THE MULTISTRUCTURE OF THE CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC REGION IN RUSSIA: ARCHAIZATION, AGRARIANIZATION AND MIGRATION (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF TYVA)

Abstract

The article considers the features of the contemporary rural development of the Russian ethnic region on the example of the Republic of Tyva. In 2017, according to the official statistics, it was the poorest Russian region by the share of the rural population below the poverty line. This situation was determined by a number of factors exacerbating Tuva’s economic depression: its being a periphery and its remoteness from economic centers, stagnation and impossibility to revitalize the industrial complex, destruction of the agricultural sector, a high share of the shadow economy, and so on. The reason for the economic stagnation is the agrarian path of Tyva chosen by the regional elites, which consists of the support for small archaic agricultural production as an ethnic type of activity. The article describes the vectors of the contemporary rural development of the Republic of Tyva, its economic and ethnic-social features, and changes determined by the large transfers from the federal budget to the regional economy. Today, there is spatial polarization and rural depopulation in the depressed agrarian regions, and the cities remain the main centers of population concentration (mainly the city of Kyzyl).