Mountain regions in the legal space of Russia

Abstract

The allocation of the mountainous regions of Russia as a subject of legal regulation is a relatively new trend in Russian lawmaking, which began in the 1990s. The initiation of the process of developing mountain laws was influenced by the international experience of European countries that have mountain areas in their composition. An important event at the end of 2020 is the adoption by the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly of the Model Law “On the Protection and Development of Mountain Areas”. The purpose of the article is to analyze modern initiatives in the field of legal support for the sustainable development of the mountain regions of Russia. The results are based on an analysis of documents adopted in the field of mountain legislation, as well as on interviews with experts and expeditionary work. The program for the development of the mountainous territories of Dagestan, initiated on the basis of the implementation of the regional law on mountainous territories, became a certain “litmus” test that revealed the problems of modernization and ensuring sustainable development in the mountains. These include, first of all, distrust of the government’s initiatives, unsettled land relations, fear of getting into credit dependence, the complexity of bureaucratic procedures, etc.