Within a few decades, Russia – in Soviet times a self-declared atheist country – experienced an astonishing religious revival, often described as a ‘religious rebirth’ (religioznoe vozrozhdenie). Religion, formerly ‘domesticated’ (Dragadze 1993) and limited to the private sphere, reappeared in the public. Under General Secretary Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika were initiated and set off two processes: economic reforms were carried out and religious freedom was granted. For the latter, the celebration of the millennium of the introduction of Christianity into Russia (Kievan Rus at that time) is considered to be a turning point, as it marked the end of attempts to ban the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) from the public sphere. The social significance of religion increased, the religious infrastructure was developed, expressions of religiosity such as prayers and processions reappeared in public, references were made to Orthodoxy on many occasions, and there was widespread coverage of religious events in the media. In addition, new institutions like advisory boards or committees fostered cooperation between religious, political and economic groups. In many cases, explicit connections to pre-socialist practices and traditions, real or imagined, have been drawn (cf. Hann et al. 2006: 6). This finding is confirmed by Irena Borowik, who noted that the religious revival is “above all a return to tradition” (2002: 505). The widespread romantic picture of a religion that survived in remote places, however, is misleading because the recent revival largely depends on religious and political centres like Sergiev Posad, Vladimir or Moscow (Benovska- Sabkova et al. 2010).

It is for this reason that I chose the city of Vladimir and its surroundings as a field site for this research. The city, the capital of the district (oblast) of the same name, is situated about 180 kilometres east of Moscow. During the time of my fieldwork (2006-2007), the city had about 330,000 inhabitants. The number of inhabitants of the city as well as of the district is steadily decreasing due to low birth rates and population movements to bigger cities, mainly Moscow. Especially the villages underwent a sharp decline in population numbers after the end of socialism.