While much has been written on post-Soviet change in Russian urban centers, little is known about how these changes have affected peoples lives in rural communities This is nowhere more true than in the vast regions of Siberia and the North This volume fills this gap with in-depth studies of how people with different cultural backgrounds, often ожмищ living in extreme natural environments, are coping with dramatic and rapid political and economic transformations It shows how the fate of postsocialist reforms in the Russian North depends largely on striking the right balance between exploitation of the regions strategic natural resources and concern for environmental impacts and the survival of local people The authors, among them many of the leading scholars of the Russian North, place their accounts within the context of wider, comparative inquiries into the nature of postsocialist societies.  ResponsISBN 3496027436.