Formation and development of urban-type settlements in Western Siberia in the 1920s-2010s

The purpose of this study is to characterize the process of formation and development of urban-type settlements in Western Siberia in the 1920s and 2010s. The paper examines the reasons for the allocation of the mentioned status of settlements by state authorities, traces the dynamics of their number and size over several time periods, determines the features of the development of settlements in changing political, economic and socio-cultural conditions. The scientific novelty of the study is that for the first time, based on statistical data from the population censuses for 1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989, 2002, 2010, 2020 the formation rates of urban-type settlements in Western Siberia are shown, and the trajectory of their subsequent development is studied. As a result of the conducted research, it was found that the highest rates of village formation occurred during the 1930s and 1960s, which was associated with the industrialization of the country, urbanization (including artificial, purposefully carried out by the state), the construction of large industrial enterprises, and intensive development of natural resources. Since the mid-1980s, there has been a sharp decline in the rate of rural settlement formation due to deindustrialization, the closure of factories and industrial plants, and the outflow of population to cities. This led to a change in the status of urban-type settlements, some of which turned into villages or rural settlements. At the same time, the population of villages with the status of a urban-type settlements decreased, and their socio-cultural and industrial infrastructure "compressed".