Vydrino Research Paper

Vydrino, Russia is a small “dying” town in Eastern Siberia on the shore of Lake Baikal. People who live in this town struggle to make a living and survive everyday. Vydrino has one major employer, a timber mill that used to be a typical example of Soviet-era industrialization. Twenty-four years ago, this mill shut down and most people in the town lost their jobs. Today, the mill is a sad look into the past and a good example of a troubled country that is Russia. Broken glass covers its floors, most of its entire contents have been looted, it is a cold and empty place that used to contain hundreds of workers that have long disappeared. Surprisingly, this town today still has a small population of around five thousand people that had a difficult time relocating unlike the two thousand five hundred civilians that abandoned the town in the past decade.

Since 1991, or the end of the Soviet-era, Russia’s population has decreased by nearly ten million people. It seems that more and more reasons to depopulate gloom over its inhabitants as the years continue. A once powerful country is now struggling to sustain itself because its own people have been forced to abandon it just to live a better life. For such a territorially large country, its population is similar to that of countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh. Depopulation is one of the biggest problems Russia is facing today mostly due to Russia’s unique transition from a communist regime to a federal republic that has sparked health care issues, political turmoil, poverty, spreading of disease, and economic