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On Top of the City

Abigail Karas
€97.99
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A01=Abigail Karas
Author_Abigail Karas
Category=JBSD
Category=JP
Category=JPV
climbers
climbing
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eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
forthcoming
Local identity
mountaineering
Political Control
Political repression
Reclaiming
Rights
rooftops
Russia
Social control
St Petersburg
Underground culture
urban exploration
Youth community
Youth Culture

Product details

  • ISBN 9781350512856
  • Weight: 620g
  • Dimensions: 162 x 236mm
  • Publication Date: 11 Jun 2026
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
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Description

St Petersburg - known for its horizontal skyline, punctuated with the gold domes and spires that, along with its rivers and canals, have become iconic features of the city.

Drawing on original, on-the-ground research, On Top of the City shines a unique spotlight on the hidden youth communities of St Petersburg, Russia, where space and power collide and co-exist. Focusing on urban exploration, Abigail Karas demonstrates how the city’s panoramas - especially its rooftops - contribute to the formation of a local St Petersburg identity and a fascinating underground culture where young people turn the rooftops into safe spaces, where they can resist the encroaching political repression of Putin’s Russia.

Arguing that young Petersburgers’ skyline trespassing is a way for them to reclaim their rights - over themselves and the city - On Top of the City invites readers to look upwards, at what these young communities create, as well as downwards, to the social and political control they are trying to escape.
About Abigail Karas
Abigail Karas is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of St Andrews, UK. An anthropologist and historian of the built environment, with a particular interest in (post-)Soviet cityscapes, she holds a DPhil in Russian from the University of Oxford. She previously taught at the University of Nottingham, at Liverpool John Moores University and at University College London, UK.

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