From Migrants to Settlers: A Study of *russian Rural Development at the Borderlands

• In Event: Infrastructures of Occupation I: Apparatuses of *russian (Re)coloniality

Abstract

This paper undertakes a rather granular study in the borderlands of the russian Empire at the turn of the nineteenth century—the urban development of one neighborhood in Batum(i) during the first years of its russian annexation following the last russo-Ottoman War. By examining textual and architectural responses to this transition, this paper focuses on the subsequent changes in land and property relations in the city. With this study, I aim to understand the trajectory of the russian urban settlement in Kars and Batum(i) and its relation to other such urbanizations in the empire.

Author

• Ecem Saricayir, University of California, Santa Cruz