Urban studies and urban history have, in recent decades, become a booming field in Russia. The most likely explanation for this is the post-Soviet development and transformation of Russian cities. It is not only the demographic growth – although for some cities it has been quite substantial in the last 25 years – but rather the striking changes made to urban space, economy, governance, social organization and residential patterns that have provoked interest in urban research among scholars and the general public. Reflecting this wave of interest, several new centres of urban studies emerged in Russia during the 2000s (for example, the Strelka Institute, the Graduate School of Urban Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and the programme in urban studies at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences).