2019 Issue №4

The study discusses the key current problems and parameters of the mo­dern fishing industry in Russia. Given the EU and US restrictive measures towards Russia and reciprocal food import restrictions by our country, the condition of the domestic fishing industry is of particular interest. The article analyzes the quantitative parameters of the industry, identifies key leading companies, shows the dynamics of the number of enterprises in the coastal regions from 2007 to 2017, and reveals the geographical features of locating fid­hing enterprises. The authors analyse the companies’ financial indicators, as well as the change in the average annual number of employees. The study reveals that the key areas of activity for fishing companies are the regions of the Far East (Kamchatka, Primorsky Krai and the Sakhalin region) and the Murmansk, Kaliningrad regions and St. Petersburg. The main share of the catch is in the Far Eastern Federal District (more than 70 % of all fish and biological resources).

Given the combination of the basic territorial growth factors, the coastal regions of the European part of Russia, where large urbanized spaces have already been developed or are being developed, are of the greatest potential compared to other regions of the country. It makes perfect sense to set up large economic centers capable of harnessing the benefits of agglomeration and seaside factors in such regions. A tool to improve the level of economic deve­lop­ment and investment attractiveness of these regions is the imp­le­mentation of large trasnsport infrastructure projects. The article analyzes how the implementation of projects under the Federal Target Program “Deve­lop­ment of the Transport System of Russia (2010—2021)” contributed to an increase in the economic efficiency of the transport industry in the region and, as a consequence, to an increase in the level of investment attractiveness. Using the classical economic and geographical research methods, the authors come to the conclusion that result-wise the regions under study are heterogeneous.

Population dynamics is one of the key categories of socio-economic development of territories. Cities, as the main carriers of innovative potential, need constant influx of human resources. The purpose of this article is to identify the nature of the influence of the cities’ coastal position on the dynamics of their population by the example of the Baltic region countries. The dependence of the popultaion dynamics on the coastal location of the city is studied with the reference to the methods of statistical and cartographic analysis. The authors have drawn the conclusion about a potentially higher ranking of coastal cities as centers of attraction for the population (primarily located at a distance of up to 50 km from the sea).

The authors have conducted a comprehensive assessment of Kaliningrad suburban areas and identified the coastal landscape and recreation area within the ring road impact. Comprehensive analysis resulted in the typology of in­ter­nal areas considering how favorable they can be for further recreation and tou­rism development. The article brings about certain ideas  for the further use of Kaliningrad seaside suburbian recreational spaces in the frames of sus­tainable developmenthave.

The combination of two major economic and geographical factors — the presence of the border and access to the sea — largely determine the features of socio-economic development of the coastal regions of the Western borderlands of Russia and, as a consequence, the migration processes here. The purpose of the article is to identify the importance of these factors for migration in the coastal regions of the Western borderlands of Russia. The study showed that almost all the studied regions use their special economic and geographical location to get closer ties migration-wise with other russian regions and foreign countries, and are characterized by increased migration efficiency. A distinctive feature of the migration geography is intense migration turnover with neighboring countries: first of all, Finland, Estonia and Norway. The coastal position becomes an attractive factor for all the studied regions, except for the northern ones. The border can also affect the migration adversely both in the northern regions, and in the Leningrad region, St. Petersburg. The southern regions of Russia and the Kaliningrad region are the only ones to use their border position to make up the natural population decline at the expense of bordering states. Most regions are growing due to migration. The Northern Rus­sian regions are losing population. Migration here worthen the demo­gra­phic situation, even though there has been some equalization of gen­der dis­pa­ri­ties due to the outflow of the female population. The other recipient re­gions are characterized by a 'rejuvenation' of the population age structure and at the same time by worsening gender disparities. Applicants to universities and colleges are likely to leave for other regions of the Russian Federation (to the greatest extent this is typical for the northern regions). St. Petersburg, and to a lesser extent Rostov and Kaliningrad are the ones to attract students.