Please join the Fletcher Eurasia Club for a lunch seminar on sustainable development in the Russian Arctic with Harvard University postdoctoral research fellow Nadezhda Filimonova. We encourage you to read her article on sustainable waste management and her policy brief on climate change adaptation issues in the Arctic.

The Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF) features a significant level of urbanization, with more than 80% of the Russian Arctic population residing in urban areas. Since the 1990s, cities and towns in the AZRF have undergone substantial political, social, and demographic changes. In addition, the AZRF and its cities and towns have faced and will continue to confront the rapidly changing climate, occurring four times faster in the region than the global average. Faced with numerous challenges, cities and towns in the AZRF serve as important sites for Russia’s national economic and security interests while striving to enhance living conditions and the quality of life for their residents. This conversation will provide insights into the sustainable development of the Russian urban Arctic, highlighting the distinctive challenges and prospects that these urban settlements and their development present.

The Eurasia Club weekly lunch seminar series engages with students, faculty, staff, and researchers to foster a better understanding of the region among members of the Fletcher community. The event is supported by The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Fletcher’s student-managed foreign policy journal, which recently announced a call for submissions for its Winter 2024 edition titled “Beyond the Ice: The Emerging Arctic Arena.” The event is also supported by the Fletcher Maritime Studies Program. Members of the wider Tufts community are also welcome to attend. Lunch will be served.

Nadezhda Filimonova is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Arctic Initiative within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. In the past, she worked in European and Russian academic and research institutions dealing with environmental and Arctic-related studies. Filimonova received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She also holds two master’s degrees, including one in Political Science and International Studies from Uppsala University and the other in International Relations from Saint Petersburg State University. She has received numerous fellowships and awards and is an author of several peer-reviewed publications. She has taught courses on international relations, Arctic studies, and daily life in Soviet Russia. Her current research explores urban environmental governance in the Arctic.