village», where many know each other. This is especially noticeable in certain professional circles (among journalists, academics, social activists, politicians e. t. c.).
The venues of my interviews were cafes, offices and breaks during events and conferences.
The sample interviews allowed my respondents to move away from the structured aspect of the conversation and give a response in broader framework of the designated theme. Although, it was largely possible with the second group of respondents.
The second group of respondents is «ordinary people». This group is more numerous and includes a variety of people. Almost all of them are mentioned in the text of the thesis anonymously (under fake names) or under real, but without family names. I have only few familiar people among this category of respondents.
The type of interactions with the second group may be divided into interview (which were planned in advance) and conversations that occurred spontaneously. Interviews were conducted during the events at the opening of thematic exhibitions, scientific conferences and seminars. I should also mention the sporadic conversations that took place in public transport. Here I mean traveling from Kaliningrad to Poland (Gdansk and Olsztyn) and Germany (Potsdam) by bus.
The conversations on the border, while waiting for the border and customs control, as well as with applicants for Schengen visas, who submitted their documents to the General Consulate of Poland and Germany in Kaliningrad, were devoted to the cross-border mobility and perception of Kaliningrad as a borderline region. With some of these people I have managed to become acquainted and to meet again to clarify some questions. In Poland, mainly in Gdansk and Sopot, I was looking for places that are particularly popular among Kaliningradians, who travel there for recreation and shopping of popular products and foodstuffs.
Since many Kaliningradians «migrate» on weekends to «Trójmiasto»32 my field of research literally «overflows» across the border and rushed for 120 kilometers into the EU, «carpets» the cobbled streets of the old town of Gdansk, corridors of shopping malls, seafront of Sopot, theatrical annual processions of the St. Dominic Fair, yacht festivals and new shopping centers, arrayed along the Polish-Russian border.
On the other hand, my experience of research and teaching at the Baltic Federal University of Immanuel Kant helped me to establish contacts with students of universities of Kaliningrad, with whom I have organized pre-scheduled interviews.
My affiliation with the institution «from the West», which is the Humboldt-University, initially caused the «mixture sense of wonder» among the respondents of my research. The interest of Russian researchers, mostly political scientists and sociologists, considered as usual. Interest on the part of the West is expected only in respect to the lighting in the news and usually in a negative context. The fact that I am conducting an academic study has caused slight bewilderment: «It cannot be! We are interesting for researchers from the West?»
Secondly, my respondents were surprised after I said that I am conducting research in «European Ethnology». They asked with curiosity: «They are interested what we eat, drink, how looks like our housing is and what we daily wear?»
At this point, I should refer to Buckowski33, who is of the opinion that still exist knowledge hierarchies, when researchers from the west and their study met with more respect among the field. As explanation for this attitude Buchowski considers a kind of inferiority complex among anthropologists from Central and Eastern European countries, who research the post-socialism. In my case, it was quite the contrary, because people, who are unfamiliar with me, took me as a researcher from the «Western Europe».
Buckowski explains this approach as reaction on colonial pattern of thinking. According to Buchowski, western anthropologists often reject locally produced theories, because they would classify it as ideologically contaminated. The western anthropologists pursue the goals to preserve their interpretations and discourse sovereignty and to legitimize their scientific position34.
In conversations some respondents expressed ambivalent feelings of suspicion and of respect to me at the same time.
During interviews with respondents from both groups I felt their aspiration to «explain» features, problems and possible prospects of Kaliningrad, as part of a cross-border space and as a «European» city. I felt their aspiration to use me as a reporter on the line to the west. This confidence appeared after a few respondents said about it directly. One opinion united almost all respondents: «It is „nice“ and „right“ that they are interested in us».
How was the search and identification of fields for interviews and participant observation? Field was found at scientific conferences, at educational institutions, informal youth hangouts, in the corridors of the official regional authorities, media expert communities of journalists and political scientists, in the queue on sale of European goods, on the state border (on the way to it, during customs and pass control and during my stay abroad in bordered zone).
As Baumbach emphasizes the main agents involved in creating and sustaining «regions of culture» and «regions of identity» are acting by communicating shared traditions, customs, and values include a wide range of different sites and media devoted to the promotion of regional history and the creation of a regional collective consciousness. This is exemplified through museums and monuments, traditional fairs and festivals of art35. Therefore events and actions, which aimed at maintaining or reconstruction of historical traditions and values, have been my priority in time of field research. Among them are public holiday of «Long sausage»36, historical reconstruction37, «Week of Prussia cat»38. By these and other events I held participating observations.
As Welz considers «participating observation is used by the European ethnology often only to provide additional background and contextual knowledge»39. Through those events and holidays I was looking for this background and knowledge, and my search led me to respondents and interviews, which I did not plan and did not expect at all.
I undertook periodic visits to the «field», and constantly visited and left again. I considered this approach as appropriate, taking into account the peculiarity of the study and issues, which stood in front of me. During my empirical research new developments took place: «field» was updated and expanded. Actually it was formed «additional field» – Small border traffic, which is not only spatially enriched the participating observation (allowing more intensively include the border areas of Poland), but also qualitative diversified the research in the «original field» directly in Kaliningrad, made it more complex and multifaceted, especially in the context of cross-border mobility.
If in Kaliningrad I was presented as a «guest» of the field, then in Berlin, the «guests» were Kaliningradians: there was the opposite context. I had the opportunity to experience it during the final phase of empirical research of startup entrepreneurs from Kaliningrad in Berlin. I chose this example of cross-border mobility for the following reasons: it is a novel focus of the study, which has not previously covered; IT – initiatives are a key part of the discourse on Russia’s modernization as a vector of post-socialist development; Kaliningrad (besides Moscow) declared as a «pilot region» of the modernization.
Participating observation provides the context and collection of background information, as well as provided me with initial ideas on self-identification strategies of young Kaliningradians in the context of the regional culture of the transnational space.
Looking to the study of self-consciousness (Selbstverständigung) the following methods showed their relevance. As Margarethe Kusenbach