Crisis in the Regions

Abstract

This article examines the nature of the current economic crisis and the way it affects the Russian regions, as well as the relations between the regions and the Center. It highlights that the crisis preceded the western sanctions and was caused by the exhaustion of the model of economic development based on resource rents. This crisis is manmade, creeping, and probably prolonged. It will strike all regions, but the damage inflicted will vary: its chief victim will be Russia's biggest cities.

Notes

English translation © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text. This article has not been published previously. Natalia Zubarevich is Professor at Moscow State University and Director of the Regional Program at the Independent Institute for Social Policy (Russia). She can be contacted at [email protected]. Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/mrup.

^1. At the end of 2011, in her article “The Four Russias” [Chetyre Rossii], the author described the sociopolitical diversity of Russia's regions (www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2011/12/30/chetyre_rossii). Three years later, however, she had to acknowledge that differences in social perception had to a significant degree been erased after the annexation of Crimea and aggravation of the postimperial syndrome under the powerful pressure of television propaganda (www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/66622.html).