Ideas and Ideals

This article examines the dynamics of the process of geographical perception of Siberia, in the aspect of the forming of the idea of Siberia as geographical and cultural unity. There are presented, in particular, quite legendary testimonies of foreign travelers who almost up to the end of the 17th century were getting pretty random information from Russian merchants; some data from the proper Siberian Chronicles is also given. Taking into account the idea of empire as a political structure that prevailed in the last 2,500 years of human history, author deals with the cultural and political factors which has determined the integrity of the idea of Siberia as a specific megaregion. Particularly the question of the nature of the development of Siberia in terms of the corresponding type of colonization is examined. It is concluded that the population of Siberia, despite the fact that it was used and even became in the first place famous as a region of exile, the consciousness of Siberians is not typical for colonial territory. Since the end of the 18th century the representation of a Siberian as a special group of the Russian population is firmly established.

In this article a reader can find the continuation of the offered in the previous publications the analysis of the concept Siberia as a megaregion. Understanding Siberia as the megaregion plays an exceptionally important role in contemporary geopolitics, taking into account the position of this megaregion, concerning China and South-Eastern Asia. No less significant appears to be the economic capacity of Siberia, taking into consideration it’s natural resources and also it’s industrial, scientific and educational levels. The concept of the megaregion allows to observe Siberia in it’s entity, from the Urals up to the Pacific Ocean. Such an attitude permits to get rid of the “fragment” approach, i.e. division into separate, weakly connected, regions and national territories. Popular in the Russian economic discourse the notion “macroregion” has purely economic character and in difference from “magerarion” doesn’t involve historic, social and cultural dimensions. In the case of New Industrial Revolution there are new opportunities for Siberia, depending on the rebirth of industrial production on the basis of modernization and innovations, and also launching the original projects. Siberia as Russia in whole needs this innovative impulse not only in the sphere of economics, but also in education and science. The positive results will be possible by saving and renewing basic values and cores of successful strategic projects. To reach ambitious aims it’s necessary to have highly-qualified specialists and investments in R&D. It’s important to shift social responses from the plain consumption to the authentic productive labor thru realizing such values as justice and equality.

Concept of megaregion Siberia suggests the observation of this enormous territory from the Urals up to the Pacific Ocean as the genuine entity of its basic characteristics, i.e. space, history and culture. The offered approach allows us anew to build up the geopolitical strategy of Russia towards the countries of Asian-Pacific Region. Resource abundance of megaregion Siberia and its close proximity to emerging powers of Asian-Pacific Region create the premises for fruitful economic cooperation and bring benefits for geopolitical strategy of Russia. The realization of national interests chiefly depends on several factors such as quickness of intervention, market scale, dynamics of investments and ability to set up multi-sector coalitions. Energy sustainability allows Russia to use the dynamics of rapidly changing energy world, i.e. constraints of fossil fuel supply from the Middle East, globalization of gas supply, issues of climate change, etc. All these give an opportunity to provide security for our country, give an impulse to the Russian economy to catch up with the wave of growth, and preserve the unique nature of megaregion Siberia.

The paper analyzes issues of how regional studies and allied disciplines react upon each other, and what are the main objectives and principles of economic zoning and classifying regions of various sizes accepted in economic science. From the economic point of view, regions are classified mostly proceeding from the purposes of management and analytics. The paper discusses the reasons of economic imperialism, i.e. invasion of economists into the adjacent fields of science. The major feature of an economic approach in historical - economic studies and regional ones is application of economic models, quantitative methods, and their own definitions. The paper presents a brief analysis of the studies concerning Siberia and its regions made by the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in the Soviet and post-Soviet time. Siberia has been an object of cross-disciplinary research at least for two hundred years. The paper also compares the key ideas and approaches of the recent Siberia case-studies carried out by specialists of various sciences. The concept of megaregion from the point of view of economical science is discussed, and the corresponding directions of further research of Siberia are set.

Energy in the framework of national economies and megaregions’ moving forward appear to be a meaningful factor of industrial development since the First Industrial Revolution at the end of XVIII-th century. In the article the attention is mostly paid to the dynamics of the industrial and energy exploration of Siberia megaregion, which supposes five significant stages: early one (the end of the XIX century – beginning of the XX century), intensive (between the 1930—50s), mature industrialization (1960—1980s), deindustrialization (the 1990th years) and new industrialization (2010—2030s). It’s demonstrated, that these very processes were rather ambiguous, i.e. the change of the leaders in sources of energy, the difference in approaches to the use of foreign technologies, the diversity in demand on well-trained labor force and engineering knowledge, the race between manufacturing and energy on the economic landscape of Siberia. Retrospective analysis is important for assessing the priorities for new industrialization in the Siberia megaregion, which is necessary to make up on the basis of advanced manufacturing and not only follow the well-known actual advantages of the megaregion as the possessor of the abundant natural resources and previous years accumulated the industrial capacity on the basis of located in Siberia different enterprises, i.e. military, nuclear, space, etc.

In the proposed article a comparatively novel concept of megaregion has been offered in modern analytical discourse, i.e. by economic, socio-cultural and geopolitical dimensions. The megaregion has been interpreted as the combination or constellation of the regions, close to each other by territory and history, i.e. Space and Time. Different concepts of the megaregion have been observed, i.e. a) geographical and geopolitical determination b) megaurban actual trends c) socio-cultural diversification, consolidated in the “frame” of the megaregion. First of all, and mostly, the work is correlated with the exact enormous by its space and resources the megaregion Siberia, which, according to the world classification spreads from the Urals up to the Pacific Ocean. Conceptual analysis of any megaregion suggests it to be carried put by the temporal (historical) and special (geographical) squares and along three axes — economic, socio-cultural and geopolitical ones. Without doubt, it’s important to investigate organizational, governing and legal institutions in the context of the megaregion, but this ought to be the subject of the next article.

This article investigates the parameters which allow to consider Siberia in the capacity of a megaregion. From the historical point of view the relationships are analyzed between the state and spontaneous mastering of Siberian territories from the geopolitical and managerial aspect. The role and place of the center of gravity of the Siberian territories is examined, and it is shown that none of the major cities has become such a centre, either economically or culturally. This question is considered also from the point of view of the concept of provinciality. It is shown that the most interesting developmental projects of the Siberian megaregion take it as a whole territory, stretching from the Urals to the Pacific and northward to the Arctic, and only such an approach (not dividing it to particular clusters) can fully reveal its geopolitical significance. Culturally, the difficulty of life in Siberia, as well as the usual diverse contacts of different ethnic and religious groups predetermined the original tolerance of the Siberian population.