Abstract: The aim of the study is to reconstruct the demographic strategies of rural societies. The object of the study is individual settlements and village councils (groups of settlements) of the Tambov and Tver regions (a total of 2861 settlements and 371 village councils). The presented work is undertaken within the framework of a large project on fractal modeling of demographic strategies of the agrarian population of European Russia in a long historical retrospective – since the middle of the XIX century. The chronological framework of the article covers not only the agricultural crisis of the 1990s, but also a certain recovery of some rural settlements in the 2000s - 2010s. To conduct experiments with the proposed computer model, a database was created in which the main parameters of the studied settlements and village councils are presented in a formalized form. The authors conclude that, despite all the differences, the demographic strategies of Tver and Tambov settlements evolve within the same pattern: Tver and Tambov regions are simply in slightly different phases of the same process. Peasant society in the Tver region has less potential as a migration donor and a base for natural growth. The older and northern Tver Region has been following the path of de-settlement and urbanization for a longer time. Tambov peasant society is somewhat less depleted and, therefore, could demonstrate great demographic success in the case of a successful demographic policy.

Abstract: This paper outlines factors that impacted the change of demographic behavior of the rural population of the Central Black Earth Region from the middle of the 19th century to the late 20th century. Factor scores have been determined when modeling demographic processes in 1,500 rural settlements. The authors rely on a classical view that late traditional society was highly dependent on negative natural events, characterized by low migration and strong ties of birth rates with death rates. It has been shown that extraordinary positive factors (the rise of zemstvo medicine in particular) stimulated unlimited natural growth. Short-term stress factors (wars, hunger and epidemics) led to compensatory reproduction. The authors also come to a conclusion that modernized society (the latter half of the 20th century) had more complicated relations between demographic behavior factors. The evolution of modernized micro-communities (individual settlements) was subjected to a great number of nonlinear effects. The data demonstrate that the agrarian society at the time continued the move to natural growth although to a lesser extent than during the previous stages. However, the results of such an intention were largely neutralized by migration.

Abstract: The article presents the results of modeling demographic strategies of 1.5 thousand Tambovskaya Guberniya rural settlements in 1959-1989. The authors consider methodological and tool aspects related to the formation of a fractal model and computer experiments based on it. They have determined the values of governing factors affecting the formation of collective goal-oriented ideas about the expected migration rate and the rate of population's natural increase or decline. The results obtained can arguably be extended to a few similar regions of Russia. This study is sequel to previous works where models for the period from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century have been set forth. Modeling has demonstrated that there are two groups of settlements: migration donors and migration recipients. During the period understudy the rural population (when setting their life goals) relied mostly on migration which evidently was a depressing agent for natural increase. Nevertheless, the majority of peasant societies were open to a certain natural increase.
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