Translated material
Second trip to the Pacific Ocean
The Russian state is ready to invest in new settlement of the Far East
The Far East can be called the stepson of Russia. The gigantic region on the Pacific borders of the power has been considered the most lagging behind in recent years. The population is gradually leaving for other regions of the country. Nearby is rapidly growing China, which is often cited as a potential threat to neighboring Russian territories. At least no one denies that in comparison with our neighbors we are losing in all respects. We are not yet able to develop and populate the Far East the way the Chinese are developing their right bank of the Amur.In recent years, it has become clear that the government is ready to spend significant money on the Far East. It is expected that they will be able to give impetus to the economy of the region. Over the next six years, 566 billion rubles will be pumped into the Amur region, Primorye, Yakutia, and Sakhalin according to Moscow plans. Federal authorities hope that this will also stop the migration of people from the region, which lost more than a million people in the 1990s and 2000s. Perhaps this will work out, as it happened in previous centuries. Until now, the active settlement of the Far East by the Russian population most often took place under the control of the state, which stimulated the development of distant lands.
Okhotsk route
To begin with, we note that a century and a half ago we went to the Pacific Ocean in a completely different way and not where we are now. The currently inhabited part of the Russian Far East is primarily Primorye, Sakhalin, and the left bank of the Amur. Here are the largest cities and the main settled life. But the Russian pioneers went east much further north. The key points here were Yakutsk, founded in 1632, and Okhotsk - a small fort, and now just an urban settlement that gave its name to a huge sea. The Cossacks came here in 1647. At that time, Russian settlers were actively developing the northern regions, moving along the Lena, Kolyma, and Indigirka. At the beginning of the 18th century, the development of Kamchatka began, and at the end of the century, the Russians reached Alaska.
But if you look at the modern map of the Russian Far East, it turns out that all these territories - the Magadan region, the Kamchatka Territory, Chukotka, the north of the Khabarovsk Territory - remained almost undeveloped. About 600 thousand people now live on this vast territory, with almost half living in the two largest cities - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Magadan. Nowadays, only the south of the Far East is more or less densely populated - those territories where Russia really came only in the 19th century. The reason for this can be considered both by China, which held back Russian expansion for 180 years, and by the fact that this expansion itself until the 19th century was, to put it mildly, not very persistent.
"Chinese" pause
The key document that regulated the distribution of the territories of Primorye and the Amur region for almost two centuries was the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689. The Chinese, concerned about the appearance of Russian settlements in the middle reaches of the Amur, conducted a successful military campaign in the region, capturing the Albazino fort in 1685 - the easternmost point where the Cossacks managed to advance. Four years later, an agreement was concluded prohibiting Russians from settling in the middle reaches of the Amur. This left us with the only way to develop the Far East - through the Lena and Kolyma Territory to the Sea of Okhotsk.
The situation changed only in the middle of the 19th century, when the Russian Empire had enough strength and means for territorial expansion in the Amur region. And by 1860, China surrendered the south of the Far East: according to the Beijing Treaty of 1860, the border between the empires ran along the Amur and Ussuri. Only from this moment Russia was able to begin the development of these regions: in the same 1860, Vladivostok was founded in the Peter the Great Gulf, two years earlier Khabarovka - the future Khabarovsk - appeared.
The settlement of the south of the Far East was seriously facilitated by the policy of the Chinese in the 17th-19th centuries. Without allowing the Russians to develop the Amur region, the Beijing emperors forbade their subjects to settle in this region. The “Iron Curtain” led to the fact that the Russians in the 19th century came to an almost undeveloped territory: except for a small number of indigenous peoples, there was no one here. However, then the Russians in the Far East could well be considered a small nation. For example, by the end of the 19th century, the population of Khabarovsk was only 15 thousand people, Vladivostok - about 29 thousand people. However, the settlement of neighboring Eastern Siberia did not proceed at a rapid pace: Irkutsk at the same time numbered 51 thousand people, Krasnoyarsk even less - 29 thousand.
Exiles, military, geologists
The development of the Far East and Siberia followed several standard schemes. The most famous, but apparently far from the most important in history, is the exiled convict. This is how Sakhalin, Transbaikalia, and Kolyma were “settled,” but exiles and camp inmates try to return to the mainland after serving their sentences. On the contrary, the first waves of migration in the 17th-18th centuries were a military-economic settlement. The Siberian Cossacks moved east primarily for furs, establishing their power by force, establishing fortresses and imposing tribute on the local population. But this wave in the Far East was extremely small. Later, by the 19th century, the economic and military models of resettlement were separated and operated independently - much more successfully.
Most of the current cities and towns of the Far East, founded in the century before last, were founded either as border fortresses, or as military ports or garrisons. Vladivostok appeared due to the fact that the Golden Horn Bay was considered by Governor General Muravyov-Amursky to be an ideal place for the fleet, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk grew out of border military posts. The now small town of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur was also initially a naval station, and new life was given to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky by the construction of fortifications in Avacha Bay shortly before the Crimean War. In Soviet times, military construction continued: Vilyuchinsk (formerly Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky-50) - the main base of the Soviet and Russian submarine fleet in the Pacific Ocean, Bolshoi Kamen in Primorye - a submarine repair plant, the area of the city of Svobodny in the Amur region - this is the former cosmodrome and location of missile units, as well as a long-range aviation base, etc.
Economic migration in the Far East followed the same paths as in Siberia: as a rule, people followed geologists to mineral deposits. But if to the west the main territories where the long ruble was found were the oil and gas basins of the West Siberian Plain, the coal mines of Kuzbass, and the ore deposits of Taimyr, then in the Far East gold and diamonds were at the forefront of everything - Yakutia, Kolyma, Chukotka, formerly the Khabarovsk Territory. In addition, cities were built in coal mining areas on Sakhalin and Primorye. Another economic factor that attracted the population were ports - in this case, not only military, but also peaceful, fishing and commercial, for example Nakhodka.
Along the Trans-Siberian
Perhaps the key factor in the development and settlement of the Far East was the Trans-Siberian Railway, completed just before the revolution, in 1916. This road became the main route connecting the east of the country with the European part of Russia (note that there is still no good road in the area between Transbaikalia and the Amur region). Without the Trans-Siberian Railway, the settlement of the Far East would have progressed even more slowly, but, oddly enough, the Trans-Siberian Railway itself became a natural limiter to the development of this region. It is along this railway that the main populated areas and large cities are now located. Outside of the Trans-Siberian Railway it’s not that there is no life at all, but there is very little of it.
So, on the Trans-Siberian Railway or next to it are the largest cities of the Far East - Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Nakhodka, Artem, Ussuriysk, Birobidzhan. The third largest city in the federal district, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, stands on a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway, leading to the strait between Sakhalin and the mainland. Outside this territory in the Far Eastern Federal District there are only three settlements where more than 100 thousand people live - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Yakutsk (one can only remember Magadan, which has fallen below this mark in recent years).
As a result, an amazing disproportion has arisen: most of our territories in this region are almost uninhabited, but there is a “hyper-urbanized” south, where Primorye is in the lead. However, there is also a division here: according to various sources, there are two million people in the region, but more than half of all residents are clustered in the Peter the Great Bay area - in Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Ussuriysk, Artyom and neighboring villages. In general, 2,834 thousand people live in the 11 largest cities of the Far Eastern Federal District, but this accounts for 43% of the total population of the Far East.
State people
Speaking about the underpopulation of the Russian Far East, one can, of course, refer to the difficult natural conditions. But both Siberia and the neighboring provinces of China can boast of a difficult climate. However, the situation there is still better. For example, in the Siberian Federal District there are two million-plus cities - Omsk and Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk with almost a million people, the so-called. Irkutsk agglomeration (Irkutsk and satellite cities with a total population of over a million people), dozens of cities with a population of over a hundred thousand people, etc. Tens of millions of people live in neighboring regions of China (north of Vladivostok). And in our Far East there are 6.8 million people and a dangerous tendency for people to migrate to the west of the country.
There is another explanation: the Far East was populated by the will of the state and began to lose population as soon as Moscow left it to its own fate. It is impossible not to notice that the Russians almost never went to the Pacific Ocean on their own. And almost all migration waves would not have taken place if the central government had not directly or indirectly stimulated the development of the region. Only pioneers in the 17th century came here of their own free will, but their number was extremely small.
The first large wave of settlers came to the Far East in the second half of the 19th century - together with the military, a new border was being developed. But even the discovery of gold reserves did not lead to mass migration. For comparison, we can recall that the gold rush in California in the middle of the last century led to the immediate departure of several hundred thousand people to the Pacific coast of the United States and gave rise to the transformation of this remote wilderness into a prosperous and densely populated territory. State-sponsored peasant resettlement programs in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries led to increased migration to the Pacific region, but did not have a significant impact.
The sharp increase in the population of the Far East began only in the 20th century. The most famous state project that united all settlement schemes can be considered Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Built in the 1930s by the hands of prisoners, the city even now has a population of 275 thousand people. Moreover, it works for both military and civilian industries (in addition to the famous aircraft manufacturing plant, there are also quite “civilian” production facilities). But by and large, Komsomolsk-on-Amur was one such project in the Far East.
Return of the State Planning Committee
The last Soviet project for the development of the Far East was the Baikal-Amur Mainline - a backup of the Trans-Siberian Railway, passing north of the old route. Started in the 70s of the last century, it was roughly finished by the end of perestroika, but certain sections were completed in our time (the famous North-Muysky tunnel was opened only in December 2003). But the success of the Trans-Siberian Railway was not repeated - most of the Bamov settlements never became full-fledged cities and exist rather by inertia. There is, however, a point of view that BAM was simply late: the highway was built just when state injections into the economy stopped. The road turned out to be unnecessary; without the State Planning Committee, no one wanted to develop the territories around the highway.
Apparently, when the question arose that the Far East was losing population, the government decided that nothing better could be invented than the Soviet method of state financing for the development of the region. Therefore, it is expected that in the coming years there should be a return of the state. The Far East was promised 566 billion rubles by 2013. This figure was announced by the government commission for the development of the region in early August 2007. Of these, more than 426 billion rubles. - This is money from the federal budget, the rest is expected to be provided by local authorities and private business. This fits well into the historical pattern: the state invests in the Far East without expecting initiative from people and businesses.
Roads and demographics
It appears that most of the money that will be spent in the Pacific will go into transportation. Now two large and very expensive projects are already being implemented here. Firstly, the “eastern pipeline”, through which oil from East Siberian fields should reach Skovorodino near the Amur by the beginning of 2009, and in the next decade - to coastal ports. Secondly, the railway to Yakutsk is a most complex project, which they did not dare to attempt even in the era of Komsomol construction projects. The program included 30 billion rubles for the last construction project. In addition, roads, energy facilities and even an “office and health” complex should be built on Russky Island near Vladivostok. It is planned to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit there in 2012, for which the former military base is planned to be turned into a hybrid resort with a business center connected by a bridge to the mainland of the city. The program has allocated 100 billion rubles for this.
The development program for the Far East and Transbaikalia also includes demographic targets. Thus, it is assumed that the success of the projects will increase the population of the region by 10%. Perhaps we still can’t compete with the Chinese. Although, it may be possible to reverse the trend and stop the migration of the population. Which in itself would be a great success.