Rural population decline has been observed in most developed and emerging economies but has been especially apparent in postsocialist countries. In this paper, we investigate the spatial patterns and the determinants of the rural population dynamics during the transition period from 1991 to 2010 in Tyumen Province, Russia, with the aim of better understanding the forces underlying depopulation. We use descriptive and exploratory statistical tools to analyze data from population censuses and district-level statistics of agriculture. Our results reveal distinct differences in the spatial clusters of the population increase and decline in the first and second decades of the post-Soviet era. We argue that these differences reflect the penetration of market relations into the countryside. The emergence of market forces initially advantaged the areas that were more suited to agriculture, which experienced population growth in the 1990s. Later, the drop in agricultural output, market-driven restructuring of farms, and introduction of labor-saving technologies reduced employment in agriculture. During the 2000s, labor opportunities in agriculture were no longer statistically related to rural population dynamics, while population dynamics in the villages have increasingly been determined by transport accessibility to larger markets, especially to the provincial capital. Governments need to be sensitive to these spatial and temporal population dynamics to foster opportunities in the countryside, avoid the negative side effects of depopulation on local economies and ensure the provision of social services.
— In recent decades, organic agriculture has played an increasingly prominent role in the global and Russian agricultural sector. This trend emerged in opposition to industrial agrarian production, in response to growing demands for environmental protection and social justice. The article analyzes the place of organic agriculture among the agrarian systems of the mid-20th–early 21st centuries, the specifics of its development in Russia, and the geographical patterns of this process. In contrast to European countries, large investors initially gave impetus to development of the sector in Russia; the main motives of pioneers were associated with healthy eating and to a lesser extent with environmental or social issues. From the standpoint of the theory of diffusion of innovation, the development of organic agriculture is in its early stages; however, the number of farms and land areas under organic production are steadily growing, service industries and sales channels are being formed, and an institutional environment has been arisen in the form of industry associations and national legislation. The location of farms with different specializations can be traced to the dependence on natural conditions and the agrarian history of the territory. Refineries gravitate towards Moscow as the largest sales market. The last part of the article discusses the implications of organic agriculture for the development of rural areas in Russia: mitigating socioeconomic contrasts between suburban and peripheral rural areas, preserving the traditional cultural landscape and supporting rural tourism, and promoting environmental ideology in the agricultural sector and in society.
Second home mobility is a well‐known phenomenon in many countries, but is widely prominent in Russia, where millions of city dwellers move to rural areas during the summertime. Combating long‐term economic decline and depopulation, second home mobility creates a promising opportunity to revitalize the countryside. While this phenomenon is largely neglected by official statistics, we suggest using satellite imagery of nighttime lights to investigate its spatial and temporal patterns. We did this with the example of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia. This region neighbors the Moscow Capital Region. It experiences a significant inflow of second home residents. By tracking the seasonal pixel‐wise changes of nighttime light radiance in monthly composites of satellite imagery from 2015 to 2019, we located hotspots of second homes and factors determining their spatial spread in rural areas. The results were evaluated with field research. Our results confirmed earlier conclusions that second homes’ locations in rural areas are largely determined by their proximity to Moscow, natural conditions, and transport accessibility. City dwellers often choose small and even fully abandoned villages for their second homes, which stresses the important role of second home mobility in preserving cultural landscapes. The proposed data and methods are limited by missing data for the northern regions during summer months and are more suitable for areas beyond the urban fringe where nighttime‐lights data are not biased by the ‘overglow’ of large cities.
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