Rural Dagestan: All-Russian Trends and Regional Features of Development

Abstract

The article considers the post-Soviet development of rural Dagestan. The research is based on microscale municipal socioeconomic statistical data in the context of settlements, field observations and the results of in-depth and expert interviews conducted by the authors during three expeditions to the Republic of Dagestan in 2020–2022. Transformation processes in mountainous territories occur under the simultaneous conditions of natural-geographical, central-peripheral factors of transformation and demographic factors. Incomplete demographic transition combined with the increased role of ethnic traditionalism slow down the processes of modernization of society. Along with the features typical for other regions of Russia (for example, the reduction of workplaces in the agricultural sector, rural depopulation, increased population mobility), the transformation of Dagestan rural areas has its own characteristics. The territorial combination of these regional factors results in a significant variety of types of rural areas at the municipal level. For example, the orographic multiplicity of Dagestan significantly complicates the typical central-peripheral picture of the lowland regions of Russia. Along with suburban, there are two more types of stable rural municipalities—foothill areas that allow you to engage in both agriculture and other activities and areas in the mid-mountain basins, in which the migration outflow of residents is compensated by an inflow from mountain villages. The article presents the author’s version of the typologization of rural Dagestan based on the basic criteria—the position of the district in the “center–periphery” system and belonging to the geomorphological region. The selected subtypes are combined into the main types, considering the economic and demographic characteristics of the territory. Scenarios of the socioeconomic transformation of Dagestan rural areas in the post-Soviet period are studied on the key districts for different physiographic macro-regions of Dagestan: Akhtynsky, Botlikhsky, Karabudakhkentsky, Kizlyarsky, and Tsumadinsky. Trajectories of transformation of Dagestan rural territories in the post-Soviet period are formulated: shrinkage, inertial development, and modernization.