Spatial Development of the Russian Economy: Transition from Spontaneous Adaptation to the Formation of New Poles of Economic Growth

As a result of the external shocks of 2022, the balance of goals and priorities that have determined the logic of Russia’s spatial development in recent decades has partially collapsed and has begun to be “assembled” anew in relation to both internal and external goals. Because of this, the entire institutional system that ensured its “tuning” and implementation of the corresponding priorities is being restructured. However, the accumulated inertia of factors and traps holds back the dynamism of transformations. In this restructuring, an important role was played by the spontaneous and even rather chaotic reaction of government bodies, big business, and other economic actors, which is natural in the face of such dramatic shocks. At the same time, the framework of big business and the system of state regulation remained, but at the same time new trends emerged and began to gain strength, connected, on the one hand, with its strengthening and “sprouting” into related and new spheres, and on the other hand, with the “building up” of a new “fabric” of economic interactions on this framework. Gradually, spontaneity gives way to the formation of a more holistic development of the economy, in including its spatial restructuring. Previously formed institutional traps associated with the dominance of Western business in Russian markets have weakened and, as a result, will be overcome easier, and structural changes in the dynamics of large businesses and the transformation of its “architecture” may lead to the formation of new growth poles.