The Activities of Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Amur Region as Reflected in the Regional Press of the 1860s

Abstract

The article studies how the economic life of the Amur region in the first half of the 1860s is reflected in contributions to the newspapers Amur and Vostochnoe Pomorie, with a focus on the newspaper coverage of foreign entrepreneurs' activities in the region. The authors analyze how the journalists tried to attract foreign capital to Russia, and how they interpreted the legal and cultural conditions that foreign traders encountered in the Amur region. Equally taken into consideration are the features and prospects of intercultural communication in the region, the respective publications attitudes towards the Russian annexation of the Amur region, and their perceptions of the factors that stood in the way of the comprehensive development of the region and of the attraction of foreign entrepreneurs. The article analyzes the image that the newspaper authors drew of life in the Russian Far Eastern peripheries; in particular, a number of articles were very critical in their discussion of how to remove obstacles to attracting foreigners to the region. At the same time this contribution argues that by their description of the nature and living conditions in the Amur region, the regional newspapers also contributed to the inflow of domestic and foreign investments into the Far Eastern region. It seems that this experience can be useful for the economic development of remote Russian territories also today, after a necessary adjustment.