2020 Issue №2

The exclusive position of the Kaliningrad region is a fundamental geopo­litical factor in its socio-economic and socio-cultural development. Given the region’s foreign positioning, exclavity is both a challenge and a resource. Guided by the principles of factor analysis, through the method of principal components, the author puts forward several theses regarding the possibilities and limitations of exclavity in overcoming foreign positioning of the region. The economic dependence of the Kaliningrad region on the federal government policies inside and outside the country makes the region “fragile” in terms of promoting its sociocultural image. The article shows the tough dependence on the foreign economic decisions of the federal authorities using the development trends of the manufacturing industry in the region as an example. The in­creased potential conflict around the Russian exclave in the Baltic slows down the convergence of regional interests in the socio-economic sphere with the in­terests of neighboring countries. Intensified relations with other regions of the Russian Federation could make up for the situation. In practice, such intensi­fication is limited in nature, and results in some cooperation benefits in the short and medium term. While the Kaliningrad region is secured geopolitical­ly by the military superiority of the Russian state over a potential adversary in the Baltic, there are no comparable social and economic guarantees Here, paradoxically, the situation can open up opportunities for increasing the co­herence of the narrow, purely peripheral interests of the Russian exclave and the regions of neighboring countries, primarily Lithuania and Poland.

This paper focuses on the results of a sociological study of mobility and migration intentions of the Reform Generation and Millennials in the Kali­ningrad region. In this regard, different approaches to the theory of genera­tions are analyzed. The authors define the age groups that make up the Reform Generation and the Millennials and identify features of the designated genera­tions. The article makes an attempt to combine the method of cohort analysis with the theory of generations. A significant number of respondents happen to be in the region while migrating, so they were asked about the reasons for mov­ing, and were asked to compare the standard of living in the Kaliningrad region with other regions of Russia and neighboring countries. The authors defined the most significant attraction factors for the two selected generations. At the same time, questions were asked about the factors of departure from the Kaliningrad region. The responses showed different priorities depending on the age and gen­der of the survey participants. As a result of the study, the au­thors came to the problem of heterogeneity in both the Reform Generation and the Millennials. Therefore, the paper draws attention, on the one hand, to the scientific signifi­cance, on the other hand, to the debatable theory of genera­tions.

The study focuses on the empirical test of the grid/group model applied to the actual perception of the environmental risks by the local community (the case of the potassium mine development in the village of Nivenskoe, the Kali­ningrad region). It tests to what extent the structure of the theoretically con­structed cultural types (hierarchist, egalitarian, individualist, fatalist) being reproduced within the structure of the cultural preferences of the local com­munities. Different scales are being analyzed and tested, the application of the two of them is proven to be good for measuring various parameters. An origi­nal methodology is being applied for the assessment of the cultural types con­sistency in intense communication. The authors give a statistical account for the consistency of the cultural attitudes of the respondents. Using factor anal­ysis, we compare theoretical presuppositions with empirically observed inter­connections between cultural types statements. Out of five factors which have been distinguished, three generally correspond to the theoretically constructed cultural types in their set of variables — hierarchist, egalitarian and individ­ualist, one for the mixed paternalist factor (manifesting features both of hier­archist and egalitarian types) and one less expressed anit-ethatist factor (ex­pressing some features of individualist type but not setting any fixed group ethos).