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: 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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Abstract: The article presents the results of analysis of long time data series reflecting the intensity of peasant disturbances in various guberniyas of European Russia in the second half of the 19th century by means of self-organized criticality theory . The types of peasant protests are presented that depend on the regularity of protest intensity fluctuations in different guberniyas. It has been found that the population density and the average allotment of land exerted the most powerful influence on the formation of protest potential. A hypothesis has been proposed and substantiated that the presence of pink noise in changes of peasant disturbances intensity means that most of regional communities were in a critical state. This demonstrates serious risks of system stability throughout the period understudy. Inner social environment and structural features existed that led to leaping fluctuations and unexpected increase of peasant disturbances. Regional communities were prone to uprisings under the influence of quite usual factors.