At the Margins:
Political Change and Indigenous Self-Determination
in Post-Soviet Chukotka
Gary N. Wilson & Jeffrey J. Kormos
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian North has undergone a profound process of political, economic and
social change. Nowhere is this change more evident than in the Chukotskii Autonomous Okrug (Chukotka), one of the most
remote regions in the Russian Federation. During the Soviet period, Chukotka was the recipient of considerable state support which,
in turn, led to the economic development of the region and an influx of settlers from other parts of the Soviet Union. These
developments, however, quickly overwhelmed the indigenous peoples of Chukotka, who became marginalized economically, politically
and demographically.
The post-Soviet period has brought new and unprecedented changes to Chukotka and its inhabitants. In the 1990s, the decline in
state support triggered an economic c