Reassembling “Nadezhda”: An anthropology of development on six sotkas of dacha land

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of the Nadezhda gardening non-profit partnership (Chelyabinsk Region), which has found itself within the sphere of influence of a rapidly developing tourist cluster. The case is analyzed as an example of “other development” — a bottom-up, fragmented, and weakly institutionalized process of territorial transformation carried out not by professional developers, but by landowners and local entrepreneurs. The article aims to reconstruct the professional figure of the “dacha developer” and to analyze the competing ethoses underlying their practices.The empirical basis of the study comprises materials from several months of fieldwork conducted in 2025 and combines participant observation, in-depth semistructured interviews with key stakeholders, analysis of local conflicts, and elements of visual anthropology. The theoretical framework draws on research on post-socialist dacha practices, urban theories of spatial capitalization, and concepts of creative and experiential tourism.The analysis identifies three analytical types of dacha developers: manager-administrators focused on institutionalization and territorial governance; market pragmatists who treat gardening non-profit partnerships as a resource for rapid commercialization through rental practices and service provision; and New Age developers who invest primarily in symbolic capital and the cultural redefinition of space. The interaction of these groups produces a hybrid governance regime and reproduces, on a micro scale, structural contradictions characteristic of urban development, including tensions between capitalization and social justice, market rationality and the right to preserve established ways of life. The article argues for expanding the concept of the developer beyond urban contexts and for rethinking dacha peripheries as significant arenas of contemporary spatial transformation.