In search of Rostov-on-Don semiotic code

This article presents the analysis of the semiotic aspects of Rostov-on-Don’s cultural code through the lens of its historical, cultural, and social changes. The semiotic methodology used in the article helps in examining the city’s cultural code. This analytical tool serves as a source of understanding its cultural and social components. The city appears to its inhabitants and guests as a space whose development is based on human activities. Therefore, the range of its measurement is formed by the relations between actions and phenomena, subjects and objects. It should be recognized that such semiotic studies play an important role in understanding the distinctive features of the city’s image. The author believes that the city’s residents and the city itself create bilateral communicative relationships through interaction with the physical, cultural, and social environment of the space. The evolution of urban space – from the foundation of the fortress of St. Dmitry Rostovsky to modern urban and digital practices – is considered. Particular attention is paid to the influence of glocalization, urbanization, and digitalization on the formation of new meanings. The results of the study show that the semiotics of Rostov-on-Don is a dynamic palimpsest, in which the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet heritage, as well as the global trends of the New Age, intersect.