Rescaling Russia's Geography: the Challenges of Depopulating the Northern Periphery

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Notes

While the early 1990s saw many leave peripheral regions the majority were economically active; this, coupled with increasing unemployment and aging populations, sees such areas become increasingly welfare dependent.

See for example F. Hill & C. Gaddy, The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold (Washington, Brookings Institution Press, 2003); or N.Volgina, Rossiiskii Sever (Moscow, Dashkov, 2004).

S. Slavin, Osvoenie severa Sovetskogo Soyuza (Moscow, 1972).

MagGoskomstat, Spravochnik chislennosti naseleniya Magadanskoi oblast' na 1 yanvarya 2000 goda (Magadan, Magadanskii Oblastnoi Goskomstat, 2000).

Although most of the relevant literature refers to those who migrated to the region as ‘newcomers’, as opposed to indigenous populations, given that many of the interviewees have lived in the region for upwards of 30 years these boundaries are becoming blurred. When does one stop being a ‘migrant’? Many interviewees, although they never expected to retire there, consider Magadan to be their home. Although this article is based on the author's research in Magadan city through interviewees, and discussions with World Bank officials, academics and policy makers in the federal government, it is clear that Magadan is not an atypical example, thus allowing general extrapolations to be made.

The State Committee for Northern Affairs, established on 20 July 1924, secured Soviet control over the region and further extensive gold deposits in the Kolyma region were discovered.

See for example M. Ruderman, Severnyi mai (Moscow, Molodaya Gvardiya, 1933); and A. Pokrovskaya, Pro olenei i detei, pro sobak i pro gusei (Moscow, Posrednik, 1934), which highlighted the natural beauty of the north and the almost limitless possibilities of adventure in the region.

J. McCannon, Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932 – 1939 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 38, 89 and 170. He also discusses how northern pioneers were treated as heroes in Moscow, often given jobs within the administration and giving lecture tours based on their experiences.

These definitions were also used by the Russian government in the demarcation of the north and the calculation of northern subsidies. They are still of some use to the current Russian government though the borders of ‘the north’ are now much more fluid. For further information see T. Heleniak, ‘Migration from the Russian North During the Transition Period’, Internal Social Protection Discussion Paper, No 9925, Washington, World Bank, 1999.

A. Pilyasov, ‘Economic Reform in Russia: The Case of the North East Territories’, unpublished paper prepared at North East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, 1994.

T. Armstrong, The Circumpolar North: A Political and Economic Geography of the Arctic (London, Methuen, 1978), p. 156.

The term priezzhie was used to describe those who willingly moved to the region after the closure of the Gulag system. This placed them apart from the indigenous groups whose homeland it is.

V. Mitskevich, Normal'naya zhizn’ pri – 50 (Magadan, Magadanskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel'stvo, 1958); A. Ivanchenko, Zolotoi materik (Magadan, Magadanskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel'stvo, 1962). See also A. Krotov, Na severe dal'nem (Moscow, Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1957); F. Leont'ev, Pod solntsem Severa (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Geograficheskoi Literatury, 1962); N. Pugachev, Chukotskie rasskazy (Magadan, Magadanskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel'stvo, 1962); B. Vronsky, Na zolotoi Kolyme. Vospominaniya Gulaga (Moscow, Mysl’, 1965); and V. Teterin, Zdes' nachinaetsya den’: Magadanskaya oblast ‘(Moscow, Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1973).

The average temperature in Magadan oblast’ in January 2002 was – 31° centigrade; see Goskomstat, Rossiiskii Statisticheskii Ezhegodnik (Moscow, 2003), p. 57.

The high level of car ownership in the Soviet period appears rather puzzling as there is, quite literally, nowhere to drive; the only road out of Magadan city, the ‘Kolyma Highway’, is inaccessible for the majority of the year.

M. Kucheryavenko, Magadan i to, chto ego okruzhaet (1990). The rather inappropriate names, such as ‘Sunny’ and ‘New and Jolly’, given to the city's raiony highlight the ways in which the state tried to promote the claim that normal life was possible in the region.

A. Pilyasov, Naselenie Kolymo-Magadanskogo promyshlennogo raiona; ekologo-geograficheskii podkhod k issledovniyu (Magadan, Academy of Sciences, 1990).

MagGoskomstat, Ekonomicheskoe razvitie Magadanskoi oblasti, 1985, 1990, 1995, 1997 – 99 (Magadan, Magadanskii Oblastnoi Goskomstat, 2000).

S. Slavin, Osvoenie severa Sovetskogvo Soyuza.

Pilyasov, ‘Economic Reform in Russia: The Case of the North East Territories’.

Interviews with Elena Karpenko, director, social service separtment, Magadan oblast’ administration, and Lyudmila Myazina, director, social protection department, Magadan oblast’ administration, Magadan, November 2000.

Heleniak, ‘Migration from the Russian North During the Transition Period’.

See Nezavismaya gazeta, 30 April 2004.

H. Lefebvre, ‘Space and the State’, in N. Brenner, B. Jessop, M. Jones & G. MacLeod (eds), State/Space: A Reader (London, Blackwell, 2003). See also A. Escobar, ‘Culture Sits in Places: Reflections on Globalism and Subaltern Strategies of Localization’, Political Geography, 20, 2001, pp. 139 – 174; B. Mazanti & J. Pløger, ‘Community Planning—From Politicised Places to Lived Spaces’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 18, 4, 2003, pp. 309 – 327; A. Paasi, ‘Region and Place: Regional Identity in Question’, Progress in Human Geography, 27, 4, 2003, pp. 475 – 485; and R. Panelli, O. Stolte. & R. Bedford, ‘The Reinvention of Tirau: Landscape as a Record of Changing Economy and Culture’, Sociologia Ruralis, 43, 4, 2003, pp. 379 – 400.

See H. Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World (London, The Athlone Press, 2000); see also M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkley, University of California Press, 1984).

B. Kristov, ‘The State Duma to Focus on Russia's Far North’, Arctic Voice, 2, 1996, pp. 3 – 4.

It should be noted here that researching in such regions is still extremely problematic as so few foreigners not attached to religious organisations have worked in such areas. The author was constantly under surveillance and had material taken from him, access to data and literature was denied (much of it in the public domain) and interviews were closely monitored and noted. Discussing migration issues was problematic for a variety of reasons ranging from the wish to promote the region as strengthening rather than weakening, worry over the ‘Chinese’ problem (the depopulation of the north seen as a precursor to a Chinese take-over of the far east) to the sheer anger felt by communist members of the elite who see such measures as a ‘betrayal’ of the north. This statement arises from various interviews with the political elite in Magadan. Enquiring about Magadan city's attitude towards the depopulation of the region in the mayor's office led to an interview with the FSB, who enquired why, and by whom, such questions were being asked. Elites in the social protection sphere who viewed the depopulation of the region as positive were more willing to discuss the issue and argued that the schemes were underfunded and ineffectual.

Interview with Vladimir Dudnik, Political Editor, Magadanskaya Pravda, Magadan, October 2000.

MagGoskomstat, Spravochnik chislennosti naseleniya Magadanskoi oblasti na 1 yanvarya 2000 goda (Magadan, Magadanskii Oblastnoi Goskomstat, 2000).

Interview with Lyudmila Myazina.

V. Soboleva, ‘Migratsionnye protsessy v Magadanskoi oblasti’, Kolymskie vesti, 1999, 4, pp. 15 – 17.

This was corroborated during discussions with teachers at School No. 27. Many of them had moved to Magadan city under this scheme.

Interview with Nadezhda Papp, deputy mayor of Magadan city, Magadan, November 2000.

See S. Myers, ‘Siberians Tell Moscow: Like it or Not, It's Home’, New York Times, 28 January 2004; and S. Sataline, ‘Welcome to Vorkuta: It's 10 degrees in this former prison town in Russia's Far North. So why can't the government even pay people to leave?’, The Boston Globe, 23 May 2004. The author has also discussed the issues contained in this article with academics, both Russian and Western, who are researching into similar issues in different regions of the northern periphery and they are finding very similar feelings, and opposition to the AMS, to those described above.

See ‘Vostochnyi forpost’, Khozyaeva i gosti, 2000,1, pp. 8 – 9. The Russian Federal Committee for the Social-Economic Development of the North wrote, the following year, that the optimal population of Magadan oblast’ (the only region they posit a figure for) was 410 – 420,000 people—a reduction of 25% from the 1988 level. See L. Dyachenko, Tezisy Rossiiskoi programmy sotsial'no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya severa (Novosibirsk, IEP Scientific Centre of Russian Academy of Sciences, 1993), p.139, see also pp. 78 – 82 for a general discussion on the ‘overpopulation’ of the north.

L. Drobizheva, ‘Comparison of Elite Groups in Tatarstan, Sakha, Magadan and Orenburg’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 15, 4, 1999, pp. 387 – 406.

Such feelings of remoteness from Russia's central regions were also witnessed by C. Freeland, Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (London, Little Brown, 2000), when she conducted interviews in the Gaz-Sala settlement (which is within the Arctic circle), where they referred to outside the region as ‘the earth’. Also N. Adler, ‘Life in the “Big Zone”: The Fate of Returnees in the Aftermath of the Stalinist Repression’, Europe-Asia Studies, 51, 1, 1999, pp. 5 – 19, discusses how ex-Gulag prisoners referred to society as split into zones, the malaya zona (small zone) referring to the camps and bol'shaya zona (big zone) the rest of society, highlighting how those transported to the north viewed their isolation from the rest of the country in spatial terms.

Questionnaire carried out by the author in Magadan, October – November 2000, with over 280 respondents.

This obviously ignores the fact that many entrepreneurs in the region, including Tsvetkov himself, were benefiting greatly from the partial privatisation of the mineral extraction enterprises and that the method of federal government control suited them perfectly.

Drobizheva, ‘Comparison of Elite Groups in Tatarstan, Sakha, Magadan and Orenburg’.

Soboleva, ‘Migratsionnye protsessy v Magadanskoi oblasti’.

Magadanskaya Pravda, 10 November 2000.

There is plenty of evidence that living in the far north east can lead to serious health problems and the acceleration of numerous illnesses; see for example V. Manchuk, ‘Sreda i zdorov'e naseleniya krainego severa’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1994, 7, pp. 62 – 64. and V. Bol'shedvorsky, ‘Vliyanie ekologicheskogo faktora na sostoyanie zdorovya korennogo i pereselennogo naseleniya dal'nego vostoka’, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, 1994, 7, pp. 68 – 74. However, what is key here is that individuals believe that life is healthier in the north, owing to the climate etc. regardless of any information that might suggest otherwise.

During the run-up to the regional elections the local television channel, controlled by associates of the regional government, continually ran news stories about how difficult conditions were in nearby regions, emphasising that Magadan was ‘lucky’ to have such a proactive leader.