Oleg, thank you very much. As an architect, I am always working less with words and more with images. Consequently, I prepared some slides because when I was invited to this panel, I asked myself, what would be my contribution to this podium of social scientists and geographers? And I thought I would just tell you something about my experience as an architect and how I see what's going on in the eastern part of Europe and the former Soviet Union. In recent years I have been discussing it and thinking about the term "Eurasian city". What is the Eurasian city's typology? Is that the blueprint for authoritarian urbanism? I would like to discuss the parameters of the "Eurasian city" in the context of the war in Europe. And so, I refer to this term used in a couple of publications, and I would like to understand your opinion.

Oleg, thank you very much. As an architect, I am always working less with words and more with images. Consequently, I prepared some slides because when I was invited to this panel, I asked myself, what would be my contribution to this podium of social scientists and geographers? And I thought I would just tell you something about my experience as an architect and how I see what's going on in the eastern part of Europe and the former Soviet Union. In recent years I have been discussing it and thinking about the term "Eurasian city". What is the Eurasian city's typology? Is that the blueprint for authoritarian urbanism? I would like to discuss the parameters of the "Eurasian city" in the context of the war in Europe. And so, I refer to this term used in a couple of publications, and I would like to understand your opinion.

Thank you, Philipp. Yeah, that's exactly what we're supposed to talk about. At first, I was also thinking while you were showing the images, that many of those examples, I would rather call it "totalitarian urbanism", because the idea of totality is kind of very obvious with these cases – with the coverage of cameras, with the scale of the buildings and with the idea of control staying behind it. So, one of the things that we wanted to discuss is the following. There are so many different manifestations that we refer to when we speak of "authoritarian urbanism" or "totalitarian urbanism" or some other… Actually, why do we put all of these examples under the same category? Or what is the correct name for that category that covers all of them? Or why shall we [find such a category]? Why are we looking for a term that would cover all this variety? Perhaps to keep varieties is better, actually, and to talk about different phenomena – than to find one proper, so to say, "the proper name" for all of them. So yeah, thank you very much for this start and throw in.

Well, you know, I can show you even "better" places, the fresh ones.. Just go to Warschauer Straße and near Ostbahnhof, you will find a lot of "interesting" quarters – not even just buildings – to discuss.

I just wanted to announce that you probably are puzzled about what's going on there out [refers to the loud bustle outside the conference premises]. So, that's the difference between the authoritarian city and the free city with some authoritarian architecture, I mean Berlin; because this is a demonstration that can happen really and happens actually every weekend. This demonstration is against chemical weapons, people are protesting on the streets.

Thank you for this question. I could probably have formulated it better. None of these infrastructures are developed. All projects that were in realization are not finished, and none of these infrastructures is maintained as it used to be before 2020. Also because the maintenance was partly financed through those EBRD projects. And expertise was outsourced. State institutions do not have expertise in maintaining bicycling infrastructure in Belarus and even roads infrastructure. And now the experts were actually the first group to leave the country because they were repressed. They are either in prison or abroad.

I think the definition that you gave to authoritarian urbanism is well illustrated by that observation from Minsk that I tried to describe... Under authoritarian urbanism, many things are possible. Things can be very different, but they are all fragile and unsustainable, so they can disappear much faster than in non authoritarian urbanism because the power is consolidated in a very small number of people, actors.

[While] Living in Europe I made two observations about authoritarian states. First thought is that the more authoritarian a state is, the lower and fewer trees are [in the cities]. If you look at many capitals of authoritarian states on their main streets they basically have no trees at all. You can rarely see an old tree in the center of Moscow, you know, a big old tree like you can see here on the streets of Berlin or some other German city. And I think it is because politicians in these [authoritarian] states want to get very fast results, and trees… [do not match this approach – OP]. You know, planting a tree is the best thing you can do to the city environment, to the city beautification, and landscaping. But it's a very long term [process]. And none of these new urban methods and approaches which are used by authoritarian states are about planting trees, gardening and so on.

Next notice I made... We have some questions in the description of our panel today which [address the possible] signs that we can trace before we can say that this state is going to authoritarian way. Maybe one of these signs is [the fact] that government starts it's public spaces development and parks program. Because, you know, basically, a desire to have a park should come from people, from citizens, not from government. And maybe it's because of lack of ownership, a sense of ownership [to a city space – OP] that people in Russia and some other authoritarian states do not have. They do not have these ideas at all and do not go with that ideas to authorities, because they don't even realize that they have a right to demand something for their city. So I love the word "citizen" because ...It doesn't exists in the Russian language. "Citi/y-zen" contains the right to be a part of the nation and parts of the city, two things together. And maybe in Russian it's a word "gorozhanin" , but this word is not used in press or by governments at all, because it's very … strong word [in political sense - OP]. And because it says that citizen have a right to choose, have a right to be owner of his city, of his land, and have a right to make decisions on this land. So when this program starts with, you know, beautification of streets, redesigning of streets, huge programs of redesign of public spaces, maybe something is going wrong already. Or maybe because if they give you something right here, it means that somewhere else they are stealing your right to choose.


And in conclusion I want to tell you a story. I think I faced the very edge of authoritarian urbanism last year. I went to Vladivostok where the local governor invited a team of young architects from Tatarstan who are really good in landscaping, in design, [who can do - OP] really nice looking public spaces. And so I've been to a few of these places, and it was really, really great quality of benches, pavements, of tiles, it was really nice. All places were instagrammable. But I noticed that on every bench they had three cameras in each direction. And then I was told the stories by my local friends that each camera had a microphone and speaker, and they have operators in the office who are watching this square or park 24 hours a day. So if someone at 01:00 AM goes to this square, sits on a bench and drinks beer, this operator tells them through speakers to go out otherwise they will call the police. After that, the operator cuts this video and sends it to the city authorities. City administration of Vladivostok has its official Instagram page. So they put this video of guys who drink beer with a comment: "These are criminals! Shouldn't be allowed to go in our parks, please, be aware!". I was really horrified when I started to look at this page of Vladivostok administration. At some park in the winter there was snow everywhere and kids went from school, about ten years old or nine years old [kids], so they played standing on the bench because it's snow everywhere. And near the bench there was a litter bin. So one kid sat inside a litter bin. It was a game of ten year old children. So the Instagram account of the city administration placed the video of these children and said: "this group of young criminals went from that direction from that school. Please, parents, be aware that if it happens again we will call the police. And you have to speak to your children very strictly about that". So then I realized that these perfectly designed squares and parks are not for people, at all. They are for the government, to show images of how good life is in our city. You know, it's like... these aesthetic pictures are like they have been made in the Soviet Union. I only recently realized that all those Soviet pictures with laughing people are… designed pictures, you know. So they set it up for the photographs. Life never was the same like we see from photographs. So, it was the very edge of authoritarian urbanism I noticed in Russia. And then the war began.

I wanted to refer to some of my colleagues and the images I showed. We discussed a waste management system to be implemented in Minsk. You described these bicycle lanes in Minsk, which was planned to become a bicycle-friendly city. And you mentioned this exciting example from a well-designed public space in Vladivostok. So, if we saw pictures, everyone would say, well, it's a great design. And this would be a reference in 50 or 100 years – people would show those pictures again because of the waste management system, modern bicycle lanes, and very well-designed public space. That brings me to the thesis: we are not discussing urbanism that we will criticize. That means we should not talk about authoritarian urbanism in this respect, we should find another term, or we should try to make a definition for urbanism. Or the following thesis might be: when we talk about urbanism, we are not talking about urban design, and we are not talking about urban planning. We are talking about planning processes and how to use public spaces. And this is very, very important because, again, I refer to my pictures of the world-famous architects who were invited to Russia to design lovely buildings and livable public spaces. In 20 to 30 years, you will see all these buildings in books on the architectural history of the 21st century. They will all be shown in these books. But on the other hand, we know precisely that the usage of these buildings or the decision-making is entirely against our beliefs. Again, we need to find a definition for urbanism: What are we talking about? Because we are not talking about this beautiful bench. We are not talking about the fact that a bicycle lane would be part of a livable city, and a colorful trash bin would be a part of sustainable waste management – we don't need to talk about it. This is a very crucial issue for our own future.

In the first round I did not talk about Tbilisi, right? Tbilisi is an interesting case because one could say that Tbilisi, at least in the last ten years, has not been too authoritarian. This is changing in the past year, but let us say, since the Saakashvili' rule (2012) until the last years (2021) Tbilisi was not particularly authoritarian. It maybe was not particularly democratic either. However, people could protest. People were not afraid that they were tad taped, political voice was something that you can have and you will not necessarily be prosecuted for it. Of course, there were cases of state violence and repression, but people still have a space to react. They will come out on the streets and they will protest. There is a possibility for political self-expression.

On the other hand, Tbilisi is a city which has experienced a lot of un-planning and the removal of professionals as a way of allowing rule of the powerful, enabling private actors and upper middle classes to really design the city to their desire and benefit. You can observe this in various ways in Tbilisi. I myself studied mobility and transport. Tbilisi is a super congested city, but actually, according to 2019 statistics, only 30% of the population had access to cars. It is just that they over abuse it, and then everybody has to be stuck in traffic jams, including the privileged. And in many other ways, in terms of a rental market, in terms of income inequalities, in terms of access and prices of everyday consumables and food, this is a city that is really designed for the richer. Even if it's not very visible, even if the state distances itself from planning, a lot of state power is deployed to allow the private sector and the rich to dominate the city. In fact, you have a lot of state capacity that is actually invested in repressing the voices of marginalized people. Such repressions might not always be visible in media and public discourse, because middle classes don't usually care. It is not problematised when the street vendors are being driven out of public spaces, when squatters, or people that are living in illegal settlements are expelled to make space for private companies to buy and 'develop' urban land, to support accumulation process by dispossessing certain populations. So in this sense, there is a significant degree of authoritarian type of violence through which, let's say, relatively more democratic cities are governed. For me, the question is, when we deal with this authoritarian urbanism, how do we define this spectrum? How do we talk of different versions of authoritarian urbanism and authoritarian interventions in space production and social production?

I think that's a very good question, actually. I'm thinking that, well, it's already a good example... If different things can happen in different cities, it's for me a very good example of that... that the society or the state as such is not authoritarian to that extent, because it means that the federal power is not that strong and it gives an opportunity to locals to act. Not always in a good or right way, but at least it means that the state [power] is not that strong and total. But yeah, I also think that... what became clear from this discussion was that... It makes no sense to talk about authoritarian or whatever urbanism without its connection to what is usually called neoliberalism or capitalism. Because they act everywhere, in all examples, I think, that we discussed, they act in a very close connection to each other. And the main manifestation of authoritarianism is often a kind of violating the democratic process or institutions in favor of capital. In European space it's maybe... It can be seen as the softest version of authoritarian urbanism, while the strongest, the hardest version is like what we have in Central Asian countries or in the Russian cities sometimes. So it's definitely a spectrum. But as we already discussed, the collaboration between the authorities and capital and their agreement to ignore the voices of the others, as you said, it's already, probably a very bad sign of the coming authoritarianism. And it refers to what Lev [Vladov] said - to his idea of that... when the state government is planning public spaces for people and [does] beautification of public spaces it is already a bad sign. As they're very quick decisions, "quick victories" as we know it. It is one of the things we know from the professional vocabulary of [urban] consultants. So whenever the consultants come [together] and they discuss among the professionals, among themselves, what should they do, they always have this idea that they should work in two directions or scales – like, tactical and strategic or short term and long term. So in the long term, we do something good, something really important for us as urbanists, but in the short term we do something to satisfy the politicians, which is exactly.. Well, for me now it really sounds like the best way to serve populism. You know, they need it because they're populists, that's why they needed short term victories. And that populism is obviously a first step towards authoritarianism. So this is... here I see the connection.

I'm quite familiar with the Chinese context since 1993, and in the last five or six years, you have these cameras [everywhere there in China – OP] and when you lose your wallet, well I like, that they really can find where you lost it and then you get it back. But they ask you to come within seven days because they only just store those videos for seven days. Because it creates too much conflict when a foreigner has a problem. When you know it, you go on the third day and then they watch the video. But this level of surveillance was already done around 15 years ago at Mainz Central station. It was a pilot project to control everything in the place in front of the Central station in Mainz and inside. And there was a discussion in the city if toilets could have those cameras too. This was only a discussion. Why do I describe this? The level of acceptance of a terrible totalitarian structure is interesting in the context of public administration and decision making processes of administration, of security and fear in public space. And management of fear in public space, lots of examples show this. Sometimes it collapses like in Korea, the last time. Ironically in Mainz which was the first democratically elected republic in 1793, the most condensed authoritarian structure as a pilot project was implemented, and in public discussion there was no rejection because the fear-feeling management was so effective in the city. So the acceptance goes up. And I would like to know, given the examples that these tycoons and trustees were everywhere, how this acceptance is different? [the question is – OP] When you accept this kind of authoritarian structure and on which conditions you check it; this is one [thing - OP]. Another moment is which of these decision making processes are public, seen by the public already.

And just a short comment on this: in China, you can buy any kind of tree in any size and you can wake up next morning and you see it in front of your house, 30 year old tree, 25 meters high, planted overnight brought from another city [though planting big tree in this way is rather a sign of authoritarianism than its opposite; compare to the case of Ivanishvili's Botanic garden in Batumi, Georgia – OP].

But is this a mistake? I mean, with these examples you gave, I mean, what crime can you expect with these cameras and operators watching you? You cannot drink beer! I mean, of course, people feel safe.

Of course, I agree, I just wanted to say that probably the argumentation could sound a bit different...

Thank you. I just wanted to reflect on Baku city as an example. Oleksandra mentioned here the nonsafety of the spaces, of the public spaces or some other spaces that you've been there. I think that is not [about- OP] safety. It's another main aspect of authoritarian urbanism, because we know in Berlin there are also many such places where a woman is better not going alone or even a friend of mine, the transgender journalist, was beaten in one of Berlin streets. So I think that there are lots of examples of authoritarian urbanism in Baku. You mentioned you touched upon some of them, such as civic participation, transparency, problems of transparency of tenders, problems of collaboration and these independent architects, urbanists and so on. But one of the aspects that you didn't touch upon is the memory politics. So Azerbaijan authorities are trying to represent its regime erecting lots of parks of Heydar Aliev, or erecting monuments to him. So this is for me as a resident of this city is the main aspect of authoritarian urbanism.