ABSTRACT
In legal and administrative terms the most significant development has been the new constitution proposed and adopted at the end of 1993. Social policy issues are covered in a variety of proposals, but there are also omissions. Different patterns of social and economic change have taken shape in the Russian regions as they adapt to the new conditions. Transition from the strictly centralised, equalising Soviet system has brought in its wake not only a significant regionalisation of the economy, but also an intensification of regional inequality, expressed through the widening gap between incomes, outgoings, wages and other indicators of the socioeconomic position of people in different regions. Income as a criterion of regional differentiation should be examined in the light of the cost of living, the structure of daily requirements, the standards of consumption, and the lifestyle inherited from the past.
