ИСТИНА

Rural development causes significant changes in land use in the present-day Russia. Many rural areas are abandoned, while the other ones suffer intensive agricultural development. Our research includes a study of rural territories of Russian Federation at three levels of administrative division of the country - large regions, municipalities and rural settlements. Several variables were applied for reveal different types of rural development, being very important ones those associated with land use features. As the maps we have composed show, sharp contrasts between European and Asian parts of Russia and between the northern and the southern regions of the country are noticed. Within most of large regions, the core-periphery pattern in land use and social and economic development is highly expressed. The main driving forces, influencing geographical differences in land use and rural development , are the proximity to the cities and other features as, demographic and ethnic structure, seasonality of economic activities, land tenure structure and specialization of agriculture. Regional policy of the state and rural development policy in general also plays an important role. As to the dependence on natural conditions, their influence could not be determined as decisive and direct, even being obvious the contrasts between extremely harsh and mild environment. Analysis of statistical data from population, agricultural censuses and other data sources was completed by case study of several regions: the Republic of Karelia in the north of European Russia and Bryansk oblast in its south, and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in north-east of Eurasia. In all these regions we conducted field studies, which enabled to detect and explain modern trends in rural development and land use changes. Keywords: Rural Development, Land Use Changes, Regional Approach, Russia