ABSTRACT
Significant differences among the Russian regions in size, economic power, and location, along with the declining role of Moscow as an uniting force, led to a strong differentiation among regions in the quality of life and, particularly, in politics. In a totalitarian state, regional differences in the quality of life have minimal influence on the country's political processes. Regional differences in housing conditions, as well as differences in climate and ecological conditions, were enormous in Soviet times, and these differences were "transferred" to post-Communist Russia. In addition, income became a major factor in explaining the regional differentiation in standards of living in post-Communist Russia. Regional autonomy opened the way to stronger policy differentiation in a period when Russia was changing its economic structure. The style of political and economic life instituted in Ulianovsk was radically different from the Nizhniy Novgorod experiment. Economic policies in Ulianovsk were based on entirely different principles than in Nizhniy Novgorod.
