Two years ago, a group of scholars from several Central Asian universities formulated the idea of an experimental summer school. They called initiative “Zhelezka”. It is a general word in Russian for all things made out of iron, and also a slang name for a railroad. The experimental stance of a summer school was supposed … „Iron“ summer school on the move weiterlesen
The rehabilitation and fundamental transformation of one of Tbilisi’s main thoroughfares – the Chavchavadze Avenue – sparked debates and conflicts over the city’s new transport policy. Many protested that only one car lane was left and car-parking space was reduced in favor of giving space to public transport, cycling and pedestrian infrastructures. Some found the … Reclaiming I. Chavchavadze Avenue weiterlesen
During the third weekend of March 2023, the team of the IfL project Contentious mobilities through a decolonial lens (CoMoDe) hosted – jointly with the Ilia State University – a Symposium in Tbilisi, Georgia. The name of the event was “Knowledge Production in Public Transport – Normativities. Actors. Outcomes”. Since Lela Rekhviashvili, a postdoctoral researcher … Knowledge Production in Public Transport: Georgian Symposium of the CoMoDe group weiterlesen
During an urban festival “Viva Mexico!” that took place at the Lindenau bus depot in 2008, one trolleybus and one hybrid bus were on display, as a showcase of future public transport modernisation. This initiative came in parallel with the rearrangement of services due to the opening of the city railway tunnel in 2009 that … Dance with electrical traction for urban buses: the case of Leipzig weiterlesen
Soviet public transport inspires a wide range of emotions among citizens who lived in a country that forever disappeared from the world’s political map. Various Internet forums and videos uploaded on YouTube are full of heart-warming stories about the USSR, where the grass was greener, ice cream was tastier, people were friendlier, and life itself … What was public transport for the Soviet citizens? weiterlesen
Pixabay / Khusen Rustamov
Trolleybuses run on electricity from overhead wires mounted on poles above roads. 50% of the world’s trolleybus systems are located in formerly Soviet states. Extending the count to China, North Korea and ex-Eastern Bloc countries brings the percentage up to 76% (213 out of 282 systems). Trolleybuses were, for long, not a popular topic in … Unobvious reasons for trolleybus demolition in Moscow weiterlesen
I just returned from Tbilisi and I am to start thinking of how to analyse the fieldwork on urban mobility I conducted there during October-November 2020 as part of CoMoDe project – but I’m terribly disoriented. In October I came to a city where the municipal government had insisted on sustainable, pedestrian and public transport-oriented … Public transport is the first to go weiterlesen
In the late July this year, Berlin based Architecture collective, c/o now, preparing video-work as a contribution to the upcoming Tbilisi Architecture Biennial (TAB) approached me to reflect on the core question of the Biennial 2020: ‘What do we have in common?’ As they were in a rush and I was on holidays, deprived of … What do we have in common? weiterlesen
