Authors

Discussion

Roads and railroads, sea routes and aviation corridors have been conduits of modernization and circulation of people, goods, resources and information, as well as agents of major irreversible ecological, infrastructural and social transformations. Their impacts are especially visible in the areas of the North characterized by remoteness, limited transport accessibility, low population density and cultural heterogeneity.

Many large-scale transport infrastructures of the Russian North are a continuation or a relaunch of the Soviet state development plans. Their current (re)construction revealing a number of material, bureaucratic, and rhetorical path-dependencies, is driven not only by state but also by private interests and investments that are rarely adjusted to local needs. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) have facilitated colonization, urbanization and development of the Soviet North, transforming the natural, the built and the social environments in the affected regions. Drawing on ethnographic cases of the local communities along their way, we ask the following questions. What is the current meaning of the Soviet infrastructural legacy, development plans and discourses? What are the expectations and fears associated with the programs of reconstruction of the NSR and the BAM at the local level? And how do the quality of life and future of northern communities correlate with functioning transport infrastructures?