ИСТИНА

Russia is one of world leaders by area of rural territories, but this enormous resource is not being efficiently used. By total amount of rural population – 37,3 million inhabitants it stays only in the bottom of the 2nd top ten countries, and this number is shrinking. Geographical diversity of Russia and unequal progress of market economy explain extreme differences in rural areas development. Some of them became depressive and semi-abandoned, while other experience an agri-business boom and suffer from exhausting land use. A tool for understand these differences is a complex typology of rural areas. We present the results of the first approach to this kind of typology of 85 units of Russian Federation (regions). Our research is based on statistical data analysis, including characteristics of demography, settlement, land use, agriculture and social infrastructure. Standard proceeding of cluster analysis was applied, 8 types of regions were defined and mapped. We can conclude that more than 2/3 of Russia is represented by sparsely populated and nearly not affected by agribusiness rural areas, which loose population due to aging and migration. These are the northern regions of European and Asiatic Russia. Decline of agriculture there brought to drastic but positive changes in land use as natural afforestation. The main disadvantage of these regions is remoteness and poor social infrastructure. In the regions with the most favorable natural conditions for agriculture, rural development depends on demographic ‘wellness’ and geographical proximity to urban agglomerations. On the close urban periphery rural areas experience urban sprawl, whereas agriculture is a secondary economic activity. In the breadbaskets of Chernozem zone and European South agribusiness holds all the suitable land and heavily uses it. Commercial crops area reaches ¾ and even more of the corresponding administrative regions territory. Land and labor productivity levels are both high, with obvious consequences for land degradation. The observed differences between administrative regions raise questions on specific policy measures for rural development. Until 2019, it was considered by Russian authorities as a secondary aim after agribusiness support. The new state program of complex development of rural areas approved in 2019 focuses on alternative ways of rural development, which seeks typology of regions as scientific justification.