Three Russian Baltic regions in the context of confrontation between Russia and the West
This study examines the features, limitations and development prospects of three Russian territories bordering the Baltic Sea — St. Petersburg, and the Leningrad, and Kaliningrad region — amid the sharply heightened confrontation between Russia and the West, which has affected the Baltic region. The time frame spanning from 2014 to 2023 was chosen for the study. This period encompasses the sanctions imposed by Western countries and their associations, primarily the EU, in response to ...
The Accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO: Geopolitical implications for Russia’s position in the Baltic Sea region
The article examines Sweden’s and Finland’s motives for ending their long-time non-aligned policies and joining NATO after Russia had launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The two countries’ decision is shown to be in the interest of the United States, which has always sought to fill the geopolitical vacuum reigning after the collapse of the ...
The adaptation of Russian regions’ economies to the rupture of relations with Europe: the case of Baltic Sea ports
Despite the sweeping economic sanctions imposed by Western countries, Russia has managed to avoid a significant recession, experiencing recovery growth. The situation in the regions earlier involved in cooperation with Europe was more complicated. Yet, these territories have also succeeded in reviving their economies and ...
The sea factor in the federal regulation of Russia’s spatial development: post-Soviet experience and current priorities
... waters, its maritime activities and coastalisation potential, including the economic, settlement-related and psychological elements of the latter. The article describes the key influences of the sea factor on the spatial development of post-Soviet Russia. The steadily growing impact of maritime activities on the spatial-economic and settlement dynamics has been given a new impetus by the rising geostrategic, resource and transport-logistic significance of the World Ocean, as well as its water ...
The geopolitical effect of the maritime factor on the spatial development of post-Soviet Russia: the Baltic case
The article explores the impact of geopolitical processes on the spatial organisation of society, a matter that has gained increasing importance in Russia. It focuses on the utilization of the World Ocean and its coastlines for resource extraction, logistics, military-strategic purposes, and settlement. Methodologically, this study combines modern socio-geographical approaches emphasising the role ...
Knowledge and innovation dynamics of the Northwest Russia under geopolitical changes
Over the past 25 years, Russia has faced several economic and geopolitical challenges, including the 2008 global financial crisis, sanctions imposed in 2014, and the COVID-19 pandemic. To remain resilient in the face of these challenges, Russia needs to adopt a flexible development ...
Societal security in the Baltic Sea Region: the Russian perspective
... Sea region. Particularly, the paper describes four paradigms of international relations (neorealism, neoliberalism, globalism and postpositivism) and theoretical approaches to the concept of societal security formulated in them. On a practical plane, Russia has managed to develop — together with other regional players — a common regional approach to understanding societal security threats and challenges in the Baltic Sea region. These challenges include uneven regional development, social and ...
The economy of Russian Baltic regions: development level and dynamics, structure and international trade partners
The article explores the challenges encountered during the formation of the Baltic macro-region comprising Russia and eight EU countries (Germany, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) in the context of the ongoing geopolitical and geo-economic changes. The article aims to assess the dynamics, level, structure and pace of economic ...
Geopolitical Security of Russia: Remarks on the Problem Statement
This paper summarizes the results of the seminar “Geopolitical Security of Russia: Remarks on the Problem Statement”, held on August 26, 2022, at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad. During the seminar, the Institute of Geopolitical and Regional Studies of the university announced an initiative to devise ...
Modern trends in paradiplomacy: a case of Russian-Finnish regional cooperation
For several decades, EU-Russian regional cooperation helped effectively respond to the local challenges. The EU terminated programmes for regional cooperation with Russia and Belarus in 2022. The existing paradiplomatic structure, however, may be of interest to scholars and policymakers as a model to be reproduced by Russia in cooperation with non-EU neighbours. The study aims to identify the main trends in paradiplomacy ...
A typology of the Baltic region states according to excellence in science and technology
... industries. A significant element of any manufacturing system is its scientific and technological subsystem, which is described in this article for ten countries (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia), based on an analysis of a clustered set of national characteristics: R&D financing and staffing in the scientific and technological subsystem. A total of ten indicators, absolute and relative, are investigated. The study relies on combined ...
The border as a barrier and an incentive for the structural economic transformation of the Kaliningrad exclave
... development of some industries (and even cause them to decline) and give a boost to others, with these two processes constituting economic restructuring. In the exclave of Kaliningrad, heavily dependent on international trade and transit trade with mainland Russia, geopolitical changes have naturally had an exceptionally strong effect. The relationship between border functions and economic restructuring was investigated over four periods. The study utilised data from Rosstat and the Federal Customs Service,...
The marine component of human geography studies in Post-Soviet Russia: key trends and development priorities
... of the geopolitical and geoeconomic aspects of the marine economy and close attention given to coastal border areas (particularly the prospects and risks of their socio-economic development within the continent-ocean dichotomy). The marine focus of Russia’s geostrategy will generate steady demand for national human geography of the world ocean, including its inevitable humanities component. Another trend is the involvement of human social geography in cross-branch geographical synthesis. The study ...
Problems and prospects of EU — Russia dialogue on visa-free travel
This article deals with the issues pertinent to the EU — Russia visa dialogue — one of the major areas of cooperation between the two partners. The article aims to identify the main problems of this dialogue, as well as prospects for the introduction of a visa-free regime between the EU and Russia. The authors ...
The Visegrad Group and the Baltic Assembly: coalitions within the EU as seen through Russian foreign policy
Today Russia has difficulty doing business-as-usual with EU states. It seems that the countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) and the Baltic Assembly/Baltic Council of Ministers (BA/BСM) have contributed substantially to this state of affairs. Overall, the tensions ...
The spread of the COVID-19 infection in Russia’s Baltic macro-region: internal differences
This article explores the spread of the Covid-19 infection in Russia’s Baltic macro-region. The monthly excess mortality rate in the Baltic region is analysed along with regional and municipal Covid-19 response acts to identify regional features affecting the spread of the disease. The spatial characteristics ...
The Swedish institute’s scholarship policy as a soft power instrument
... students or interns, providing them with insights into the social, cultural, and political landscape of the host country. Until 2022, the scholarship policies implemented by the EU and national foundations and agencies in Europe and America towards Russia generated mixed reactions. There has been a contentious debate surrounding the role of scholarship support in aligning the grantee with the foreign policy and soft power of the donor country. Following the Ukrainian crisis and subsequent tensions ...
Priorities for the development of manufacturing industries in the Kaliningrad region
... increasingly complex external circumstances. Recommendations based on the findings obtained will contribute to the region’s sustainable development, characterized by dynamic growth and proportional development.
Introduction
Kaliningrad is one of Russia’s more socio-economically prosperous regions with numerous manufacturing businesses, whose development was supported by the Special Economic Zone regime (SEZ 1996, 2006). Whilst location along the Baltic Sea coast is an advantageous factor,...
Population change and the settlement system transformation in Poland, as revealed by the 2021 census
... gathering pace: the 2021 census shows, a more or less favourable geodemographic situation is observed only in the main eastern cities and their environs. This state of affairs is largely due to the Polish government deliberately halting cooperation with Russia and Belarus, including cross-border collaborations. Yet, this decision seems to create more problems for Poland than its eastern neighbours. If the current trends persist, the eastern voivodeships, the stronghold of the right-wing conservatives ...
Motivations of Russian firms to invest abroad: how do sanctions affect Russia’s outward foreign direct investment?
In 2013, Russia’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) soared and the OFDI stock exceeded $ 500 billion. However, a year later, Russia’s OFDI dropped by nearly 15 per cent. Rapid upward and downward swings make it necessary to analyze the motivation of ...
On the problem of cultural reference of proverbs (the Russian proverbs with images of clothing)
This article explores proverbs as signs that preserve, transfer, and develop meanings rooted in the ethnic culture. The author investigates the ways cultural semantics is expressed in proverbs featuring clothing items. Another focus is the ways to refer to garment elements. Clothing items are universal realia; they form concepts, mythologemes, symbols, gauges, stereotypes, etc. in the realm of ideas about the world. These ideas are interpreted within different fields of human spiritual life, for...
The impact of the food embargo on consumer preferences and cross-border practices in the Kaliningrad region
The Russian food market has been a fascinating subject for researchers investigating food security risks and ways to mitigate them since the embargo was imposed in 2014. The Kaliningrad region, an exclave of Russia, responded more sensitively to the restrictions than any other territory of the country due to the heavy dependence of its food market on imported finished products and raw materials, as well as the transit from Russia via third countries. This ...
The Conjunction Functions of the Particle tolko: A Conjunction Particle vs a Conjunction Analogue
This article considers the conjunction functions of the logical and modal particle tolko. A study into the functioning of logical and modal particles led the author to identify the basic syntactic positions that determine the functional and grammatical status of the lexical units studied: the particle, the conjunction particle, and the conjunction analogue. The conjunction behaviour of a particle can be manifested to a greater or lesser degree. The particle/conjunction relation forms a gradient....
France’s strategy in the Baltic region: military and political aspects
... strategy of France in the Baltic region. This area has not traditionally been among the main priorities of French diplomacy. However, under President Emmanuel Macron, France pays closer attention to the Baltic Sea due to the growing tension between Russia and the West. According to France’s key strategic documents, the government assesses the present-day situation mainly in a negative way, considering Russian actions as the main reason for the militarization of the region and expressing its readiness ...
Reputation core of Russian authorities: the case of the regional level of executive power
... executive power. The paper examines the reputation of Russian authorities of different levels and branches using the example of regional executive bodies. The author determines the structure and features of the reputation core of the conceptual category ‘Russia’s authorities’ understood both as federal and municipal authorities of the Russian Federation as a whole. The article also offers a comparison of the reputation core of regional executive authorities with that of ‘Russia’s authorities’ ...
Internet diffusion and interregional digital divide in Russia: trends, factors, and the influence of the pandemic
... digital divide between Russian regions narrowed. Overall, the Internet use patterns are consistent with those of the spatial diffusion of innovations. Amongst the leaders, there are regions home to the largest agglomerations and northern territories of Russia, whereas those having a high proportion of rural population lag behind. Coastal and border regions (St. Petersburg, the Kaliningrad region, Karelia, Primorsky Krai, etc.) have better access to the Internet due to their proximity to the centres ...
Polynominativity of geographical objects in the linguocultural context
The article attempts to analyze the linguocultural factors contributing to the phenomenon of polynominativity—multiple names for a single object. This investigation employs toponyms as a case study. The exploration delves into several key factors that give rise to polyonyms: 1) linguosociocultural factors: these factors play a pivotal role in shaping subsystems of names, encompassing both official and unofficial, widely used and niche terms, as well as neutral and connotatively charged...
Changes in the structure and geography of tourist flows during the COVID-19 pandemic
... draws on regional annual and monthly data on international and domestic tourist arrivals between 2019 and 2021, available on the websites of the statistical offices of the Baltic Region countries. The regions earlier dependent on tourist arrivals from Russia experienced the largest drop in inbound tourism during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, domestic tourism burgeoned in most of the region’s countries. In 2021, the most dramatic increase in domestic arrivals occurred, year on year, in the border regions ...
Transformation of global value chains in Russia and the Baltics amid Covid-19: prospects for regionalization and implications for economic policy
Although Russia and the Baltics have historically been economic partners, the economic relations between them are tense today. Nearly stagnating bilateral trade contributes little to the development of either side. The Baltics-Russian bilateral trade conducted ...
Russia and the European Union: an elusive quest for common values?
... and the position of the Council of Europe member states on the European Court for Human Rights (section 3). The author comes to a conclusion that the concept of “common values” is to a great degree fictitious, and its viability depends on whether Russia behaves as a European country. The complete internalisation of democratic values, human rights, and good governance is still unattainable for the Russian Federation, which uses the platform of common values predominantly to achieve strategic goals ...
From the editor
Russia’s Baltic regions have received considerable scholarly attention throughout the country’s contemporary history, with recent years being no exception. Yet, the year 2022 — probably for the first time since the demise of the USSR — saw dramatic ...
Economic development of Russia’s north-western regions and migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration
This article aims to analyse the development of Russia’s North-Western Federal District (NWFD) regions between 1998 and 2021, based on data from Rosstat. It focuses on how the territories responded to migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration in the early 21st century and compares their progress ...
Security in the Baltic region as a Projection of Global Confrontation between Russia and the USA
... Barry Buzan’s regional security complex theory, address Steven Mann’s controlled chaos theory and the concept of Intermarium. Their starting assumption is that the situation in the Baltic depends largely on the politics of external powers — Russia and the United States, — being a projection of their global geopolitical confrontation. The US strategy thus becomes a major part of the equation. The authors believe that since the end of the second Iraq war the American elite has been divided ...
Migration distances in Russia: a demographic profile of migrants
... migration is closely linked to life course events, which are, in turn, marked by age. It serves as a criterion for distinguishing migration from other forms of spatial mobility. This paper aims to calculate the average distance of domestic migrations in Russia between 2011 and 2020, considering various migrant profiles such as sex, age, and type of residential registration. The Euclidean distance between 130,000 geocoded Russian settlements was computed to estimate migration distances. These geospatial ...
Full and short personal names in Russian: a quantitative study
The paper presents a statistical study of the use of variant forms of Russian personal names. It is shown that Russian names can be divided into two classes: names with full and short forms contrast with names that only have one neutrally used form. For names that have a distinct short form, the frequencies of full and short forms can relate to each other in different ways. This depends on various factors, such as the length of the full name and the gender of its owner: for longer names and female...
Sergey Askoldov’s Reviews concerning Kant and Others Published in the Russian Press in Early Twentieth Century
Borisova, I.V., Davydova, L.S., 1998. Questions of Philosophy and Psychology (1889—1918). Index of the Content. In: Studies in Russian Intellectual History. Yearbook for 1998, 2. Moscow: OGI, pp. 427-523. (In Rus.)
Bulgakov, S.N., 2007. On the Need to Introduce Social Sciences in the Program of the Theological School (1906). In: M. A. Kolerov, ed. 2007. Studies in Russian Intellectual History. Yearbook for 2004/2005, 7. Moscow: Modest Kolerov, pp. 265-277. (In Rus.)
Ermichev, A.A., ed. 2001. Filosofskoe...
Foreign nationals on the Boards of Directors of Russia’s Ten Largest Non-Financial Companies Investing Overseas
This author analyses the international membership of the boards of directors of Russia’s ten largest outbound investors. The data used in the study come from the companies’ annual reports and official websites. The information is correct as of February 2017. It is concluded that foreign nationals hold 30 % of board seats in Russia’s ...
Russia-EU energy efficiency cooperation in the Baltic region: the untapped potential
... within the Energy Charter and its Treaty, Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, Energy Dialogue, Common Economic Space, Partnership for Modernisation. However, it lacks practical development, which relates to the instability of the legal environment in Russia, insufficient mechanisms of financial support for energy conservation projects and poor political support. Nevertheless, energy efficiency cooperation is capable of changing Russia-EU energy cooperation qualitatively: it offers a cheaper way to ...
Semantic transformation of the noun mamochka: from ‘wife’ to ‘cannon’
In the semantic theory of Gottlob Frege, the content of a linguistic sign is determined by the connection between the meaning and a set of subjective perceptions that form the meaning. Our study aims to reveal the influence of individual perceptions of the meaning on the extension of the semantic structure of a word, using the kinship term ‘mamochka’ as an example. The article focuses on instances where the word ‘mamochka’ is used in fiction and, to some extent, Internet texts. The article...
The Republic of Belarus and the Kaliningrad region of Russia as a sub-regional security complex
... region and the Republic of Belarus has caused a response — coordinated cooperation in the framework of the Union State. The consequence of which was the formation of a sub-regional security complex (SRSC), which includes the Republic of Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad region. And a theoretical justification for the formation of this complex is the focus of this article. The authors determine the floating boundaries of the SRSC, where spatial effects of military-political ties take on a special ...
German participation in the Three Seas Initiative: opportunities for Russia
... bridge the gap between Southeast, Central and Eastern Europe, on the one hand, and Western Europe, on the other. This article aims to show how German policy on the Three Seas Initiative has changed and what risks and opportunities it represents for Russia. The official data on the Three Seas Initiative was used to explore the specifics of the concept and the impact of its most promising projects on the Southeast, Central and Eastern European markets. The analysis of materials from German think tanks ...
The effect of Covid-19 on labour migration in the CIS
....26653/2076-4650-2020-3-01
(in Russ).
2. Ryazantsev, S. V., Khorie, N. 2011, Modelirovanie potokov trudovoi migratsii iz stran Tsentral’noi Azii v Rossiyu: ekonomiko-sotsiologicheskoe issledovanie [Modeling labor migration flows from Central Asian countries to Russia: economic and sociological research], Moscow, 189 p. (in Russ.).
3. Wagner, V. 2020, Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: What to Expect in the Time of COVID-19? Information note. May 27, 2020. International Center for Migration ...
The coastalisation of population in today’s Russia: A sociogeographical explication
... transnational and transboundary contracts, and the changing images of coastal areas. This article analyses the trend towards the ‘drift’ of the demographic potential from the inland territories to the coastal periphery, which has been observed in Russia for centuries. A vast body of empirical data and statistics is used to demonstrate that, during the post-Soviet period, coastalisation has become city-centred and regionally/locally selective with a focus on the agglomerations of the Baltic, Caspian,...
The development of cooperation between the European Union and Russia on migration issues: from „the „common spaces” to the actual implementation
... Cooperation Agreement (1997) to the Roadmap for the Common Space on Freedom, Security and Justice (2005), the article assesses the main results of its implementation, such as the Readmission and Visa Facilitation agreements. Moreover, it stresses the role of Russia as an agenda-setter of the EU migration agenda in the Eastern Europe.
1. Averre, D. 2005, Russia and the European Union: Convergence or Divergence?, European Security, no. 14 (2), p. 175—202.
2. Barbé, E., Costa, O., Herranz, A., Johansson-Nogués,...
Really: syntactics without semiotics?
I discuss the relation of linguistics and semiotics on the basis of the Old Russian discourse particle TI1 ‘indeed’, ‘verily’, ‘truly’ discovered by Andrej A. Zaliznjak in 1993. Linguistics and semiotics are different research programmes: the first one deals with specific features of language structures, while the second one discusses general characteristics of all sign systems, from a perspective of interpreting most or all of them as secondary respective to natural language. Formal...
The peaks and troughs of Russian-Estonian relations
The world is witnessing the most profound changes of recent decades: a severe economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the bitter confrontation between Russia and the West, to name a few. At the core of Russia’s foreign policy is indubitably the conflict with the West, centred around Ukraine. The member states of the EU and NATO that share a border with Russia adopted the most hard-line position, and ...