Exclavity under globalization. Selected works

A regional strategy for Kaliningrad

gional strategy as a matter of federal concern. This strategy should both overcome the drawbacks and exploit the advantages of Kaliningrad's geopolitical location. By interacting with Western partners in Kaliningrad, the region's role within Russia would grow. The standard of living of the local residents would rise, and separatism would lose its appeal.

Implementation of the cooperation strategy would enhance the region's economic security, but this is not tantamount to making Kaliningrad self-sufficient. Three essential factors will determine the level, structure and speed of Kaliningrad's economic development, and consequently Kaliningraders' standard of living:

1.The diversification of Russia's economy, with a focus on new sectors like technology and the service industry and extensive development of the Kaliningrad market.

2.Reliable and inexpensive communication and transport networks linking Kaliningrad to the rest of Russia.

3.Mutually beneficial relations between Kaliningrad and its neighbours.

Kaliningrad's economy requires restructuring to reflect the changes in the oblast's external economic environment in the wake of EU enlargement. The interests of Kaliningrad, the Russian Federation and foreign partners need to be taken into account.

If the strategy's proposals are implemented, the target is that Kaliningrad's gross domestic product (GDP) will double by 2010 compared with 2002; there could be a three-fold increase in industrial output; agriculture and transport could expand; and standards of living could rise significantly. To meet these challenges, major increases in investment and foreign investment, currently at a very low level, will be needed. Key factors in this regard are: improving the operational framework of the SEZ, regional economic laws and the federal programme for regional development; a new Russia-EU agreement on Kaliningrad as a pilot region for cooperation; and the creation of an international financial-investment corporation for regional development. Without the effective implementation of such a strategy, Kaliningrad will remain a depressed region, a double periphery of both the Russian Federation and of Europe, isolated and without prospects.

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KALININGRAD OBLAST

AS A REGION OF CO-OPERATION*

The projects of the Baltic Sea region co-operation and the Kaliningrad oblast

Kaliningrad oblast is an active member of a lot of organisations in the Baltic Sea region. The participation in these organisation and their programmes helps practical co-operation development, contacts adjustment, promotion of different regions and investments attraction. But unfortunately, the funding of co-operation projects by Russia (incl. research) is quite low.

One of the projects that might be of interest is VASAB – 2010 (“Eurovision – 2010”) based on such values as development, environmental sustainability, freedom and solidarity. Studying and developing its four spatial elements (listed below) would be very useful for the Kaliningrad oblast:

-cities and urban networks;

-power system and transport networks;

-areas characterised by dynamism and high quality of living (such as, border areas as a tool of international exchange; territories attractive for tourists; coastal zones, demanding special attention; natural and cultural landscapes of a special importance);

-comprehensive spatial planning.

Consideration of the accumulated international experience and practical help, offered by foreign partners, are rather useful for the Kaliningrad region development, because of its enclave position its participation in the integration processes, taking place in the Baltic Sea region, is very important. There is no doubt that partnership of the Kaliningrad region with Baltic organisations and participation in projects is not only useful for our enclave region, but also for Russia as a whole.

The list of projects of the Baltic countries and regions that are being actively implemented includes the following ones:

* Klemeshev Andrey, Fedorov Gennady, Zverev Yuriy. Kaliningrad oblast as a region of co-operation // Region of co-operation. Issue 5 (23). Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad State University Publishing House, 2003.

Kaliningrad oblast as a region of co-operation

“Via-Baltica”, “Via-Hanseatica”– motorways, connecting the countries of the region;

“The Baltic Energy Ring” – the project of energy system development;

“Euro regions” – the project of border regions cooperation;

programmes of the Baltic Sea cities cooperation;

ecological programmes implemented in the Baltic Sea basin;

educational programmes (“The Eurofaculty”, “The International Baltic University”).

The availability of different forms and areas of cooperation raises no doubts – it is already carried out at least in the form of foreign trade, let alone other developing forms, such as joint scientific, ecological, and educational projects. The mechanism of SEZ favours integration processes. Two questions arise in this connection: how close is this cooperation going to be in the future; will the region manage to be part of both Russian and western European (EU) economic space? These issues haven’t been studied yet, let alone the estimated economic efficiency for Russia of different options of the region’s association with the Baltic region countries, the EU etc.

One of the factors of the European countries economic integration is cross-border cooperation that is presently developing and is encouraged by both the EU and the Russian Federation as well as by all other countries of the region. Some activities are carried out within the Euroregions, covering both bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

For the estimation of future processes of economic integration in the Baltic Sea region, strategic research in this area is of interest for the Kaliningrad oblast. Researchers from the Nordic countries, concerned with the outlying geographic position of their states in the EU and the present availability of other growth poles of the European economic structure, act as its ideologists. To counterbalance these axes of development (or being a supplement to them) the basin of the Baltic region is proposed as a new priority zone. And in this region – “the South Baltic growth triangle” (the idea of U. Kivikari, 1998) (fig. 1).

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Fig. 1. Co-operation in the Baltic Sea region:

1 – Co-operation in the Soviet period; 2 – Item, but develops now; 3 – Euroregions; 4 – South-Baltic Growth Triangle.

This idea looks quite attractive for the Kaliningrad region, because its territory fits for the implementation of the project.

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Whether a person considers himself a native of the region, of those born outside it, depends on his personal experience. Among those who were born outside the region but who spent their childhood here the share of the respondents considering themselves natives to a greater or lesser extent is almost 80%, among those who came to the region as adults the share drops to 38%, and among the migrants of 1992-1997 it is reduced to 16%, and finally among the migrants of the past five years it is only 9%.

The common features of the process of social adaptation are such that with the increase in the duration of residence in the new community the migrants become more similar to the indigenous population in their characteristics (in our case to the “conventionally indigenous population”, i.e. those living in the region for more than 10 years). Thus, with the increase in the duration of the migrants’ residence in the region, the number who consider themselves natives increases and the number who consider themselves migrants decreases (Table 1).

Table 1

Self-ranking among the indigenous inhabitants and among migrants who settled in Kaliningrad region during different periods (%)

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Special region of Russia

In connection with the issue of being native in the region the responses to the question “What do you consider your native land?” are of great interest. The place (town, village) where they were born is considered their native land by 39% of the respondents, including those 45% born in the region and 35% of people born in other Russian regions. Russia was named their native land by 31% of all the respondents, by 37% of those born in the region and by 33% of migrants from Russian regions. On average 4% of the respondents in the sample consider the Soviet Union to be their native land, but the share of such respondents varies depending on the place of birth (mostly the respondents born in the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Central Asia are of this opinion).

The choice of answers to the question about the native land is related to the age of the respondent. The older the respondents, the more often they chose the option “USSR” and the more seldom the option “Russia”. Thus, the share of those considering the Soviet Union their native land is the highest within the subgroup of respondents older than 60 years of age (11.7%), and the number of those who consider Russia to be their native land is lowest among them (18.3%).

Table 2

The concept of native land for the respondents of different ages (%)

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Taking into consideration the fact that the Kaliningrad region has some historical and socio-cultural features that are not typical of ordinary Russian regions, the respondents, as well as in the survey of 2001, were asked about their attitude to the pre-war period of its history, to the culture of East Prussia. As it turned out, more than half of the respondents have respect for the pre-war history of the region and the culture of East Prussia. The history and culture of East Prussia are of great interest to a quarter of the respondents. 9% was the share of the respondents who are indifferent to the history of the region, 3% of the respondents said that it is alien to them or their attitude is negative.

Within all the age groups a positive attitude to the “East Prussian” past prevails. The share of the “indifferent” was greatest among the youth (13% among the respondents aged under 23) (Table 3).

Table 3

The attitude to the history of the region and the culture of East Prussia (distributed according to age) (%)

* In brackets the corresponding data of 2001 are given

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Special region of Russia

The inhabitants of the region born outside it are a little more unemotional about the history of the region: the share of the “indifferent” among them is 11%, that is almost twice as high as the similar index for those born in the region. The migrants of the last decade (since 1992) make up the group of the region’s inhabitants for whom its history is of no interest or alien. And among the “younger” emigrants this attitude is expressed more clearly: thus, 15% of the migrants of 1992-1997 are indifferent to the East Prussian past of the region and for 5% of them it is alien, while for the migrants of the past five years the figures are 26% and 11% respectively.

In the course of the survey the respondents were offered a list of different social groups and were asked to assess their closeness to them. As in the survey of 2001, there is a tendency towards a decrease in the frequency of a feeling of closeness to the group with the group’s growth in size: 84% of the respondents often feel close to their families, 57% feel close to their friends, and only 8% of the respondents feel close to all of mankind. The least important communities for the region’s citizens are still such indefinite social entities as the citizens of the CIS countries (only 9% of the respondents often feel close to this community), the Soviet people (13%) and the whole of mankind (8%).

The changes that took place over the course of two years in almost all aspects of the survey are within the limits of the statistical error. Quite a significant trend can be seen concerning the two parameters that are of special interest within our study, i.e. the closeness to the local community and the country (Table 4).

* In brackets the corresponding data of 2001 survey are given.

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Two significant points should be noted. Firstly, the increase in identification with the local community, a phenomenon that is generally not typical of Russia. Secondly, the predominance of the “Russian” identity over the local one and its high significance. One can assume that the trend of the last index is connected with the threat of Kaliningrad region’s being separated from the “greater” Russia that is incited by the mass media.

Different groups of respondents assess differently their closeness to the given social communities and groups.

A disagreement between the representatives of different age groups can be seen. The younger respondents more often feel closeness to their peers (the response “often” was chosen by 56% of the respondents aged under 23, by 44% within the 24 – 30 age group, and also by 44% of respondents in their 30s and by approximately one third of the respondents of over 40 years of age). The respondents of able-bodied age (especially from 30 to 50) more often feel close to the people of the same profession than older respondents. The share of those who often feel close to their friends has dropped noticeably – from 73% in the group of the youngest respondents to 27% in the oldest age group. It is only to the family that the respondents of all age groups feel close with the same frequency.

As regards the identification of different social groups of the region’s citizens with the socio-territorial communities, the respondents born in Kaliningrad region and in the other Russian regions feel close to the Russians approximately with the same frequency (in 46% and 48% of the cases respectively). The respondents born in Kaliningrad and in the other Russian regions feel closeness to the Soviet people a little more seldom than the “representatives” of such former republics of the Union as Kazakhstan, Moldova, and the Baltic states.

As concerns feeling close to the local population, the inhabitants of small towns and villages feel it more often than (the option “often” was chosen in 47% and 49% of the cases respectively), than the inhabitants of the regional centre Kaliningrad (27%). Thus, the extent of identification with the local community again

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