In this thesis I will examine the process of economic and political decentralisation in Russia by looking at the current changes affecting the gold and tin mining industry of the Russian Northeast. These processes are linked with an alternation of authoritarianism and liberalism, and to general attitudes about economic factors of production. The mining industry, the Russian Northeast's principal economic sector, originated as an integral part of the Stalinist labour camp system and faces great problems functioning in the post-perestroika world. These problems include: conflicts between the centre (Moscow) and the region, falling mineral production, difficulties in privatising the mining industry, a recent large emigration of non-Native people, and difficulties in addressing the concerns of indigenous people and environmentalists.