“Winter Road Has its Own Way”: Anthropology of Transport Multimodality

Abstract

Referring to the example of Yamal peninsula winter roads ("zimniks"), this article covers the issue of socio-anthropological aspects of transport multimodality featured for the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, in particular combination of different formal and informal types of transport as well as permanent (air) and seasonal (land and sea) transport routes. From logical perspective, transport multimodality implies primarily a combination of weather-climate conditions, auto equipment and professionalism, and from anthropological point of view, combination, differentiation and confrontation between different lifestyles, place images, mobility patters, etc. forming on "zimnik" are just as significant. Moreover, such demarcation lines as industrial — traditional and formal — informal mostly recede into the background. On the lower level in strongly defined heterogeneous communicative environment the unwritten rules and regulations formed and modified according to specific road conditions, type of transport and mobility practices play the crucial part as they allow to cross the official borders, to construct the existing transport infrastructure and, thus, to provide the connectivity of the space.