This is the second edition of a work which first appeared in 1999 and, as such, is a compact and convenient volume of essential information for anyone dealing directly with Russia, either for study or for business.
We are told that The Territories of the Russian Federation aims to present an insight into an aspect of modern Russia which must be grasped if the country as a whole is to be understood. Russia is a Federal State which is still emerging ‐ huge changes and upheavals have taken place since Mikhail Gorbachev first coined the phrase “glasnost” at the Congress of the CPSU in 1986 and the emergence of Vladimir Putin as Federal President early in the year 2000. During this period the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia achieved independence in September 1991; a commonwealth of independent states formed from former Union Republics also came into being, most notably Kazakhstan, Belarus and the Ukraine; and the Federation of Russian States began to take form. Thus the territories of the Russian Federation comprise the 89 remaining parts of the old CPSU that did not break away or become independent during this period. However, these are not 89 units of equal status, nor is there comparable information on all of them. It will be seen from the main body of this reference work that there is huge economic and social disparity between regions.
These 89 units are divided into autonomous republics (21), krais or provinces (six), oblasts or regions (49), two cities of federal status, one autonomous oblast (Jewish) and ten autonomous okrugs or districts. Readers of this work would be well advised to read the excellent introduction and chronology of Russia which precedes the main body of the text. This will help to put them in the picture. Understanding the present structure of the Federation is not easy and a great deal of bureaucracy (a hang over from Communist times) is still in place.
However, the editors have striven to bring all available information and statistics into accessible form and their work has been exceedingly thorough. One must bear in mind that some of the statistics have been drawn from sources which are now out of date and it is no fault of the editors that these were the only ones available at the time of writing. A list of government officials and ministries precedes the territorial surveys and two maps show the location of all republics in both European and Asian Russia. Here the publishers assumed rather too much knowledge of the geography of Russia and the reviewer found that the easiest way to put the tiny maps and diagrams into context was to get out the Times Atlas of the World and sit the small scale maps in the book next to a large map of Europe and Asia in order to locate each region. Perhaps a large‐scale fold out map enclosed with the text might have helped here. One can only conclude that the Russian Federation must be near impossible to govern, given the diversity and regional economic differences between states and areas. No matter, Vladimir Putin’s e‐mail address is there for all to find out!
There follows a section on each of the autonomous republics, krais and oblasts etc. with a small map of each state and a descriptive piece on both the history and economy. Details of chief officials are given. Each region is numbered and can be located on the main maps. These surveys show up the tremendous regional differences, the economic poverty of many areas and the difficulties faced by Putin in Moscow thousands of miles away from such regions as the Maritime Krai of Primorskii on the Japan Sea with its port of Vladivostok. The whole survey is a fascinating wealth of detail about a practically ungovernable federation of states that are as diverse as the European Economic Community and with dozens of different languages (despite Russian being the “official language”) and considerable ethnic differences.
An alphabetic list of territories and a gazetteer of alternative names brings this impressive work to a close. There is also a list of economic areas. It fills a valuable gap in the literature of modern Russia and thus is a must for the reference shelves. A fold‐out map would be a useful accompaniment, but otherwise, the editors have been thorough in their compilation of statistics, facts and regional data.
