Север и рынок. 2022, № 2.

СЕВЕР И РЫНОК: формирование экономического порядка. 2022. № 2. С. 69-81. Sever i rynok: formirovanie ekonomicheskogo poryadka [The North and the Market: Forming the Economic Order], 2022, no. 2, pp. 69-81. СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКОЕ УПРАВЛЕНИЕ РЕГИОНАМИ ИАРКТИЧЕСКАЯ ПОЛИТИКА year, the physical volume of fixed investment index in the comparable prices in % to the previous-year one, the average annual number of employees in the economy, fixed assets value as of the year end according to the gross book value (for comparing the situation in the Russian Arctic to that of Russia in general, the same indicators have been selected and studied for all Russia) [26]. The lower limit of the data collection period is by the year 2000, which is explained by the GRP data for two of the four Polar regions (Nenets and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Districts) starting from 2000 only. The upper limit is due to the fact that by the time of writing the article, the GRP data are only available as late as for 2018. Thirdly, in order to assess the current migration attitudes of the inhabitants of the Russia's Polar regions, the survey of the population has been undertaken (using a model case of the most industrially developed region — the Murmansk region). The method is a questionnaire survey using the representative region-wide sampling of the population of Murmansk Region (taking into account the quotas according to sex, age, education, and subdivision into Districts). The survey covered the following residential settlements: Kovdor, Monchegorsk, Apatity, Kirovsk, Murmansk, Snezhnogorsk, Polyarniy, Kola, Lovozero, Olenegorsk, Polyarnye Zori, Kandalaksha, and Umba (the quantity of respondents is 1291 people). The sampling error amounts to not more than 4 percentage points. The survey was conducted in May - September 2019. As a result, using a combination of the above three methodological approaches, the authors have identified the main trends in the impact of the national Arctic policy on the socio-economic transformations of the Russian Polar regions. This research has its limitations. The first one is a relatively brief period of time accessible for analyzing economic indicators of Russia's Polar regions. This is due to the specific circumstances of the Russian statistics which cannot provide time series of economic indicators covering both the USSR period and a part of the post­ Soviet period. The causes of this are as follows: 1) for most indicators, qualitative modifications have been introduced into calculation methods, which renders the data plotted over time incomparable even for one and the same phenomenon; 2) there is no information on the main indicators characterizing regional development in the Soviet period and in the first half of the post-Soviet one (for example, in Russia, even the basic GRP indicator has been calculated for the country's larger units (republics and regions) since 1996 only, and for its regions and autonomous districts — since 2000). This limitation is of the objective nature; however, it has not had any negative impact on conclusions based the research results owing to the two emphasis points of the study. First of all, the study focuses on analyzing policy and scientific views on the processes of long-term social and economic performance of the Russian Arctic regions in detail. Secondly, the emphasis is on the present-day reality resulting from transformation changes, with the reality described with statistical indicators already available. The other limitation is the integrated character of the research which could prevent the authors from discussing all the possible lines in which politics, scientific ideas, etc. may influence development processes in Russia's Polar regions. A way out of this limitation is seen in continuing their research on the basis of widening the scope of questions under study. They believe the most promising focus District to be comprehension of the contemporary unique crisis which initiates game-changing topics and aspects of scientific study as for the development and management of the Russian Arctic. What consequences will be there for the economy of the Arctic? How will the priorities of policy and management change? The main question is when we will get back to the former life. The world crisis development forecasts worded by the international organizations, world's most powerful states, and well- known scientists enable one to agree with the answer given in the book "Tsunami Coronavirus. When Will We Go Back to Normal?" by B. D. Medico: "There is only one possible answer. We will never go back to normal. When the tsunami has passed, nothing will be as before. We are experiencing the prelude for a new social organization" [31]. Such research will not be easy to conduct, but at the same time, they will be destined for new insights. This is so because they are determined by the unique combination of fundamental development problems of the Russian Arctic, on the one hand, and on the other hand, by the entirely new economic reality and the future which is hard to forecast accurately. Results and discussion The population o f Russia's Polar regions as an indicator o f the national Arctic policy The data have been collected and the analysis of fundamental regulatory and legal documents has been conducted covering aspects of managing the North in the period of the USSR. It has been found that in the USSR period, the North was a special object of the state management. Since 1938, for the purpose of getting the population established in the Northern Districts, considerable benefits and guarantees for residents of the North have been in place. At the end of the 1950s, they started forming the scientifically grounded Concept of the development of the North which allowed ensuring the continuous growth of the country's productive forces at the expense of exploiting the North's natural resources. © Скуфьина Т. П., Баранов С. В., Самарина В. П., Самарин А. В., 2022 73