ABSTRACT
The economy of Greater Siberia always has been based on the extraction of raw materials furs, metals, trees, farm produce, or fossil fuels. Whenever possible during the Soviet period, foreign companies invested heavily in the development of Greater Siberia's oil and petrochemical resources. Resource frontiers import almost everything they consume, while exporting all that they produce. Many if not most of these human dispersals laid the groundwork for extensive colonial empires, within the frameworks of which the peripheries represented resource frontiers. With Brezhnev at the helm, officials were commanded to absorb at least temporary losses on their investments in the periphery even as they reaped profits on their assets in the developed core and in foreign trade. Beyond the Urals, except along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the bulk of the territory is wilderness. All countries have cultural and/or economic "cores," which have acquired competitive edges over their surroundings.
