Macro-Regional System Development of Yugra Cities

Brief for GSDR – 2016 Update Macro-regional system development of Yugra cities A. Vykhodtсev, N. Voitik, I. Akhmedova, Tyumen State University, Russia* Introduction town (the Russian term of that time "town" meant any inhabited locality, surrounded by a Nowadays Khanty-Mansy Autonomous Dis- defensive wall). Most of these principalities and trict is the most urban area in Russia and the Eur- their capital cities-towns ceased to exist by the asian continent. The area with severe climatic end of the 16th century. conditions and rich oil resources attracts labour migrants. During the resources development no In the 16-17 centuries the colonization of one knew that after a time big cities would grow Yugra by the Russians had a pronounced military there, gradually becoming urban agglomerations. character that allowed creating conditions for Natural, economic and ecological features of mass development of the territory by farmers Yugra make us looking at the development of the and industrialists. The outposts-cities were built – urbanization process. Obskoy (Mansurov) town (1585, lasted until 1594), Berezov (1593), Surgut (1594) (History..., Historical aspects of urbanization in Yugra 1999, Essays..., 2000). The first settlements appeared on the terri- Due to changing trade routes (Mangazeya tory of Yugra in the upper Paleolith, for example, trade route) and increasing depletion of fur- the unique ancient Neolithic hillfort of Amna in bearing riches of the Priobskaya taiga these set- the pool of the Kazim River in Northern Eurasia. tlements gradually fell into decay. In the first half of the 1st Millennium BC there were large settlements of 30-40 homes up to The Russian Empire policy in the early 20th 300-350 people in communities (History..., 1999, century tended to preserve the fishing grounds of Essays..., 2000, Yugra... 2001). the North Ob in the possession of the Khanty and Mansy, continued to keep the Russian coloniza- War was a constant fact of people’s life in tion in Yugra. The population of Berezov and Sur- the north of Western Siberia. First hillforts – forti- gut didn't exceed 1,500 people (History..., 1999, fied settlements – were being built at the begin- Essays..., 2000). ning of the 1st Millennium BC. In Soviet times, 1930, Vogulsky National In the Middle Ages the Principalities of Okrug was established. The construction of a new Yugra were formed, quite small groups of peoples settlement for the district centre Ostyako- close by the origin and language lived nearby one Vogulsk began 5 km from Samarovo. In 1940 it river system. Those times the unfortified settle- was renamed in Khanty-Mansiysk town, and, the ments – yurtas (in the Khanty language "kurt" - Okrug was accordingly renamed Khanty-Mansy settlement) were being massively built, and in- Autonomous Okrug. habited by the bulk of the taiga population. The capitals of the principalities were small towns In 1950 Khanty-Mansiysk received the city (Tapar-vosh, Samar-vosh (Samarov Gorodok), status. It had become the first city since Berezovo Lyapin, Karta-ush, Bardakov Gorodok), as they and Surgut lost their importance in the late 19th were located in the inland. The fact allowed them century due to the small number of population. to be protected from unexpected attacks of ene- mies (History..., 1999, Essays..., 2000, Yugra... In the 1960s, the transformation of rural 2001). The Prince's residence was not definitely a settlements into urban ones (Igrim, Megion, *The views and opinions expressed are the authors’ and do not represent those of the Secretariat of the United Nations. Online publication or dissemination does not imply endorsement by the United Nations. Nizhnevartovsk, Mezhdurechenskiy) began. The Stages of urbanization in Yugra Okrug's population numbered 123,9 thousand people (History..., 1999, Essays..., 2000). 1538.6 1368.3 1597.2 1268.4 Discovering and exploitation of huge oil and gas deposits on the territory of Yugra had be- 569.1 come a new point in the development of the ur- 271.2 93 124 banization processes since the 1960s. One after 30.16 62.9 78.21 90.88 91.16 91.5892.01 another many urban-type settlements began to 0 1939 г. 1959 г. 1970 г. 1979 г. 1989 г. 2000 г. 2010 г. 2014 г. obtain the status of cities (Surgut, Nizhnevar- tovsk, Kogalym, Nefteyugansk, Langepas, Megion, Raduzhny), as a result in 1980 the level of urbani- Fig. 2. The number of the urban and rural popula- zation was 89%. This process continued in the tion of Yugra from 1939 to 2014 (the top graph – the ur- late 20th century, when a number of settlements ban population, a thousand people, the bottom graph – – Pyt-Yakh (1990), Lentor, Pokachi and Yugorsk the rural population, a thousand people) (1992), Sovietsky (1996) – received the city status (Fig.1.) (Vykhodtсev, 2005). The analysis of Fig. 2 allows allocating three stages in the process of Yugra urbanization. Its first phase covered the beginning of Russian col- 6 5 onization from the 16th century until the first city was the administrative centre of Khanty-Mansy 3 3 Autonomous Okrug. The second stage took place 1 1 in the second half of the 20th century, this stage 0 was characterized by faster growth of urban population (the share of urban population increased three times from 40 thousand to 1200 thousand people in 1960- 2000 ), and the spread of urbanization in almost all areas of the Okrug. This stage Fig.1. The distribution of cities in Yugra according is characterized by accelerating the pace of to the periods of obtaining the city status (Vykhodtсev, growth of urban population (increased by more 2008) than 1 million people), but the emergence of such new factors of development, as the appearance In the mid-20th century, with the appear- and dramatic growth of cities and urban-type set- ance of the first city, Yugra indicators of urbaniza- tlements, transfer towns to cities, spread of ur- tion were very low, we can say, rudimentary, but ban lifestyles in rural areas (Fig. 3., Fig. 4.). At this firstly they slowly increased, and then faster and stage, urbanization has become completely terri- faster later on. torial process, covering the whole Okrug. города increase in the number of large cities and their 28 25 shares in total and urban population. Statistics 23 18 shows that the Okrug had 2 cities with the popu- 16 lation over 100 thousand people (Surgut, Nizhne- 11 vartovsk), which were home to 38% of the total 5 4 5 3 2 2 population in 1979. The number of such cities in- 01 0 01 0 0 1 creased to 3 (Nefteyugansk joined ), and their share in the district population rose to 43.5% in 2003. Thirdly, there is the rapid growth and the 1580-1589 1590-1600 1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 role of urbanised territories (future urban agglomerations – Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk), * cities ▬ ** urban-type settlements ▬ which have already actually, in the current stage, Fig. 3. The change in the number of cities and ur- replaced a "separate" city (Vykhodtсev, 2007, ban-type settlements in Yugra in 1580-1999, (Vykhodtсev, Vykhodtсev 2008, Vykhodtсev, Sokolov, 2009). 2008) Finally, the third stage refers to the begin- 1950-1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 3 ning of the 2000s and in our days, is c haracterized 1980-1989 1990-1999 by slow but steady growth of population, and the 1 111 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 share of urban population (the population increased in about 200 thousand people in 2000- 2014, and the share of the urban population was 0.85% up to 92,01%). Ханты-… Нижнева… Советски… Октябрьс… Белоярск… Кондинск… Сургутски… Нефтеюга… Conclusion * Despite the fact that urbanization has be- Fig. 4. The distribution of cities in Yugra on admin- come a process, which has many similar features, istrative areas available in 2014, according to the periods of obtaining the city status (Beloyarsky district, Oktybrsky modern urbanization could not be characterized district, Sovetsky district, Kondinsky district, Surgutsky as homogeneous. On the contrary, it is character- district, Khanty-Mansy district, Nefteyugansky district, ized by a very large diversity, different conditions Nizhnevartovsky district) (Vykhodtсev, 2008) peculiar to their composite features – areas. The second stage can be completely called Yugra embarked on the path of urbaniza- "urban explosion" in Yugra. It is easy to notice tion only in the second half of the 20th century, that it coincided with the development of oil focuses largely on a different model than the fields and the migration (population growth of Russian one, combining demographic growth and the Okrug was carried out mechanically, through growth of the urban population. The urbanization the employment of temporary, shift and perma- in Yugra is defined by the high rates of urban nent migration from the regions and republics of population growth; it spreads predominantly, the USSR). covering new territories. And its main driving The characteristic features of the "urban force remains the migration to the host cities explosion" in Yugra can be determined as follows: which cannot fully provide neither housing nor first, it is the growth rate of the urban population. employment, as migrants have low labour skills, Over the last forty years of the 20th century it lack of knowledge of the Russian language, poor was annually increased in the Okrug by 1.48%, social adaptation in the city society. and only in the early 21st century, this rate dropped to 0.06%. Secondly, there is the rapid The main objective is sustainability in the raphy Publishing House SB RAS, 2007. - P. development of macro-regional urban system in 45-48. Yugra, the application of individual approach to Vykhodtсev A.M., Vaver O.J.

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