The maps betray a delusion on the part of their authors that is common to many political forecasters. These observers—all map fetishists—mistake the administrative boundaries of Russia’s provinces for real borders of socioeconomic life, unaware that the true divisions in Russian society almost never coincide with the arbitrary lines drawn by Communist Party functionaries in the first half of the last century. Russia is extremely unlikely to disintegrate along its regional borders for geographical, sociological, economic, and political-administrative reasons.
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