Yakov Lurie is a social anthropologist specializing in ethnographies of mobility and transit infrastructure, with a particular focus on the everyday lives of people along roads and in motion. His master’s research involved mobile fieldwork with Russian long-distance truckers. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Amsterdam under the supervision of Tina Harris and Olga Sezneva. His PhD dissertation explores how petty roadside entrepreneurs in Russia navigate social changes, aiming for completion by early 2026.

In addition to his PhD research, Yakov is actively involved in applied ethnographic research for NGOs, urban development projects, and media and art initiatives. He also conducts research on Russian society post-February 24, 2022, focusing on both domestic and exile communities, collaborating closely with the Public Sociology Laboratory, the Hannah Arendt Research Center, and contributing to the OutRush project. Yakov has published in academic journals and international and Russian media, and he has participated in various European summer schools, workshops, and conferences.

Media appearances

Lurie, Y., Baranova, V., & Chigaleichik, E. ‘Invisible’ Emigrants: The Lives of Economically Struggling Russians Abroad. Russia Post, 2024.

Lurie, Y., & Kappinen, S. Parallel Cheremushkin: The Absence and Presence of ‘War’ in a Provincial Russian City. Re:Russia, 2024 (also reprinted in German by дekóder and in Russian by Meduza).

Lurie, Y. Logistics, Inequalities, and the Politics of Time in Contemporary Russian Trucking. Antropologicheskij Forum, 2023, no. 58, pp. 247–277. doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2023-19-58-247-277 (in Russian).

Lurie, Y. (2022) A Review of Pacing Mobilities: Timing, Intensity, Tempo and Duration of Human Movements, ed. Vered Amit & Noel B. Salazar, New York: Berghahn Books, 2020; Antropologicheskij Forum, 2022, no. 52, pp. 221–234. doi:10.31250/1815-8870-2022-18-52-221-234 (in Russian).

Research methods

• ethnographic interviews
• participant observation 
• visual ethnography

Current project

PhD dissertation: Russia in Transit: An Ethnography of Trade, Uncertainty and Change along the Russian highways (working title).

Research grants & honours

Non-Resident Fellow, The Russia Program at the George Washington University, 2023.