Nuclear urbanity as heritage

This article examines the heritagization of nuclear urbanity as a distinctive form of Soviet industrial urbanism. The research focuses on the satellite settlement of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, which exemplifies the ‘presentism’ characteristic of Soviet heritage – an entanglement of multiple temporalities alongside goals of propaganda and preservation. We argue that local engagements with nuclear cultural heritage are rooted in the fact that commemorative practices were embedded from the inception of the atomic town’s development. This early transformation of nuclear urbanity into heritage ensured that the former Soviet atomic town preserved not only material traces but also a lasting infrastructure of social memory and urban imagery, mobilized by various actors for identity building and future negotiations.