Leningrad Region
The Leningrad region is located in north-western Russia. It was formed after administrative and territorial reforms on Aug. 1, 1927. Historically, it was preceded by the Ingria province, which was established in 1708. The Ingria province later became the Saint Petersburg province.
The Leningrad region covers 85,908.8 square kilometres. It has 1,800 lakes, including the region's largest lake, Ladoga Lake. The total length of the region's rivers is about 50,000 kilometres. The largest rivers are the Neva, Svir, Volkhov and Vuoksa. Forests cover 55.5% of the region.
The region had a population of 1.73 million in 2011. The urban population was 1.128 million. The urbanisation level was 66.39%, which was less than the average Russian level.
The Leningrad region includes 17 municipal districts and one urban district, Sosnovy Bor. The region has 31 towns and 32 urban settlements.
The region also has over 80 fields of minerals, including bauxites, clay, phosphorites, slate, granite, limestone and sand.
The length of the region's railways is more than 3,000 kilometres, 30% of which are electrified railways. The length of motorways is more than 13,000 kilometres. It hosts the Primorsk, Vysotsk, Ust-Luga and Vyborg seaports as well as the Leningrad, Podporozhye and Sviritsa river ports. The length of its navigable waterways is 1,908 kilometres.
The gross regional product increased in 2011 by 6.4% to 560 billion roubles, or 330,000 roubles per capita.
The defaulted debt of salaries was not recorded in 2011.
The unemployment level is 0.56%.
Foreign trade amounted to $23 billion in 2011, or 50% more than in 2010. Foreign investments increased by 16% to $800 million. Total investments in the real economy were 304 billion roubles in 2011.
In 2011, the regional gross agricultural production increased by 7.5% to 58 billion roubles, amounting to 36% of the total agrarian production of the Northwestern Federal District. Allocations to support agricultural enterprises amounted to 3.5 billion roubles in 2011, or 22% more than in 2010. The region implements the Social Development of Rural Areas programme. In 2011, the region built 233 flats in rural areas and 53 families consisting of young experts improved their living conditions. Fifteen feldsher-midwife stations were created, and 250 million roubles were allocated to renovate rural recreational centres.
Since 2009, the region has constructed over 1 million square metres of housing every year. In 2011, about 14,800 flats were built. Under the utilities development programme in 2011, the region conducted capital repairs of over 400,000 square metres of housing. As a result, 15,000 people improved their living conditions. In 2011, the region built 300 kilometres of gas pipelines, six new gas fired boiler plants, and 8,066 buildings/homes and 2,260 flats were provided with a gas supply.
The region created over 4,000 new jobs in 2011.
The average salary was 23,400 roubles, or 12% more than the salary level in 2010. The per capita income was 18,000 roubles.
A teacher's salary is 24,500 roubles, or just over the national level in the country's economy. The region has started to reinstate daycare centres that had been repurposed or had belonged to the Ministry of Defence. Following these efforts, six daycare centres for 1,282 children reopened in 2011. Due to the opening of the new daycare centres and the reconstruction of existing daycare centres, the region created additional spots for 2,717 children.
In recent years, seven healthcare centres and five cardiology centres opened in the region. Hospitals and feldsher-midwife stations employed additional personnel. A positive factor included an increase in doctor's salaries to 32,000 roubles.
