Problems of the European North of Russia and the Possibilities of Its Participation in the Development of the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation

• Main Author: Kozhevnikov Sergei A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Vologda Research Center 2019-03-01
• Series: Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
• Subjects: european north of russia; socio-economic development; strategy; arctic zone of the russian federation; transport system; territorial-economic system; technological chains
• Online Access: http://esc.vscc.ac.ru/article/28075/full?_lang=en

The challenges that Russia has to face due to the unstable geopolitical situation in the world make it necessary to search for internal sources of development and enhance the efficiency of territorial management. Under the circumstances, in our opinion, the priority object of state policy should be the Northern and Arctic territories, which have a huge natural resource and economic and geopolitical potential. At the same time, their development in the post-Soviet period has accumulated a set of issues that require understanding and development of mechanisms to address them, which is the goal of the present paper. The analysis has shown that the market reforms of the 1990s carried out in the European North of Russia and in its Arctic zone led to increased depopulation, degradation and primitivization of industrial production, curtailment of agricultural production, decline in the quality of life, growth of concentration of economic and social activity in the “nodal” points and degradation of the potential of peripheral municipalities. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of socio-economic development and strategic planning documents of the European Union, we have found out that these territories have objective prerequisites for the diversification of production on the basis of deep processing of raw materials, broad cooperation and interregional integration. We prove that the interregional integration of the territories of the European Union and its Arctic zone with the more southern regions of the country will facilitate the formation and development of long technological chains in priority sectors (oil refining, forestry, civil and science-intensive engineering, etc.) that go beyond the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. At the same time, we prove that the Vologda Oblast can play an important role as an outpost for the development of the Arctic. We propose priority tools for development of transport and logistics system in the region; this will eliminate the infrastructure constraints of economic growth and ensure the integration of the European part of the Arctic zone of Russia into the single economic space of the country. Further directions of research on this issue will be a detailed substantiation of the proposed mechanisms of interregional integration of the territories of the European North and its Arctic zone