Description
Book SynopsisThe contributors to
From Russia with Code examine Russian computer scientists, programmers, and hackers in and outside of Russia within the context of new international labor markets and the economic, technological, and political changes in post-Soviet Russia.
Trade Review“The most striking achievement of this in so many ways outstanding book rests in its ethnographic accounts of the RCS [Russian Computer Scientists] as a new type of power-knowledge intellectual…. The book is easy on technical language and should be accessible to a wide readership beyond Russian studies.” -- Dušan I. Bjelic * Slavic Review *
“
From Russia with Code...is both timely and unique.... Biagioli and Lépinay’s volume demonstrates that IT professionals both in Russia and abroad have the potential to disrupt the Russian state’s current conception of sovereignty...and to redefine the relationship between the state, its citizens, and the international community.” -- Alexandra V. Orlova * Surveillance & Society *
“This book is a valuable read for those with an interest in computer programming and high-tech cultures outside the United States, in post-Soviet ethnography, and in the elusive myth of the Russian programmer.” -- Adam Kriesberg * Information & Culture *
“
From Russia with Code offers a rich and insightful view into the Russian IT sector and brings welcome scholarly attention to a population that has been overrepresented in popular journalism, but less well attended to in scholarship.... This accessibly written, engaging, and insightful volume will be of interest to broad audiences.” -- Julie Hemment * Anthropos *
“This is a superb collection of articles on post-Soviet IT by highly accomplished scholars.” -- Barbara Walker * Technology and Culture *
“
From Russia with Code appears as essential reading for those interested in STS, cultural history, transnational migrations, and the sociology, history, and anthropology of Russian-speaking information science and information technology. . . . I am confident that the complex, grounded realities of
From Russia with Code take the first necessary step on a path toward understanding how Russian-speakers coded the world.” -- Benjamin Peters * Soviet and Post-Soviet Review *
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Russian Economies of Code / Mario Biagioli and Vincent Lépinay 1
I. Coding Collectives
1. Before the Collapse: Programming Cultures in the Soviet Union / Ksenia Tatarchenko 39
2. From Lurker to Ninja: Creating an IT Community at Yandex / Marina Fedorova 59
3. For Code and Country: Civic Hackers in Contemporary Russia / Ksenia Ermoshina 87
II. Outward-Looking Enclaves
4. At the Periphery of the Empire: Recycling Japanese Cars into Vladivostok's IT Communuity / Alexandra Masalskaya and Zinaida Vasilyeva 113
5. Kazan Connected: "IT-ing Up" a Province / Alina Kontareva 145
6. Hackerspaces and Technoparks in Moscow / Aleksandra Simonova 167
7. Siberian Software Developers / Andrey Inkukaev 195
8. E-Estonia Reprogrammed: Nation Branding and Children Coding / Daria Savchenko 213
III. Interlude: Russian Maps
9. Post-Soviet Ecosystems of IT / Dmitrii Zhikharevich 231
IV. Bridges and Mismatches
10. Migrating Step by Step: Russian Computer Specialists in the UK / Irina Antoschyuk 271
11. Brain Drain and Boston's "Upper-Middle Tech" / Diana Kurkovsky West 297
12. Jews in Russia and Russians in Israel / Marina Fedorova 319
13. Russian Programmers in Finland: Self-Presentation in Migration Narratives / Lyubava Shatokhina 347
Contributors 365
Index 369
