds, colours and so on, it begins to be perceived as an extension of their personality, and as a kind of sheathing. The familiarity with a place creates a feeling of comfort, reliability and ease, protecting a person from the confusion and chaos of the outside world. That is, an old familiar place is like a haven for our Self. 

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Consequently, having these places taken away from people would deprive them of their memory, a piece of their personality, their own unique life stories.

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Dreamscapes in Traktorniy

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Traktorniy creates an impression of a mysterious fantasy place: it feels like the area, the houses and the streets are shrouded in some kind of a mystery. A lot here causes curiosity and a desire to linger, makes you switch to a somewhat romantic, dreamy mode. There is a feeling that all is not as it seems. As one of my informants described, a subtle sense of detachment prevails, almost as if you were caught between the real and fictional worlds. 

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In theoretical terms, Traktroniy could be viewed as a dreamscape - a kind of place that evokes daydreaming and stimulates the imagination.

 

According to Ehn and Löfgren (2010) and Bachelard (2004), there are certain things and places that go beyond their original use but are loaded with numerous ​​cultural and philosophical meanings, stories, associations and images, which serve as a link between the present reality and the world of dreams and imaginary worlds. The kinds of daydreaming experiences may depend on the character of the environment and so a person might experience different kinds of impressions in different kinds of places. Applied to Traktroniy, these dreamscapes are often embodied by spatial elements that are not typical for other parts of the city and probably cause different peculiar moods and associations to emerge. These can be things such as old attics, chimneys, wooden doors or unusual artefacts which seem to be a whole repository of secrets that excite the imagination. 

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Sense of Mystery

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An amazing feature of the district is its labyrinth-like courtyards and wobbled paths: once you step on one, you never know where it will take you; you might head in one direction, but end up somewhere else, where you did not mean to go. This conjures up a sense of excitement and adventure, a desire to find out where the path is going to take. Apart from that, there is an abundance of vegetation, dense bushes, secluded corners and hidden spots, which aren’t always easily accessible and can only be revealed upon a closer examination of the district. Sometimes this feature of the area turns into an essential element of children's games.

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A Portal into a Fairytale

 

All those mysterious characters, artefacts and places in Traktorniy are perceived as some kind of a bridge between the everyday and the imaginary world, the known and the unknown. In interviews, people often said that certain places and objects in Traktorniy remind them of some kind of portal to another dimension. 

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What is this other dimension? For some, this is the entrance to the world of magic and fairy tales, for others - to the world of childhood and adventure. Interestingly enough, many of those things, which are referred to as “portals” are quite trivial objects in their essence, with utilitarian properties in the real world, e.g. a door to an attic, a house or a garage. 

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The Value of Portals and Dreamscapes

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So why does a city need such elements of fantasy and imaginary worlds?

Portals and dreamscapes make it possible to look at the reality around us differently, to rebuild it according to our own rules with the help of fantasy. Ehn and Löfgren (2010) claim that imagination and daydreaming sort of open the way to freedom, help to cope with the routine, stuckness in physical circumstances, and offer an escape from reality.

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Indeed, places like Traktorniy can be viewed as little enchanted islands within the city that contain elements of magic and mystery, and create space for unexpected interpretations and discoveries. This becomes even more apparent when switching to a more associative, intuitive mode of perception, honing sensory receptivity to the urban environment. Allowing yourself to slowly wander through the streets and courtyards, pay attention to the peculiar details of the district, the sounds, smells, associations and images that pop in your mind as you walk, to reflect on the specific nature of things  - this is what makes you feel more present, helps you notice and appreciate things that are unattainable for a fleeting careless glance. This is why the focus on the functionality of architecture alone, which is common among urban planners these days, does not suffice - it namely emasculates the environment from fantasies and dreams.

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RESEARCH IMPACT

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A practical value of my research is that it confirms that we need new methodological approaches to the study of places, new criteria for determining the value of architecture that would take into account people’s perceptions and experiences. The ethnographic methodology is useful in that it helps to uncover hidden meanings which other methodological approaches fail to identify. This approach can also be transferred to other research projects that aim at studying place experiences.

 

The benefit of anthropological explorations like this one is that they help to understand places better and to answer the question of what makes places special and meaningful to people. This information is especially valuable in urban development projects, as it allows to build upon people’s existing experiences and values.

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For example, my study tapped into a discussion on the value of shabby old houses: very often architects perceive shabbiness negatively as something that needs to be gotten rid of. But an analysis of the way people view the little traces of deterioration in Traktorniy showed that for them, on the contrary, it has a personal meaning associated with an immersion into the past of the district, its age value, and nostalgic childhood memories. 

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This finding is also relevant for discussions around modernization and renovation works: it turns out that they, on the one hand, modernize and improve the physical state of the houses, but on the other hand, destroy the unique “genius loci” - the touch of the olden times that developed naturally in the area over time.

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So, does it make any sense to build up the area with new high-rises instead of the demolished old low-rise buildings? How may this affect the neighbourhood?

 

A frequent comment that I heard from residents was that this is undesirable, as it would destroy the spirit of the place, the harmony and integrity of the area. As my analysis shows, many unique experiences, such as the experience of nostalgia and immersion into the past in Traktorniy are formed precisely by the fact that it is a single ensemble in which there are no redundant elements, everything belongs to the era when it was constructed. These experiences may easily get dissolved, however.

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