ABSTRACT In this article, I explore the everyday practices of a garazhnik , a type of contemporary socioeconomic actor characteristic of post‐Soviet Russia, where many garages are turned into spaces of production. On the basis of ethnographic data and secondary sources, I demonstrate that the phenomenon of garazhniki and the larger “garage economy” they take part in emerged at the intersection of Soviet urban forms and post‐Soviet economic realities. Then, I examine the practices of a particular garazhnik in a monotown—that is, roughly the Soviet equivalent of a company town—in Eastern Siberia. Through this example, I demonstrate that practices of gleaning and trade on the margins of postsocialist capitalism in this town are contingent on the material remainders of state socialism. Furthermore, I highlight the critiques implicit in the political imaginary that drives the practices of this particular garazhnik , who dismisses the state‐proposed postindustrial future as unsustainable and unappealing. This article is based on ethnographic data from fieldwork carried out in Eastern Siberia in the period 2019–22.
Konstantin Georgiev (Mon,) studied this question.