SOCIAL SCIENTIST
expenses add up to 45 percent compared with the mean country's of 14-15 percent, fuel from Southeast Asia is twice as cheap as from Russia, etc.). Nowadays, everyone heard about foodstuffs humanitarian help from Norway to Murmanskaya Oblast, from Finland to Karelia, fuel and power deficit in Kamchatka, Primorskiy Kray or the South Kurils.
The key problems of development, possible strategies, specific instruments and actions to make a depressive region economically intensive are illustrated with the Kuril Islands where the general situation is aggravated by insular location (they are separated from the continent) and imposed political debates about national belonging of the southern part of the archipelago. The latter had some positive effects because it attracted attention of the state leaders that resulted in signing by Russia's president a Decree "On Socio-Economic Development of the Kuril Island" (December 1992) and adoption by the government "Federal Programme of Socio-Economic Development of the Kuril Islands of Sakhalinskaya Oblast" (December 1993).
The Kuril Islands extend 1200 km as an arch convex to the Pacific Ocean from Russian Kamchatka Peninsula (50°55'N) to Japanese Hokkaido Island (43°26'N). The archipelago consists of 30 large and many small islands of over 10 thousand square kilometres. They form the greater and lesser (outer) ridges. By separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the ocean, making it actually an inner Russian sea, and making the country boundary continuous at the vast area from Bering Strait to Japanese islands, the Kuril Islands provide the direct outlet of Russia to the northern segment of the Pacific Ocean, reinforce its geopolitical positions in this part of the world, Asian and Pacific Region, and determine its possession of enormous strategic and economically significant sea areas. It is an area of mountains, earth and sea quakes, smoking volcanoes, high tides, rapid streams, exotic waterfalls and lakes, hot, mineral and mud springs, deposits of non-ferrous and rare metals and sulphur, typhoons, frequent storms, snowstorms and snowdrifts, fogs, and picturesque landscapes. Representatives of subtropic, taiga, and subpolar floras neighbour on the islands, valuable sea animals (seal, fur seal, etc.) exist there. There are also abundant salmon and other fish species, crabs, and squids, useful algae, and numerous bird colonies. Some large mammals and fur bearing animals are found as well. The highest peaks are Alaid volcano (92339m) in the north (Atlasov Island) and Tyatya volcano (1819m) in the south (Kunashir Island). They crown Kuril Range rising from the ocean bottom as a wall of about 11-12 km high. The mean temperature of