Pivovar G.A., Shirokova P.A., Prusikhin O.E., Alekseev A.I. Settlement types and settlement system along the eastern part of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (Amur Region and Khabarovsk Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №1. P. 123-152.
EDN: OQUDCL
Annotation
The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), one of the largest “megaprojects” of the Soviet Union, left a significant mark in history. At the same time, fewer works consider villages along the mainline, their contemporary life and inhabitants. The authors make an attempt to describe the settlement system along the eastern part of the BAM (between Tynda and Komsomolsk-on-Amur) and provide a typology of settlements affected by the railway based on field and statistical data. The BAM settlement system is linear due to the policy of territorial development around the railway. Thus, the authorities gave priority to industrial development at the expense of social development, and the main decisions on the location of settlements, housing and infrastructure were made at the level of individual construction sites. They were supposed to form a highly urbanized settlement system with a developed infrastructure along the road (to attract employees), but the lagging development of settlements did not allow this. Moreover, the BAM settlement system incorporated the previously existing settlements, which allows to identify two waves in the development of this territory — the long-term pre-BAM and the BAM-period. Settlements can be divided into four types based on the time of establishment, ethnic-cultural and economic characteristics: premainline ethnic settlements of indigenous communities, pre-BAM fishing settlements that grew out of outposts of prospectors and hunters, BAM intermediate urban settlements, and BAM “failed cities” — settlements at the main stations, which were supposed to become key centers of the new territory. These differences determined different ways of settlement transformations in the post-Soviet period.
Keywords
Baikal-Amur Mainline, Eastern BAM, rural settlements, urban settlements, workers’ settlements, settlement system, transformation of rural areas, typology of settlements, Amur Region, Khabarovsk Region, geographical study of rural areas.
About the authors
Galina A. Pivovar, Independent Researcher in Human Geography. Novodevichiy Pr., 2, Moscow, 119435, Russia.
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Polina A. Shirokova, Independent Researcher in Human Geography. Sitnikova St., 2, Balashikha, Moscow Region, 143923, Russia.
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Oleg E. Prusikhin, PhD Student, Leading Engineer, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Research Intern, Center for Spatial Analysis and Regional Diagnostics, Institute of Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russia.
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Alexander I. Alekseev, DSc (Geography), Professor, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russia.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Wednesday, 11 December 2024
- Reviewed Saturday, 25 January 2025
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Prusikhin O.E., Krutov O.D., Vorobiev M.I., Loktionov K.S., Vepritsky A.A., Alekseev A.I. A multi-scale typology of rural areas under the post-Soviet transformations (on the example of the Tambov Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №2. P. 64-103.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-2-64-103
Annotation
Russian countryside is heterogeneous, and in the post-Soviet period, this heterogeneity has increased. Moreover, the image of the countryside in the perception of the authorities and society is far from reality, which leads to the mistakes in the assessment of its condition and prospects. Russian scholars usually study the northern countryside and ethnic republics, while the studies of the Russian steppe regions are less common. The authors consider the factors of the rural territorial differentiation under the post-Soviet transformations in one of the most homogeneous steppe regions — Tambov — at the level of municipal districts and rural settlements. The suggested typology of districts is based on the statistical indicators which reflect changes in the intensity of territorial development in the last thirty years; and the typology of settlements is based on 53 interviews and observations during the expedition to the Michurinsky, Gavrilovsky and Uvarovsky districts in the summer of 2022. The authors conclude that the natural factor still determines the intensity of transformations both directly (higher intensification of crop production in the south) and indirectly (through the settlement and transportation system). The influence of the economic-geographical position (proximity to cities) and of the institutional factor (large investors are interested in unallocated land) is also significant.
Keywords
Post-soviet transformations, rural areas, Tambov Region, changing functions, typology, rural settlements.
About the authors
Oleg E. Prusikhin, Master’s Student, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991.
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Oleg D. Krutov, Master’s Student, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991.
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Maxim I. Vorobiev, PhD Student, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991.
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Kirill S. Loktionov, Bachelor’s Student, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991.
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Alexander А. Vepritsky, Bachelor’s Student, Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Leninsky Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991.
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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.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Friday, 31 March 2023
- Reviewed Wednesday, 17 May 2023
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2023
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Smirnova A.A., Smirnov I.P., Tkachenko A.A. Geographical approach to the classification of local rural areas (on the example of the Torzhok district in the Tver Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 85-103.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-85-103
Annotation
The article continues the series of works on the geographical diversity of rural areas. The previous article (Tkachenko et al., 2021) presented a classification of rural districts in the Tver Region. This article aims at providing a classification of rural areas that are more fractional than municipal districts and at assessing the compliance (consistency) of classifications for the adjacent territorial levels. The Torzhok district was chosen as a main case for it represents the most prosperous type of districts in the Tver Region — agricultural, with a developed network of rural settlements. Based on the same characteristics as in the previous study, 22 local rural areas were considered as rural municipalities until 2017. The resulting classification includes 11 types, 6 of which have only one representative each. The grouping by the degree of compliance with the features of the Torzhok district showed that the general portrait of the district depends on a small number of local areas that form its spatial-semantic core: only 3 local rural areas located around the district center have the same characteristics. On the periphery, there are territories either with a low degree of correspondence or without any similar characteristics. The comparison of classifications proved the role of generalization in the study of spatial differences in rural areas.
Keywords
Countryside, local rural areas, frame structure, territorial functions, rural settlement, recreational potential, Tver Region, Torzhok district.
About the author
Alexandra A. Smirnova, PhD (Geography), Associate Professor, Faculty of Geography and Geoecology, Tver State University. P. Proshina St., 3, bldg. 2, Tver, 170021.
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Ilya P. Smirnov, PhD (Geography), Associate Professor, Faculty of Geography and Geoecology, Tver State University. P. Proshina St., 3, bldg. 2, Tver, 170021.
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Alexander A. Tkachenko, DSc (Geography), Professor, Faculty of Geography and Geoecology, Tver State University. P. Proshina St., 3, bldg. 2, Tver, 170021.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Friday, 16 December 2022
- Reviewed Thursday, 19 January 2023
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2023
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Baskin L. M., Pokrovsky N. E., Nikolaeva U. G. Sociology on foot and from quadcopter. Rural households and village life in the Near North of Russia (on the example of the Kostroma Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №4. P. 72-108.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-4-72-108
Annotation
Rural settlements in the Russian Near North face multidirectional effects, being at the crossroads of natural and environmental zones, economic and household patterns, and modernization challenges. In the market conditions, the relatively low fertility of non-black-earth soils and harsh winters make agricultural production marginally competitive. The steady centripetal migration of rural residents to cities, population outflow, relatively low life expectancy of the working-age population, accelerated demographic aging and, thus, the centrifugal influx of dacha residents from big cities and gradual transformation of lifestyle — these are the main thematic nodes of the study. The authors analyze macro- and micro-trends in rural life through the settlement patterns, material culture, living conditions and economic practices based on the study of the out-of-town settlement locus along the Unzha River between Manturovo and Makariev (Kostroma Region). The traditional methods — observation, survey and analysis of statistical data — were supplemented by the quadcopter footage of the villages. The authors paid special attention to the architectural and planning typology of houses and to the functional structure of rural estates, which objectively reflect the history of villages and rural lifestyle and the contemporary social-cultural evolution of ‘small territories’ under the social transformation of the Near North.
Keywords
Russian Near North, Kostroma Region, rural settlements, depopulation, deurbanization, rural lifestyle, household practices, rural households, architecture of rural households, quadcopter survey.
About the authors
Leonid M. Baskin, DSc (Biology), Leading Researcher, Severtsov Insitute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences. Leninsky Prosp., 33, Moscow, 119071, Russia.
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Nikita E. Pokrovsky, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Chair of General Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Leading Researcher, Institute of Sociology, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Myasnitskaya St., 20, Moscow, 101100, Russia.
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Uliana G. Nikolaeva , DSc (Economics), Leading Researcher, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Institute of Sociology, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Myasnitskaya St., 20, Moscow, 101100, Russia.
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Mapping multistructural rural economy: Suburban and peripheral areas of the Tyumen Region
Mar 30 2017Sheludkov A.V., Rasskazov S.V. Mapping multistructural rural economy: Suburban and peripheral areas of the Tyumen Region // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 102-114.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-102-114
Annotation
The article considers the geographical prerequisites for the development of multistructural rural economy. The authors use departmental statistics and the data of the Federal State Statistics Service to show the differences of social-economic landscapes in remote and close to centers rural areas. Such differences determine the domination of particular economic agents, and the specialization of rural areas by forms and sectors of agriculture. For instance, commodity production, agribusiness and private farms concentrate around the cities; here a suburban area of agriculture is developing supported by the pendulum migration; large enterprises are fully integrated in the formal market and win the competition for land resources, especially in grain production, while the farmers can benefit from the development of service industries or narrow economic niches. In the peripheral areas of the southeast, there are smallholdings, peasant farms and cooperatives. People use household plots and free land to develop dairy and meat husbandry, to grow potatoes and vegetables, and to produce honey. The owners of large household plots can be considered potential farmers, but due to the high institutional barriers they retain a semi-legal status. In general, settlements of the sub-region teeter on the edge of formal (cooperatives and peasant farms) and informal (smallholdings, secondhand dealers, etc.) economies. Large-scale enterprises can also work here, but usually they act as external players exploiting resources of the periphery and not taking care of local communities. However, the situation is not static, its vectors of development include economic and social risks associated with the gradual displacement of small and medium agricultural producers by large enterprises, and with the dependence of peripheral farms on the intermediary structures. At the same time, the multistructural economy creates new opportunities such as economic specialization of villages and diversification of rural economy. This research was conducted as a part of the complex research project of the Council of municipalities of the Tyumen region.
Keywords
multi-structural economy, rural economy, rural settlements, rural municipalities, social-economic polarization, center-periphery structure
About the authors
Alexander V. Sheludkov, Analyst, Association “Council of Municipalities of the Tyumen Region”, post-graduate student of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Staromonetniy per., 29. Moscow, Russia 119017.
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Sergei V. Rasskasov, PhD (Geography), Associate Professor, Department of Modern History, Tyumen State University. 6 Volodarskogo St. 625003 Tyumen, Russia.
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