2022 Issue №2

The article considers the issues of the transport system evolution in the modern territory of the Russian-Belarusian border area. Transport is noted for its special role in regional development and its contribution to the develop­ment of interregional ties, the formation of cross-border regions. The transport net­work forms a certain infrastructure in the regions, thanks to it con­nec­tivity and integrity are achieved. The development of the transport system ref­lects the main stages of the development of civilization as a whole and within individual regions. The article highlights the main stages of such development of the transport network in the modern territory of the Russian-Belarusian border area. Particular attention is paid to its transit, intercapital geogra­phi­cal position, and the impact of transport development on regional growth. The author remarks that in modern conditions, transport connectivity acts as the most important factor in the integrity of the Union State.

Widespread introduction of digital technologies into human life has resulted in the accumulation of huge amounts of digital data that enables quantitative assessment of various social processes. This article uses data on Internet search user queries in the border region, namely the Kaliningrad region of Russia, to assess the interest of its inhabitants in establishing local cross-border links with the border regions of Poland and Lithuania. The data source is the Yandex. Wordstat open service, which displays statistics and geo­graphy of queries in the Yandex search engine. The study covered 101 sett­le­ments in the Russian-Polish and 93 in the Russian-Lithuanian border area. The authors analyzed the frequency and the content of 3,277 unique queries ma­de between February and April 2022 and containing at least one place­na­me of the primary sample. The study came up with the calculation of monthly indices of user digital interest in the Kaliningrad region — general (for each lo­cality) and thematic (for certain areas of cross-border interactions — tou­rism and recreation, trade and shopping, education, work, housing and mo­ving). It was revealed that in the 100-km border zone, fewer than 40 % of sett­lements with a population of 1 thousand people in Lithuania and 2 thousand people in Poland were the object of a targeted search for residents of the Rus­sian region. A higher level of frequency and variety of search queries is typical for larger cities, while their territorial proximity to the border did not signi­ficantly affect the dynamics of Internet search. Only five cities — Polish Gdansk, Olsztyn, Gdynia and Lithuanian Kaunas, Klaipeda, are represented in all five thematic categories of requests in the areas of cross-border inte­ractions.