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This paper explores the transformations of informal transportation practices in Siberia as an example of the process of social embedding of infrastructure in remote regions. Research about informal transportation is predominantly based on studies of minibuses, motorcycles, rikshaws and other small, low-performance vehicles. Meanwhile, the railroad often best exemplifies formalization, control, and surveillance, the characteristics opposite to informal practices. On the basis of information gathered from local and regional archives and semi-formal interviews with railroad workers, their families, and BAM builders (2016–2020), this paper traces the roots of embeddedness in specific norms and expectations that formed during construction of the railroad and persisted during its operation. Informal transportation became the norm and a resource for coping with a lack of infrastructure. Recent reforms have changed the railroad from a public system to a private, profit-seeking, dis-embedded enterprise. This process affects local communities' access to the railroad. Workers' trains, or okurki, are a last refuge for the retention of local mobility mostly in an informal way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In northeast Russia, the famous historic Kolyma Road spans two thousand kilometers across two federal subjects of the Russian Federation: the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and Magadan Oblast. Thousands of people live along and in close proximity to the road, depending on it for communication, mobility, goods, and life support. As the major transportation infrastructure in the entire region, it should be reliable and stable for local communities' well-being. One strategic approach to ensure its reliability is to acknowledge the role of Indigenous knowledge, which has been neglected despite being established long before the emergence of existing formal systems of communication. Based on data collected through fieldwork, personal observations, and conversations, this paper aims to demonstrate that Indigenous knowledge regarding ways of living, moving, and communicating along and on the road is the key to sustainability in the region. As a result, we claim that this realization should be manifested in designing and implementing communication and mobility systems based on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the long term, it is necessary to develop a sustainable road management system for the Kolyma Road to ensure the security and well-being of local communities and for everyone visiting and working on the road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]