عنوان

The Afterlives of Soviet Secret Cities:

Number

TLpq2466881470

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

The Afterlives of Soviet Secret Cities:

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Kopack, Robert Allen

Title Proper by Another Author

Environment and Political Economy in Kazakhstan's Defense Industry Sites After 1991

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Lewis, Robert

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Toronto (Canada)

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2020

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

247

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Toronto (Canada)

Text preceding or following the note

2020

Text of Note

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built a number of military industries and secret defense sites in the vast Kazakh steppes. These included the world's first space complex, large nuclear and biological weapons production and test sites, and massive ballistic missile research areas. These sites and their adjacent bedroom communities have experienced enormous stress resulting from large-scale political economic transformations due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Environmental destruction is a common and troubling legacy from the past for all of these sites. In this dissertation, I examine the political, economic, and environmental afterlives of Soviet governance and Cold War defense investments in Kazakhstan through a study of three formerly secret military installations: Baikonur, Priozersk/Sary Shagan, and Stepnogorsk. My research shows how the destabilizing political economic rupture of the early 1990s was driven by both new market-based opportunities, such as commercial space endeavors, mining, heavy industry, tourism, and renewed forms of closure and secrecy in order support them. In what follows, I explore how these military assets, their industrial landscapes and their dependent communities have been reorganized and drawn into new business ventures across national and global economic networks, how the Russian Federation has played a partial role in governance at the national and local scale, and how the politics of environmental degradation has shaped the course of development.

Economics

Environmental justice

Geography

Kopack, Robert Allen

Lewis, Robert

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y