2020 Issue №4

The article focuses on territorial interests as one of the fundamental con­cepts of social geography which reveal both objective and subjective character. The primary territorial interest of the region is the efficient economic devel­opment, while losses and risks are minimal. The population opinion poll con­ducted in the Smolensk region identifies the priority areas in economic and so­cial policy. The article also points out to the difference in opinions of the popu­lation and the political elite of the region regarding the main vectors of eco­nomic development. The findings of the opinion polls can construct the socio­logical portrait of the region.

The status of the Republic of Crimea as a new border region of Russia prioritizes the study of the region's foreign economic relations. The article fo­cuses on general and particular foreign trade indicators of the Republic of Crimea while ensuring economic security of the region. The author analyzes the features of the post-Soviet export-import operations dynamics in the Cri­mean border region considering the changes in the scale of foreign trade after the reunification of the Crimea with the Russian Federation. The article de­scribes the transformation of the geographical structure of the Crimean for­eign trade relations in the context of modern geo-economic and geopolitical processes. «Turn to the East» and Russia's participation the integration pro­cesses of «Greater Eurasia» are found to have an impact on the foreign trade of the Republic of Crimea. Special attention is given to the Republic's position in the foreign trade relations in the Greater Black Sea region. The article de­scribes the specifics of exports and imports commodity structure with core partner countries. It is revealed that large-scale changes in the foreign trade of the Republic of Crimea were influenced by external restrictions (sanctions and blockades) and the process of reorientation of Crimean enterprises to domestic commodity markets. Foreign trade is concluded to be the least stable segment of the Crimean economy.

The article is devoted to the urgent problem of economic security of the Russian border regions, directly adjacent to Ukraine: Kursk, Belgorod, Voro­nezh, Rostov and Krasnodar regions. The study is going to assess the level of economic security in these regions, as well as its dynamics after 2014, taking into account cyclical features and long-term trends that have been in effect since the early 2000s. Having analyzed the research papers and public dis­course, the study built the picture of intraregional perception of the current and potential threats to economic security, compared with the results of long-term statistical observation aimed at identifying the components and factors of economic risks in the regions.

The innovation development dynamics of coastal regions is under the growing influence of the agglomeration factor and the coastalization factor, which results in polarizing the innovation space around large cities and urban agglomerations in the coastal zone. Coastal agglomerations act as drivers for regional development, concentrating a significant part of the population, eco­nomic entities, scientific, technological, and financial infrastructure, drawing resources from other municipalities. This makes the innovation space uneven, promoting an internal innovation periphery and strong nuclei in the coastal zone. The purpose of this study is to identify the features and specifics of the agglomeration development in coastal regions and assess their impact on the innovation trajectory of regional innovation systems. The study focuses on the agglomerations in 5 coastal regions of Russia: Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Kali­ningrad, Rostov regions, and Krasnodar Territory. The author evaluates the place of coastal and inland agglomerations in the socio-economic and innova­tion-technological space of the sample regions and determines the development priorities in the aspect of prominent innovation demand and its role in the re­gional innovation strategy. It is revealed that the coastal agglomerations con­centrate a significant innovation potential of the coastal regions, and their size allows them to act as drivers of regional growth, transferring their innovation specificity to the meso-level.

Digital technologies, which have received rapid development in recent years, are increasingly integrated into modern economic and social processes. The course towards digitalization taken by most countries is determined by the onset of a new digital era, when knowledge and information are the most important resources of the economy and are the basis for innovation. Howev­er, accelerated digitalization, as well as slowed down, carries a significant number of economic, social, political, cultural, and other threats that can be partially mitigated by creating favorable basic conditions for digital transfor­mation. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to assess some quantitative indicators reflecting the readiness of the region's economy for digitalization. For this purpose, the integral index is calculated as the arithmetic mean of 8 sub-indices characterizing the technological provision of enterprises in the re­gion and the affordability of information and communication technologies for them, human resources of the digital economy, the presence of a digital por­trait of companies and the level of their internal digitalization, the develop­ment of e-commerce and digital networks, information security. The research is carried out in the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation in 2010—2018. The results of the study have shown that the level of digitalization of the economy of the Kaliningrad region correlates with the national average. The authors conclude that additional state support is required for the development of the digital economy of the region while implementing an alternative scenar­io of innovative development.