Position Paper 2 - Digital Access

Digital Access in Russia

 

I would say that Russia lags behind other developed countries in terms of digital access. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is a huge divide between rural and urban parts of Russia. The charts below show the top 10 best and worst places for internet access in Russia:

Top 10 Russian Regions with the Highest Level of Internet Access from Home Computer, %

Region	% of households that have internet access from their home computer in total number of households, 2018
Saint Petersburg	86.0
Moscow	85.5
Tula Oblast	84.6
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug	83.5
Tyumen Oblast	83.1
Moscow Oblast	81.7
Murmansk Oblast	81.3
Samara Oblast	81.1
Astrakhan Oblast	80.7
Magadan Oblast	77.7

Bottom 10 Russian Regions with the Lowest Level of Internet Access from Home Computer, %

Region	% of households that have internet access from their home computer in total number of households, 2018
Zabaikalskiy Krai	61.7
Kabardino-Balkaria Republic	61.3
Sakha Republic (Yakutia)	60.7
Omsk Oblast	60.6
Chuvashia Republic	59.0
Tuva Republic	57.5
Mari El Republic	56.5
Adygea Republic	56.1
Jewish Autonomous Okrug	55.3
Dagestan Republic	46.8

As you can see by the charts, the more urban areas of Saint Petersburg and Moscow have more internet access compared to the rural areas of Russia. The reason for this is the lack of interoperability across different levels of government at the federal, regional, and municipal levels. While I would say that the Russian government is responsible for digital innovations, some local governments choose not to stay in line with the government's digitization requirements. This results in the disparity you see above.

Another contributing factor to Russia's lack of digital access is it's low financial status and outdated infrastructure. Some of the local governments can't adopt the government's digitization requirements because they simply can't afford it. While infrastructure in Russia has shown progress, Russia's large geography has made it hard to easily adapt these changes.

Sources:

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/russia/brief/covid-19-response-digital-russia

https://geohistory.today/russias-developing-transport-infrastructure/