Mega Region

Numerous researches show, that Russia as the result of last decade processes has failed to make a leap from the communist past to the postindustrial present. Its present economic, political and public organization does not correspond to the purpose of real transformation into an open society. Transition has failed and the status of a lagging behind civilization is slowly but inevitably leading the country to decline and decomposition. The danger of transformation of Russia for some time into a country of police socialism is not overcome yet, but the outcome is clear.

There is an eternal question what is more important in this process: people of this country and their destiny or the state which is above them. The image of the Russian state in international relations is in many respects the tribute to tradition developed during the epoch of establishing and prosperity of industrial society. The development of information society dictates new conditions of interaction in the world which have to be taken into account also by the territories which have arisen after the disintegration of the USSR.

The problem is that it is impossible to save modern Russian statehood without a significant part of its citizens being killed, as well as it is impossible to give a chance for a decent life to the overwhelming number of citizens without destroying wild communist centralisation which is still being imposed on Russia.

The humane and civilized solution of this problem in the future is possible, though for this purpose it is necessary to change much in the minds of people, to deprive them of their illusions and rigid stereotypes. One of the ways out of the crisis is regionalization which, in a combination with technological achievements of the modern epoch, gets new quality and turns into a network regionalization for which there are no frontiers.

The idea of network megaregion on the border of civilizations has its history. The contribution to this idea has been made both by the countries of EU, the USA and the Nordic Council countries, and by Russia who has contributed to this idea as well, inspite of the existing imperial aims. It is a way through associations of regional cooperation and federal districts. Creation, for example, of a federal district in Northwest of Russia is important first of all as the declaration for the western neighbours that this part of the country represents a certain integrity which borders are determined, and it is possible to develop cooperation first of all with it, and at the following stage - with other districts as well. The problem was the delegation of necessary authority to regional and subregional levels. From the point of view of network logics and the European idea of spatial planning in the Baltic sea region the establishment of Northwest federal district has given us an opportunity to consider this district as an expansion of the already existing, though no less virtual, Euroregion on the border of Republic Karelia with Finland.

The idea of network megaregion in this part of the world, without destroying traditional ideas of people about the state and its roles, not contradicting the constitutional norms of the states, allows us to establish a stand-alone political subjects in the environment which practically nobody can control, in which the individual has become the state and has entered into confederation with other individuals.