Why Russia is Prioritising Connectivity for 2,160 Key Settlements

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin used a national forum on small towns and historic settlements on 10 August to put transport at the centre of the government’s drive to strengthen Russia’s 2,160 so-called “anchor settlements”. These towns, together with the largest metropolises, are meant to form the economic and infrastructure backbone of the country, he said, adding that President Vladimir Putin has ordered a significant improvement in the quality of life in them.

The stakes are high: nearly three-quarters of Russians live in these settlements, and every day residents of even smaller villages travel to them for hospitals, clinics, kindergartens, colleges, culture and sport. For each town a development programme has been approved, built on master plans drawn up last year, and the government is deploying a wide toolkit, including the mechanism of integrated territorial development.

Yet the forum also heard that satisfaction with the urban environment falls sharply with size. While 75% of people in large cities are broadly content, only 44% say the same in small towns and historic settlements, according to Vitaly Mutko, head of the state housing company Dom.RF. That gap, he argued, is what pushes people to leave for economic centres.

The City-Village Divide and a System’s Fragility

Mutko named three levers to close the gap: master plans that give a settlement a clear vision for 10–15 years; better housing provision, especially for families with children; and the restoration of cultural heritage sites that can become local centres of attraction.

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The ‘Tree’ That Replaced a Flat Network

Economic geographer Ruslan Dokhov offered a historical diagnosis. Before the Soviet industrialisation drive, he said, a “flat network” allowed people to move easily between towns of similar size. The Soviet period turned that web into a “tree”: residents can now easily reach the nearest large centre, but travelling to a neighbouring small town became extremely difficult. That concentration is efficient in normal times, Dokhov warned, but leaves the whole system vulnerable in a crisis: “When you have concentrated everything in one point, that point is very fragile,” and the settlement pattern centred on it begins to unravel.

Budget Priorities and the Legislative Dead End

Other voices were less optimistic. Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the Petersburg Politics foundation, said financing for anchor settlements remains secondary against more pressing budget demands, while demographic strains are intensified by the departure of men from small towns to the front. Olga Pozdnyakova, an expert with the All-Russia People’s Front, noted that people move away when they cannot find decent education, healthcare, work and leisure nearby—if those are available within an acceptable distance, most would rather stay. Political analyst Pavel Sklyanchuk pointed to a more mundane obstacle: rigid legislation that prevents municipalities from sharing resources across administrative borders. The result, he said, is often visible when a road repair simply stops at a district boundary instead of reaching a logical end point.

What Must Change for the Anchor Settlement Plans to Succeed

  • Align road repair with functional routes, not administrative lines. Sklyanchuk’s example of bridges and roads abandoned at district borders signals a need for regional authorities to pool budgets and coordinate infrastructure planning across municipal boundaries.
  • Make master plans binding and implementable. Translating the 2,160 approved programmes into actual tenders and construction will require linking them to concrete funding streams in the 2027–2029 federal budget cycle—and tying them to measurable targets for travel times and service access.
  • Anchor housing programmes to family needs. Mutko’s data on the lowest housing security among families with children suggests that new residential construction in anchor settlements should prioritise family-sized units near the schools, clinics and cultural sites that keep people from leaving.
  • Use cultural heritage as an economic lever. Restoring historic sites identified in master plans can create local jobs and attract visitors, but only if transport links allow residents of neighbouring settlements to reach them easily—reinforcing the connectivity issue.