The article raises the problem of socio-cultural modernization in a Russian macroregion - the Central Black Earth region. The author focuses attention on unevenness and discrepancy in the modernization processes. Based on results of the field studies, the paper describes opportunities and barriers to the implementation of modernization transformations in the macroregion. The structure of modernization potential is shown through reformatory, socially innovative and adaptive potentials. The

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... atory potential of modernization is considered as low; the socially innovative potential as ambivalent; and the adaptive potential manifests itself through social wellbeing. Regional communities are characterized by the dissonance between the declared and the actual state of affairs, between inertial practices of social institutions and socio-cultural challenges of the present day. The author concludes that strategic management of development is important to optimize modernization processes in regional communities. The article also notes that active support of the inhabitants of the regions is also essential to successful implementation of modernization. Acknowledgment. The article is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 18-011-00739 titled "The socio-cultural foundations for strategic planning of the development of the Russian macroregion (the Central Black Earth case study)".