(cid:2) NEEDED BY NOBODY A VOLUME IN THE SERIES Culture and Society after Socialism edited by Bruce Grant and Nancy Ries For a full list of titles in the series, see www.cornellpress.cornell.edu NEEDED BY NOBODY HOMELESSNESS AND HUMANNESS IN POST-SOCIALIST RUSSIA Tova Höjdestrand CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London Copyright © 2009 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the pub- lisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2009 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2009 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data Höjdestrand, Tova, 1964– Needed by nobody : homelessness and humanness in post-socialist Russia / Tova Höjdestrand. p. cm. — (Culture and society after socialism) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-4701-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8014-7593-1 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Homelessness—Russia (Federation) 2. Russia (Federation)—Social conditions—1991- I. Title. II. Series: Culture and society after socialism. HV4577.2.A4H64 2009 305.5'6920947—dc22 2009010906 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (cid:2) Contents Acknowledgments vii A Note on Transliteration and Translation ix Introduction 1 1. “Excrement of the State”: The Soviet-Russian Production of Homelessness 20 2. Refuse Economics: Getting By with the Help of Waste 47 3. Perilous Places: The Use and Abuse of Space and Bodies 77 4. No Close Ones: About (Absent) Families and Friends 112 5. Friend or Foe? The Ambiguity of Homeless Togetherness 135 6. Dirt, Degradation, and Death 166 Conclusion 193 Notes 207 Bibliography 217 Index 227 (cid:2) Acknowledgments This study owes a great deal to the encourage- ment and engagement of a large number of people. At the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, I thank all my colleagues for the ideas and encouragement I have received during the years. I am particularly grateful to Karin Norman, whose inspiring curiosity, careful attention, and critical eye have been indispensable in transforming my unbridled knack for telling stories into the serious ethnographic work I hope this book to be. I am also deeply indebted to Galina Lindquist, who initially was my partner in the “Coping with Misery in Post-Communist Russia” project, the origi- nal framework of this study, and whose close attention and insightful advice have been invaluable throughout. Her tragic death only months before the completion of this manuscript casts a shadow of grief over the relief and hap- piness that otherwise follow a finished publication, for she was, in the idiom of this book, indeed a “true human.” For extensive and valuable comments on this manuscript, I am especially grateful to Mark Graham, Åse Ottosson, Lissa Nordin, Johan Lindquist, Mat- tias Viktorin, Thomas Borén, Gudrun Dahl, Åsa Bartholdsson, and Åsa Are- tun. I would like to thank the Institute of Anthropology in Copenhagen for a hospitable period of guest research in 2003 and its doctoral students for the inspiring seminars and conversations. In Copenhagen, my manuscript benefited greatly from the generous and constructive attention of Finn Sivert Nielsen, and I also thank Professor Michael Jackson for taking a keen interest in my work. In addition, I am grateful to the Department of Social Anthro- pology at Lund University, where I have enjoyed a number of greatly inspir- ing guest seminars throughout the years, and to the Centre for Independent Sociological Research in St. Petersburg, where I spent a rewarding period as a guest researcher in the spring of 2006. The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the Swedish Institute provided the funding that made this project possible in the first place. I am deeply grateful for their invaluable support, and I also wish to thank the Nordic vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research Board and the Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation for additional financial assistance. As a reader for Cornell University Press, Dale Pesmen gave me a wonderful response with thoughtful and inspiring comments, and the careful attention, sound judgment, and indefatigable support of editors Nancy Ries and Bruce Grant have simply been priceless for the completion of this work. I also owe great thanks to Emily Zoss for patiently helping me out with a number of other issues. Primarily, however, a large number of people in St. Petersburg deserve particular mention. My homeless informants generously spent their time on me instead of something more profitable. A number of others were nearly as invaluable. The help I have received from Igor Karlinsky with regard to legal matters was of great value, and I would never have completed—or even initiated—this project without help from the organization Nochlezhka and Na Dne and their staff, in particular Maksim Egorov. Professor Yakov Gilin- sky, Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, has supported me with many practical issues and rewarding conversations. All my friends in the city have contributed to this study in some way or another, but I am espe- cially grateful to Vladik Nakhimov, Maya Rusakova, Olga Ivanovna Rusa- kova, Larisa Petrova, and, in particular, Marina Dmitrieva, without whose patience with my endless questions and perpetual misunderstandings, this book would never have been written. (cid:2) A Note on Transliteration and Translation I have used the Library of Congress system for transliteration except when there is another commonly accepted English spelling, for instance in the case of names such as Fyodor or Berdyaev. Trans- lations are my own. ix