Surviving the Margins in Post-Soviet Russia: Forestry Villages in Northern Perm Oblast

The authors, based on extensive field work in northern Perm' Oblast, investigate how people who cannot or do not wish to leave Russia's economic and geographic margins survive, in this case using “subsidiary plots” and forest resources. Northern Perm' Oblast, one of the northern areas that became “overpopulated” during the Soviet period (in this instance, through forest-industry development), since the USSR's collapse has suffered from loss of the subsidy that previously maintained the standard of living of forestry workers. The paper discusses economic disengagement in the region and its effects on the lives of people who have decided to remain.