residential segregation in a medium-sized post-soviet city: ust’-kamenogorsk, kazakhstan

17
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2003, Vol. 94, No. 5, pp. 589–605. © 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY: UST’-KAMENOGORSK, KAZAKHSTAN MICHAEL GENTILE Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Box 513, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Received: October 2002; revised February 2003 ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the occurrence of ethnic and socio-economic residential segregation in Ust’- Kamenogorsk, a medium-sized city in Kazakhstan, using data collected by the author in collaboration with the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast’ statistical authority in an extensive questionnaire survey carried out during January 2001. Together with the marketisation of the city’s housing resources, a number of Soviet legacies, including the major industrial enterprises’ housing strategies for their workers and the city’s previous status as ‘closed’, are identified. Finally, the paper maps and analyses existing segregation patterns. Key words: Kazakhstan, former Soviet Union, residential segregation, post-Soviet cities, planning, survey method INTRODUCTION This paper discusses ethnic and socio-economic residential segregation in the medium-sized post-Soviet city, using the specific case of Ust- Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, as the principal source of examples and empirical evidence. Thus far, little research has been accomplished within the field and, furthermore, many local policy-makers – including urban planners – seem to be unaware of the existence of residential segregation, or of its exacerbating effect on other urban problems. The paper’s focal issue is the impact of the current transition process on residential segregation patterns and processes. In the West, residential segregation, espe- cially when coupled with unequal access to soci- etal resources, such as adequate housing and other urban amenities, has been associated with many of the social problems that are often attributed to European large-scale peripheral housing projects or North-American decaying inner city areas (see Cater & Jones 1989, chapter 3). Local and state authorities in many countries engage in designing and imple- menting effective policies geared at counter- acting the socio-economic polarisation of urban space, and the degree of success varies from case to case (Andersson & Molina 2003). Because of its avowed doctrine, some scholars turned to the socialist world to expand the theoretical and empirical knowledge base necessary to deal with segregation, but when subjected to greater introspection, it too proved to come up short of its established objectives (see for instance Hamilton & Burnett 1979, pp. 285–286; Szelényi 1983; Dangschat 1987; Ciechocinska 1987). Certainly, socialist societies did not show the same degree of residential segregation as capitalist ones did (Weclawowicz 1979; Bater 1989), but access to good housing was practically connected to social status or merit (Mateju & Vecernik 1981; Szelényi 1983; Hegedüs 1987; Musil 1987; Szelényi 1987), producing a socio-spatial outcome similar to

Upload: michael-gentile

Post on 06-Jul-2016

212 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2003, Vol. 94, No. 5, pp. 589–605.© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAGPublished by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY: UST’-KAMENOGORSK, KAZAKHSTAN

MICHAEL GENTILE

Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Box 513, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]

Received: October 2002; revised February 2003

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the occurrence of ethnic and socio-economic residential segregation in Ust’-Kamenogorsk, a medium-sized city in Kazakhstan, using data collected by the author incollaboration with the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast’ statistical authority in an extensive questionnairesurvey carried out during January 2001. Together with the marketisation of the city’s housingresources, a number of Soviet legacies, including the major industrial enterprises’ housingstrategies for their workers and the city’s previous status as ‘closed’, are identified. Finally, thepaper maps and analyses existing segregation patterns.

Key words: Kazakhstan, former Soviet Union, residential segregation, post-Soviet cities, planning,survey method

INTRODUCTION

This paper discusses ethnic and socio-economicresidential segregation in the medium-sizedpost-Soviet city, using the specific case of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, as the principalsource of examples and empirical evidence.Thus far, little research has been accomplishedwithin the field and, furthermore, many localpolicy-makers – including urban planners –seem to be unaware of the existence of residentialsegregation, or of its exacerbating effect onother urban problems. The paper’s focal issueis the impact of the current transition processon residential segregation patterns andprocesses.

In the West, residential segregation, espe-cially when coupled with unequal access to soci-etal resources, such as adequate housing andother urban amenities, has been associated withmany of the social problems that are oftenattributed to European large-scale peripheralhousing projects or North-American decaying

inner city areas (see Cater & Jones 1989,chapter 3). Local and state authorities in manycountries engage in designing and imple-menting effective policies geared at counter-acting the socio-economic polarisation ofurban space, and the degree of success variesfrom case to case (Andersson & Molina 2003).

Because of its avowed doctrine, some scholarsturned to the socialist world to expand thetheoretical and empirical knowledge basenecessary to deal with segregation, but whensubjected to greater introspection, it too provedto come up short of its established objectives(see for instance Hamilton & Burnett 1979,pp. 285–286; Szelényi 1983; Dangschat 1987;Ciechocinska 1987). Certainly, socialist societiesdid not show the same degree of residentialsegregation as capitalist ones did (Weclawowicz1979; Bater 1989), but access to good housingwas practically connected to social status ormerit (Mateju & Vecernik 1981; Szelényi 1983;Hegedüs 1987; Musil 1987; Szelényi 1987),producing a socio-spatial outcome similar to

Page 2: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

590 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

that found in capitalist countries, albeit due tomechanisms set in motion by socialist policies.Morton (1984, p. 9) also emphasises the im-portance of unorthodox methods for housingaccess, i.e., influence and bribery. We will neverbe able to verify whether the inequalities inpublic housing distribution were temporary, ashinted by Tosics (1987, p. 69), or a permanentand inherent feature of the socialist system,as Szelényi (1987) maintained. However, theremoval of most of the previously existingbarriers to research on (post-)socialist socie-ties allows us to reassess the situation in the pastand attentively observe current urban trends inthe region.

In spite of their significance in terms of shareof the total population, small- and medium-sizedcities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) andthe former Soviet Union (FSU) have receivedrelatively little attention from the point of viewof urban geography, whereas CEE capital citiesparticularly have been studied both before andafter the events of 1989. Therefore, this papersets out to present some aspects of the urbansocial geography of a medium-sized city in theFSU. The present study, based on an in-depthempirical study of the patterns of socio-spatial differentiation present in today’s Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, has two main goals:

1. to present the patterns of ethnic and socio-economic segregation that characterise thecity, and

2. to suggest and analyse the probable factorsthat underlie these patterns.

The study is based on empirical data obtainedfrom an extensive questionnaire survey carriedout in January 2001 by the present author incooperation with the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast’statistical authority. The data are collected inthe Cities of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) database.1

Very few Soviet sources deal with the formerlytaboo issue of ethnic and socio-economic seg-regation in USSR cities. One of the earliestsources revealing the existence of ethnic resi-dential segregation in the Soviet Union isRukavishnikov’s (1980) study on Kazan’ inRussia, which showed that Tatars and Russianswere unequally distributed throughout thecity. There are, as mentioned above, numeroussources and empirical accounts relating toother Eastern European countries, and a

significant body of theory about the formationof socio-spatial differentiation patterns in social-ist societies – much of which pertains to a his-torical tradition of thought – was establishedand debated during the 1980s (Szelényi 1983,is perhaps the most prominent example).

Since the tumultuous events of 1989–1991,there has been an upsurge in interest in bothpre- and post-iron curtain residential segrega-tion in CEE countries and the FSU, and themesrelated to it (suburbanisation, gentrification,etc.), and a wealth of empirical studies hasappeared (Hegedüs & Tosics 1991; Smith 1996;Loogmaa 1997; Ruoppila 1998; Kok & Kovács1999; Kährik 2002, just to name a few), manyof which focus on specific aspects of the newsocio-spatial differentiation of post-Soviet andpost-socialist societies, and perhaps even moreon the strategies for transition within differentspheres, such as housing privatisation policies(Daniell & Struyk 1994; Struyk 1996).

A general tendency that most authors identifyis an increase in urban/suburban socio-spatialpolarisation, especially in the largest urbanagglomerations. However, less attention hasbeen paid to the significance of the inheritedurban structure and of the complexity of Sovieteconomic, political, ideological and militarystrategic considerations that dictated the con-ditions for the short- and long-term develop-ment of each urban area. These factors,although pertaining to an epoch that finishedover a decade ago, have far-reaching conse-quences for the specificity of post-Soviet urbantransformation. Failure to recognise theirmultidimensional role, for instance, by relyingexcessively on the general characteristics ofmarket economic relations, may have negativeeffects on urban policy, rendering it lesseffective or even counterproductive whenimplemented. In short, it is useful to assessthe relative significance and structure of, inTammaru’s words (2001a), ‘the Soviet legacyand the logic of transition’.

LEGACY AND TRANSITION: AT THE ROOTS OF THE SOCIO-SPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION OF THE POST-SOVIET CITY

Establishing the nature of Soviet legacies thatinfluence the urban geography of any city in the

Page 3: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 591

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

FSU is not an easy task. A good point of depar-ture, however, would be to distinguish themaccording to geographical scope, for the impactof implicit and explicit Soviet policies, and oftheir local implementation, on the built en-vironment and social structure of cities rangedfrom the entire USSR to the level of the indi-vidual urban neighbourhood. A good exampleof a USSR-wide policy is the project of national‘integration’, by which Russians in particularwere given incentives to move to other republicsin the Soviet Union, including Kazakhstan (seeTammaru 2001b). The consequences of thispolicy are reflected in the demographic struc-ture of the RSFSR as a ‘labour exporter’ and inthe ethnic composition of the surroundingrepublics – particularly those in the Baltic andCentral Asia – as ‘labour importers’. Anexample of a policy with significant regionaleffects is the establishment of territorial produc-tion complexes (TPKs), especially in the moreperipheral parts of the Soviet Union. The over-all goal of the TPK was to identify and developthe optimal utilisation of a specific territory’sproductive resources (see de Souza 1989, for athorough description of the TPK role in Sovieteconomic planning). The ‘economic essence’of any given TPK – non-ferrous metallurgy inthe case of the Rudnyi Altay TPK which Ust’-Kamenogorsk belongs to – would then more orless determine the future industrial activity andstrategic significance of the urban areas belong-ing to it and, hence, also their future positionin the post-Soviet set of cities. At a local level,economic and power relations within each TPKwere crucial in determining the fate of, and dif-ferentiation between, the TPK’s cities. At theneighbourhood level, decisions taken by factorydirectors with regard to urban development,such as the construction of workers’ housing atspecific locations, are sometimes crucially form-ative of the current spatial differentiation inpost-Soviet cities, Ust’-Kamenogorsk providingan interesting case in point, is discussed below.

Örjan Sjöberg (1999) has recently presenteda five-stage model of urbanisation under centralplanning, built on the concept of the landscapeof priority. By making use of a shortage-economy approach, he suggests that shifting pat-terns of urban growth in Soviet-style economiesshould be viewed as a corollary of the variableand spatially selective investment priorities that

were typical of centrally-planned economies.The model manages to encompass three majorgeographical aspects – centre-periphery, resourcebase, and city type – embracing Soviet-eraregional, functional-type and settlement-sizeurban growth distinctions. If the validity of thebasic idea of the model is extended to othergeographical scales, it is possible to breach thegap between universal and local legacies.Sjöberg’s intention is to facilitate understand-ing at a broad inter-urban level, but there is rea-son to believe that his line of thought might beequally relevant when transposed to the intra-urban context, implying that the urban struc-ture of any given post-Soviet city is just as mucha complex landscape of priority of its own, as itis an element of the ‘aggregated landscape’ ofurban growth. Specifically, the relative priorityof the development of any post-Soviet city’s par-ticular economic base is, ceteris paribus, directlylinked to its broad spatial development. Hence,a city that had hosted high-priority activities forlonger periods of time is most likely to have suf-fered less from the acute housing shortages thatwere common in other cities. This, however,does not guarantee an optimal distribution ofhousing resources throughout the city. Particu-larly in industrial cities, the specific forms ofurban growth were often left to a handful of fac-tory directors, who more often than not, soughtsolutions that would minimise the workers’travelling distance to work – with serious con-sequences for the integral functioning of theurban area.

Ust’-Kamenogorsk, with a current populationof about 300,000 (Agenstvo 2002), grew thanksto a relatively long-lasting period during whichall four of its large enterprises enjoyed high-priority status. These are the Lead-Zinc Combine(STsK, nowadays operated by the Kaztsink cor-poration), the Ulba Metallurgical Plant (UMZ,produces uranium, beryllium and tantalumproducts), the Titanium-Magnesium Combine(TMK), and the Eastern Machinery Plant(VMZ, formerly produced mining and metal-lurgy equipment). The output of one of thefactories, the Ulba Metallurgical Plant, wasdeemed so sensitive that the plant itself was keptsecret and the city was closed to all outsiderswho did not have the obligatory entry permit.This fact is probably one of the most import-ant of Ust’-Kamenogorsk’s inherited Soviet

Page 4: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

592 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

legacies, as the ‘closure’ of the city effectivelyreduced the regional urbanisation process to aminimum during most of the Soviet era. Thesudden opening of the city’s gates probably ledto an unprecedented inflow of rural migrants,mitigating the population loss which wouldhave occurred otherwise, but also creating newproblems, many resulting in increased ethnictensions in the region (Gentile 2003a). For anycity, a sudden flow of migrants is more difficultto absorb than a slow but constant one.

In addition to the usual differentiating effectof topography, two other legacy factors arecrucial to the formation of the spatial structureof Ust’-Kamenogorsk:

1. the location of the major industrialenterprises and the spread of pollutantstherefrom, and

2. Mr Akhat Kulenov.

Until about 1980, the major industrial enter-prises guaranteed that the majority of theirworkers lived near the factory, by creatingexclusive housing districts in which at leastone member of each household was employedby the enterprise. The housing in these areasis usually quite good, but, in the long run, theenvironmental/health costs of the proximityof stationary sources of pollution probablyoutweigh the advantages of good housing formost people. Furthermore, evidence fromseveral sources points out that there are atleast 400 radioactive hotspots on a surveyedterritory covering only 12% of the total areaof the city (Ustinka+, 08/12/2000; Vostochno-Kazakhstanskoe oblastnoe upravlenie, 2000).

Since 1980 however, the industrial enter-prises increasingly started building housing inthe central parts of the city. This is particularlytrue of the UMZ, which had the greatest finan-cial resources, due to its high(est)-prioritystatus. Monumental Lenin Square became defacto a UMZ enclave in an area otherwise domin-ated by administrative buildings. The other mainenterprises, with the exception of the TMK,which is located too far from the centre, startedbuilding at semi-central locations.

Akhat Kulenov is the man who broke thedominant paradigm in factory urban planning,and since he was the director of the city’s largestenterprise, the STsK, which he ‘ruled’ between1985 and 1994, his effect on the structure of the

city was pervasive. Fascinated by the image ofWestern ‘cottage’ style living, Kulenov envis-aged the future of Ust’-Kamenogorsk as that ofa green paradise in the foothills of the Altaymountains. His ambition was to give his workersgood housing in clean locations, combined withan excellent social infrastructure (Kulenov 11/02/2001). After the city architect bureau hadconvinced him not to build adjacent to the lead-zinc combine, Kulenov chose a spot at the op-posite end of the city, which presupposed carownership (Moskal’tseva, 06/09/2000). Workerswere provided with subsidised constructionmaterials, the factory’s know-how and cheaploans in order to build a home to their liking.The latter were practically amortised over onenight when hyperinflation struck in the early1990s, and those who had managed to buildtheir own (often huge) houses got to keepthem almost for free (‘Tatiana’ 09/2000). Thefactory built ‘unique’ services (nowadays closed),including a top-level health care facility(Kulenov 11/02/2001), but the constructionof much of the more basic neighbourhoodinfrastructure was not completed or evenstarted. Nonetheless, within a few years, acompletely new and truly pleasant settlementappeared at the southern outskirts of Ust’-Kamenogorsk. This settlement is now referredto as ‘Kulenovka’.

Impressed by the area’s success, the UMZquickly followed suit and built a similar areaadjacent to it. The housing stock of these twoareas presently consists of mostly large moderndetached houses, which obviously tend toattract higher income groups. However, today’spaucity of high wage earners means that manydwellings remain vacant.

If Soviet legacies are difficult to interpret, thesocio-spatial effect of the marketisation of theeconomy and of property relations is even moredifficult to understand. Certainly, the introduc-tion of market relations since 1991 has been fol-lowed by socio-economic polarisation. In manycities, this has been expressed by inner-citygentrification and luxury suburbanisation,coupled with the rapid decline of many socialisthousing estates located in outlying areas. In Ust’-Kamenogorsk, however, sociospatial polaris-ation as process does not seem to be a pervasivetrait of post-Soviet urban development. Gentri-fication of older inner city areas is practically

Page 5: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 593

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

non-existent, and suburbanisation currently onlyseems to exist as a pre-urban phenomenon,i.e., as temporary accommodation for recentrural migrants. Instead, socio-economic polar-isation is mostly reflected in luxury renovationsof existing dwellings. The combination of Sovietlegacies that produced the sociospatial andphysical differentiation patterns that were inplace by 1991 probably produced a sufficientlydifferentiated built environment to cater to thehousing demand of most socio-economic strataof society (author’s field observations in theyears 2000 and 2001; Shirshov 11/09/2000).

The spatial structure of Ust’-Kamenogorsk –The physical and social spatial structure ofUst’-Kamenogorsk, and indeed of most otherSoviet-era industrial cities, has been shaped bythe location of the city’s major industrial enter-prises. Most of them were originally located inthe northern outskirts of the city (Figure 1).Nowadays, the main industrial platform is fairlycentrally placed when seen on a map, and hasa detrimental environmental impact on the sur-rounding areas. The existence of environmen-tally hazardous residential areas is a significantfactor shaping the socio-ecological landscape ofUst’-Kamenogorsk.

Given their dominance over the city archi-tect office, the STsK, UMZ and, eventually,TMK established the directions of Ust’-Kamenogorsk’s post-war growth. Specifically,individual workers’ settlements appearedin the factories’ proximity, and a significantshare of these settlements’ housing stock wassupposed to be temporary. As a result, the citystarted to assume a fragmented polynucleicstructure, where the nuclei were (and are) char-acterised by a high degree of residential segre-gation by profession. At that time, the statusof the city centre, originally located on the leftbank of the river Ul’ba, became problematic.A new centre had started to grow on the rightbank, along a newly built (Lenin) avenuedecorated with ‘Stalinesque’ features accordingto a project of the so-called Leningrad schoolof architecture (Moskal’tseva 06/09/2000).

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the UMZand STsK had radically changed their locationstrategy for workers’ housing. Since then, newprojects tended to appear in the original citycentre or at semiperipheral locations at a good

distance from the factories, which implied arenaissance for the left bank centre and a rela-tive decline for the ‘new’ centre. There areseveral factors that may have led to this radicalpolicy shift and, alongside the shrinking avail-ability of near-factory locations and the im-provement in public transportation, it is likelythat the awakening of factory directors to Ust’-Kamenogorsk’s serious environmental hazardsmight have been the most crucial considera-tion. Another important factor is that, by theearly 1970s, the housing shortage had becomeless acute, which meant that the housingstock could have been increased qualitativelyrather than quantitatively through the replace-ment of old and amenity-lacking dwellings bynew and comfortable ones.

The 1967 general plan of Ust’-Kamenogorskcalled for the large-scale development of theleft bank of the river Irtysh (Megid’ 2001). Notmuch of what the plan envisaged was achieved,but the establishment of a textile combine(KShT, a labour market solution to increasefemale employment) during the late 1970sentailed the construction of a rather largehomonymous ensemble of housing blocks ata distance of about 5–6 km from the centre.The aforementioned Kulenovka settlementwas eventually built in proximity to KShT.

On the whole, housing built by the largestenterprises enjoys a rather high level of socialprestige and is rather advantageous from thepoint of view of relative location and housingquality, which especially concerns the dwellingsbuilt since the late 1970s. Those who did nothave access to factory housing were relegated toscarce municipal housing units or to the privatesector, much of which are of a pre-revolutionarystandard, with the addition of electricity.

During the entire post-war period, smallerenterprises were also forced to build housingfor their workers. Unlike the case of the STsKand UMZ, these factories continued building inproximity to the industrial facility – this time atgreat distances from the centre. Furthermore,these areas were relatively small, and the lower-priority status of the enterprise building themmeant that the construction of additionalneighbourhood mikrorayon features had to bepostponed. These mini-estates are nowadays inprecipitous decline, poverty-stricken, and oftenabandoned.

Page 6: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

594 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

ETHNIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN UST’-KAMENOGORSK

Ust’-Kamenogorsk has always been primarilyinhabited by a Russian majority, even though aslow, often interrupted, but growing trendtowards ‘Kazakhification’ has taken placeduring the past century, most significantly since1970 (Table 1). In 1897, the percentage relationbetween Russians, Kazakhs and ‘other’ nation-alities was 84%, 7.5% and 8.5% respectively. Bythe year 2001, the Kazakhs had a share of 18.6%of the total population of Ust’-Kamenogorsk(Alekseenko 1994, and Cities of the Rudnyi Altay2001). Quite the contrary is true for the oblast’

taken as a whole. In 1897, the Kazakhs hada share of nearly 60% of the population,dropping to a minority-status 18.9% by 1959,reflecting the ethnically selective nature ofindustrialisation and urbanisation in Kaza-khstan during the first half of the Soviet era. Bythe time of the 1989 census, the Kazakh shareof the oblast’ population rose to 27.2%, jump-ing to 48.5% in 1999, thus again becomingthe largest ethnic group in the oblast’.

Unfortunately, there are no census data avail-able concerning ethnicity at a more detailedgeographical scale. The Cities of the Rudnyi Altay(2001) survey created such data as of the begin-ning of 2001, but the lack of longitudinal dataimplies that no firm conclusions of comparative

Figure 1. Current land use in Ust’-Kamenogorsk. Source: Generalnyi Shtab (1978), Ust’-Kamenogorsk M44-XXIII,military map in scale 1: 10,000, complemented by the author’s personal observations between September 2000 andFebruary 2001.

Page 7: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 595

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

nature will be possible, although more generalaspects may be taken into consideration in lightof information from other sources. The remain-der of this section is based on Cities of the RudnyiAltay (2001) database material unless otherwisestated.

The survey: methodological remarks – The Cit-ies of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) database sum-marises information gathered through an exten-sive questionnaire survey carried out betweenthe 27th of December 2000 and the 20th ofJanuary 2001. The questionnaire was distri-buted to a representative sample of 3,136 adults(>18 years) living in the three cities of Ust’-Kamenogorsk (1836 respondents), Leninogorsk(700) and Zyryanovsk (600), all located in thenorth-eastern corner of the Eastern Kazakhstanoblast’. The sample was systematically extractedfrom the register of households created on theoccasion of the first census of the Republic ofKazakhstan, which took place early in 1999. Thedata presented in this paper will only coverUst’-Kamenogorsk.

In order to improve credibility and rates ofresponse, the survey was presented on oblast’television, on the radio and in the press beforeit was put into effect. Subsequently, in theevening and on weekends, 58 professional inter-viewers visited the addresses contained in thesample. Respondents were asked to completethe questionnaire form in the interviewer’s pres-

ence. In addition, in Ust’-Kamenogorsk, theywere paid 50 KZT (approximately US$ 0.30) eachfor participating in the survey. As a result, only2% of the city’s respondents declined partici-pation. An additional 5.1% of the addressesin the sample had been abandoned or demol-ished at the time of the survey – within only twoyears of the census. In both cases, the intendedrespondent was replaced by a neighbour livingin an immediately adjacent dwelling, in ordernot to damage the spatially representative char-acter of the sample. A thorough discussionabout the survey’s methodological problems isprovided elsewhere (Gentile 2003b).

Ethnic residential segregation – The data in thecoming section will be presented at the city dis-trict level. Ust’-Kamenogorsk has been subdi-vided into 35 districts according to how the cityis generally perceived by the public and with acertain degree of attention paid to the presenceof obvious ‘natural’ barriers (Figure 2).

The data collected in the survey reveals asignificant degree of ethnic segregation of theKazakh population, ranging from 2.3% to39.5% of the population of individual districts,which is comparable to the 18.6% value for theentire city (Figure 3). Furthermore, at an aggre-gate level, Kazakh households seem to occupya worse position in the housing stock, as 22%live in communal apartments or rented rooms,as compared to 4.3% for Russian households.

Table 1. Ethnic composition of the population of Ust’-Kamenogorsk and of the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast’ between 1897 and 2001 (%).

Year Ust’-Kamenogorsk Eastern Kazakhstan Oblast’

Russian Kazakh Other Russian Kazakh Other

1897 84 7.5 8.5 38.6 59.7 1.71926 81.8 4.9 13.3 53.5 35.5 111939 82.2 8.2 9.6 68.3 21.9 9.81959 83.9 4.4 11.7 70.9 18.9 10.21970 86.5 5.1 8.4 69.5 23.2 7.31979 84.5 6.9 8.6 67.7 25.4 6.91989 81.5 10.6 7.9 65.9 27.2 6.91999 – – – 45.4 48.5 6.12001 74.2 18.6 7.2 – – –

Sources : Compiled by the author from Alekseenko (1994), Cities of the Rudnyi Altay 2001 database, andAgenstvo (2000).

Page 8: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

596 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

A more detailed look at the spatial patternthat appears, discloses some interesting charac-teristics. There are four districts that have con-centrations of Kazakhs higher than 30%. Theseare, from north to south: Gavan’, Studgorodok,KShT and Kulenovka. These four areas are allquite different, but there is one thing thatunites at least three of them, and that is thatthey can all be considered as problematic in oneor more aspects.

Gavan’ is a rather isolated and poorly con-nected area with mixed industrial and residen-tial functions, and suffers from considerableenvironmental problems attributable to theproximity of two of the city’s major industrial

enterprises, the lead-zinc combine and the UlbaMetallurgical Plant, as well as a coal-fuelledpower plant. Attempts have been made toevacuate the most polluted parts of Gavan’, butthe lack of alternative affordable housing hasforced some people to return.

Studgorodok is relatively well-located, buta sizeable part of its housing stock consists ofcommunal apartments, many of which areovercrowded and in poor condition, afterhaving been sold by the institutes of highereducation that owned them.

KShT is a typical Soviet housing estate, withlarge and relatively good-quality five-storey, six-storey and nine-storey buildings built during

Figure 2. Delimitation of the 35 districts used in the survey.

Page 9: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 597

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

the 1980s and early 1990s. However, it is verydistant from the city centre and, especially,from the main employers of the city. Further-more, much of the neighbourhood infrastructurethat was typical in the Soviet mikrorayon (schools,kindergartens, even roads) is absent or insuffi-cient here, since the authorities generallygave priority to housing over other aspects ofthe ‘non-productive’ sphere, which werenever completed because of the economicturmoil that followed the demise of the SovietUnion.

The fourth area, Kulenovka, is located atan even greater distance from the city centre.It consists of a large number of spacious andrecently built detached homes (from about1985 to 1993) as well as some five-storeyapartment blocks built around 1990.

As with KShT, basic infrastructure other thanhousing (‘unique’ features notwithstanding),never really made it to Kulenovka, and the factthat most of the area’s detached housing con-sists of large villas implies that maintenancecosts are very high, too high for many people.

Source : Cities of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) database.

Figure 3. Spatial distribution of ethnic Kazakhs in Ust’-Kamenogorsk.

Page 10: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

598 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

As a result, many of these large dwellings havebeen abandoned, with the remaining generallybeing occupied by the upper economic strataof society, those able to afford a car. The apart-ment blocks are of the same quality as those inKShT, but they are even more poorly connectedto the city centre. As such, they are not consid-ered to be particularly attractive to live in. Inaddition, the less affluent living in apartmentsare negatively affected by the higher prices gen-erated by the affluent population’s demand.How does this relate to ethnicity? A closer lookat the data for Kulenovka reveals that Kazakhsare more likely to live in apartment blocks orrented rooms than any other nationality, 70.6%as compared to 53.8% of the Russians. Thismeans that a significant part of the Kazakh (andthe Russian) population of Kulenovka lives inhousing which, in neighbourhood amenityterms, belongs to the least attractive. None-theless, nearly 30% of the area’s Kazakhs dolive in the ‘expensive’ part of Kulenovka – to acertain degree, it is therefore possible to speakabout the existence of a spatially segregated butsmall Kazakh elite. Most of its members workat the lead-zinc combine, offering high wages,and there are no recent rural-urban migrants.It is an established industrial elite.

The spatial distribution of ethnic Russians,who comprise 74.2% of the city’s population, isconsiderably less polarised than that of theKazakh population. The clear over-representationof Kazakhs in a few districts and under-representation in a few others is, however, re-flected in the data (Figure 4).

The highest concentrations of Russians are in(from north to south) Staraya Sogra and Mirnyi.The inner structure of both areas is homo-geneous with respect to the built environment,which consists of old detached housing, andTsarist-epoch buildings are not uncommon inStaraya Sogra. The quality of the housing stockis, however, highly divergent. In Staraya Sogra,there are no buildings that are connected to themunicipal sewage system (i.e., the fragmentednetwork of mini-sewage systems built by eachmajor industrial enterprise for its own mikro-rayony) and there is no running water within thedwellings. In Mirnyi, however, cold runningwater is available to 97.7% of the inhabitants,even though the area is not connected to thesewage system either. This suggests that there

is a socio-economic gap between the twoareas. Furthermore, Staraya Sogra has a verysignificant concentration of an elderly popula-tion living exclusively on modest pensionincomes and some backyard agriculture. Thisgroup is very spatially ‘sedimented’, and thehousing resources it occupies are necessary forits survival and the only realistic alternativegiven the level of today’s pensions. This fact,coupled with the area’s great distance from thecity centre, makes Staraya Sogra unlikely as arural-urban immigrant reception area, in spiteof its cheap housing resources.

Ovechii Klyuch: The Chechen village – ‘now, itis no longer through rumours, but with our owneyes, that we know about the evil, which is hid-den behind the tranquil name Ovechii Klyuch’(Polskikh, 22/12/2000).

Ovechii Klyuch, literally ‘sheep’s stream’, isthe name of a wooden string village located inthe northern outskirts of Ust’-Kamenogorsk(the narrow strip that can be seen in the uppermiddle of Figure 1). It is also – and more com-monly – referred to as Chechengorodok, theChechen settlement. The degree to which thearea is stigmatised has reached amazing propor-tions. This is an approximate account of a shortconversation the author had with ‘Gul’mira’(08/2000), a highly educated inhabitant ofUst-Kamenogorsk:

Author: Do you think that people of differentethnic groups are more likely to live in someareas of the city rather than others?

Gul’mira: No, that is the good thing here,that people live mixed.

A: But is there any place where you wouldnever want to end up living?

G: Ovechii Klyuch.

A: And why is that?

G: Because only Chechens live there.

A: So people actually do live separately here.

G: No, it’s just those Chechens . . . they wantto live separately. They want to be left aloneso that they can continue with all the illegalthings they do. They don’t want to work,because they just want to make easy money.

Page 11: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 599

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

A: I think I’ll go and take a look at thisOvechii Klyuch.

G: You can’t, they’ll cut you up into pieces!They are really dangerous! And besides, theywon’t even let you in, they have a world oftheir own and they don’t let anyone into thearea.

A: Have you ever been there?

G: No, never. I would have to be crazy to gothere.

A: But it can’t really be that bad, can it?

G: Yes, those Chechens are evil and they allcarry knives.

This conversation would hardly surpriseanyone that has spent more than a few days inthe FSU. It does however contain several inter-esting ingredients that hint to the necessity ofgeographical enquiry. There is a certain degreeof (at least perceived) ethnic residential segrega-tion, there is an ethnic group which is associated

Source : Cities of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) database.

Figure 4. Spatial distribution of ethnic Russians in Ust’-Kamenogorsk.

Page 12: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

600 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

with illegal activities and unwillingness towork honestly, there is the perception of thearea as ‘closed’ to most people and, finally, ifseen in the additional light of the quote fromPolskikh, there is a determined urban spaceassociated with evil, an evil which is hiddenbehind a quiet name and engendered by arestless ethnicity.

For any urban geographer, the existence ofan area with the kind of image suggested by theshort conversation recounted above implies animmediate field visit.

‘visiting Ovechii Klyuch . . . there is no waywe can believe you could have done thatwithout having other intentions – you wereclearly up to something else’ (‘Vladimir’,secret service agent analysing the nature ofthe author’s research in Kazakhstan).

As a matter of fact, according to survey data,Chechens account for only approximately 21%of the Ovechii Klyuch’s population, Russiansforming the majority. Gul’mira’s opinion,which indeed is very widespread, is the fruit ofdecades of increasing tension and intolerancebetween the Russians and Kazakhs on the onehand, and the Chechens on the other – fuelledand substantially exacerbated by the recent warsand continuing ‘anti-terrorist campaigns’ in theNorthern Caucasus.

Socio-economic residential segregation – Thereare two pronounced regularities in the spatialvariation pattern demonstrated by the variableof average monthly per capita disposableincome (Figure 5). First, central areas of the citygenerally show conspicuously higher incomesthan peripheral areas, with the exceptionof the aforementioned industrial elite area ofKulenovka, located at the southern end of thecity. Second, incomes in areas with higher con-centrations of multiple dwelling housing aresystematically higher, regardless of their dis-tance from the city centre, with the exceptionof Rayon 45-oy apteki.

There is a twofold rationale that may helpexplain the above patterns. The first aspect isthat centrally located areas are the ones with thehighest proportion of good quality factory-financed housing, the best and most prestig-iously located of which having been built by theUMZ for its well-paid workers. The housing

stock of peripheral areas, as well as that ofRayon 45-oy apteki, was generally built by themunicipality or by industrial enterprises thatwere limited by budget restraints and had lessinfluence on the city administration. Thesecond aspect is that virtually the entire singlefamily detached housing stock was built privatelyeither before or during the Soviet era to a largeextent by those who were relatively disfavouredby the Soviet housing allocation system, i.e., bythose who worked in the ‘non-productive’sector of the economy or in the non-priority in-dustrial sphere (or, in some cases, those that,according to Sukhorukova (09/09/2000), ‘didnot want to work’). These same groups are alsodisadvantaged during the economic transitionperiod, particularly from the point of view ofincome, as municipal and state jobs pay verylittle, and most of the previous non-priorityindustrial activity has either been decimated orceased to exist altogether. On the other hand,many of those who live in detached housingareas are able to replace or complement theirincomes with small-scale subsistence agricul-ture, particularly in the more peripheral, andmore sparsely built-up, areas. In fact, most ofthe densely built-up detached housing areasshow higher average per capita income levelsthan those of the sparsely built-up areas.

There is a certain connection between eth-nicity and income levels, as the second ‘poorest’area (Gavan’) is the one with the highest per-centage of ethnic Kazakhs (the poorest area,Ovechii Klyuch, has the lowest percentage ofethnic Russians, with the remainder primarilyconsisting of Chechens, Kazakhs and ‘other’nationalities). This is in spite of the fact thatUst’-Kamenogorsk Kazakhs generally seem tobe more highly educated than the city’s Russianpopulation, with 29.4% and 19.5% respectivelyhaving earned a university degree (further-more, since the level of education of recentlyarrived Kazakh migrants from the countrysideis low, the level of education of the established(pre-1991) Kazakh population is probablymuch higher than 29.4%).

There are several possibilities that may helpexplain the connection between Kazakh ethnic-ity and low income. First of all, discriminationin the private sector labour market, and possiblyeven in part of the public sector, is likely to begreat. Second, it is likely that there is and has

Page 13: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 601

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

been a mismatch between the education levelof Kazakhs and the openings in the market forwell-paid jobs (heavy industry and higheradministration). It is possible that qualified butpoorly paid jobs in the service sector are morelikely to be occupied by the Kazakh (mostlyfemale) population, whereas well-paid indus-trial jobs ‘belong’ to the Russian population. Itmay be hypothesised that Russians may beresponsible for the productive sphere andKazakhs, as well as Russian women, for the non-productive sphere. The fact that Kazakhs typically

live in privately- or municipally-built housingrather than factory housing strengthens thishypothesis, as most industrial workers were allo-cated an apartment or provided financial sup-port to build a detached house in Kulenovka.Third, as mentioned above, living in a detachedhouse permits a certain degree of subsistenceagriculture, allowing many families to replaceor complement part of the income from sala-ried work with home-grown produce. It is, how-ever, worth noting that the detached housingareas where Kazakhs prevail are actually quite

Source : Cities of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) database.

Figure 5. Spatial variation in average monthly disposable per capita income in Ust’-Kamenogorsk.

Page 14: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

602 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

densely built-up, thus restricting the actualincome opportunities from agriculture to abare minimum.

The Cities of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) databaseallows other types of material wealth measure-ments to complement the data presented aboveregarding income. Respondents were askedwhether they owned eight specific durablegoods (washing machine,2 microwave oven,vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, CD-player, tele-vision, video, computer). It was assumed thatsome goods would have been owned by mosthouseholds (i.e., refrigerator, television, wash-ing machine), some by relatively many (vacuum

cleaner, video), and some by an affluent elite(computer, CD-player, microwave oven). Eachgood owned was made equivalent to one point,which meant that a household owning a tele-vision, a vacuum cleaner and a refrigerator (butnone of the remaining goods) scored threepoints. The average level of ownership of theeight goods – hereafter referred to as coeffi-cient of domestic amenities (CDA) – has beencalculated for the city as a whole and for the35 city districts. The CDA for Ust’-Kamenogorskis 3.9, ranging from 2.7 in Studgorodok and2.8 in Gavan’ to 4.4 in Strelka (see Figure 6).Not surprisingly, the two most owned goods are

Source : Cities of the Rudnyi Altay (2001) database.

Figure 6. Average amount of selected durable goods owned by households in Ust’-Kamenogorsk.

Page 15: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 603

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

the television (93.8% of the households) andthe refrigerator (93.7%), followed by thewashing machine (83.7%) and the vacuumcleaner (67.1%). Video recorders (30.2%) andCD players (15.4%) are much less common,while microwave ovens (4.9%) and computers(3%) are rare.

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION: A PROBLEM FOR PLANNERS?

This study has shown that

• ethnic and socio-economic residential segre-gation are connected to unequal access tohousing and other societal resources

• ethnic and socio-economic segregation pat-terns partly coincide, implying that somesegregated ethnic minorities – specificallythe Kazakhs and Chechens – are poorer thanaverage, and

• ethnic residential segregation may increaseinter-ethnic tensions.

Ethnic tensions, in combination with the gen-erally unstable political and economic condi-tions that Kazakhstan currently is enduring,have already led to a serious coup attempt inlate 1999 aimed at overthrowing the oblast’authorities and proclaiming an independentRepublic of Russian Altay (ISCIP 1999).

In general, planning authorities, principallythe city architect bureau and the public infra-structure department of the municipality, havebeen concerned with issues related to physicalplanning. Problems of a social character, andspecifically residential segregation, have notbeen integrated into the planning process. Asa matter of fact, after long discussions with keyfigures from the municipality, the author hasnot found any evidence that planners are evenaware of the existence of ethnic residentialsegregation, with the notable exception of theChechen village. On the other hand, socio-economic segregation is recognised, but plan-ners explain it as an inevitable corollary of thevariations in demographic structure that existthroughout the territory of the city.

Given the current economic difficulties inKazakhstan, the question that remains iswhether the authorities should focus on improv-ing the physical infrastructure of problematicneighbourhoods, or whether they should focus

on reducing the current levels of residentialsegregation. The issue of residential segregationand planning is clearly sensitive in post-Sovietsocieties. This may have to do with the beliefthat planning that actively tries to regulatepeople’s lives evokes associations with the Sovietera. In the case of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, this isexpressed by the de facto denial of the existenceof problems related to residential segregation.However, the societal problems and ethnic ten-sions that are visible in the city are of such dignitythat they should not be ignored in the long run.

Notes

1. Copies of relevant background tables can beobtained from the author upon request.

2. Including older Soviet models that do not neces-sarily require running water.

Acknowledgements

This article is written within the ‘Post-Socialist City inthe 21st Century’ project. The author wishes to thankthe Swedish Research Council for the generousfunding made available, as well as Jan Öhman, ÖrjanSjöberg and two anonymous referees for their com-ments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

REFERENCES

Printed sourcesAgenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po Statistike

(2000), Natsional’nyi Sostav Naseleniya RespublikiKazakhstan Tom 1 [The Ethnic Composition ofthe Population of the Republic of KazakhstanVolume 1]. Almaty: Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstanpo statistike.

Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po Statistike(2002), Chislennost’ Naseleniya Respubliki Kazakhstanpo Oblastyam, Gorodam, Rayonnym Tsentram i Poselkamna Nachalo 2002 Goda [Population Size of theRepublic of Kazakhstan by Oblast, City, RayonCenter and Workers’ Settlement at the Beginningof the Year 2002]. Electronic database purchasablethrough the website of Agenstvo RespublikiKazakhstan po Statistike: <www.kazstat.asdc.kz>.Almaty: Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan postatistike.

Alekseenko, A.N. (1994), Narody VostochnogoKazakhstana [The People of Eastern Kazakhstan].Ust’-Kamenogorsk: VKO Dom Druzhby narodov,

Page 16: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

604 MICHAEL GENTILE

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

VK oblastnaya administratsiya and Vostochnyigumanitarnyi institut.

Andersson, R. & I. Molina (forthcoming, 2003),Racialization and Migration in Urban SegregationProcesses. Key issues for critical geographers. In: J.Öhman & K. Simonsen eds., Voices from the North –New Trends in Nordic Human Geography. London:Ashgate.

Bater, J.H. (1989), The Soviet Scene – A GeographicalPerspective. London: Edward Arnold.

Cater, J. & T. Jones (1989), Social Geography – AnIntroduction to Contemporary Issues. London: EdwardArnold.

Ciechocinska, M. (1987), Government Interventionto Balance Housing Supply and Urban PopulationGrowth. International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch 11(1), pp. 9–26.

CITIES OF THE RUDNYI ALTAY VOL. 1 – UST’-KAMENOGORSK

(2001), Unpublished Database Belonging to the‘Post-socialist City in the 21st Century’ Project atthe Department of Social and Economic Geographyat Uppsala University.

Dangschat, J. (1987), Sociospatial Disparities in a‘Socialist’ City: the Case of Warsaw at the End ofthe 1970s. International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch 11(1), pp. 37–59.

Daniell, J. & R. Struyk (1994), HousingPrivatization in Moscow: Who Privatizes and Why.International Journal of Urban and Regional Research18(3), pp. 511–525.

De Souza, P. (1989), Territorial Production Complexes inthe Soviet Union – With Special Focus on Siberia.Gothenburg: Department of Human andEconomic Geography, University of Gothenburg.

Generalnyi Shtab (1978), Ust’-Kamenogorsk M44-XXIII,military map in scale 1: 10,000.

Gentile, M. (2003a), Delayed Underurbanisationand the ‘Closed’ City Effect: the Case of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, Eurasian Geography andEconomics 44(2), pp. 144–156.

Gentile, M. (2003b), Divided Post-Soviet Cities:Residential Segregation and Urban Form in Leninogorskand Zyryanovsk, Kazakhstan. Paper presented at the2003 ENHR conference in Tirana, Albania, 26–28May.

Hamilton, F.E.I. & A.D. Burnett (1979), SocialProcesses and Residential Structure, In: R.A.French & F.E.I. Hamilton, eds., The Socialist City– Spatial Structure and Urban Policy. Chichester: JohnWiley & sons.

Hegedüs, J. (1987), Reconsidering the Roles of theState and the Market in Socialist Housing Systems.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research8(1), pp. 79–97.

Hegedüs, J. & I. Tosics (1991), Gentrification inEastern Europe: The case of Budapest. In:J. van Weesep & S. Musterd, eds., Urban Housingfor the Better-Off: Gentrification in Europe. pp. 124–136, Utrecht: Programmacommissie StedelijkeNetwerken.

Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology andPolicy (ISCIP) (1999), Will Russian Separatists’Arrest in Kazakhstan Raise Inter-ethnic Tensions?The NIS Observed: An Analytical Review IV:19 (06/12/1999), available at <www.bu.edu/iscip/digest/vol4/ed0419.html> (02/10/2002).

Kährik, A. (2002), Changing Social Divisions in theHousing Market of Tallinn, Estonia. Housing Theoryand Society 19, pp. 48–56.

Kok, H. & Z. Kovács (1999), The Process ofSuburbanisation in the Agglomeration ofBudapest. Netherlands Journal of Housing and theBuilt Environment 14(2), pp. 119–141.

Loogmaa, K. (1997), Socio-Economic Stratification inTallinn and Spatial Relocation Patterns. In: M. Åberg& M. Peterson, eds., Baltic Cities – Perspectives on Socialand Economic Change in the Baltic Sea Area. Lund:Nordic Academic Press.

Mateju, P. & J. Vecernik (1981), Social Structure,Spatial Structure and Problems of EcologicalAnalysis: The Example of Prague. In: M. Harloe& E. Lebas, eds., City, Class and Capital – NewDevelopments in the Political Economy of Cities andRegions. London: Edward Arnold.

Megid’, D.A. (2001), Arkhitektura (Kratkii Istoric-heskii Obzor Gradostroitel’nogo Razvitia Goroda)[Architecture (Short Historical Account of theCity-building Development of the City)], avail-able at <http://city.ukg.kz/uka2_3.htm> (27/04/2001).

Morton, H.W. (1984), The Contemporary SovietCity. In: H.W. Morton & R.C. Stuart, eds., TheContemporary Soviet City. Houndmills and London:Macmillan.

Musil, J. (1987), Housing Policy and the SociospatialStructure of Cities in a Socialist Country: TheExample of Prague. International Journal of Urbanand Regional Research 11(1), pp. 27–35.

Polskikh, F. (22/12/2000), Shmon, in Ustinka+, p. 4.Rukavishnikov, V.O. (1980), Naselenie Goroda

(Sotsial’nyi sostav, Rasselenie, Otsenka Gorodskoy Sredy)[The Population of the City (Social Composition,Settlement Pattern, Evaluation of the UrbanEnvironment)]. Moscow: Statistika.

Page 17: Residential Segregation in a Medium-Sized Post-Soviet City: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN A MEDIUM-SIZED POST-SOVIET CITY 605

© 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

Ruoppila, S. (1998), Discussion – The ChangingUrban Landscape of Tallinn. Finnish Journal ofUrban Studies 3, pp. 36–43.

Sjöberg, Ö. (1999), Shortage, Priority and UrbanGrowth: Towards a Theory of Urbanisation underCentral Planning. Urban Studies 36(13), pp. 2217–2236.

Smith, D.M. (1996), The Socialist City. In: G. Andrusz,M. Harloe & I. Szelényi, eds., Cities After Socialism– Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies. Oxford: Blackwell.

Struyk, R. (1996), Housing Privatization in theFormer Soviet Bloc to 1995. In: G. Andrusz, M.Harloe & I. Szelényi, eds., Cities After Socialism –Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies. Oxford: Blackwell.

Szelényi, I. (1983), Urban Inequalities under StateSocialism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Szelényi, I. (1987), Housing Inequalties andOccupational Segregation in State Socialist Cities:Commentary to the Special Issue of IJURR on EastEuropean cities. International Journal of Urban andRegional Research 11(1), pp. 1–9.

Tammaru, T. (2001a), Urbanization in Estonia in the1990s: Soviet Legacy and the Logic of Transition. Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 42(7), pp. 504–518.

Tammaru, T. (2001b), The Soviet Union as a DeviantCase? Underurbanization in Soviet Estonia. UrbanGeography 22(6), pp. 584–603.

Tosics, I. (1987), Privatization in Housing Policy:The Case of the Western Countries and That ofHungary. International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch 11(1), pp. 61–78.

USTINKA+ (08/12/2000), Samyi Gryaznyi GorodKazakhstana [The Dirtiest City in Kazakhstan].

Vostochno-Kazakhstanskoe Oblastnoe Upravlenie

Okhrany Okruzhayushchey Sredy (2000), Ekolo-gicheskii Monitoring Sostoyaniya OkruzhayusheySredy Vostocho-Kazakhstanskoy Oblasti v 1999Godu. Ecological Monotoring of the State of theEnvironment in the Eastern Kazakhstan Oblast’ in1999. Ekologia Vostochnogo Kazakhstana, vypusk 2,2000.

Weclawowicz, G. (1979), The Structure of Socio-Economic Space in Warsaw in 1931 and 1970: aStudy in Factorial Ecology. In: R.A. French &F.E.I. Hamilton, eds., The Socialist City – SpatialStructure and Urban Policy. Chichester: John Wiley& sons.

Interviews and other oral sources‘Gul’mira’ (assumed name) (08/2000), inhabitant

of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, private conversation.Kulenov, Akhat Salemkhatovich (11/02/2001),

President of the Aimak Altyn Corporation, ex-member of the Majlis (1995–1997), and ex-President of the Ust’-Kamenogorsk lead-zinccombine (1985–1994), formal interview.

Moskal’tseva, Galina Antonovna (06/09/2000),former Chief Architect of Ust’-Kamenogorsk,formal interview.

SHIRSHOV, ALEXANDER IVANOVICH (11/09/2000), DeputyMayor of Ust’-Kamenogorsk with responsibility forconstruction and public infrastructure, formalinterview.

Sukhorukova, Vera Nikolaevna (09/09/2000),Mayor of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, formal interview.

‘Tatiana’ (assumed name) (09/2000), inhabitant ofKulenovka, informal interview.

‘Vladimir’ (assumed name) (17/02/2001), agent ofthe Committee for National Security, Ust’-Kamenogorsk, ‘reverse interview’.