High Voltage of the City: The Development of Siberian Historical Urban Studies in the Works of an Irkutsk Historian (to the 70th Anniversary of the Birth of Professor Vadim Shakherov)

The article provides the analysis of the main stages in the research career of the famous historian, urbanist and expert in the history of Siberian entrepreneurship, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V. Shakherov. The evolution of the scholar’s scientific interests is highlighted in the text. The author outlines the main areas of the scientist’s research: studying the role of the city in building economic and socio-cultural environment of Siberia in the period from the 18th to the early 20th century, history of merchant class and entrepreneurship in pre-revolutionary Siberia, history of banking and credit system of the region, historic and cultural monuments of Siberia. The article presents the analysis of Shakherov’s major works, which reflect his contribution to the development of Siberian studies. Special attention is paid to his scientific, pedagogical and social activity aimed at preserving historical heritage of Irkutsk. The author of the article emphasizes that the research career of V. Shakherov and History Faculty of Irkutsk State University are tightly connected.

The New Economic Policy: Dimensions of the Study

In September 2021 Novosibirsk hosted The All-Russian Scientific Conference «Russian Economic Reforms in Regional Terms», which was organized with financial support from the fund «Istoria Otechestva» («History of Motherland»). The conference resulted in setting the objective to study the stages of economic reforms, which took place in the territory of Russia and its regions in the late 19th and early 20th century. Another task of the conference was to observe the general and specific influence of spatial factor on the intensions, implementations and results of the reforms. Researchers from different Russian cities presented their findings on agrarian colonization and development of the regions, economic policy and reforming strategies, as well as on changes in the economic governance systems. Since the conference was dedicated to the 100-th anniversary of the NEP, it paid special attention to scientific understanding of general patterns and specific features of the NEP implementation. The review provides information on the main reports and papers, related to the NEP topic. It also presented a summary of the debates, which took place at the round table «The NEP: Results and Research Perspectives».

The Dynamics of the Housing Construction in the Republics of the USSR in the 1920s-1980s

Despite 30 years of market reforms, the main difference between the housing sector in Russia and other post-socialist countries and that of the advanced Western nations lies in housing tenure distribution. In the former states, outright homeowners with property mainly built in the planned economy dominate the market. At the same time, in the latter countries, the majority of households pay rent or take out a mortgage (these types of households account for three-quarters of households in the USA and on average almost two-thirds of households in Western and Northern European nations). This article examines the evolution of main indicators of housing construction in the USSR as well as in the 15 Union republics from 1918 to 1990. The research rests upon a database composed by the author from more than 120 official statistical sources at the national and Republics' level. This work covers not only state housing construction but also individual housing construction as well as housing construction cooperatives in the USSR republics, which the post-Soviet and foreign scholarly literature have often neglected. We identify the main stages of housing construction in the USSR and analyze the data on housing completions in urban and rural areas, the evolution of the housing stock, flats and houses built, and the statistics on the people in the Union Republics who improved their living conditions. The time series collected and per capita indicators across the 15 republics of the USSR calculated by the author, reveal quite synchronized development of their housing sectors. Nevertheless, the three Baltic republics were leaders in many per capita indicators, whereas the RSFSR, the Kazakh, Byelorussian and Armenian SSR stood out in terms of housing completions and share of people who improved their living conditions. At the same time, the Georgian, Ukrainian and Moldavian SSR excelled in floor area per person.

European Lightweight Parcels vs. Russian Trade in Persia in the Early 20th Century

The main issue the article considers is the transit of European goods through the territory of the Russian Empire to Persia in the form of lightweight postal parcels in the beginning of the 20th century. The main objectives of the research include defining the impact of existing practice on the Russian trade in Persia in conditions of high competition between Russian and foreign exporters; finding out how the government representatives and Russian entrepreneurs, sending goods to Middle-East market, saw the existing situation. The author showed that there were some disagreements on transit of European postal parcels to Persia between the government officials and Russian entrepreneurs. Starting from 1905, when the two states joined the international Washington Convention, the disagreements were the most obvious during the first years after the transit launch. Both sides regarded its impact on the Russian trade as negative. However, while government representatives related the situation to inactivity of the Russian merchant class, the latter pointed to existing drawbacks in the operation of transit system. By 1913, the Russian government acknowledged the necessity of limiting the flow of European parcels to Persia, but they did not make up their mind to stop the transit completely for restoring the monopoly of the Russian trade in the north of Persia.

Ronald Coase: Man and Theorem

The article focuses on the ideas and achievements of Ronald Coase, an outstanding economist. The review of his life and scientific achievements, which was timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Nobel Prize in economics being awarded to R. Coase, shows that they contain many paradoxes. Although Coase is known to be the most outstanding economist of the second half of the 20th century, he considered himself an «accidental» economist. Coase's scientific works are extremely few (in fact, only 2 or 3 articles belong to his «great» works). Although he is regarded the founder of neoinstitutionalism, the famous «Coase's theorem» was formulated by J. Stigler, and a systematic presentation of the neoinstitutional theory based on the transaction costs «discovered» by Coase belongs to O. Williamson. In a sense, with his life Coase managed to solve an impossible task that is to achieve maximum results at minimum cost. At the same time, Coase's attitude to institutionalism was ambiguous; both a critical attitude towards the «old» (coming from Veblen and Commons) institutionalism, and a sharp critical attitude to the «economics of the blackboard» typical for this direction can be easily found in his works. The dissemination of Coase's ideas in Russia also looks paradoxical. They were most relevant from a practical point of view in the early 1990s, but a broad creative discussion of his ideas (including the controversy about Coase's theorem) began only in the early 2000s, when the institutions of post-Soviet Russia have already «frozen» and their transformation through the correct application of Cousian ideas has become difficult.

The Search for Forms of Interaction between Technical Institutes, Regional Authorities and the Industries in the 1920s-1930s (by the Example of Ekaterinburg - Sverdlovsk)

In the 1920–1930s the Ural industries and regional authorities were in need of qualified economists and engineers, which resulted in establishing in Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) its own university, technical institutes, and the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Science. The article reveals the reasons of failures in technical institutes’ development and the mistakes in training of economic specialists. The educational organizations and scholarly institutions faced the lack of funding from national and local authorities, whose intention was to make the process cheaper and faster, which resulted in disrupting operation of technical institutes and decreasing the quality of the students’ training. Such attitude on the part of the authorities became the crucial factor for the crises of higher education in the city. Poor communication with the local industry, ideologically based restrictions in teaching of economic disciplines, as well as separate reporting lines of technical institutes, higher education establishments and scholarly institutions also negatively affected the situation. The article proves that the best solution for the city could have been establishing a single research and education center at the State University, which was the original intention of its foundation in 1920. The lack of funding and inconsistent policy of the national and local authorities have led to abandoning the initial program of the university development. Only in 2019, they returned to the program at a new level, when they started to establish a research and education cluster at the Ural Federal University.

«The Beginning of Glorious Deeds…»: Excerpts from the History of Verhneudinsk and Kyakhta Agencies of the Russian-Chinese Bank from 1898 to 1900

The article considers the history of establishment and initial phase of the activity at Verhneudinsk and Kyakhta Agencies of the Russian-Chinese Bank. After succeeding in reaching economic growth of the Russian Empire in the 1890s the state authorities intensified the efforts in the Asian-Pacific region to find new markets for national industrial products. Strengthening the influence in the countries of Inner Asia the autocracy could also solve another important problem of creating conditions for integration of remote Asian areas into the single economic space of the country. The territory of Western Trans-Baikal region became one of these areas. The Trans-Siberian Railway and branches of biggest Russian banks were used as the main tools for reaching the goal. The Russian-Chinese Bank, founded in 1895 and sponsored by the Russian Imperial Government, played a significant role in this process. The bank’s agencies in Verhneudinsk and Kyakhta, opened in 1898, became the first active credit and finance institutions in the region. In spite of some limitations in their legal status, the institutions managed to conduct successful activity on lending for local commerce and industry. The operation of Verhneudinsk and Kyakhta Agencies of the Russian-Chinese Bank laid the basis for its future leadership in the local financial market.

Solution of Social Problems in the Areas of New Industrial Development of Siberia in the Soviet Period

The industrial development of Siberia in the Soviet period is in the focus of the present article. The text considers evolution of the state attitudes towards solving social problems during implementation of comprehensive regional programs for areas of new industrial development. The article is based on various sources, including those from archival funds. It shows that the development of that Siberian region was controlled by the state in order to ensure a high degree of industrialization in the country. The article also analyzes the development stages of national and regional policy towards both infrastructural and urban construction related to establishing various territorial and industrial formations. As stated in the text, scientific and design works during the period under study proved the importance and socio-economic efficiency of solving social problems in the territories of industrial construction. Once the development of another industrial new building project started in Siberia, the main attention was paid to the provision of enterprises with personnel, but not to encouraging people to settle in new cities and workers' settlements. The article also examines the problems of developing and implementing strategies for social and cultural development of new industrial cities in Siberia. The text puts an emphasis on the Soviet programs of industrial modernization in the economy and society, which contributed to both the development of industrial production in the Siberian region and the formation of an industrial-urban society based on establishing new urban settlements. The article concludes that, the social problems in new cities and workers' settlements have been tackled with time in spite of all difficulties, as well as the strategies for the cultural development of new industrial cities in Siberia have been finally developed.

From «Commercial» to «Economic» Education: the Case of Irkutsk Financial and Economic Institute of 1941–1945

The author of the article reconstructs the shift, which occurred in the model and disciplinary structure of «commercial» education towards «economic» one. The research is based on disciplinary approach in the history of education, which builds on subject-oriented character of knowledge and empirical analysis of Irkutsk Financial and Economic Institute case. Although the shift was being discreetly prepared for several decades and included many attempts to integrate commercial functions of education with economic field, its real start was caused by external to science and education factors. The subject area of a business economics became the point of intersection for economic and commercial disciplines. The area appeared mainly due to political and ideological campaign aimed at making the enterprises’ party core groups aware of economic knowledge. The 18th All-Union Conference of Communist Party initiated the campaign in 1941. The outbreak of war forced people to view the business economics as a scientific and practical field of study, which applies many techniques and methods of economic analysis in order to ensure effective operation and reveal its potential reserves. After obtaining the right to operate beyond the scientific and practical environment, the subject area of business economics entered the higher education area, transforming its educational and research programs and integrating the disciplinary models and structures of economic and commercial education.

Spatial Location and the State of Timber Industry Enterprises in the Soviet Union by the End of the First Five-Year Plan

In the period of New Economic Policy in the USSR industrialization issues became very topical. In timber industry complex, the solutions were related to the development of forested areas in Northeastern regions of the country as well as to the construction and reconstruction of enterprises. The article provides the first-time analysis of maps and forest industry location, based on the results of the First Five-Year Plan published in the atlas “The Industry in the USSR and the beginning of the Second Five-Year Plan“ and statistical collection materials ”Social Construction of the USSR”. The analysis was made in order to define the situation in the industry, the main directions of production as well as the regional specificities. Using the example of wood machining sphere the author presents the analysis of enterprise groups according to different criteria. The research resulted in conclusions about highest intensity of enterprise reconstruction and construction in timber sawing, in furniture industry and intra-sectoral combination. In timber industry, the majority of enterprises were small and middle companies, which greatly contributed to its development. Regional specificities of timber industry location included concentration of main facilities in northwestern, western and central parts of the country, in the Volga region and in Ural. However only several regions had developed wood machining and deep processing spheres, such as Leningrad oblast, the Gorky Krai, Belarusian and the Ukrainian Soviet Republics.