Samburova S.A., Alekseev A.I. Post-Soviet regional center: Urbanization or ruralization? // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №3. P. 144-184.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-3-144-184
Annotation
Today, urban-type settlements still have an ‘intermediate’ position between the city and the village, as in the Soviet period. However, the consequences of the 1990s’ crisis and the transition to the market economy have changed the social-economic situation in such settlements. The authors consider Lokot in the Brasovsky district of the Bryansk Region as an example of the peripheral urban-type settlement and describe its changes on the axis of urbanization in the post-Soviet period based on the following indicators: appearance of the village, employment, mobility, migration and lifestyle of its population. Each indicator has undergone transformations of various scale since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there is no single trend (pro-urban or pro-rural): the appearance of the village and the lifestyle of the local population have become more urban due to the development of the services sector, while employment, mobility and migration, on the contrary, have become more rural primarily due to the closure of the city-forming industrial enterprises, which led to a significant outflow of the able-bodied population to cities. Thus, the multidirectional nature of transformation does not allow to unambiguously define Lokot as a city or a village.
Keywords
Urban-type settlement, city, village, lifestyle, Bryansk Region, socialeconomic transformation.
About the authors
Svetlana A. Samburova, Master’s Student, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Alexander I. Alekseev, DSc (Geography), Professor, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russia. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
