Industrial and Transport Development of the Territory of Russia in the Post-Soviet Period

Abstract

The inventory of implemented investment projects was used as the basis for compiling a smallscale map to display the main features of industrial and transport development of the territory of post-Soviet Russia. An exceptional territorial differentiation of industrial construction is revealed, which implies primarily its overconcentration in Moscow oblast as well as in the north-west (St. Petersburg and Leningrad oblast). The northern and eastern regions of the country are characterized by focal industrial development and the dominance of mining enterprises. In Asian Russia, large-scale industrial construction is allocated to Kuzbass, and Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrugs, but the “density” of development is small. In many areas, new enterprises are similar in their specialization to the economic profile of a given area. Signs of territorial-production integration of enterprises in the specific conditions of the Russian market are identified. The new economic conditions saw the emergence of new sectors and production facilities: development of oil and gas resources on the shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Caspian, Baltic, Pechora and Black Seas; gas liquefaction plants, and automobile assembly enterprises. Only a quarter of the new industrial enterprises are located in regional capitals. The dispersion of industries within separate regions is determined by the high proportion of extractive enterprises, the formation of special economic zones outside the regional centers, and by the low cost of land and labor in small towns and villages. The new “village” industry has a broad spectrum of specialization and is not limited to processing agricultural raw materials. Analysis of the structure of the new industrial construction did not reveal any signs of its ecologization. Two thirds of the new facilities refer to basic, environmentally “aggressive” sectors. Most of the newly built transport infrastructure facilities are specialized in satisfying the export requirements of the country’s economy, rather than in enhancing connectivity of its territory. Intensive construction of ports and pipelines leads to the concentration of anthropogenic pressure on the water areas and the coasts, in particular the Baltic, Black and Azov Seas. The resulting map reveals new foci and areas of change in the natural environment and its large-scale transformation.