In the article, the methodical foundations of formation of simulating model of regional social and economic systems evolution reflecting admissible implementation variations of modern economic reform are considered, on conditions that some policy decisions were not made or was different. This approach allows not only to combine factual description with the studying of time series indicators characterizing a course of modern economic reform realization, but also to give a ranking score of received and possible results of the reformation. The authors of the article did not aim at giving answers to all questions while studying such a difficult issue as a modern economic reform, and, especially, at developing a full-scale model of reformation of the 1990th. For a start, it is necessary to prove that alternative options of implementation of the reform are possible, and there are some bifurcation points where attractor could change the direction. In the following, the research results can be a starting basis for collecting the statistical information necessary for calculations for a model of modern economic reform.

The technique of benchmarking (comparative) analysis of regional socio-economic systems in statics and dynamics based on cliometric approach. It is supposed to build cliometric analysis is not only based on the counterfactual hypotheses and mathematical apparatus, but also with economic and geographical methods of monitoring socio-economic processes in the territories of different levels of development.

The generalization and systematisation of the literature on the history of reforms accumulated for twenty years allow to organise the ideas of the transformations processes and to set a new vector of understanding the socio-economic development of Russia in the last decade of the 20th century — the first decades of 21st century. The first step is the analysis of the publications reflecting the preparation, a course and results of a modern economic reform in the 1990th. The historiographical review includes the monographs written by both apologists of «shock therapy», and their opponents and critics, first of all by Academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This literature analysis reveals the range of opinions concerning the preference of a «shock» variant of transformations, the assessment of the results of the reform by the end of the 1990th and the possibilities of the alternative ways of transition from the planned to the market economy. In particular, the apologists of «shock therapy» refer to the threat of hunger and civil war to justify the decisions, which have caused the decline in production, a hyperinflation and other negative tendencies. Their critics note that a lack of the support of the population has caused a failure of market transformations. While recognizing the obvious, that is an essential deterioration of economic indicators, the apologists see their success in the development of a system of market institutions and consequently, insist that there was no alternative to the realized reform. In turn, their opponents believe that there were the alternatives of «shock therapy», and the gradual cultivation of the institutions of the market economy would be their distinctive feature, but not their introduction by the administrative order.