Religious space of the city in the post-Soviet period: the process of constructing new religious communities in Tomsk

The article presents the results of studying the process of constructing new religious spaces in Tomsk in the post-Soviet period, starting from the 1990s – the period of legitimation of religion in Russia. The author’s inclusion of the desecularisation concept in the analytical apparatus of the study allowed us to examine in detail the specifics of the transition of historical Muslim communities from a secular, atheistic social formation to a religious one. The purpose of the study is to examine the process of formation of religious practices among local Muslim Tatars in the context of their construction of urban religious space. The analytical framework of the desecularisation concept implied identification of a number of factors that influence their activism in the religious revivalist movement. They include the following: updating the historical ethno-confessional heritage, privatisation of religious institutions – mosque buildings built in the pre-revolutionary period; post-Soviet religious re-socialisation with the restoration of religious norms and practices at the everyday level; the formation of an accompanying institutional environment for these practices and demands; the complex and contradictory process of restoring the institution of the clergy; ethnocultural revival with formation of online communities. Anthropological and ethnological methods used by the author of the study allowed identifying a set of objective and subjective factors that have a significant impact on the dynamics and quality of the formation of urban religious spaces by local Muslim Tatars and visiting Muslim migrants from the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus republics. At the same time, it is shown how differentiation occurs in the religious institutional space according to the principle of “locals” – “newcomers”, which, one way or another, affects the sphere of religious worship and practices, the specifics of religious infrastructure, the situation of competitive relations between imams from the Tatar community and from number of arriving Muslim migrants. The study shows that local religious Tatar activists create unique religious spaces and practices in the Muslim community, including the media space. Urban spaces, adapted to the needs of believers, become a part of religious relations within the Tatar community. Along with this, the increasing activity of imams, immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus republics, who accumulate administrative and territorial resources around themselves, has been noted. This leads to the replacement of traditional Islamic actors from among local Tatars with newcomers from among migrants. The article analyses field materials, observations and in-depth interviews collected from informants in Tomsk and the Tomsk Region from late 2019 to 2024.