ИСТИНА

Growing economic inequality between metropolises and rural areas in Europe leads to a migration of young people and subsequently, demographic imbalance. Extreme cases of polarization can be found in post-socialist Russia. A recent study there showed that peripheral regions were losing up to 3% of their rural population annually. The general pattern is that the nearer the village is to a large city, the lesser its population decline. The current picture of rural depopulation is in contrast to the migration patterns of early 1990s, when large centers were losing population, while many of small towns and rural settlements grew. These population dynamics are usually explained in terms of urban economics: an industrial decline during the first years of transition led to out-migration of urban residents, but with the subsequent growth of new urban economies, the migration flows reversed. However, a city-centered explanation obscures the fact that rural areas have also been deeply transformed during the transition, and the changes in rural economy could affect both patterns of rural out-migration and the destination choice of industrial refugees. Adopting the idea of peripheralization as a social process, this paper aims to identify the driving forces of rural population dynamics in Russia from 1990 to 2010. Using the example of Tyumen Oblast, it starts by comparing spatial patterns of rural population change during the early (1990s) and late (2000s) transition periods. It continues by examining the role that structural changes in agriculture played in determining these patterns. The results showed, that over time key factors of population dynamics were changing. The withdrawal of state from economic regulation put territories with better natural and infrastructural conditions in a more advantageous position. However since early 2000s agricultural potential was no longer important for population dynamics, while areas of rural population growth shrinked to metro areas.