Filling in the Urban Space: The “Port-Petrovsk” Fishery and Elemental Urbanization in Makhachkala

Abstract

The paper is a case study of “Port-Petrovsk”, a large fishing and fish processing company in Makhachkala (Dagestan, Russia) that was purposefully driven to bankruptcy in 2007, leading some 5,300 people to lose their workplaces as well as access to many social services. The factory was bankrupted as there existed a small group willing to get rich on its assets. A considerable portion of the company’s former premises has already been sold and new apartment buildings have been erected there. Former workers and shareholders have been trying to reclaim their property and save the remaining company premises from being sold to developers. The case is presented against the background of what has been called elemental urbanization: a dynamic, chaotic and informal way of development of urban space in Makhachkala, one of the fastest growing cities in Russia. The whole process of conflict and negotiations around the company assets shows how property rights in Dagestan challenge the Western-set dichotomy of the individual versus the collective. Moreover, it presents property rights as a bundle that consist of legal, economic, and moral dimensions.