De la ville pionnière à la cité

• Published in: Belgeo
• Main Author: Yvette Vaguet
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Société Royale Belge de Géographie and the Belgian National Committee of Geography 2018
• Subjects: Siberia; image; frontier town; post-Soviet; transformation; globalization; Geography (General); G1-922; Arctic; ob river; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/belgeo.24777; https://doaj.org/article/506019495364470b950fad61151b8c31

Hydrocarbons continue to structure the geography and geopolitics of the world. Nevertheless, places of extraction sometimes at the limit of the ecumene, and the lifestyles of their residents draw little attention. The plain of the Ob river is an example in the Arctic and subarctic zone. The oil and gas towns there are at the frontier, they remain at the limit of viability in a market economy. They experience undergoing transformations since the fall of the USSR. They opened up to the competition whereas they had few assets for residents, and suffered from the withdrawal of the State.The phenomenological approach allows to account for and discuss the material realities of the mutations of these post-Soviet urban landscapes. The image and the text combine to highlight changes as a result mainly of the introduction of the market economy, and that respond to the aspirations of residents. Some local forms of normalization are observed there, a result of the globalization declined locally. The frontier town becomes a modern city.