ABSTRACT
The relation between the central government and the "subjects of the federation" has been one of the key issues of post-Soviet politics. There is nothing peculiar to Russia in the vital structural importance of regional forms of government. In post-Soviet Russia, Moscow collects the money from regions as far away as Buriatiia or Yamalo-Nenetsk, allowing it to dribble back for local needs; any locally generated funds and expenditures fall in the domain of big business and especially oil and gas companies. The renaissance of Russia's cities and towns has looked beyond the immediate past to create links with the high point of their development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A. S. Gatsiskii found himself accused of wishing the separation from Russia of the Nizhnii Novgorod Volga Region – clearly a symptom of the severe paranoia of the imperial government rather than a reflection of his own goals.
