Comments on: Closed cities and the Democratic Deficit

By: dc barnum

dc barnum — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 06:52:52 +0000

I found this interesting paragraph while trying to have some valentines day flowers delivered by the florist website roses.ru based in Kazan. Apparently even a russian florist can’t cross the checkpoint of these cities…

“There are cities in Russia that can be visited by residents of the cities only (so called “closed” cities). For “closed” cities a contact phone number of the recipient is necessary, the flowers will be delivered to the check-point of the city. The cities are Zheleznogorsk, Zarechny, Seversk and Zelenogorsk.”

Sounds like the plot to an old cold war movie. No one enters, no one leaves…

Regards, DCB

By: siberianlight.net

siberianlight.net — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 19:11:00 +0000

Closed cities from the inside

Last week I wrote about the disgraceful number of closed cities in Russia, another of those leftovers from an anarchic age that Russia remains addicted to, despite (or perhaps because of) the restrictions it places on the human rights of their 1.7 mil…

By: stan

stan — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 20:09:58 +0000

Isn’t this issue, the closing of Russian cities, part of a larger picture? After the fall of Communism, the Cold War was over. US’ greatest threat was gone. The world was to be, we hoped, peaceful, finally. Russia began to decrease the mfg of nuclear and other weapons. But, the US did not. In fact, the US increased its military capabilities and it would not agree on the NPT! This is a bit threatening; isn’t it? After 9-11 and the declared war against terrorism (against only a band of renegade fanatical Muslims) and especially after nearly unexplicable Iraq War II, it seems that Russia feels further threatened? (Although, this isn’t articulated by the ever so diplomatic Putin et al) Now, we have Russia developing nucs, China increasing its build up, India taking on nucs from the US, which of course makes Pakistan . …

By: Jim Hoft

Jim Hoft — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 19:17:48 +0000

Thanks, Andrew. It would be cool to get a peek inside of one sometime.

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 17:45:28 +0000

During the Cold War these closed cities were probably of very real benefit, and both Russia and the US had them – mostly Russia, but the US also had a few (Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos, for example). But to be honest, their time is long gone.

For Russia, the benefits to national security are clearly still thought to be worth the costs of damaging human rights and making Russia continue to look secretive and anachronistic in the eyes of the world. The benefits are pretty intangible to measure though and, in my opinion not really worth the costs I’ve outlined.

Interestingly, many Western countries – particularly the US – seem relatively supportive of Russia’s decision to maintain some closed cities around nuclear facilities, and criticism is almost non-existent as far as I can tell. This largely centres around the West’s desire to keep nuclear scientists safely in Russia, rather than see them defect to potential nuclear powers such as Iran. One potential benefit of this is that the extra funding given to prevent nuclear scientists from defecting may well improve the quality of life in these cities to a certain extent.

By: Jim Hoft

Jim Hoft — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 01:29:33 +0000

That is very interesting. I had no idea and am curious to the benefits.

By: CP

CP — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:23:21 +0000

I’d bet some enterprising bloggers could do some research and could find out about some of these cities and publish maps and/or photos, etc. (maybe using Google Earth).

By: CP

CP — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:14:55 +0000

Wow. I had no idea such closed cities still existed either and that so many people live in them. Are these cities controlled by old hardliners? (Aside from Putin being KGB, that is). This should be made a public issue.

By: DCveR

DCveR — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:44:38 +0000

I didn’t think there were still any such cities. I am convinced that if you ask any person on the streets here in Portugal they will tell you the same. The simple fact that we have many immigrants from the former Soviet Union made most of us think that all the “old” restrictions had vanished.
I thank you for demystifying that, although I would much prefer to have been right in my illusion.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:15:46 +0000

I’ve visited one ex-closed city – Angarsk. As far as Soviet planned cities go, it was a model. Angarsk was built up from almost nothing in the 1940s to become a city of several hundred thousand people by the 1980s.

And, yes, as you’d imagine – it was filled with nothing but square Soviet appartment blocks and, as cities go, was not very attractive. It wasn’t entirely ugly though – I noticed that there were far more open spaces and wide, tree-lined streets (I hesitate to call the boulevards) than we tend to see in Western Europe, and many of the buildings were painted, which did brighten the city immensely.

Still, I wouldn’t want to live there…

By: Tim Newman

Tim Newman — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 10:05:59 +0000

I have never visited a closed city, even a former one. I came close to visiting Sebastopol in July, and am still kicking myself for being too lazy to make the short trip up the coast for a day.

By: Global Voices Online

Global Voices Online — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 04:32:40 +0000

Russia: Closed Cities

If you thought that the concept of closed cities died with the Soviet Union, siberianlight.net reports that they are still home to 1.7 million Russians–Russians who are subject to severe limits to their movement and who formally have limited rig…