The "Globe-Trotting Russian" in Scotland: Discourses of Russian cultural tourism

As Russians have become able to experience foreign cultures and locations for themselves, the political and cultural narratives of the Soviet era have given way to new forms of geographical imagination. The chapter provides a case study of Russian tourist discourses in order to offer insight into how globalisation of Russian socio-cultural practices has created a set of geographical meanings and imaginaries which train the post-Soviet gaze. It draws on data from twenty oral narratives obtained from Russian visitors in Scotland and reveals a variety of patters of imagination generally tending towards the two types: the cosmopolitan and the provincial frames. The chapter focuses on the analysis of the frames, their shifts and varieties including their own characteristic discursive strategies, means of articulation and performances of self. The chapter concludes that Russian tourists’ narratives of Scotland yield an array of meanings that show Russians' deeply conflicted relationship to their place in the world.