Moscow Must Do More to Save Company Towns Because They’re Where Many Defense Plants are Located, ‘Profile’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – As Russian has shifted to a war economy, the country’s monogorods as cities built around a single major industry are known have become more important because they are where a large share of Russia’s military industry plants are located. To attract enough workers, these plants want to save the company towns despite Moscow having largely given up.

            The factories are opening schools, medical points, and other infrastructure that had disappeared over the last several decades in order to try to keep younger residents from fleeing to the cities. That has helped some, Pyotr Sergeyev says, but there are some things only the government can do (profile.ru/dk/ugmk/prityazhenie-maloj-rodiny-kak-promyshlennye-predpriyatiya-borjutsya-s-ottokom-trudovyh-resursov-iz-monogorodov-1713742/).

            And he warns that unless Moscow changes course and begins to pay more attention to the problems of company towns and invests more money in infrastructure there, either the plants in these cities will have to recruit more workers from abroad or go under, either of which could make it impossible to meet military industry goals.

            The Putin regime has assumed that if it gives these companies more contracts, they will be able to raise wages enough to hold local Russians and attract more to these towns. But studies have shown, Sergeyev continues, that such an approach won’t work: Unless the company towns develop infrastructure and comfortable housing, young people will continue to flee.

            Failure to make such investments, Sergeyev says, will make it impossible to meet defense industry goals. Indeed, that sector may soon collapse unless the Kremlin recognizes that higher pay will not solve the problem and that it must devote more resources to infrastructure -- or revive the hated Soviet system of assigning graduates to their first work places.