ABSTRACT
The Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous districts (hereinafter, respectively, KhMAO and YaNAO) are the main oil and gas producing regions of Russia. Unlike many other regions in Siberia, they have been able to maintain positive social and economic dynamics that favor their demographic growth, and thus they do not face the same depopulation patterns that plague many cities to their east and north. In both regions, indigenous peoples comprise a very minor part of the local population: Khanty and Nenets number about 30,000 people each, and Mansi less than 12,000. The majority of the population is Russian or belongs to the Russian-speaking Soviet world – Ukrainians and Byelorussians. However, a growing segment of the population also comes from more southern regions, especially from Azerbaijan – Baku has engaged in oil extraction since the early twentieth century, and many Azerbaijani engineers have found work in the big Russian oil and gas enterprises since Soviet times – and from the North Caucasus, especially Chechnya and Dagestan.
