Preventing Nuclear Meltdown by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, International, International Relations
ISBN: 9781351909075
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Nuclear Issues in the Volga

Federal Okrug

Ivan Safranchuk

The Volga Federal Okrug consists of 15 federal constituencies.1 Some of these constituencies, particularly Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, had pronounced separatist tendencies in the 1990s, particularly in the economic sphere. They demanded special rights and privileges from the federal center. Some went so far as to intimate secession, while others ceased remitting taxes to the federal budget altogether. However, these republics and oblasts do not have nuclear facilities in their territory and nuclear issues were not high on their agenda in their relations with Moscow.

Other constituencies of the Volga Okrug, which do house nuclear facilities, have not been engaged in confrontation with Moscow nor have they played the nuclear card in the center-regional politics. To the contrary, federal control and responsibilities in the nuclear area were never questioned. At the same time, close cooperation among nuclear facilities, regional authorities, and the federal government has been developed since 1991 in these oblasts.

This chapter focuses on Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast, which not only has the largest number of nuclear facilities in its territory among the Volga Okrug constituencies (see Table 7.1, p. 136), but also is one of Russia’s regions where center-periphery relations were relatively smooth during the rough years immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In addition, it is one of the few regions with a significant nuclear infrastructure located in Central Russia and thus, one could argue, has adjusted to economic and political reforms more rapidly than more distant regions.

This chapter reviews the status and trends of nuclear decentralization through detailed cases studies of Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast, the closed city of Sarov, and one of Russia’s largest federal nuclear centers—the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute for Experimental Physics (VNIIEF), which is located in Sarov. The material for this chapter was gathered from personal interviews with VNIIEF representatives and local Sarov administrators, the open media, and from the author’s personal observations from visiting this closed city.

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