2017 Issue №2

The article deals with modern concepts of cultural landscapes in Russian and foreign geography, as well as approaches to the zoning of cultural landscapes. The approaches to landscape-cultural and historical-geographical zoning considered in the article appear to be logical and scientifically substantiated; they give an exhaustive picture of the origin of the cultural landscape, both natural and historical-cultural. However, they do not determine the state of the cultural landscapes of a particular territory, because, depending on their development trend, cultural landscapes can remain stable or completely disappear. A technique is proposed for determining the degree of socio-economic background of modern landscape development. The latter defines the landscape development trend, whether it comes to their stability or disappearance.

The mechanism of the local (or small) the cross-border movement is a form of cross-border cooperation. On the border between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Poland this mechanism worked from 2012 to 2016, and provided for a significant intensification of mutual border-crossing. In this case the suspension of the local border traffic regime on the Polish side, as well as the regime itself, caused a mixed reaction among both Polish and Russian regional experts and specialists. The article provides the analysis of the mutual intensity of the Russian-Polish border crossing in the period from 2002 to 2016. The author analyzes the contribution made by the cross-border movement mechanism to the development of relations between the border regions of the neighboring countries. The article concludes that in spite of shortcomings and negative effects for both countries, the mechanism of the mechanism of local border traffic in 2015, launched in 2012, became an important development tool for socio-cultural and business contacts between Kaliningrad and the neighboring province of the Republic of Poland. Rejection of this instrument seriously affected the intensity of the local contacts between the regions located on both sides of the border.

The article applies the spatial-dynamic approach to carry out an analysis of the rural settlement in the Pskov region in the provincial time. The study covers the period from the middle of the XIX century up to 1926. The first general census of the Russian Empire (1897) has been chosen as an interim date for the analysis of dynamic processes. The study revealed differences between provinces of the Pskov region in terms of population and key characteristics of rural settlement.

The development of international tourism in the world today has a special and very important role. It has often been noted that it influences the overall economic growth as well as social, cultural, educational well-being of each particular country. In this regard the new approaches in the tourism management become significant. Particular attention is paid to the promotion of cross-border tourism clusters that encourage mutual integration of the neighboring countries. Territory branding in this regard gains new perspectives for implementation.