Migration processes in rural areas of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, 1989-2002

The aim of this research is to identify the trends and patterns of population migration in rural areas of the Krasnoyarsk Territory in 1989-2002 – during the late Soviet crisis, the collapse of the USSR and the early post-Soviet transformation of Russia. Based on the results of the general population censuses of 1989 and 2002 and current migration statistics, the volume of flows, directions and demographic consequences of intra-regional, interregional and international migration are calculated in the article. Their impact on the number of rural residents in the region is being considered. The scientific novelty lies in the following: it was found that the overall positive balance of migration at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, which caused a short-term mechanical increase in the rural population, was quickly replaced by a steady negative balance, which aggravated the decline in the population that began at that time due to natural reasons. As a result, it was established that intra-regional migration has acquired a depopulatory character. Interregional migration had the same result. The villages of the region have become a territory of continuous exodus of their inhabitants outside the region. Special attention is paid to international migration, represented mainly by the repatriation of the Russian-speaking population from the CIS countries. In 1993-1998, it partially compensated for the demographic losses of the villages of the region, but by 2000 it had exhausted itself. The ethnic emigration of Russian Germans is separately characterized. The article substantiates the applicability of the concept of “resettlement society” to the rural society of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. It is noted that the high mobility of the population was combined with its low rootedness, which increased the instability of its numbers. It is shown how migration in rural areas of the region reflected the general Russian trends of the post-Soviet years and the specific features of Siberia and the region.