Every federal subject has its own head, a parliament, and a constitutional court. Each subject has its own constitution or charter and legislation, although the authority of these organs differ. Subjects have equal rights in relations with federal government bodies.[1] The subjects have equal representation – two delegates each – in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Federal Assembly. They differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy; republics are offered more autonomy.
Post-Soviet Russia formed during the history of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic within the USSR and did not change at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1992, during the so-called "parade of sovereignties", separatist sentiments and the War of Laws within Russia, the Russian regions signed the Federation Treaty (Russian: Федеративный договор, romanized:Federativnyy dogovor),[2] establishing and regulating the current inner composition of Russia, based on the division of authorities and powers among Russian government bodies and government bodies of constituent entities. The Federation Treaty was included in the text of the 1978 Constitution of the Russian SFSR. The current Constitution of Russia, adopted by federal referendum on 12 December 1993, came into force on 25 December 1993 and abolished the model of the Soviet system of government introduced in 1918 by Vladimir Lenin and based on the right to secede from the country and on unlimited sovereignty of federal subjects (in practice secession was never allowed), which conflicts with the country's integrity and federal laws. The new constitution eliminated a number of legal conflicts, reserved the rights of the regions, introduced local self-government and did not grant the Soviet-era right to secede from the country. In the late 1990s and early 2000s the political system became de jure closer to other modern federal states with a republican form of government. In the 2000s, following the policies of Vladimir Putin and of the ruling United Russia party, the Russian parliament changed the distribution of tax revenues, reduced the number of elections in the regions and gave more power to the federal authorities.
The Russian Federation was composed of 89 federal subjects in 1993. Mergers reduced the number to 83 by 2008. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, with the Russian government claiming Sevastopol and the Republic of Crimea to be the 84th and 85th federal subjects of Russia, a move that is not recognized internationally.[3][4] During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia claimed that it had annexed four Ukrainian oblasts, though they remain internationally recognized as part of Ukraine and are only partially occupied by Russia.[5]
Terminology
An official government translation of the Constitution of Russia from Russian to English uses the term "constituent entities of the Russian Federation". For example, Article 5 reads: "The Russian Federation shall consist of republics, krais, oblasts, cities of federal significance, an autonomous oblast, and autonomous okrugs, which shall have equal rights as constituent entities of the Russian Federation."[1] A translation provided by Garant-Internet instead uses the term "subjects of the Russian Federation".[6]
Tom Fennell, a translator, told the 2008 American Translators Association conference that "constituent entity of the Russian Federation" is a better translation than "subject".[7] This was supported by Tamara Nekrasova, Head of Translation Department at Goltsblat BLP, who said in a 2011 presentation at a translators conference that "constituent entity of the Russian Federation is more appropriate than subject of the Russian Federation (subject would be OK for a monarchy)".[8]
Rank (as given in constitution and ISO)
Russian
English translations of the constitution
ISO 3166-2:RU (ISO 3166-2 Newsletter II-2 (2010-06-30))
Nominally autonomous,[10][11] each with its own constitution, language, and legislature, but represented by the federal government in international affairs. Most are designated as the home to a specific ethnic minority as their titular nation or nations. Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast are internationally recognized as parts of Ukraine, but were partially occupied by Russian and Russian-controlled forces in 2014, and declared annexed by Russia as the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in 2022. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is internationally recognized as a part of Ukraine, but was occupied and annexed by Russia as the Republic of Crimea in 2014.
For all intents and purposes, krais are legally identical to oblasts. The title "krai" ("frontier" or "territory") is historic, related to geographic (frontier) position in a certain period of history. The current krais are not related to frontiers.
The most common type, with a governor and locally elected legislature. Commonly named after their administrative centres. Kaliningrad Oblast is geographically separated from all the rest of Russia by other countries. Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast are internationally recognized as parts of Ukraine, but were partiallyoccupied by Russian forces and declared annexed in 2022.
Major cities that function as separate regions and include other cities and towns (Zelenograd, Troitsk, Kronstadt, Kolpino, etc.) – keeping older structures of postal addresses. Sevastopol is internationally recognized as a part of Ukraine, but was occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014.
An Autonomous Oblast has increased powers compared to traditional oblasts, but not enough to be considered a Republic. The only one remaining is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast; Russia previously had 4 other Autonomous Oblasts that were changed into Republics on 3 July 1991.
Occasionally referred to as "autonomous district", "autonomous area" or "autonomous region", each with a substantial or predominant ethnic minority designated as its titular nation. With the exception of Chukotka, each of the autonomous okrugs is part of another oblast (Arkhangelsk or Tyumen), as well as functioning as a federal subject by itself.
a.^ The largest city is also listed when it is different from the capital/administrative centre.
b.^ According to Article 13 of the Charter of Leningrad Oblast, the governing bodies of the oblast are located in the city of Saint Petersburg. However, Saint Petersburg is not officially the administrative centre of the oblast.
c.^ According to Article 24 of the Charter of Moscow Oblast, the governing bodies of the oblast are located in the city of Moscow and throughout the territory of Moscow Oblast. However, Moscow is not officially the administrative centre of the oblast.
e.^ In February 2000, the former code of 20 for the Chechen Republic was cancelled and replaced with code 95. License plate production was suspended due to the Chechen Wars, causing numerous issues, which in turn forced the region to use a new code.
f.^ Claimed, but only partially controlled by Russia.
g.^ As Russia only partially controls the region, this is a claimed figure.
Map of the federal subjects of Russia highlighting those that merged in the first decade of the 21st century (in yellow), and those whose merger has been discussed in the same decade (in orange)
Starting in 2005, some of the federal subjects were merged into larger territories. In this process, six very sparsely populated subjects (comprising in total 0.3% of the population of Russia) were integrated into more populated subjects, with the hope that the economic development of those territories would benefit from the much larger means of their neighbours. The merging process was finished on 1 March 2008. No new mergers have been planned since March 2008. The six territories became "administrative-territorial regions with special status". They have large proportions of minorities, with Russians being a majority only in three of them. Four of those territories have a second official language in addition to Russian: Buryat (in two of the merged territories), Komi-Permian, Koryak. This is an exception: all the other official languages of Russia (other than Russian) are set by the Constitutions of its constituent Republics (Mordovia, Chechnya, Dagestan etc.). The status of the "administrative-territorial regions with special status" has been a subject of criticism because it does not appear in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
In addition to those six territories that entirely ceased to be subjects of the Russian Federation and were downgraded to territories with special status, another three subjects have a status of subject but are simultaneously part of a more populated subject:
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug obtained the status of subject in 1992 (after obtaining autonomy in 1977), but is also part of Tyumen Oblast.
With an estimated population of 49348 as of 2018, Chukotka is currently the least populated subject of Russia that is not part of a more populated subject. It was separated from Magadan Oblast in 1993. Chukotka is one of the richest subjects of Russia (with a Gross Regional Product [GRP] per capita equivalent to that of Australia) and therefore does not fit in the pattern of merging a subject to benefit from the economic dynamism of the neighbour.
In 1992, Ingushetia separated from Chechnya, both to stay away from the growing violence in Chechnya and as a bid to obtain the Eastern part of Northern Ossetia (it did not work: the Chechen conflict spread violence to Ingushetia, and North Ossetia retained its Prigorodny District). Those two Muslim republics, populated in vast majority (95%+) by closely related Vainakh people, speaking Vainakhish languages, remain the two poorest subjects of Russia, with the GRP per capita of Ingushetia being equivalent to that of Iraq. According to 2016 statistics, however, they are also the safest regions of Russia, and also have the lowest alcohol consumption, with alcohol poisoning at least 40 times lower than the federal average.[18][19][20]
In 2011–2012, the territory of Moscow increased by 140% (to 2,511km2 (970sqmi)) by acquiring part of Moscow Oblast.
On 13 May 2020, the governors of Arkhangelsk Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug announced their plan to merge following the collapse of oil prices stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.[21][22] The process was scrapped on 2 July due to its unpopularity among the population.[23]
12 декабря 1993 г. «Конституция Российской Федерации», в ред. Федерального конституционного закона №7-ФКЗ от30 декабря 2008 г. Вступил в силусо дня официального опубликования. Опубликован: "Российская газета", №237, 25 декабря 1993 г. (December 12, 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation, as amended by the Federal Constitutional Law#7-FKZ ofDecember 30, 2008. Effective as ofthe official publication date.).
1 Spans the conventional boundary between Asia and another continent.
2 Considered European for cultural, political and historical reasons but is geographically in Western Asia.
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