Full rebranding

Pskov region, it is necessary to destroy myths and radically change the image

Most experts agree that it is with the border that the main hopes of the Pskov region for a bright future are associated. The only question is, who will use its fruits: although the population of the region is “very tenacious”, but, nevertheless, it has been continuously declining for half a century ...

On May 27, 2004, the North-West Strategic Development Center presented in Zelenogorsk near St. Petersburg to the court of Governor Yevgeny Mikhailov, his colleagues in the North-Western Federal District and, perhaps, the most importantly, plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation, Ilya Klebanov, a strategy for socio-economic development of the Pskov region for the coming years.

The instructive story of the long and thorny path along which the regions had to go, until, according to E. Mikhailov, a certain stability was “achieved”, and, therefore, “it became possible to determine the strategic development of the region in the socio-economic sphere”, is well known enough1.

Of course, you can argue about the advantages of the document developed by the specialists of the CSR. In the region, the development strategy has not yet been presented. Let's hope it will still take place. In the end, it was created in a truly record time: on April 10 this year, during the negotiations of the governor Yevgeny Mikhailov with the supervisor of the Northwest Strategic Development Center Yuri Perelygin, the parties agreed that the protection of the project took place at the end of May, at a meeting of the economic development of the North-Westure Federal District.

Nevertheless, it is important that the Pskov region has finally acquired at least something, more or less like a plan of action, designed for the prospect.

The fact that over the past eight years, the administration of the Pskov region did not consider it necessary to acquire a plan for the strategic development of the region entrusted to its concerns, does not mean that no work was carried out in this direction at all. Of course, the creation of such a strategy is a hard and painstaking work, which, in a good way, should take more than one month. Nevertheless, some projects carried out by the Pskov non -governmental organizations may well claim the role of, if not ready -made modules of the regional strategy, then at least a solid basis for them.

One example of this is the study of the Pskov Center for Social Design “Renaissance” “The influence of European cross -border and border cooperation on the regional economic development of the Pskov region”. The results of the study, which resulted in the publication of the book “Threshold of Europe” 2, were presented in St. Petersburg at the round table “Pskov region in the context of the expansion of the European Union: circumstances, challenges, the choice of development strategy” organized by the Rosbalt news agency.

People associated with the region on duty and by virtue of scientific interests took part in the discussion: Director of the Center for Transfiguration of International Relations of the Faculty of International Relations of LRC Nikolay Megorevich, Deputy Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry in St. Petersburg, Alexander Egorov, Deputy Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Pskov, Vladimir Mikhailov, Director of the Center for Integration Studies and Projects, Boris Kuznetsov, Scientific Head of the Center for Strategic Development of Strategic Development "North-West" Yuri Perelygin.

It is noteworthy that the “round table” was attended by the ex-Pskovites who closely monitor the situation in the region and are not indifferent to its future fate: the chairman of the Committee of Economic Development, the industrial policy and trade of the administration of St. Petersburg, the former vice-governor of the Pskov region (2001-2002) Vladimir Blank and the general director of the Trende (Moscow) company, the first in B. The chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy and the State Service of the Administration of the Pskov Region (1994-1995) Vladimir Vagin.

Pskov "horror stories"

The performances of the participants in the discussion and their comments on the presentation of the project, presented by the director of the Renaissance Center by Leo Schlosberg, allow us to highlight the main blocks of ideas about the region and its prospects, dominated by representatives of the political and expert community.

As the main competitive advantage of the region, most experts unanimously identify its border position. True, this advantage can be interpreted in different ways.

In particular, according to Vladimir Blanc, whose competence sphere of the region included economics, investments and international relations, the task is to clearly explain the negative consequences of a colossal gap in the standard of living on different sides of the border: “The Pskov Region should clearly come to its neighbors and explain the prospect of having a poor, hungry and unprofitable neighbor”.

However, the benefit of the prevailing circumstances can be extracted not only through a banal “blackmail” of a rich neighbor, but also with the help of very specific economic levers. The same form indicates that “by approaching the EU to our borders, the competitiveness of the Pskov region has increased for a while, and quite significantly”, because “in the near future, by 10-15-20 years, the cost of the main resources will be much cheaper than in the European Union ... Our whole economy is built on the operation of natural rent. In this regard, the Pskov region should just take its piece. ”

In this regard, Vladimir Viktorovich is echoed by Nikolai Mezhevich, who stated that "cross -border cooperation, obviously, today in the European line is an imperative of the development of Russian statehood."

As for the “handicap”, which the region received after its Baltic neighbors entered the EU, then, according to him, “ruptures in prices, in the cost of labor resources, in the cost of, let’s say, all factors of production, are temporary, and during this short period of time, it is visible for 3-4 years, it is necessary to gain a foothold and create a certain model of cross-border cooperation.” This task is facilitated by the fact that Pskov region, in fact, borders on the agrarian periphery of the European Union, areas that were considered depressive in Soviet Estonia and Latvia.

Accordingly, N. Mezhevich believes, “we can for a short time, using the fact that our neighbors have not so much, say, Hamburg or Baden-Würtenberg, or Luxembourg, would break into this model of cooperation and offer not a raw material model, but a certain scheme of technological cooperation.”

Pskov "Cacti"

Regarding the second “whale”, on which the “Pskov miracle” should be founded, opinions were divided. The numbers voiced in the message of L. Schlosberg, according to which more than one and a half million people lived in the region in the mid-1950s, and today a little more than seven hundred thousand, served as the basis for a wide variety of conclusions.

For example, V. Blank sees the “essential competitive advantage” of the region that it lives in it “completely viable people who live everywhere, in all conditions”. According to him, “there must be a certain way to live in such a territory in order to live quite effectively, despite everything that happens ... This indicates the strength of the people, their capabilities, their potential, because people want to live-they work there if they didn’t want to leave it a long time ago.”

Honestly, the fact that from Pskov people, if desired, can be “nails”, causes not so much pride in their native land as pessimistic thoughts about what cost and during what processes the steel was “tempered”. This thought, disagreeing with Vladimir Blanc, voiced Nikolai Mezhevich: “The population holds on what, more precisely, sorry, on whom? On the old women who really survived everything that you can survive in this life, and will survive a lot, even if this state offers it. And a demographic curve, a pyramid, she is terrible ... ".

One way or another, but the problem of human resources is definitely facing the area. A fairly radical way to solve it was proposed by the President of the Baltic Club Leonid Karabeshkin. According to him, the problem is that at the moment “part of the population, and in the Pskov region especially, (...) is withdrawn from economic turnover, but, nevertheless, it continues to consume ...”.

Mr. Karabeshkin refers to the experience of the Baltic countries, where the transition to one hundred percent payment of utilities “in fact led to the fact that those people who did not want could not or for other reasons did not work, in fact lost their housing,” which later “the population for a long time agreed to work for a low wage”.

In his opinion, "the period of implementation of social partnership projects has been exhausted, whatever we say there, the time has come for a certain socio-economic Darwinism." This conclusion, quite provocative, in fact, remained in the course of the discussion in fact unanswered. Nevertheless, the fact remains: the population of the Pskov region, surprising Mr. Blanca with their “vitality”, primarily young people, refuses to work for relatively little money, while no one can offer it a decent wage.

Pskov "levers"

However, according to experts, things in the Pskov region are not at all as bad as it might seem at first glance. According to the same Vladimir Blanc, "the size of an unbatabshailled economy of the Pskov region is approximately 45-50%, and in large cities this is less than 25%."

Vladimir Vagin echoes him: “The territory is poor, and the Pskov cities, the same Pskov, are developing quite well, it has the same unnecessary economy that has traditionally been a very good economic foundation of a certain business. The Pskov population does not survive, it lives quite well. ”

At the same time, V. Vagin admits that in the Pskov region there was a "model of regressive, dependent, dependent, closed within these boundaries of the economy." Moreover, in his opinion, the Russian economy as a whole “in general does not need today in the Pskov region, because it lives at the expense of completely different resources, and in the Pskov region there is practically no raw material industry and the processing time, and the boundless time is not expected as such.”

The way out of the current position of vaginas, being a person who is associated today not so much with the economy as with politics, sees in the mobilization of “political will, which is able, firstly, to pay attention to this region, and secondly, to consolidate people in order to do something in this region.” In the end, “regions in which there are no raw materials and mining industry, in Russia there are quite a lot, but there are political regimes, regional political regimes that, having mobilized political will and gathered the population, achieved that a certain, relatively speaking, a civil agreement that allowed this territory to restore a relative order.”

Boris Kuznetsov, director of the St. Petersburg Center for Integration Research and Projects, who sees the exit for the region in his “rebranding”, that is, a total change of image, pretty spoiled in recent years, agrees with him. Otherwise, you can lose the latest human resources: “As far as I see, the problem is that Pskov youth sees their future in the region, that is, the most gifted and promising youth tries to leave for Moscow and St. Petersburg. That is, the problem is why they do not remain in Pskov. Pskov’s future depends on this youth, on promising youth, respectively, the task for Pskov is how to keep this youth ... ”

According to the scientific director of the Center for Strategic Development of the North-West, Yuri Perelygin, it is necessary to destroy "a huge number of myths ... about the Pskov region." “It would be possible to turn them into a resource, because, from my point of view, the resource is not what can be made financially, and the resource is largely such a virtual reality with which managers and persons who make decisions begin to work.”

Summing up the results of the “round table”, the head of the study, Lev Schlosberg, noted: “It is not by chance that we, with a certain share of provocation, information and emotional, called this book“ Threshold of Europe ”. We believe that there is such a threshold, and it must be stepped over. It is actually growing, we must admit it, and this is a challenge to us. We do not believe that only we must step over this threshold, this threshold can and should also step over people who live to the west of us. But there is also a psychological and emotional state of the threshold, which requires a change in your own thinking, changing the approach to resources, changing the understanding of your capabilities and your chances - this is also our inner threshold that requires overcoming. ”

It is difficult to say how the new subtle matters of regional administration will take roots on the Pskov land, whether they can take root for a long time, take root in the corridors of the authorities.

Even if it’s hard to believe in it, but still I want to. After all, we live in Europe.

Maxim Kiselev.

1 See Details: API "Navigator". “An order was given to him: to the north-west” // “Pskov Province”, No. 18 (188) of May 19, 2004

2 Full text of the book “Threshold of Europe. The influence of European cross -border and border cooperation on the regional economic development of the Pskov region can be found on the website of the API “Navigator” www.navigator. Pskovregion.org .