From November 15 to November 2021, research fellows of the Sociology of Religion Laboratory at St. Tikhon’s University Valeria Elagina and Tatyana Krihtova conducted the second field study in the Sverdlovsk Region within the framework of the “Living Communities” project. They visited four parishes in Yekaterinburg and Mikhailovsk, interviewed 23 people, among them clerics, social workers, leaders of different sectors of social work, and active parishioners. In addition, the participants of the workshop on social design conducted by the head of the “Living Tradition” Foundation Alexander Savvin took part in the survey. On the initiative of the parson in one of the parishes, members of the research team had an extra meeting with the most active members. The parishioners used this opportunity to get more information about the research work of the laboratory. The main topics of the interviews were the principles of parish social work, the individual biographical tracks of the respondents, the history of the existing types of social support, the explication of the internal structure of communities and the rules of living together within the community.
