SHOPPING AND ENTERTAINMENT CENTER AS SPACE MAKING QUALITY OF LIFE IN RUSSIA

Vladimir Ilyin

Сhoi Wooik

Shopping is an almost universal characteristic of public and private life. Consumer behavior is a set of relatively stable configurations of the micro-level practices that reflect the essential characteristics of social contexts of different scales. Its historical evolution proceeds from the purchase of a single product to the purchase of lifestyle scenes in the shopping form in shopping centers (malls). In Russia, this process coincided with the belated transition from deficit society to the formation of a consumer society (1990–2000-ies.). A new type of society, which has an attribute of shopping and entertainment (SEC), is focal and disseminated within the logic of social and territorial hierarchy: from the capital to the regional centers, and from them to the remote area. Currently, this process has reached the regional capitals, soaking into the district centers. Under the new conditions the nature and extent of shopping are one of the most important indicators of quality of life (the important issue is not only what people are buying, but also how they do it). The article provides a review of this process on the basis of secondary analysis of statistical data and field research in a number of regional centers of the European part of Russia.