Development of the Post-Soviet Agricultural Sector and Rural Spatial Polarization in European Russia

The article uses polyscale approach to expand on the specifics of the contemporary spatial organization of agriculture based on the example of the European Russia, its center, Yaroslavl Oblast, and separate municipalities. The study reveals the following trends: the resurrection of agriculture after 1990s crisis caused mainly by industrial agricultural production and expansion of agro-holdings; in many regions, especially in the Non-Chernozem region, it happened sporadically when abandoning vast agricultural lands; recovery was accompanied by ‘moving’ production to regions rich in resources or labor and closer to consumers; increasing polarization along the ‘North – South’ and ‘Suburb – Periphery’ scales. The growth of vertically integrated structures in the agro-industrial sector has improved food security in the cities, but adversely affected the countryside. This led to strong polarization, fragmentation of rural space and increasing out-migration of people from the economically failing regions. The development of innovative centers went hand in hand with the expansion of economically depressive and archaic countryside, characterized by long-term unemployment, during which even the loss of usual sources wasn’t followed by the resurgence of small private enterprises. Labor became the key for both small and large businesses. The rural population adapted to unemployment and poverty through shadow work, including othodnichestvo (temporary labor migration) and semi-subsistence economy, not through development of farming. Economy fueled by the ‘dachas’, while might slow down social desertion, cannot solve the issue of polarizing rural space