The arts of survival

Once again about reasons for occurrence of slums

There are many reasons for formations of slums. One of them is deeply connected to the place where I come from. I believe that globalization and transitions of political system were one of them.

The era of globalization promoted the most successful type of economy and political system such as capitalism and market economy. Some country’s political systems collapsed and they had to adopt new system(such as capitalism)."In the early 1990s extreme poverty in the former ‘transitional countries’ (as the UN calls them) soared from 14 million to 168 million: a mass pauperization almost without precedent in history."(Mike Davis, PLANET OF SLUMS, 22)

Some countries such as ex-soviet union countries (Russian Federation, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Byelorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan) had recently shifted its political system and economies to capitalist system. For most people living in those countries it was hard to adjust to new type of life. There was a mass depression in these countries. They all went through transition of political systems.


Changes occurred instantly. Roubles (soviet currency) lost its value and people had useless paper instead of money in their pockets. There were cases when educated people who had diploma or doctorate degree in their hands were left without jobs and any demand for them. People had to survive and start over again. Some people survived and some went crazy. It was the end of the world for most people and for some people it was an opportunity to make money. In despair you could find people who sold their clothes, furniture, medals and everything which is more or less sellable in their houses in order to buy some food.


People did whatever to survive. Some managed to leave the country in search for better life and some simply couldn’t afford it. Of course people had to change their professions, habits, thoughts, beliefs, desires,etc in order to survive. They were exposed for constant compromises.These historical moments together with other factors lead to occurrence of slums.