Transition in a Cold Climate: Management Regimes and Rural Marginalisation in Northwest Russia

• Published in: Sociologia Ruralis
• Main Authors: Eikeland, Sveinung, Riabova, Larissa
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2002
• Subjects: Murmansk; Murmansk Oblast; Northwest Russia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9523.00214; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2F1467-9523.00214; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9523.00214

This paper examines why and how the development of the forestry and fishery sectors in Northwest Russia have taken very different trajectories during the transition period and examines the impacts of these trajectories on the rural areas concerned. The drive to establish natural resources as “resources” in an economic sense during the transition period acts as the starting point for the analysis. However, the success of this drive has depended on the adaptation of formerly Soviet institutions to the new circumstances. These include the privatisation of Soviet production units (lespromkhozes and fishery kolkhozes) and the introduction of new systems for the distribution of fish and forest resources (auctions and quotas). From the analysis of data collected from four types of actors in Murmansk Oblast (a collective fishing farm, State owned logging companies in forestry villages, fishery management units and local forest management structures), the paper seeks to present these actors’ adaptations, changes, opportunities and ultimately destiny during the 1990s.