CITY-FORMING ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE IDEA OF THE "UNIVERSITY QUARTER" IN SAMARA
The article is devoted to the role of the university as a city-forming institution that produces cultural meanings that fill the physical space around the university. According to the authors of the article, universities can and should play an important role in the formation of a new type of city space. Samara case represents the group of educational leaders that have significant potential for actualizing the ideas of urban studies at least within one quarter. The article shows the city-forming impulse of universities of Kuibyshev/Samara since their appearance in the city during the revolutionary period, their strategic importance in wartime, and the colossal impact on the cultural life of the city and the humanitarian space of the Soviet urban intelligentsia of the 1960s, up to the modern process of “managerization” of universities, in connection with which the situation of searching for new forms of interaction between the university and the city is becoming increasingly essential. The authors propose the idea of creating a “University Quarter” in the central part of Samara and give some directions for the implementation of this brand in the socio-cultural dimension.