RIA Novosti’s 2025 study places three northern autonomous districts at the top, while St Petersburg slipped to 11th. Rising incomes helped most regions, but housing affordability remained a weak point.
RIA Novosti’s expert study of regional material well-being in 2025 found improvement in most Russian regions as incomes rose. Median per-capita income and bank deposits increased, the share of people below the poverty line fell, and the share with higher incomes grew. At the same time, expensive mortgages, limited subsidised lending and rising property prices made home purchases less affordable across nearly all regions.
The Yamalo-Nenets, Khanty-Mansi and Chukotka autonomous districts took the first three places. The top ten also included Murmansk and Magadan regions, the Nenets Autonomous District, Sakhalin and Moscow regions, Moscow city and Kamchatka. St Petersburg fell out of the top ten to 11th place. High incomes helped northern territories and the capital region offset high living costs, although housing remained relatively unaffordable in Moscow, Moscow Region and St Petersburg.
Scores rose in 64 regions and fell in 21. The steepest declines were recorded in Sakhalin, Magadan Region, the Nenets district, St Petersburg and Yakutia. The analysts mainly attributed the drops to fewer families being able to afford a mortgage in 2025.
Crimea, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Sevastopol, Dagestan and Krasnodar Region posted the largest gains, each adding more than 5.5 points. Higher incomes and deposits, together with a smaller low-income population, lifted their results. The study’s authors said most of these regions were less affected by the mortgage indicator because mortgage borrowing remained limited there even when rates were lower.
The ranking combines five measures: median income relative to the cost of a fixed basket of goods and services, bank deposits per resident, the share of people below the poverty line, whether families could afford an apartment with a mortgage, and the share earning more than 60,000 roubles a month. All measures reflect 2025.