donut hole

Abstract

In this paper I will discuss Russia’s dozens, possibly hundreds, of so-called “closed spaces,” ranging from border exclusion zones to villages and entire cities. From a handful of shapes that have fired the imagination of topologists, I propose to explore this “geopolitical archipelago” through the conceptual relevance of the donut. I argue that the figure of the donut, and specifically its relation to its hole, can help account for the nonhomogeneous nature of Russia’s contemporary space. As Casati and Varzi write (1995), seemingly stating the obvious, “no hole can exist alone, without the object in which it is a hole.” This statement does two important things however: it draws attention to the reflexive relation between the hole and the material that surrounds it, and also to the significance of the contact surface between the two. Framed through and defined by their surroundings, restricted zones are thus a product of, rather than an exception to, Russia’s sociocultural and political environment. They are also eminently topological in that their boundaries are subject to sudden changes. Like a doughnut whose shape can be distorted into a coffee cup, the “hole” changes in size but the object remains homeomorphic (i.e., topologically equivalent) to itself.