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ABSTRACT
Marshrutka minibuses are in charge of providing daily transport services for millions of passengers in the post-Soviet space. In doing so, they shape the perception of public sphere and contribute to the production of community. In this sense, the interior design of marshrutka minibuses contribute to a number of publicly negotiated discourse formations on collective identity patterns, such as nationhood, memory culture, as well as folkloristic values. Drawing on empirical evidence from Kyrgyzstan and Russia, we try to deconstruct multiple layers of marshrutka signposts. In their heterogeneity and contrariness, the marshrutka semiotics unveil the minibuses as a place of encounter and conflict, where fluid social institutions are consistently calling for negotiation. Triggered by the question how cultural trajectories of identity are performed, we will choose a number of marshrutka messages like official licenses, advertisements or patriotic proverbs and analyse them in the local setting of application. The expected insight of this paper is twofold: firstly, we contextualise societal struggles, which are reproduced in everyday marshrutka encounter and secondly, we contribute to a better understanding of the mobility practice as such, pointing to general deficits in the broader marshrutka enterprise, read out from visualised statements in the social space of marshrutka.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
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Notes
1. An interesting comparison to draw is the graffiti culture in Panama and elsewhere, which uses similar images and symbolic emblems to create commemorative culture, collective identities as well as political statements in public space. Applying this perspective would further strengthen the notion of marshrutka vehicles as public space that is contributing – through moving images on the surface of the vehicles – to community building in a society (Mubi Brighenti Citation2010; Truman Citation2010).
2. For instance, many drivers decorate the marshrutka salons in the style of a guestroom with curtains and seat upholsteries. In interviews, those drivers declare that they have the desire to serve hospitality to their clients.
3. The words said by Ishak Razzakov ‘Sen ak bolson, men ak bolsom. The marshrutka drivers paraphrased Koom taza bolot’ – “If you are clean, I am clean, and then the society is also clean. ‘Sen ak bolson, men ak bolsom, marshrutka taza bolot’ – ‘If you and I are clean, then the marshrutka remains clean’.
4. ‘Ala-Too is the cradle of the Kyrgyz’ (Аla-Too Kyrgyzdardyn beshigi).
5. «Остановка «где-нибудь здесь» будет где-нибудь там!».
6. «Тише скажешь-дальше выйдешь».
7. In 2017 elections, Babanov was the candidacy for the President, while in 2015, the party Ata-Meken was among six parties winning the parliamental seats.
8. As pointed out, local transport departments are refusing their responsibility when accusing drivers of anti-social behavior. Drivers work widely as outsourced self-dependent service providers under very low conditions. Their fight against reduced ticket fares is therefore rather a symptom of working precarity in the sector, rather than a subsumed profession character.
9. «Хочу в СССР» (I want back to USSR).
10. The perception of gender attributions are strongly reproduced in the marshrutka sphere. Perceived as a male--dominated space (female drivers are very rare, although existent). The experience of woman, confronted with assaulting behavior in the often overcrowded minibuses, sexist proverbs but also implicit markers of difference, constitutes a very important research objective that would need further attention in the future (Turdalieva and Edling Citation2017).