Putin’s Call for Developing Online Work Opportunities in Rural Areas By Itself Won’t Hold People There, Three Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 11 – To prevent the depopulation of large swaths of the territory of the Russian Federation, something that would threaten the country’s security, Vladimir Putin says he favors using modern technologies so that people who live in rural areas and small cities can work remotely rather than have to move to major metropolises.

            But three experts surveyed by the Regional Comment portal say that such an effort by itself will not prevent the decline of population in rural areas and smaller cities (regcomment.ru/reviews/aglomeratsionnye-svyazi-vmesto-izyatiya-deneg-kak-vyrovnyat-razvitie-regionov-bez-konfliktov/).

            Artemy Vvedensky, head of the Russian Field polling organization, says that Moscow must first of all distinguish two different reasons for rural depopulation: the natural loss of people by aging and the outflow of younger people. Any strategy that focuses only on one of these issues won’t work for all.

            He adds that “according to our research,” young Russians in rural areas and smaller cities “don’t leave for money.” Instead, they seek places where they can interact with others of their own age and interests. Those are more common in larger cities than in smaller ones and especially than in villages.

            And Vvedensky says that the most interesting finding of his research is that once people make a move from a village to a small city, they are more likely to move on to larger ones, having learned that they can adapt and therefore that a further move to an ever larger city or even abroad seems entirely reasonable.

            Stanislav Koryakin, a political consultant who is a member of Russia’s Public Chamber, says that the main task is to avoid trying to hold people “administratively” but rather to “create conditions” under which the decision to remain in rural areas or small cities is “a conscious choice.”

            That will be possible only if the government works to ensure “a comparable basic standard of living, regardless of the remoteness of the territory,” he says, something that is now not being done. And a standard of living involves not just pay but a sense that there is justice for all.

            And Igor Dachenkov, director of the Region Media group, says the government has to think bigger. Even if a young person can work remotely in a village, what will he do if he gets sick and there is no hospital?  Accordingly, the provision of “basic social infrastructure” is more important that creating any “digital environment.”