Socio-environmental practices of the informal economy of rural households in Russia and the post-socialist countries[Социально-Экологические Практики Неформальной Экономики Сельских Домохозяйств В России И Постсоциалистических Странах]

Today environmental issues are in the focus not only of scientific and managerial but also of everyday interest of townspeople and villagers, and such concerns are increasingly about the countryside for it lost its previous “status” of ecological “enclave” due to the growing number and severity of environmental crisis situations in rural areas. However, we do not consider these crisis situations as such but rather the consequences of the deformation of the previous ecological balance between peasant households and their environment, and we study the daily efforts of rural residents within their informal economy to restore the traditional ecological state of the village or, at least, to prevent it deterioration. Based on statistical, historical and empirical data, we consider the types of practices that determine the formats of sustainable local and regional agronomic and social-economic interaction of social agents in rural areas.