Simon Kordonsky divides the social structure of contemporary Russia into distinct estates or social groups and describes each organization's unique resource-based political and economic nature. As he guides readers through Russia's peculiar service and support estate system, Kordonsky reveals how remarkably effective inventing and institutionalizing threats can be in the distribution of scarce resources in a social system of this kind. His book emphasizes the fundamental differences between resource-based economies and traditional risk-based economies and their role in Russia's future.

This timely book offers a fresh perspective on the issue of contemporary migratory labor, otkhodnichestvo, in Russia-the temporary departure of inhabitants from small towns and villages for short-term jobs in the major cities of Russia. Although otkhodnichestvo is a mass phenomenon, it is not reflected in official economic statistics. Based on numerous interviews with otkhodniks and local experts, this stunningly original work focuses on the central and northern regions of European Russia. The authors draw a social portrait of the contemporary otkhodnik and offer a sociological assessment of the economic and political status these 'wandering workers' live with.

This monograph discloses the estate-based social structure of contemporary Russia by way of outlining the principles of the USSR's peculiar estate system, and explaining the new social estates of post-Soviet Russia. Simon Kordonsky distinguishes and describes in particular the currently existing Russian service and support estates. He introduces the notions of a resource-based state and resource-based economy as the political and economic foundations for Russian society's estate structure. His study demonstrates, moreover, how the method of inventing and institutionalizing threats plays a dominant role in the mode of distribution of scarce resources in such a social system. The book shows fundamental differences between resource- as well as threat-based economies, on the one side, and traditional risk-based economies, on the other, and discloses what this means for Russia's future.

Upon creation of communication networks, people called their content "information" and started to deal with this content as with any routine and commonplace objects - produce, consume, distribute, store, sell and buy. There are electronic markets, electronic media, e-mail, social and gaming networks, where people are building almost a full life with its economy, politics, psychology ... and pathology. E-life generates huge amount of texts, which are archived and stored. These texts contain, perhaps, the answers to all questions, as well as those questions. In principle, if only I knew how, from this array we are likely to gain all that knowledge of humankind. If you would just know how. Someday search algorithms will achieve a degree of perfection that we will no longer have the problem of the search itself. But it's a belief of only the most hardcore programmers. Information experts, discussing their small applied problems, gradually "expand horizons" and start philosophizing, with not much of reflection. Talk about "taxonomy," "ontologies," "hierarchy," as well as attempts to give these philosophical notions the operational form, little by little have become commonplace among the "advanced" specialists, who act as creators of the new information philosophy. Publications of this kind would rather replenish arrays of texts already stored in the network than solve the problem of searching the content of these networks. Nevertheless, the drift from technological to philosophical attempts at solutions is very indicative. But its focus is doubtful, because philosophizing was, is and will be no more than just philosophizing. Another thing is to try to understand what tool could be drawn from the information contained in the philosophical texts, including those devoted to the philosophy of information. Such intent is equally justified, just as is the philosophizing, but not familiar. It is usually assumed that the philosophy does not contain the information which can be processed with known statistical methods. Contrary to this view, we believe that the philosophy and philosophizing, in addition to frequently elusive meaning, contain specific information, and we can learn to extract it. This very information might solve many problems of the search in a meaningful way. This paper uses the philosophical in its origin concepts of "world view," "ontology" "outlook," "reality" and its levels, which are operationalized and redefined in the course of presentation

The paper considers the application of fractal matrix tables for the formalization of ontologies required for the organization of conceptual search. Demonstrated the relations between philosophical, linguistic and information ontologies and logics.Shows that the operational solutions of problems of existence in the search procedures are possible in consideration of the special observers (researchers) as elements of the pictures of the world.Application of fractal matrix tables' formalism for the formalization of ontology gives an opportunity to determine the conditions of complementarity of different subject pictures of the world, and in conformity with this, to build variants of search strategies.