Moscow Sooner or Later will Restart Regional Amalgamation Effort, Minchenko Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – Yevgeny Minchenko, a well-connected Moscow political consultant, says that reform of local self-government is now off the table because of opposition but that the amalgamation of federal subjects, leading to an increase in the size of those which remain and a decrease in their number is being talked about and will “sooner or later” be realized.
    In the course of a wide-ranging interview on Kazan’s Business Gazeta portal, the head of Minchenko Consulting argues that Moscow is going to have to focus again on the reconfiguration of the country in order to ensure the best use of economic and political resources (business-gazeta.ru/article/659270).
    He says that he was “amazed” when Kurgan Oblast Governor Vadim Shumkov told him in a “very calm” voice that his oblast “could be ‘attached’ to some region, such as Tyumen.” He wouldn’t have said that, Minchenko suggests, unless there was a new willingness to talk about changing the size and number of federal subjects.
    Minchenko’s remarks suggest that the next wave of regional amalgamation is going to be among predominantly ethnic Russian regions rather than between non-Russian regions and predominantly ethnic Russian ones, the rock on which Putin’s earlier moves to amalgamate the federal subjects appears to have foundered.
    But the other principle Putin has articulated, that poorer regions be attached to wealthier ones, seems to remain in place given that Kurgan Oblast is one of the poorer ethnic Russian regions and Tyumen in one of the wealthiest ones.