Association of Siberian and Far Eastern Cities Now Unites Areas with Nearly 10 Percent of Russian Population

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 17 – One of the last remnants of the golden age of regional associations in the Russian Federation in the 1990s is the Association of Siberian and Far Eastern Cities whose members will meet this week in Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat Republic, to discuss city planning and energy issues (asiarussia.ru/news/47675/).

            Except for such meetings, the group rarely gets much media attention beyond that provided by its own web page (asdg.ru) and telegram channel (t.me/s/asdgmsu/971). But because of the role its members played in the past and could play in the future, it deserves more attention than it has been receiving.

            The group, founded in 1986, now has 53 member cities whose population total some 12 million people, almost ten percent of the population of the Russian Federation as a whole. In the course of its history, the ASFEC has organized more than 860 conferences and serves as a communication network for mayors and administrators.

            It was out of this group that many of the then-powerful regional associations arose in the 1990s when Moscow was weak, and it is quite likely that it will be from groups like ASFEC that regional challenges to the capital will emerge again during leadership translation once Putin leaves the scene.