Interaction of small and medium towns and rural territories in the region

One of the main Russia’s problems of the last decade is the strengthening of socio-economic differentiation in the country, due to the growing depressiveness of territories located outside large urban agglomerations. At the same time, the slowdown in socio-economic development is typical not only for rural settlements, but also for small and medium towns. However, they play a key role in the surrounding territories’ development, as far as it is in towns that economic, financial and administrative resources are concentrated. The purpose of the research is to study the interaction of small and medium towns as reference points of the rural settlement system and the main centers of the rural economy diversification. Based on a case study of the Vologda Oblast, the paper considers variants for interaction between small and medium towns, and rural settlements. The authors establish that the transition to a diversified rural economy pattern can be carried out both by expanding agricultural specialization and developing non-agricultural sectors on the basis of inter-municipal cooperation with small and medium towns. In the case of Ustyuzhna, the researchers show that one of the promising areas of interaction between small and medium towns and adjacent rural territories can be the development of cultural and educational, event, manor, rural, pilgrimage and other types of tourism. In the study, there were used the methods of system analysis, expert survey, tabular, and graphical methods of data visualization. The results can be used in the work of federal, regional and municipal authorities in improving the socio-economic policy to extend small and medium towns, as well as issues of diversifying the rural areas’ economy.