Russia’s Parallel Worlds
Dynamic Centres, Stagnating Periphery
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Russia consists of three parallel worlds. A third of the population each lives in the modern cities, the Soviet-style industrial cities, and the countryside. Politics and business are concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the other twelve cities with over one million inhabitants; the situation is characterised by migration and modernisation. A rapid change in values is taking place there; the educated population demands political reform. The ruling regime, however, mainly relies on the majority of the population from the old, state-subsidised industrial cities and the patriarchal-oriented periphery.
(Osteuropa 6-8/2012, pp. 263–278)