Introduction . Categories of “city” and “village” traditionally are seen as two opposites and a basis of two antagonistic ways of life. However, history and the present provide sufficient material to doubt the such a categorical grid. Methods . This article examines the dialectical relation between rural and urban ways of life. There was since ancient times the tendency to integrate them. The category of dual way of life is conceptualized here as an analytical tool to solve this methodological problem. Rural and urban forms are two opposite sides of one social and cultural phenomenon. The research has as a methodological basis historical method and ethnography. The field research has been conducted in the villages of the Kostroma region. Result . Rural and urban ways of life are complementary elements of the dual way of life. Alternation of them allows to turn the costs each of them in the temporary condition, giving the existence of diversity. Examples of this way of life in pre-revolutionary Russia were the way of life of landlords and peasants. Rural life was combined with service or work in the city. In our time, shift and suburban lifestyles are widespread. Conclusions . The paper puts forward hypotheses about the possible pathways of social transformation of the village in the Middle of the North. It can be a space of a country way of life for residents of neighboring large cities, an integral part of national parks as tourist attractions, an area of organized reproduction of forests and investments of citizens in that industry, the revival of agriculture in forms adequate to the local natural conditions and the existing national division of labor. The continuation of the current spontaneous evolution of the village of the Near North leads to the formation of the socio-territorial organization of the country, in which the centers of life are large cities surrounded by social desert.