The ongoing interest in the Arctic and its immense natural wealth calls for better understanding the effects of resource development on the local Arctic economies. The idea that natural resources might be an economic curse rather than a blessing has been debated in the literature for the last 30 years. This paper contributes to study of resource-based development in the Arctic by exploring how the resource curse thesis can be interpreted at the level of an extractive region. We operationalize these interpretations for seven regions included into Russia's Arctic Zone using statistical indicators. Our investigation does not support the resource curse thesis in application to the Russian Arctic regions, but indicates several economic vulnerabilities across the regions. We conclude that the regions vary in the patterns of their socio-economic development, yet, we cannot attribute the differences to resource-based economy alone.