Yale European Studies Graduate Fellows Conference Europe Today: Challenges & Opportunities 

European Studies Council of the MacMillan Center, Yale University 

16-17 April, 2021

Panel: Urban Sustainability and Governance in the North: Perspectives from Europe and Eurasia

Discussant: Robert W. Orttung, George Washington University     

Elena Adasheva. What is Severnyĭ Gorod? The Urban Nature of the Russian Northern City

Abstract: Despite the Arctic often imagined as a place scarcely inhabited by humans, a majority of the Arctic population resides in cities. In Russia, the North is the most urbanized region in the country with the largest northern cities in the world. Examining the phenomenon of Arctic urbanism, scholars point out the unique characteristics of the northern city. Drawing from the notion of Arctic urban nature, this paper examines city-nature entanglements in the scholarship on Russian northern cities. Multiple interrelations between the northern city and the northern environment problematize conventional meanings of urbanity and offer new possibilities for reimagining the city.  

Publication: European Graduate Fellows Conference Journal, Spring 2021, Issue 2: 105-109

Winner of the Best Paper Prize