DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL AREAS IN THE URAL FEDERAL DISTRICT: THE CONTEMPORARY REPRODUCTION PRACTICES

Abstract

This article comprises a comprehensive statistical and sociological examination of topical problems that Ural Federal District rural residents face in their socio-economic, reproductive and life practices. The authors aim 1) to reveal the level of demographic and socio-economic self-sufficiency of the Tyumen Region rural inhabitants (including Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Areas), compared with other territories of the Ural Federal District on the long-time series dynamics of the last two decades; and 2) to assess the institutional drivers of growth in agriculture linked with the all-Russian contexts. The authors have exposed a set of problems during the field expeditions of 2020 to the south of the Tyumen Region, using in-depth interviews and case studies with various representatives of the local communities (peasants, farmers, subsidiary farm owners, agricultural workers, authorities, businesses, rural enterprise management, country house owners). There is an obvious and widespread weakening of the local self-government in rural areas; the socio-cultural ties between countryside status groups are hardly established; there is a deficit in mental and behavioral patterns of self-organization of different in subcultures rural households; countryside self-governing communities are almost completely destroyed, mainly due to tight bureaucratic control and over-centralization. As the statistics for 1990 to 2019 shows, the rural settlements in the south of the Tyumen Region stably vary within the weighted average of 525,000 people. In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, there is an increase in rural population from the weighted average of 100,000 people at the beginning of the study period, up to 125,000 people in the end. In the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area, the growth of the rural population is noted as well, from 80,000 to 87,000 people. The comparison with the other regions of the Ural Federal District on identical statistical indicators shows that the rural population change is uneven. In the Kurgan and Chelyabinsk Regions, one can observe an outflow: 490,000 vs. 320,000, and 680,000 vs. 610,000, respectively. While in the Sverdlovsk Region, an inflow is noticed in the observed interval: from 590,000 to 650,000. This article demonstrates the dynamics of agricultural production in the Ural Federal District in physical indicators. A regression for the six considered regions for 14 observed years (2005-2018) is built to disclose which types of agricultural products had the greatest impact on the dynamics of agricultural production. The regression analysis presents the specificity of the Ural Federal District rural areas development in terms of statistics, while modern reproduction practices on these territories are reflected through an analysis of qualitative data from cases and in-depth interviews, obtained in expeditions of 2020. The scientific novelty in applying the “hard” (statistical assessments of the Ural Federal District rural areas development) and “soft” (in-depth interviews and case studies) methods of modern reproductive practices in rural areas investigation in combination for the first time.