COVID and Sanctions Resiliency in a Russian Region: The Case of Rostov Oblast 2010–2022

Using convergence estimations, the economies of the towns

and districts of Rostov Oblast are shown to be resilient to four

shocks to the economy – initial sanctions (2019), initial COVID

and continuing sanctions (2020), continuing sanctions and

worsening COVID (2021), war, harsher sanctions and declining

COVID (2022). Agricultural output is resilient and represents

an important growth sector for the Russian economy. Housing

and floor area construction are resilient with even gross production being maintained. Labor indicators show a severe shock to unemployment and vacancies in 2020 followed by

recovery in 2021 and a much tighter labor market in 2022.