Today, in many parts of the world, local urban communities are forced to self‐organise in response to the neoliberal restructuring of the state with its emphasis on privatisation, deregulation, and austerity that has hollowed out welfare provisions, leading to urban fragmentation. This article tells two stories of seemingly disconnected places, which, upon closer scrutiny, bear similarities regarding the ways in which neoliberalism and conflicts unfold in urban space: Favela da Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, and humanitarian activism across various regions in Russia. It discusses the communicative processes through which collectivities are formed and strengthened in situations of constant instability. The discussion systematises analytical insights and empirical findings from on‐site visits and interviews. Our analysis demonstrates that these groups enact solidarity as a communicative practice strengthened by place‐based relations. In these contexts, collective action that at a macro level has a political meaning gains a practical and affective significance for individuals engaged in it.

The chapter examines the futuristic narratives and the re-creation of the Soviet myth through the concept of the third place, which is a term that describes a part of urban space that is not associated with home (first place) or work (second place) and plays an important role in the development of civil society and democracy. This concept became increasingly popular in Putin’s Russia, with places such as Vinzavod, Khlebzavod N9, Collider, and Flakon in Moscow; Sevkabel Port, the Third Place, and Lendok in St. Petersburg; Textil in Yaroslavl; and Oktava in Tula. Kalinina explores the functioning of these clusters, as well as the materialized ideology of Soviet modernism and the rethinking of the model of the Soviet culture house against the background of the conservative ideological turn, the revisionist revival of Soviet political mechanisms, growing isolationism, and the impoverishment of official aesthetics.

This article examines the transformation of civic engagement in Russia after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with civic and political activists across several Russian regions, the article traces how anti-war and oppositional initiatives transformed under conditions of escalating repression. Using a micro-sociological approach, the article fore-grounds emotions and strategic dilemmas as key (dis)enables of civic engagement alongside with the political opportunity structures. It argues that Russian civil society has not collapsed, but has moved through several stages of the initial moral shock and immediate mobi-lization, towards fragmentation and cautious re-mobilization. By 2026 civic engagement persists primarily through informal and low-visibility forms, using strategic depolitization as a tactic to survive.

Trust can be seen as a mechanism that reduces uncertainty and allows for expectations about other social actors’ future behavior. Hence the existence of trust between different actors in society is “the precondition of the possibility” for cooperation among different actors both within and between communities.

Building mutual trust was for years one of the desired aims of international cooperation in the Nordic region; the existence of trust was intended to contribute to the reduction of political tensions and lead to more sustainable and peaceful region. In practice, working with international cooperation in the Nordic region, where Russia was one of the actors until 2022, has never been easy. One of the main obstacles on the way was the deficit of trust.