Social Networks of Rural Communities in Tatarstan: A Local Dimension

Contemporary Russian rural society deteriorates rapidly such a feature of interpersonal relations as the ability of population to form a unique community and work together on the territory of its residing in order to reach one goal – public welfare. The level of losing of this significant social resource differs locally. Phenomenon of its losing is acknowledged by rural population itself as well as it is proved by data of social surveys. In a rural area, social networks based on the principle of simple geographic neighborhood and not tied to geographic closeness factors coincide partially so much that it is impossible to separate them from each other.In late Soviet period scientists started to connect the growing extent of network relations with institutional corruption as an inevitable effect of functioning of the economics of shortfall. Researchers of rural social networks point out that the most significant in them is ‘human’ dimension of interaction, not pragmatic moments, that is not from the side of benefit, equivalence of exchange.Development of a social net of familial personal ties is a feature typical for a rural resident. That is due to restricted possibilities in a rural area to have a social circle of communication. One of the types of such an interaction is residence of relatives of different generations in one rural house. Rural society has special and temporal structures. Special structure has a social dimension – the area of manipulations of one rural resident crosses the area of manipulations of other people forming social networks. Social networks represent an institute of horizontal interaction of actors that substitutes official powerful relations in many cases. In Russia network relations have been viewed as delinquent because of attempts to go beyond the given frames in solving some personal tasks.