Social and cultural gradient “Center - East” as unclosed frontier of Russia

The study aims to investigate spatial regularities in the distribution of social and demographic indicators in federal districts of the Russian Federation in 2011. The research is based on the data of social and medical statistics from official publications of Federal State statistics Service. The author evaluates the content of sociocultural space of different regions in regard to certain indicators showing problems in sociocultural sphere. The indicators include the social indices (crime rate, divorce rate) and medical indices (prevalence of tuberculosis, syphilis, alcoholism, addiction, abortion, violent mortality and total mortality rate in men of working able age). The work is done in line with regional comparative studies (ecological studies). The author compares and ranks federal districts in accordance with their indices. The research reveals combined nature of interregional differentiation; Northern-Caucasus Federal District has the lowest indices in social and medical sphere, Far Eastern Federal District is on the opposite pole. Processes of the historic colonization of these remote areas differed in temporal, social, and demographic aspects from the development of central territories, thus the reference to historic evaluations for the explanation of differences in sociocultural space is justified. As a rationale for the approach the author uses some of the concepts of the Frontier Thesis (F.J. Turner).The author suggests that the role of national and ethnocultural factors is determinant in the formation of socio-cultural indicators in Northern-Caucasus and Far Eastern Federal Districts. This factor must reflect in the process of international comparison. The key moment of the research is the studying of the complex polarity between Central and Far Eastern Federal Districts. All the indices in Far Eastern District are more negative: the biggest difference is in prevalence of tuberculosis (60,9%), the smallest difference is in mortality rate of men of working able age - 22,2%. The differentiation in medical indices of social ill-being along the axis “Center-East” assumes importance of factors of social environment formed during historical formation and development of different regions in Russia. The author offers an opinion that the factor of sociocultural transformation is the top condition for the modernization of Russian regions.