Challenges and contradictions in the development of the North and the Arctic: demographic dimension

Abstract

The North and the Arctic have been in the focus of attention of the Russian statehood for more than one century. The North and the Arctic have been in the focus of attention of the Russian statehood for more than one century. They received special attention, provided socio-economic preferences. The North of Russia had a development strategy, a unified legislative base, while the Arctic as part of the North was mostly a transport artery and protective borders of Russia. The situation changed after the separation of the Arctic territories from the North. Since 2014, most of the strategic documents concerned the Arctic, and least of all the northern territories. Artificial competition aroused between the regions for access to material, financial and human resources. The paper identifies the following types of conflicts: between the northern and arctic regions and regions located outside of them; between the Arctic and non-Arctic regions of the Russian North; between indigenous and small-numbered peoples of the North and resource companies; between the indigenous and old-time population and migrants (newcomers). The authors outline that the allocation of the Arctic territories also determined a different development vector of the Arctic and the North of Russia. The economy of the Arctic more often represent large corporations, and own funds of enterprises dominate in the structure of investments in the Arctic regions; in the regions of the North, the structure of investments is more dispersed, less concentrated and corporate. The Arctic settlement system includes large, medium and small industrial cities and single-industry settlements, stationary and rotational; in the North, there are more agricultural villages, administrative regional centers and service settlements. The Arctic settlement system, in comparison with the northern one, is generally urban, more concentrated, more industrial and less settled. The viewpoint on the overpopulation of territories and the need to “unload” the network of settlements already created here, on the need for a total transition to a rotational model of development has more grounds in the North than in the Arctic.