ИСТИНА

Local self-governance in Russia in its present form originated in 2003, but despite continuous reforming it has never become an effective institution. This can be explained by several reasons; the most recognized one is the poverty of municipal budgets. Our hypothesis is that the wrong territorial basis of local self-governance is another reason that matters. Municipalities in Russia are formed top down, their territories and status determined in each federal subject by its authorities in accordance with the federal and regional laws. The article analyzes what features of the territory should be taken into account and whether they are taken into account for formation of municipalities. The study includes all federal subjects and relies on legal information, statistics, maps, and field surveys. It is revealed that municipal units are formed on the basis of administrative territorial units, which does not fully fit the existing settlement patterns and local communities; geographical types of inadequacy are revealed. At first, the discrepancy was expressed in the formation of rural municipalities within urban settlements and the inclusion of large rural areas into urban municipalities. Then rural municipalities started to be merged. In the last two years, rural municipal districts were transformed into urban municipalities. The most problematic areas are urban agglomerations, surroundings of large cities, and rural areas with depopulation and small villages. As a result, local identity plays an increasingly smaller role in the municipal structure. It is concluded that the wrong territorial basis of local self-governance deprives municipalities of the opportunity to partially compensate the scarcity of budgets through citizens’ cooperation and their participation in alternative forms of local self-governance.