The Russian Federation, which experts in the field of regionalistics consider a unique country not only on a European, but also on a global scale, demonstrates not only a huge territory and multiplicity of regions, but also colossal differences in the natural, historical, socio-demographic, economic and political conditions of their development. Since Russia embarked on the path of radical market reforms (in 2003 the Russian Federation was officially granted the long-awaited and very expensive status of a country with a market economy), the fundamental drawback of the market associated with the genetic predisposition of the latter to the socio-economic differentiation of citizens, regions, countries and continents in this country manifested itself with a particularly frightening force. As a result, unprecedented unevenness arose in Russia. regional development, a direct threat to its territorial integrity up to local armed conflicts between the center and separatists. All this testifies to the fact that Russia is simply “doomed” to pursue a strong state regional policy, to use it as a tool for preserving and strengthening the social, economic and territorial unity of the country. This, by the way, is the main specificity of Russian regional policy, which is of vital importance for the country.
The Russian Federation today consists of 89 subjects, including 21 republics, 6 territories, 49 regions, 1 autonomous region, 10 autonomous districts and 2 cities of federal significance – Moscow and St. Petersburg. In addition, for the purposes of economic forecasting and programming in the Russian Federation, an enlarged network of territorial division is used, consisting of 11 economic regions (Northern, Central, Volga-Vyatka, Central Black Earth, Volga, North Caucasus, Ural, West Siberian, East Siberian and Far Eastern regions), and in 2000 7 federal districts were formed in Russia (Central, North-Western, Southern, Volga, Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern regions) and in 2000 Far Eastern).
The presence of huge differences between the regions of Russia is one of the most serious problems of this country, since it is fraught with a direct threat to its existence. Some of these differences have deep historical roots, due to the fact that in past centuries Russia included territories and social communities that are at different stages of development. In Soviet times, the sharpness of certain differences was smoothed out as a result of a planned policy of equalizing the level of socio-economic development of both citizens and regions and with the help of other political, including forceful, decisions.
With the transition to a market economy, accompanied by an organic hypertrophied rejection of any manifestations of planning, regional differences in this country have not only worsened, but have also been supplemented by new very acute territorial disproportions. Currently, the differences of Russian regions have not only a pronounced quantitative, but also an expanded qualitative character. In particular, in the Russian Federation there is a very contrasting asymmetry in the following areas:
1. “North-South” (latitudinal zonation). Currently, the so-called north is about half of the territory of Russia, gives much more than half of the valuable raw materials, but is developed and populated selectively. The south of Russia is relatively small and poor, but very densely populated;
2. “West-East”. European Russia, which occupies only a quarter of the country’s territory, accounts for up to 80% of its population and more than 70% of GDP, while the eastern regions show low population density and a relatively small level of industrial potential;
3. “Center-periphery” (“core-periphery”). Today in the Russian Federation there are very significant differences in the level of socio-economic development not only of the capital and other subjects of the Federation, but also of the centers of these subjects and their territories. Moreover, the differences within the subjects of the Russian Federation are often stronger than the differences between the subjects;
4. “Russian regions – foreign ethnic regions” (“Russian regions– autonomies”). This type of regional disproportions (along ethnic lines) is a characteristic feature of the Russian Federation, where, according to some experts (for example, academician D. Lvov), it was the Russian regions that suffered the heaviest losses as a result of market reforms.
Along with these qualitative disproportions in Russia, their quantitative characteristics are also very contrasting. In particular, the following unprecedented ranges of variation in regional differences are observed here:
the differentiation of gross regional product (GRP) per capita in some years reached 21 times and to this day remains very high; the transformational decline in industrial production in the regions also turned out to be very differentiated:
In 9 regions it exceeded 65%, in 32 it was more than 50%, in 34 – more than 35%, in 11 – more than 20% and only in one region it was less than 20%, which in general characterizes the catastrophic consequences of the liberal-market “recovery” of the economy of this country; the change in the average unemployment rate in the regions reached a twentyfold value and was in 1997 in the range (4.8–58.2%) with an average level of this indicator in the country of 13.3%; the variation in the average per capita income of the population exceeded the fifteenfold value (from 270 to 4017 rubles per month per inhabitant); the volume of services provided to the population varied 56 times depending on the region (from 186 to 10,400 rubles per inhabitant); retail turnover in some regions amounted to only 760 rubles. per capita, while in Moscow it reached a value of 35.5 thousand rubles.
Some analysts note another problem, which is that today a new regional “core” has formed in Russia, which has concentrated real financial power on an unprecedented scale. According to some reports, up to 70-80% of all financial resources of Russia are concentrated in Moscow today, and taking into account St. Petersburg – all 90%, while the rest of Russia accounts for only 10-15%.
Along with socio-economic problems in Russia, regional political instability and legal regional asymmetry are pronounced. In particular, there is a great threat of territorial disintegration and disintegration of the country, including due to the above quantitative and qualitative factors of socio-economic stratification. This process (a wave of sovereignties and the so-called “republicanization” of the regions) is reflected in contradiction in the Constitution of the Russian Federation (1993), since, on the one hand, it declares the equality of all subjects of the Russian Federation, and on the other, fixing the different status of the republics and other subjects, rather contributes to asymmetric regional development. As a result, in Russia, along with the process of “republicanization” of the subjects, there have been a number of negative trends associated with the appropriation by the regions of the powers of the federal authorities (suspension of laws and other acts of the Russian Federation in their territories, declaration of natural resources as the property of subjects, direct access to the arena of foreign policy and international relations, etc.).
After the financial and economic crisis of 1998, the regional asymmetry increased so much that some subjects of the Russian Federation arbitrarily announced the suspension of their payments to the center, closed their borders for the export of agricultural products, began to carry out unauthorized money emission (Kalmykia), declared the supremacy of their laws over federal ones (Bashkiria), etc. In other words, regional political problems brought the country so close to disintegration that there was the urgent need to reform regional policy. However, the Russian leadership during the period of reforms behaved in such a way that it seems that it was interested in the disintegration of Russia, which, however, corresponds to the aspirations of the leading Western powers, who do not want to have a strong competitor in the face of this country (in the book “The Grand Chessboard” Zb. Brzezinski directly states that the West is very interested in the disintegration of Russia into 3 or more independent states). In particular, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Nationalities and Regional Policy, established in 1994 , was reformed, split, merged and renamed 5 times (almost 1 time per year) in the period up to 2000, and in October 2001 it was liquidated altogether. This instability has led to the fact that for a long time the country did not have a steadily functioning executive body responsible for the implementation of state regional policy.
Since 2000, the leadership of the Russian Federation began to pay more and more attention to solving regional problems. At this time, in addition to the Federal Fund for the Support of the Subjects of the Russian Federation, organized in 1994, two new financial instruments for the implementation of regional policy were created – the Regional Development Fund and the Regional Finance Development Fund. The use of the resources accumulated in these funds, as well as allocations from the federal budget, is aimed at providing:
subventions (gratuitous targeted financing of expenditures of regional budgets at the expense of budgets of the upper levels); grants (gratuitous allocation of funds to cover the deficit of lower budgets); transfers (assistance to subsidized subjects of the Russian Federation); compensation (gratuitous assistance to the regions for the purchase of energy resources and food in the face of rising prices for them).
As one of the most important forms of implementation of the state regional policy in Russia, federal programs of the regions are currently being considered. However, the importance and effectiveness of these programs causes a rather skeptical attitude among specialists, since the number of such programs is growing rapidly, and their underfunding has become chronic. Thus, the Russian Federation is a country where the solution or at least mitigation of regional problems is almost the main task of the country’s leadership, and the improvement of regional policy is the most urgent problem of the public administration system.