Russian Monotowns

Sammanfattning: Monofunctional towns of Russia represent the extreme case of specialized settlements where the socio-economic development mostly or fully depends on the performance of one or a few town-forming enterprises. This phenomenon obtained attention after the Soviet Union collapse, which has resulted in worsening of the socio-economic situation in monotowns. However, since the 2000s the differentiation in the development among monofunctional towns was observed. What can condition such differentiation? In this study an attempt to provide a new perspective, through which monotowns can be studied. The analysis is done in the step-wise manner and based on the developed data matrix and taxonomy of monotowns.