Now let us turn our attention directly to the two regions that are the specific focus of this study, Samara and Sverdlovsk Oblasts, in order to investigate the relationship between “objective” economic conditions and regional understandings of the economy. Local economic discourse is one way of accessing regional understandings of the economy during the 1990–3 period, and regionally produced newspapers and publications offer an invaluable trove of local discourse. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 579 regional articles, I document interpretations in Samara and Sverdlovsk in four economic issues areas: fiscal policy, production, prices, and trade; and I compare those understandings with objective accounts. This systematic analysis demonstrates that differences in regional understandings of the economy are not predicted well by objective accounts of economic conditions. In particular, differences between Samara and Sverdlovsk in regional assessments of the benefits of particular economic events in the region are far greater than would be expected given the objective economic similarity of the two regions. Moreover, as I will discuss later in greater detail, while Samara and Sverdlovsk are quite similar in terms of economic conditions, there was little regional activism in Samara (activism score of 0 out of 9, see Chapter 1), while there was a great deal of activism in Sverdlovsk (activism score of 8).

In order to situate the comparison of economic understandings in the two regions, I first briefly outline historical, geographic, and political conditions in the regions to demonstrate that there are no overarching, non-economic differences that might compromise the suitability of the economic comparison.