Russia has been a major force in the world’s oil market since the Soviet era. Last year, it ranked third behind the United States and Saudi Arabia in oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Discussion of Russian oil often focuses on billionaire oligarchs and Kremlin intrigue, but the oil industry’s role in shaping Russian society is much more complex, according to Douglas Rogers, an associate professor of anthropology who has spent years studying oil’s effects on Russia through the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. His research and fieldwork focused on the Perm region in the Ural Mountains, which was an important industrial and oil-production center under Soviet rule.
http://news.yale.edu/2015/11/11/plumbing-depths-russia-s-oil-industry-qa-anthropologist-douglas-rogers?utm_source=YNemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ynalumni-11-18-15
