The article focuses on the historical-and-cultural grounds of formation of symbolic space in the post-Soviet Ulan-Ude. The two primary components have been investigated in this research: "centre" and "outskirts". In particular, such matters are taken into consideration: how did physical and symbolic borders of the central (historical) part of the Ulan-Ude and its peripheries appeared and changed and also how did the identity of the whole city changed as the result of this process. The author’s conclusion is that the structure and the specificity of the cultural and symbolic space of the present Ulan-Ude reproduce to a great extent the tendencies and ideas, which had been worked out in the soviet and pre-soviet periods of the city’s development.

Key words: city, centre, suburbs, symbolic space, identity, historical context.