Development of the BAM zone: semicentennial results
L.A. BEZRUKOV, N.B. BAZAROVA
V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk, Russia
Keywords: development, population, settlement system, industrial development, structural elements
Abstract
The uncertainty of the concept of the “BAM zone” and of its territorial composition and boundaries is indicated. The composition of the zone has been clarified and its following structural elements have been identified: 1) a subzone of direct influence in the form of a latitudinal chain of municipalities directly crossed by the highway, and consisting of three sections: the head Taishet-Ust-Kut, the middle Ust-Kut-Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and the final Komsomolsk-on-Amur-Sovetskaya Gavan; 2) a subzone of indirect influence in the form of municipalities adjacent to the first subzone. As a result, the BAM zone includes 31 municipalities (taking into account the addition of urban districts to the districts of the same name) and occupies 29.1 % of the total area of the six “BAM” regions: Irkutsk oblast, Republic of Buryatia, Zabaikalskii krai, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Amur oblast, and Khabarovskii krai. The results of the development of the zone are considered according to two main components: settlement and industrial. It has been established that due to the steady decline in the population of the zone at the post-Soviet stage, its number and share in the total population of the “BAM” regions (with the exception of the middle section) have now almost returned to their original state half a century ago, and the population of the base cities (Ust-Kut, Neryungri, Tynda, and others) turned out to be 2-3 times less than planned. The industrial development of the BAM zone was suspended until the early 2010s, the plans for the formation of 8-13 territorial production complexes and industrial hubs were not implemented, and in fact only Yuzhno-Yakutsk and Verkhnelenskii complexes were formed from the planned complexes. It is concluded that in the near future, more intensive industrial resource and raw material development of the mainline is expected, but its settlement development and demographic potential will continue to decrease due to the introduction of new low-labor-intensive technologies and the use of a shift method of labor organization.
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