ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the incoming migrants in the province of Pskov, the case study region, outnumbered outgoing migrants in 1989-1993 by 34 persons per 10,000 populations. The industrial boom of the late 1800s sidestepped Pskov. Even during the splash of socialist industrialization the area remained overwhelmingly agrarian. A productivity drop-off of the kind that exists between the province of Pskov and neighboring Estonia (a two-to-threefold difference in output per unit of land) has nothing to do with natural conditions. In the 1990s, the province of Pskov, for the first time in decades, began to attract migrants. When they are asked about the reasons for their return they point to worsening inter-ethnic relations and to social problems. Migrants from Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad province are generally young over half of them are below 30 years of age.
