Verticals and Horizontals of Rural Tatarstan

Abstract

The article presents the results of the first stage of a joint interdisciplinary project on the study of Russian and Tatar villages in different regions of the Volga and Siberia region, in which sociologists, economists and historians from the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of History of Academy of Sciences of Republic of Tatarstan. During the scientific expedition (July, 2017), a survey was conducted in 10 rural settlements of 5 municipal districts of Republic of Tatarstan. The focus of the study was the features of managing the functioning and development of rural settlements with different national composition. According to the authors, local specificity is largely determined by the high integration of rural self-government into the rigidly subordinated republican vertical of power. There are also noticeable differences between the regions, due to their resource potential, personal qualities and political capital of the heads of regional and rural administrations, their interaction with the republican and local elites. The desire to preserve national identity, the most prominent in settlements with the predominance of the title ethnic group, has a significant impact on local (formal and informal) economic and socio-cultural practices and, finally, on the results of the activities of the rural self-government bodies.