Since its independence in 1991, Russia's federative structure underwent several major changes. Burdened by Soviet political and economic legacy it emerged as a loose federation in the 1990s, but then recentralized in 2000s. One of manifestations of centralization has been the so-called process of the enlargement of regions by which small autonomous districts were merged with larger regions, decreasing the overall number of Russian regions. This work addresses the process of regional enlargement in a study of politics and economics of regions at the time of merger and the initial impact that the change of internal borders may have had on the affected regions and on the Russian federalism. This book may be of particular interest to scholars of Russian federalism and ethnofederalism.