Community Vulnerability, Climate Change, and Economic Rationality in the Magadan Region, Russian Far North

This paper addresses issues of community viability and sustainability in the Magadan Region (Kolyma) in the Russian Far North. The establishment of the Magadan Region, an heir to the Dal'stroi Trust set up in 1931 for the mining of mineral resources integral for the development of Stalin's rapid industrialisation plan, aimed at creating clusters of permanent settlements comprised of mostly transient populations. Although during the Soviet time the regional population had been growing steadily, beginning in the mid-1980s, the region experienced a massive out-migration, where over 50% of the population had left the Kolyma. Many communities were closed down, becoming ghost towns. A recent multi-sited inquiry regarding the future of the region indicates that neither global warming nor climate change are figured strongly, if at all, in the private or official views on community viability in this region. The Arctic environment does play a decisive role in considerations regarding the development of businesses and infrastructures, but only as far as the severity of the climate is concerned. In this particular environment, and given the regional isolation and absence of road and rail networks connecting it to the materik, or mainland Russia, the costs of building and maintaining infrastructures and businesses are much higher than in more temperate climates. Within the Kolyma region, considerable economic investments are required to provide comfortable working and living conditions. Using examples of the construction of two local hydroelectric stations, as well as the gold mining industry, I argue that the state of the world economy along with local socio-economic and political changes are seen as exerting just as significant, if not greater, influence on these northern populations as the climate itself.