Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
126
RESEARCH REPORTS
Russification in the Bay of Kotor:
Urbanization According to Standards of Russian Immigration
Tamara Lepeti
ć
(University of Belgrade)
This ethnographic research on Russian entrepreneurship and urbanization of the old city core
was carried out in the Bay of Kotor (Montenegro) and addressed the growing interest of
Russian people in business economics. Cross-cultural cooperation among different
nationalities involved changing aspects of home culture and their differentiation in relation to
the capital city, where such a culture is an integral part, and to the public image of the state.
Therefore, my aim was to develop an understanding of the macro processes that mark the
local context in which people operate according to different political interventions and public
and private interests.
Montenegro and its coastal region (the Bay of Kotor) are characterized by weak
industrial development, corruption, a tension between legal and illegal powers and blurred
boundaries between the formal and the informal sector of the economy. In this environment,
the new social and cultural context displays new forms of urban structure as a field for
understanding strong relationship between authoritative locals and new
entrepreneurs. In this
new socio-economic arena, market urbanism may play a leading role in the process of
reflective use of the public and private domains for technological, political and financial
purposes. Newly formed neighborhoods, also known as Russian areas, have led to a new type
of settlements — associated settlements which are often related to the local proactive
promotion of economic development by the local authorities.
Image 1: Typical Russian Settlements
