The tsarist, Soviet, and modern periods demonstrate that Siberia’s development has always strengthened Russia. Today, in the Second Turn to the East, the movement of Russia’s spiritual, economic, and political center toward the Urals and Siberia is a strategic necessity, in which Siberia serves as cultural core, innovation base, and driver of demographic and economic growth.
Over three centuries, developing under the notable influence of Europe, Russia has achieved a great deal. The country has created outstanding cultural accomplishments, made possible by the interpenetration of Russian and European cultural traditions. Russia grew stronger militarily and received a powerful impetus for industrial development. Without Peter the Great’s military, industrial, and administrative reforms, it would have been significantly more difficult for Russia to withstand the militarypolitical challenges from the South and West.
However, Russia’s European journey exhausted its usefulness a century ago. Today, Europe is not only unpromising, but at times even harmful, given the spread of negative influences from there – including transhumanist and posthumanist values. Of course, we do not intend to abandon the best elements of our Europeanness, but the time (long overdue) has come to move toward a fundamentally different direction of development.
As Professor Leonid Blyakher of Pacific National University aptly put it, it is time for a “return home” – to our Siberian roots, which have been formed over centuries, since the time of the Mongol yoke.
Russia is called upon to become what it is historically destined to be: Northern Eurasia. A balancer, unifier, and resource base for a reviving giant continent. The Siberization of the country is a return to its origins, a new stage in the development of eastern territories, and Russia’s move to the forefront in the emerging world order. In this sense, the Turn to the East 2.0 is not just a strategic step but an absolute necessity, logically arising from global changes. We must restore and nurture within ourselves our identity as a great power, whose main external roots lie in the South and East, and therefore in Siberia.
This report opens a series of studies on the topic of the Siberization of Russia (Turn to the East 2.0) and is based on materials from research projects, academic seminars, round tables, and conferences organized under the grant project of the Scientific Committee of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs (FWEIA) at HSE University, “Siberization of Russia: Turn to the East 2.0”.
Of particular importance among these events was the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference “The First Tobolsk Readings” (April 17–21, 2025), which brought together prominent representatives of the country’s social and intellectual elite.
The project is implemented with the support of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP), and it also builds upon a series of memos and reports titled “Towards the Great Ocean.
Special attention in this report is given to the results of discussions at the CFDP assemblies and to the work of Siberian scholars, including contributions from the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEIE SB RAS), the V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography SB RAS, and others.
This project is carried out under the auspices of HSE University and the CFDP, with the direct involvement of scholars, public figures, and entrepreneurs from across Russia, primarily from the regions of the Urals, Siberia, and Pacific Russia.
