The demonstration effect of the border

The Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences is 100 years old. During this time, geographers from expedition participants describing landscapes have turned into interdisciplinary experts in the study of space operating Big Data and using new technologies. About how the modern geography has changed, Olga Orlova tells a political geographer, Art. scientific. sore. Institute of Geography Alexander Sebentsov .

Alexander Sebentsov was born in 1982 in Moscow. In 2004 he graduated from the Geographical Department of the Moscow Pedagogical State University. From 2004 to 2007, he worked as a geography teacher at the Lyceum of Information Technology. In 2007, he defended his thesis on the topic "Geographical problems of investment in the economic development of the regions of the Russian North." From 2008 to 2009, he taught economic geography and regional economy at the Ministry of State Medical University and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. Since 2009, he has been working at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He participated in the project of the Seventh European Framular Program of the EU “Vision of Europe in the Modern World”, as well as in the project of the Russian Scientific Fund “Russian Borderlands. Calls the neighborhood. " Active participant in expeditions conducted by the laboratory of geopolitical research. I visited almost all sections of the land boundaries of Russia. The author of publications devoted to the problems of the development of the border territories of the Kaliningrad region, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus.

- Alexander, your institute is 100 years old this year. It was founded in 1918, when descriptive tasks were in many respects to the geographers. Today, when we have Google Maps, Yandex.Navigator and satellites, what can be said about modern geography? Did she go into the past?

- She goes to the future. And for a long time. In Fonvizin, in the comedy “Undergrowth” (XVIII century) they joke that geography is not noble science. Why is it needed at all when there are cabs? The nobleman will say: “The cabman, take me there,” he will take me to where he is ordered. So the idea that geography is a descriptive science is preserved from us from school. And in many ways this is the problem of how to teach geography. I always like to compare geography with architecture. Architects deal with a large number of buildings. Geographers work with one huge building, a complex skyscraper or housing complex, where a large number of residents live. Geographers, unlike the architect, should know what and where in this building.

- Do you mean the surface of the earth?

- Not only the surface of the earth, but also the atmosphere. Geological processes that affect what is on Earth. In the building, it would be air circulation, a cooling system, or air conditioning. The fact that around the building also affects how to operate it. To be able to manage the building, first you need to figure out what is where. The problem of the school is that the school only basically does this and stops on this. Pupils receive only an idea where countries and capital.

- You are a former school teacher ... Did you read the novel “Geographer Globus Saw” Alexei Ivanov?

- Read.

- From the hero of this novel, a teacher of geography, blows hopelessness and remains a difficult impression. What would you change in the idea of ​​modern geographers?

- He came to school in difficult life circumstances. Therefore, from him and blows hopelessness. He began to teach geography there, being a biologist and not a teacher. Although in its own way it was trodden to the path to the hearts of children. As for the ideas, in my opinion, there are no them at all. This situation is repeated every time I find myself in an unfamiliar company. They ask me questions: "Where do you work, what are you doing?" I reply that the geographer. "Do you walk around the world with a backpack?" That is, people do not know what modern geographers are doing.

So I compared geography with architecture, said that there is a building where we all live, and geography studies how this building works, how to manage it. This is a science necessary for the management company. In the building, not all residents behave well. Someone arranges illegal redevelopment of apartments, someone decides to block the overall ventilation ... You can mentally transfer this to our planet, where there are also many inhabitants-about 180 countries of the world, 180 of these apartments. If one of the guests decides to build a small factory in the apartment, then this will somehow affect the neighbors.

In the XVIII and XIX centuries, during the period of great geographical discoveries, geography answered the questions "What?" And "Where?" Now the task of geography is to answer the question “Why is it here and not there?”, Or, in other words, “if we change something here, then what will happen there?” If you make illegal redevelopment, what will happen to your neighbors? What will happen to the whole building? If something changes on the street, how do we solve these problems together? This is the task that geographers work on.

- How do new technologies change geographical science?

- First of all, the geography has greatly changed the remote sensing. It sharply reduced the number of geographers that walk around the world with backpacks. Today, very many things can be explored using services such as Google Maps and Yandex.Marts in satellite mode. And if twenty years ago, when sensing technologies have already appeared, it was difficult to order these pictures, now this is being done in two clicks. And if earlier in order to shoot something in detail, it was necessary to raise the plane, now there are small drones that are charged from a regular outlet, with a professional camera. They rise and remove everything that is necessary.

The second is geoinformation systems, the ability to automatically create cards, place different information on them and analyze this using computer technology. This has changed our life very much, because using computer vision you can analyze some pictures, automatically recognize and work with Big Data. This has changed all the sciences. It is still not clear which way it changed. Because everything is just beginning.

Recently, the media passed that in many parts of the world, the US military bases were disclosed. The fact is that the soldiers should make daily run. How to run around the base? Around the perimeter. Due to the fact that many soldiers are running around the base, its contours are gradually drawing on the map.

Here are my colleagues created Habidatum, which collaborates with our institute. This company is mainly engaged in urban projects, the study of urban space and implemented the project “Archeology of the Russian periphery” several years ago, where it was analyzed how people move inside Moscow. Every morning, a large number of Muscovites and residents of the Moscow Region go to the center of Moscow, to the business center where they work, and go back in the evening. A practical conclusion for our lives: in the morning you should not walk in the center. It is necessary to live in some kind of “anti-flow”: when everyone goes to the center, it is better to leave the center.

On the map of the flows of people's movement, it is clearly seen that the inhabitants of the city outskirts, which are located outside the third transport ring and even beyond the Moscow Ring Road, wake up and gradually flow into the city center. By evening, the movement is more or less calmed down. Everything is generalized here. Online cards allow you to trace how different groups of the population move. The fact is that not everyone goes to the center. The general movement is to the center, but at the same time someone through the center should transit to other areas of Moscow.

- And how are these streams tracking? According to what data?

- an agreement with several companies of cellular operators, which transferred the data. That is, they are monitored by the movement of cell phones. The data were depersonalized - there was no threat to personal information. Each specific point is a person who goes with his mobile phone somewhere to the city center. Thanks to this project, it was possible to find out the unexpected thing: the role of the center of Moscow is greatly overestimated. Large employment exists outside the third transport ring. Only a third of the inhabitants of Moscow are moving towards the center. Moreover, half of them do not stop in the center, but moves on to other zones of the city periphery.

- But the city authorities make decisions based on completely different data. We are assured that we need to limit the entry into the central part of the city as much and faster to implement the principle that sounded in KVN: “You live in Butovo - work in Butovo.” This is the slogan of modern city authorities.

- The most interesting thing is that it happens to a large extent.

- But the restrictions imposed by the authorities do not correspond to the data that could provide them with the same geographers ...

- People often make decisions based on their own ideas. In this sense, our authorities are no exception.

- In addition to cities, there are also remote areas, borderlands. As a political geographer and specialist in border areas, you can tell you what are you studying there?

- At the Institute of Geography for several years, there was a very large project to study the entire Russian borderland for several years. We tried to highlight some specific cases, for example, Kaliningrad and Far Eastern pieces of the border, and look deeper at how these boundaries function.

Where do the boundaries come from? How do they need them? Will political boundaries ever disappear? My personal opinion: will not disappear. They can change the functions a little, but one way or another they will remain. The reason is in human psychology. The fact is that he should always identify himself with something. He is born, deals with some reality and tries to identify himself with some part of it. “We” and “they”, “who am I?”, “To what territory do I belong, to which group of people, to which country, to which city?” There is a nesting doll. In this nesting doll there is also territorial identity: “What is my territory?”

- You want to say that without feeling borders the problem of identity cannot be solved?

- A person simply cannot live. He must associate himself with some territory, with a territory of different scale. There are such concepts: territorial identity, political identity, etc. The whole system of education works for the formation of this identity. Not only ours, but in every country in the world. Television works for this. To the representation of people about who they are, how they are, how they differ from others, which have the right to the territory that they occupy. Therefore, the question of borders for the state is extremely important. The border is a symbol. Like a shell. We judge a man by clothes. The border is also a clothing with certain functions. She should warm us, should make it possible to comfortably interact with others. She shows what we are. In this sense, on the border it is very interesting to watch how countries present themselves to each other. Remember, in Soviet times it was: “showcase of capitalism”, “showcase of socialism” (for the example of Western and Eastern Germany). Baltic states, our Soviet West, as perceived. It was also important to show what we are. This function is now. The border is a showcase of another world.

- And how do the boundaries influence people?

- People are trying to use them. They limit the inhabitants of the border areas in some ways. Even if the boundaries are, as it were, as between Russia and Belarus, there is a game on the difference in prices, on the availability of certain goods. There are antisanctions in Russia, and Belarus is not involved in any antisancations. Then you can go to Belarus and buy something that is not available here. Belarusians also come to Moscow or border areas to buy what they lack, or that in the Russian Border region is cheaper. Even when we do not see this border between the countries, it is nevertheless.

There are very funny performances. For example, we interviewed people on all Western Russian borders, and there is an idea that, for example, washing powder of a famous Western company is better on the other side of the border. And residents of the Leningrad region and Karelia go to Finland, residents of the Kaliningrad region go to Poland for this washing powder, which, I am absolutely sure, the same. But it seems to them that it is better. People try to expand their consumer capabilities with the help of borders.

- And how do people from different sides of the borders affect each other?

- This is generally wonderful. There is such a thing - the demonstration effect of the border. So we came to Blagoveshchensk (Amur Region). The city stands right on the Amur River. On the opposite side - Heihe. My boss, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kolosov, a well-known political geographer, a border specialist, said: when he came there thirty years ago, there was a forest on the Chinese side, some wooden houses. And now there are skyscrapers. In the evening, a completely enchanting picture: some kind of airships fly, helicopters, everything is highlighted from the other side, music. And on our side of the Amur in the patriarchal silence lies the city of Blagoveshchensk. Five-story buildings, some kind of merchant's pretty houses, etc. So what is the demonstration effect? Blagoveshchensk was a city that did not have a normal embankment. This is a frequent phenomenon in Russian cities. Our cities put some garages on the embankments, somehow they are built up. There is only a small area for the "walking" of the population. And the Chinese have a tradition - in the evenings, especially on weekends, they pour everything into the embankment, and there are collective dances in different areas. And older people dance. Usually music turns on, and they dance some traditional dances. Exactly the same tradition appeared on our shore Amur. The authorities realized that it was necessary to equip the embankment, and arranged it. They created a large embankment in Moscow traditions, where people walk, which creates a completely different environment.

- We have a horror story: China is such a country that has already captured all the border territories, a quiet expansion has already occurred. How true is this? What have you seen?

- In my opinion, this is invented. For many reasons, the Chinese are not so interesting for our territory. Now one of the trends comes down to the fact that China and Russia aligned the levels of wages and income of the population (if you look at the parity of purchasing power, that is, by the real purchasing power of the national currency). Even if you judge by conversations, they are not too interesting to go to Russia.

- And what is interesting for them? So we go to buy from them?

- Until recently, everything was so. In the border cities, residents had such a strategy: we live and work in Russia, and we go to China, because it is cheaper there, sometimes even better. For the same money, for example, it was better to cure your teeth. In China, this is much cheaper, you can get a prosthesis or implant of a higher level. Pensioners had an interesting strategy. They rented apartments in the city (for example, in the same Blagoveshchensk) and at the same time they could live in the neighboring Chinese city of Heihe on their pension and rent from renting an apartment.

- Did they have a different quality of life there?

- Yes, the Chinese are generally incredibly adaptive, for the Russians they created everything in order to feel comfortable. The names of the institutions are translated into Russian. Not always correct, but nevertheless ... Many Chinese themselves can explain themselves in Russian. They tried to create Russia for Russians: the most comfortable conditions. Monuments are erected by Pushkin and monuments to Gogol. What is not there! Even the “Russian newspaper” was published (at least, as a two -year ago)! But the purchasing power of Russians has fallen strongly in recent years. When we came to the city of Heihe in 2016, there were already poor unfortunate Chinese, they pulled us by the sleeve: “Please buy something!” - Because no one is going. And you know what the Chinese did, what did they come up with? They came up with Russia for their own for their own: a large number of Chinese would like to look at Russia, but cannot go due to high cost or any fears. And there is a visa question. As a result, the Chinese are now going to this border Heihe to watch Russia.

- To small Russia on its territory?

- Yes.

- Is there little China in the territory of Blagoveshchensk?

- He is not. Despite all the fears, or maybe thanks to them, no. When you arrive in Blagoveshchensk, there is practically no sign in Chinese. We asked in the cafe menu in Chinese - it was also literally in a few cafes. The same picture in Vladivostok. The environment for the Chinese in this sense is not very friendly.

- How do you explain it? Why such a contrast, why such non -adaptism from the Russian side?

- This is amazing. I thought a lot about it. I will give an example from the Kaliningrad side. Suppose that on the Polish side of the border there was a system (to our all difficulties) “Russian Friendly. Hello". The establishments that met certain standards for servicing Russian tourists received such an emblem. There was written "Russian Friendly. Hello". What did you mean? The menu in Russian, a Russian-speaking waiter, some dishes that residents of the Kaliningrad region are used to. But none of this is on the Kaliningrad side. Мне кажется, что это связано с тем, что наши люди пока еще менее гибки. Я думаю, это такое наследие советского времени, но это изменится, мы к тому придем.

— Есть такое наблюдение, что Россия — это единственная страна, где пространство и архитектура организованы одинаковым образом вне зависимости от того, где мы находимся — на западе или востоке. Растения и животные будут отличаться, а организация пространства и жизни — нет. Согласитесь ли вы с этим? Мы самая унифицированная в этом смысле страна?

— Понимаете, советская власть серьезно подходила к этому вопросу. И это географы ввели понятие «территориальная организация общества».

— Так вот кому мы обязаны появлению одинаковых городов!

- Maybe. Не бейте меня сильно. Города и пространства действительно пытались организовать с научной точки зрения. Был территориальный каркас расселения, генеральная схема расселения. Вся система этих планов принималась. В европейской части, где дышала история и города возникали не в XX веке, а в XVIII–XIX веках, сложно было так уж всё преобразовать, хотя пытались, даже сознательно стирали память где-то. Тем не менее отличия оставались. Но когда ты стоишь возле панельной пятиэтажки, то попробуй угадать, где это: Владивосток, Москва или возле какого-нибудь бывшего обкома в провинции.

— То, что жители Калининградской области и Благовещенска ведут себя одинаково и неадаптивно, не является ли признаком стереотипности «советского человека»?

— Я бы уточнил. Может быть, по сравнению с соседями по границе они и выглядят не очень адаптивными, однако по сравнению с глубинной частью России, где нет границ, они гораздо более адаптивны — отличаются во всех аспектах — и по голосованию, и на президентских, и на парламентских выборах. Отличаются по поведению. Отражают и что-то вбирают в себя из того, что имеют их соседи. Поэтому все-таки жизнь на границе — это в итоге более разнообразный и позитивный опыт.

Александр Себенцов
Olga Orlova talked

Видеозапись передачи см. otr-online.ru/programmy/gamburgskii-schet/-31994.html