2026 Issue №3

The Yantarny Urban District occupies a distinctive position within the tourism cluster of the Kaliningrad Region. The key features of the area include extensive and well-maintained beaches along the Baltic Sea coast, a unique arboretum, a number of historical buildings and museums, as well as an amber mining and processing plant extracting the semi-precious gemstone amber by open-pit mining. One of the major challenges remains the geographical location of the district, which is accessible only by regional roads frequently congested during the tourist season; the railway connection that existed until the 1990s has been discontinued. There is a pressing need to develop a concept for improving transport accessibility in order to increase the popularity of the beaches and tourist attractions of the Yantarny Urban District among both tourists and local residents, as well as to enhance the investment attractiveness of the construction and development of accommodation facilities in the area. The authors have developed alternative, faster bus routes connecting popular tourist resort towns, including Yantarny. They propose branded express bus services operating from the resort towns of Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk, featuring increased service frequency. For the first time, a scientifically grounded solution to the problem of transport accessibility to the Yantarny Urban District is proposed through passenger transportation based on a unified coordinated timetable involving two or more modes of transport. The proposed innovations will optimize the organization of the tourist space and may also be applied to other coastal areas facing similar challenges.

The article analyzes the influence of capital-adjacent location on the socio-economic development of territories. The aim of the study is to identify the nature of this influence, which manifests itself both in stimulating economic growth and in generating social disparities. The study employs a comparative methodology based on the analysis of statistical indicators of capital-adjacent regions and their respective capital cities. The findings confirm that proximity to the capital provides access to agglomeration advantages, as reflected in higher macroeconomic indicators, including average wage levels and gross regional product per capita, as well as in a more adaptive economic structure. It has been established that capital-adjacent regions exhibit increasing specialization in trade, services, and manufacturing industries. At the same time, the study reveals that this development is accompanied by the intensification of social problems, including an overheated real estate market characterized by inflated property prices, growing social inequality, lagging infrastructure development, increasing commuter migration, and mounting demographic pressures. The article emphasizes the dual and non-linear nature of the development of capital-adjacent territories, arguing that addressing the identified challenges requires targeted public policies aimed at economic diversification and infrastructure development in these regions.