Annual Newsletter of the Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University
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English News  No.7 , December 1999
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From the Director
 Foreign Visiting Fellowship Program
 Symposia
 Our Current Staff
 Research Funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture
Guest Lectures from Abroad
 Visitors from Abroad
 Awards for SRC Staff
 Publications (1998-1999)
 The Library
Essays by Foreign Fellows
Cynthia H. Whittaker
 Isabel Tirado
 Kuili Liu
 John P. LeDonne

Symposia

A Scene from the Summer '99 Symposium.

The Slavic Research Center's annual international summer symposium was held on July 21-23, 1999. This year's theme, "Russia's Regions: Economic Growth and the Environment," explored issues related to economic growth in Russia's different regions and the relations between economic development and environmental protection. 21 specialists from various fields participated as presenters, including seven from Japan, eight from Russia, two from the United Kingdom, and four from the United States. Altogether, 142 participants attended the symposium. The sessions' themes and the presenters' names are as follows:

<July 21>
1 Key Note Speeches
P. Hanson (University of Birmingham), "Understanding Regional Patterns of Economic Change in Post-Communist Russia"
T. Sawa (Kyoto University), "How to Design and Operate the Kyoto Mechanisms"
<July 22>
2 Environmental Issues and NGOs
T. Akaha and A. Vassilieva (Monterrey Institute of International Studies), "Environmental Consciousness in Sakhalin: Background and Views on the Sakhalin Offshore Oil-Gas Development"
G. Borovskoi (Sakhalin State University), "Popular Attitudes Towards Economic Reform in Sakhalin"
3 Economic Development and Indigenous Peoples
A. Nachetkina (Sakhalin Oblast Duma), "Defense of the Primordial Habitat and Traditional Ways of Life for Vanishing Native Peoples of the Sakhalin Oblast amidst the Industrial Exploitation in the North"
E. Wilson (Cambridge University), "Conflict or Compromise? Traditional Natural Resource Use and the Oil Exploitation in Northeastern Sakhalin"
4 Energy Development in Siberia
V. Kalashnikov (Economic Research Institute, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences), "The Russian Far East and Northeast Asia: Energy Demand and Supply Aspects of Cooperation"
H. Kitagawa (Hokkaido University) "Energy Development and Environmental Issues in the Yamal-Yenisey Area"
<July 23>
5-1 Inter-Regional Flows of Financial Resources in Russia
E. Gavrilenkov (Higher School of Economics, Russia), "Regional Peculiarities in Russia and Inter-Regional Capital Flows"
N. Arai (Sapporo International University) and A. Belov (Fukui Prefectural University), "Peculiarities in the Sakhalin Oblast's Budget System in 1996-1998"
V. Rudenko (Russian Academy of Sciences), "The Demands of Modernization and Economical and Legal Responses of the Ural Regions"
5-2 Marine Pollution in the Okhotsk Sea
R. Steiner (University of Alaska), "Oil Spills: Lessons from Alaska for Sakhalin"
A. Leonov (Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russia), "Changes of the Okhotsk Sea Ecosystem Owing to the Development of Oil and Gas Deposits on the Sakhalin Island Shelf: Assessment on the Literary Data"
6-1 Environmental Issues in Central Asia
M. Nomura (Kyushu International University), "Water Use and the Possibility of Water Charge in Lower Reach of the Ili River: The Case of Bereke Village"
Y. Sato (Hiroshima University, Emeritus), "The Physical Conditions of the Environment and the Resident Population of the Semipalatinsk Area"
6-2 Regional Labor Markets in Russia
V. Gimpelson and G. Monusova (Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russia), "Public Employment and Redistributive Politics in Russian Regions"
S. Ohtsu (Kobe University), "Characteristics of the Russian Regional Labour Market"
7 Regional Dimensions of the Russian Financial Crisis
M. Kuboniwa (Hitotsubashi University), "Financial Crisis of Advanced Regions in Russia"
P. Rutland (Wesleyan University), "The Regional Agenda in Alternative Plans for Russia's Economic Development"

With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia's traditionally highly centralized control system collapsed, dramatically altering the relationship between the Center (Moscow) and the regions. As Russia develops a market economy, its regions' political, economic, and social significance has increased and, thus, requires a closer examination to understand the Russian Federation. Furthermore, environmental issues, which were practically ignored during the Soviet Union era, have attracted greater attention. At the symposium, regional money flows, as well as labor and financial markets in various regions were examined. The presenters pointed out the need for environmental research and measures to protect the environment in different regions including Sakhalin, Siberia and central Asia.
This year's symposium was unique in the sense that it attempted to examine Russia's regions from different academic disciplines; social and natural sciences and the humanities. Frankly speaking, it was difficult to facilitate discussions between natural scientists and specialists from the humanities and social sciences, since their expertise and experiences are quite diverse. However, since Russia lags behind the West in conducting field research and has been closed to the outside world for a long time, it bodes well for the future that significant steps are being taken to analyze Russia's regions from a variety of perspectives.
The annual Winter Symposium "Shifting Boundaries: The Slavic-Eurasian World Over Three Centuries" will be held at the SRC on January 27-28, 2000.
The SRC's 2000 International Summer Symposium will be titled "Russian Culture on the Threshold of a New Century" and held on July 13-14 at the SRC, Hokkaido University. Questions and proposals should be addressed to Professor Tetsuo Mochizuki (e-mail: tetsuo @slav.hokudai.ac.jp).

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