The State of Post-Industriality: The “Power of Factories”

Post-industrial and industrial today are present in both small and medium-sized Russian towns. In some of them, they continue to operate, but can no longer provide employment for all citizens due to automation and other processes. In some others, businesses have ceased to exist, but abandoned factory spaces are viewed by residents as places where a new factory should appear, that is, exclusively in the context of industrialism. The post-industrial is manifested in the increasing demands of the population for a variety of places of work and leisure, for job security, for the environmental situation, for the comfort of life, and for access to a wide variety of resources. As a result, urban space acquires marginal characteristics: new factories do not appear, plots of land remain abandoned, tourism and creative projects are present, but are not yet decisive for such settlements.We use the theoretical frame of space production by A. Lefebvre and the approach of marginal space characteristics. For ten years we have been researching small Russian cities; the article uses materials from 2018 — 2023, obtained through semi-formalized mobile and stationary interviews, group discussions, observation and photo mapping, mental maps, as well as the “time capsule” technique. The purpose of the article is to present observations about the combination of the following phenomena, such as the continuing “power of factories” and the sprouts of creativity and tourism appearing here and there as signs of post-industriality.