Russia's southern regions lag behind by life quality, study says

Ingushetia and Kalmykia are among five outsiders by the rating of life quality, compiled by the Institute of Regional Information for the first quarter of 2010. Unconditional leaders throughout the last five years are Moscow and St Petersburg, while the gap between the leaders and outsiders continues growing.

Among the regions of the south of Russia, the Krasnodar Territory is in the lead by life quality, ranked the 9th in Russia. Adygea is 12 positions below; Rostov Region is 14 positions below and North Ossetia - 19 positions down. The second half of the list includes the Stavropol Territory, Volgograd Region, Republic of Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Astrakhan Region and Karachai-Circassia. The Chechen Republic was not included into the quarterly rating because of absence of intermediate data for calculating the volume of individual incomes.

The authors of the rating calculated the life quality on the basis of six main criteria and data as presented by the "Rosstat" (Russian Statistics Committee). Thus, for example, the indicator of safety is inversely proportional to the crime rate (number of registered crimes per 100,000 of population); while the level of development of market services is a derivative of the volume of paid services per capita. The weights of all the indicators of the rating are the same.

However, other experts believe that the "Rosstat" data cannot properly reflect the situation in places. "One should understand the specificities of the regions. For example, Northern Caucasus has high official unemployment, but there half of the economy is 'in shadow', while the 'Rosstat' is unable to fix the true incomes of citizens and their employment," Alexei Makarkin, director general of the Centre of Political Technologies, told the "RBC Daily".