ИСТИНА

The purpose of the study is to investigate the situation that emerged in the Extreme North regions as a result of the state policy of the Soviet period, using the example of the demographic trends in the Chukotka as one of the most distal Russian territories with respect to the center of Russia. Previous studies that treated economic factors as the cause of migrant inflow to some region or unfavorable natural conditions as the cause of out-migration of population in a certain region had no purpose of analyzing a separate territory. So, it was impossible to imagine what goes on in a specific territory based on these studies and the peculiarities of each specific region require additional examination. These very tasks were the main target of the given work. The authors examined the factors affecting the formation and abandonment of urban settlements in the territory. Summing up the examination conducted in the Chukotka, all cases of liquidation of “died-out“ urban settlements are united by several common factors. First of all, each was created based on mining enterprises for the production of gold, tin, tungsten, etc. and each also had weak transportation infrastructure. Besides, it should also be noted that all liquidations of settlements occurred before the year 2000, whereupon no further cases of abolishment or change of settlement status were observed. Overall population itself decreased from 164 thousands to 54 thousands in 13 years from 1989 to 2002, but since then Chukotka lost 3 thousands population only in these 14 years until 2016. These figures clearly show that the demographic situation in Chukotka has almost stabilized. The period of sharp crisis following the economic transition has ended. Even so, it seems the issue of changing migration flows adversely into the Extreme North or aiming to establish a production base in the region cannot be appropriate tasks. As claimed by Hill and Gaddy (2003), the burden of sustaining the social base of remote regions was an eternal “curse” of the former Soviet Union. Today’s Chukotka may be an outstanding example of how to overcome this “curse” and solve the dire problems realistically. The experience of Chukotka is an excellent example for interpreting the errors made by the governmental policy for resource development in harsh climatic and natural conditions of remote northern regions.