Western border regions of Russia: delimitation, structure, typology
AbstractThis article is devoted to the western border regions of Russia, which play an important role in terms of history, geopolitics, geoeconomy, culture, and mindset. Relying on the interpretations of ‘border’, ‘frontier’, and ‘borderlands’, which are traditional for Russian limnology, I outline the geo-concept of ‘western border regions of Russia’ and provide a rationale for its understanding as a continuous-discrete, dynamic, multi-scale, transboundary socio-geographical phenomenon. I pay particular attention to the principles of, and approaches to, the delimitation of western border regions. As a result, I classify seventeen constituent entities of Russia as western border regions. Another focus is the structuring of border regions based on environmental, climatic, positional, political-territorial, resource and economic, settlement-related, and other factors. I provide a multi-criteria typology in view of the actual and potential effect of geopolitical and geoeconomic turbulence on regional socioeconomic systems.