The starting point for working with the concept of «civil society» is the monographs and articles of Jeffrey Alexander, a classic conceptualizer of the civil sphere (Alexander 1999). Following his approach, we emphasize the attributes of partial autonomy from the state, solidarity and human rights values. These attributes allow people to come together for collective action and civic engagement, which most often manifests itself in the form of cooperation or joint action to improve the conditions of civil society (Ekman et al. 2016). An initial set of tools for the study of grassroots forms of solidarity and patriotism in the Russian context is presented in the works of Catherine Clément (Clément 2015). Through frame analysis, Clément analyzes how exactly ordinary people, who are not inclined to activism, can change their habits and start participating in collective action and activism through appropriating «third places» (not related to home or work) and talking to each other about experiences of self-organization that form solidarity. Since our priorities are applied rather than theoretical, it seems particularly important in this project to continually refine and supplement the working definitions of the concepts by listening to respondents and relating theoretical constructs to the level of concrete practices that characterize Russia now. The research questions are: 1) How do civil society practices operate, develop and are supported at the level of specific communities and individual initiatives? What problems, risks and obstacles are most relevant within different communities in the context of current challenges? What strengthens communities and allows them to live and grow, and conversely, what factors threaten their disintegration? 2) How are the links between the various active communities and initiatives whose activities and identities are in line with the principles, values and approaches of civil society? How do these communities and their individual members cooperate, which contributes to solidarity and cohesion? How exactly do forms of cooperation and solidarity contribute in practice to the support and development of civil society mechanisms? What, in contrast, disrupts and disintegrates community networks? How is the formation and disruption of ties affected by conditions of full-scale war, repression and other challenges? 3) What makes up the external infrastructure necessary for the functioning of (proto-)civic practices? What conditions, prerequisites and resources are needed to maintain and create civil society in Russia, to preserve existing initiatives and actors and to attract new ones? Conversely, what external conditions create the greatest risks? What and who threatens, destroys or slows down this infrastructure? 4) What problems are experienced by individuals involved in activist initiatives and movements, NGOs and other communities working for social change and supporting civil society practices in Russia? How do people realize their agency and ability to choose when the space for choice and action is constantly shrinking? How do they maintain their emotional resilience and safety? What grassroots forms of mutual support exist where people find points of support to continue their activities? What are the most pressing threats to individual resilience right now? What resources are needed to maintain it? 5) What constituents make up the internal expert definition of «civil society», i.e. in which specific practices, spheres and communities do experts see non-state forms of solidarity and human rights values best manifest themselves (or where do they see such potential)? Conversely, are there any «blind spots» in the experts’ perceptions? That is, what are they not talking about that violates our research expectations? 6) How exactly do such theoretical concepts and categories that are key for us as «civil society», «agency», «empowerment», «solidarity», «social movement», «(non-)violence» work, are understood and put into practice in the communities under study? What do they mean in terms of pragmatics and how do they land on the level of private interests and actions? Are they linked to a sense of (non-)belonging to Russian civil society?