This study has been partially supported by the grant “Economic and Environmental Aspects in the Development of Arctic Regions of the Russian Far East” (The Fundamental Research Program of the Presidium of RAS No. 44 P “Exploratory Fundamental Research in the Interests of Developing the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation”).
This study has been partially supported by the grant “Economic and Environmental Aspects in the Development of Arctic Regions of the Russian Far East” (The Fundamental Research Program of the Presidium of RAS No. 44 P “Exploratory Fundamental Research in the Interests of Developing the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation”).
The article discusses the economic phenomenon of Arctic “islands”. These territories of the Russian Arctic are inaccessible to transport all year round and significantly differ from other regions of Russian and North European Arctic. The economy of these Arctic “islands” is examined by using the example of Nenets and Chukotka Autonomous Districts. Despite a significant “similarity of appearance” in terms of their economic and social parameters, at a closer look, these two regions show considerable internal differences. To identify them, the authors used a theoretical view of the Arctic economy as a unity of three sectors, including traditional sector, corporate (market) sector, and transfer-based (state) sector in a comparative analysis. Each sector has its key contradictions, structure and its own trajectory of evolution. The corporate sector in the economy of Nenets Autonomous District is significantly younger than the one in Chukotka, since the oil and gas development began there comparatively recently. A relatively long-standing gold mining operations in Chukotka allows to refer this Arctic region to the old industrial areas. The profitability of gold production there is significantly lower than the one of the Nenets oil. Therefore, the authors propose to refer the economy of Nenets Autonomous District to the rent-based model, while the economy of Chukotka Autonomous District is referred to the transfer-based model. The differences in the transfer-based sectors of the two Districts are affected not only by the variance in the amounts of regional budgets, but also by the urban structure of population settlement, which is centralized in Nenets Autonomous District and polycentric in Chukotka. This means that the areas of health care, culture in Nenets Autonomous District are mostly bound to Naryan-Mar, its capital, while social infrastructure facilities in Chukotka are substantially decentralized and scattered across the regional and district centers.