In the USSR, the state housing programme was offering standardised mass dwellings which provided citizens with long-desired private flats. Today, however, many see these neighbourhoods as outdated and stagnant, not only because of the modernist layout, but also their social disunity and weak grassroots culture, aggravated by the vivid social mix of residents. The paper explores the ways of enhancing social cohesion in standardised socialist-era neighbourhoods in Russia. It suggests scenarios for different communitybonding practices, and appropriate spaces to perform them within the modernist layout of the neighbourhood. It also addresses the ways in which these practices can expand community networks and serve as catalysts for emergence of further initiatives suggested by other residents. These scenarios are applied to Metrogorodok neighbourhood in Moscow, Russia. It is suggested that the interventions performed on different scales - from an amateur exhibition inside a house entrance hall to a pop-up market on the busy main street - will result in residents forming stronger bonds and strengthen their sense of place, resulting in them proposing their own initiatives and potentially self-organise to defend neighbourhood interests in front of the council.