ABSTRACT
This chapter presents all basic political, economic, and demographic data on a territorial unit of the Russian Federation. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is located on the Chukotka peninsula, the easternmost point of Eurasia, and borders Magadan Oblast and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. Nazarov believes that the problem would be solved if Chukotka were granted special status as a “presidential territory,” allowing the Chukotka administration to keep the sales tax collected on the sale of fish and sea products. Chukotka was the first region to attempt to promote its status within Russia’s hierarchical federal system when it declared itself a republic in 1990. Chukotka, like most of the Far Eastern regions, is very poor and can barely sustain itself on the scarce money it gets from Moscow. Chukotka once had its own branch office in Anchorage, Alaska, and Nazarov is said to have invested government funds in a proposed tunnel under the Bering Strait.
