Siberia Suffering from Same Problems as Rest of Russia Outside of Moscow, Zubarevich Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 1 – Siberians often complain that they are being exploited by the center as if this were not true of other parts of the country, Natalya Zubarevich says; but in fact, all of Russia beyond Moscow’s ring road is suffering because the center is a giant “vacuum cleaner” sucking up the resources of everywhere else.   

            The regional geographer on the faculty of Moscow State University says that statistics do not show that Siberia is feeding the rest of the country as many Siberians imagine.  Instead, they indicate that Siberia’s fraction in the all-Russian economy has fallen significantly since the end of Soviet times (sibreal.org/a/30244000.html).

            Since the early years of this century, differences among the regions have declined but the differences between them and Moscow have only increased.  For example, between 1991 and now, the number of Russians employed in large and mid-sized firms has fallen by nearly 50 percent, from 61 million to 32 million. The trend in Siberia has been similar.

            Like other regions of the country, Siberians are leaving and heading to Moscow. The only specific feature of Siberia is that its population is concentrated along the Trans-Siberian and that elsewhere there is almost no one at all.

            While the current political situation in Russia doesn’t permit it, “everyone knows” what is necessary to change things. “Decentralization is necessary and everyone understands what must be done. Let the governors cease to be faceless boys, and they will finally have real authority,” and let regions keep more of the taxes they collect and decide how to spend them.

            “Let small and mid-sized business develop without these insane state corporations” which are wrecking the economy. “Let the big Siberian cities become centers of science and education … All this is well known, but no one will do this” because “now, the Russian Federation in fact is not a federative state,” Zubarevich says.

            Siberians think, speak and act as if these problems and these tasks were unique to them; but they aren’t. They are the problems of all regions outside the capital, the regional economist concludes.