卷 87, 编号 5 (2023)

The key factors in the regional consequences of the sanctions imposed in 2022 on certain sectors of the Russian economy were disruption of supply chains and production ties with foreign companies. The significance of these factors for the regional economy can be assessed through the indicator of production dependence on imports. The study revealed that low production dependence on imports is typical for the least developed regions that are poorly integrated into the international trade system, as well as individual regions specializing in the extraction of fuel and energy minerals, for which imports are more important than mass supplies of equipment and components. A high level of dependence is manifested in three types of regions: those specializing in machinery industry, entities on whose territory international ports are located, as well as territories where large investment projects are being implemented with the participation of foreign capital and/or with significant purchases of foreign equipment. Although in 2020–2021, production dependence on imports had practically no effect on the overall dynamics of the industry. In 2022 this factor again became significant and led to a deterioration in the situation in the group of regions with the maximum level of production dependence on imports. The strengthening of the negative impact of production dependence on imports, among other things, was the result of the policy of import substitution carried out in Russia over the past decade, aimed at directly replacing the supply of imported goods to the Russian market, primarily through the localization of the final stages of production. At the same time, the absence of a stimulating policy to increase competitiveness in export sectors through the development of own technologies and the production of technological equipment can lead to technological blocking and a long-term industrial crisis in regions with medium and low production dependence on imports.

The article tests the hypothesis that China’s transition to a knowledge-based post-industrial society requires the creation of large national corporations in many industries, and this should be reflected in the rankings of the largest corporations in the world. The analysis methodology is based on the principles of a systematic approach using historical, analytical, mathematical-statistical, and cartographic research methods. The shifts in the industry structure, nationality, and location of the headquarters of the world’s largest corporations by revenue for the period from 1995 to 2021, as well as the goals and strategy of Chinese companies going abroad, are analyzed. It has been revealed that the Chinese government is forcing the formation of large corporations, both state-owned and private, through mergers and acquisitions of numerous enterprises from the same and different industries. It has been revealed that the major activities of the largest Chinese corporations are concentrated inside China to protect domestic markets and national industry from the world’s largest TNCs. Every year China lets foreign companies enter and invest in new sectors of its economy, but only after national firms in the relevant industries have prepared to compete with world leaders. In the rich and sophisticated markets of developed countries, Chinese TNCs are primarily focused not on production, but on the promotion of national products. In developing countries, the largest corporations are building power plants, infrastructure, and basic industries’ enterprises to achieve the goals of the Belt and Road Initiative. As a result, in the international division of labor China is moving from a “world factory” to an innovative leader.

The article defines the patterns of development of the Ethiopian religious landscape in the context of a significant expansion of religious freedoms that began after 1991. The country’s population censuses for 1994 and 2007 were used as the statistical base of the study. It contains information on the religious affiliation of the population of Ethiopia as a whole and its administrative-territorial units up to the Woredas–the 3rd level of administrative units. The directions of shifts in the distribution of followers of the country’s largest faith-groups (Orthodox, Muslim, Protestant, ethnic religions) were determined based on the types of religious composition of the population. This allowed us to reveal the features of the Ethiopian religious landscape with a high level of detail. The defined trends in the development of the Ethiopian religious landscape are reflected in the maps illustrating the dynamics of the types of confessional structure of the woreda population for 1994 and 2007. Based on cartographic information, the author determined the patterns of reconfiguration of the geospaces of the largest faith-groups in the country, that provoked an increasing polarization in the Ethiopian religious landscape. Determined that the religious structure of the population of the regions dominated by Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Protestantism has become more homogeneous, while the main direction of the development of their geospaces was their expansion towards the capital of Ethiopia. As a result, specific spatial structures, such as frontiers, were formed. The intensification of religious competition in Ethiopia, which until recently was considered the “standard” of peaceful inter-communal relations in Africa, was accompanied by the growth of religious and ethnoreligious conflicts. It is established that it was partly due to the change in the religious structure of the urban population, resulted from a sharp increase in the proportion of Protestants and Muslims. Ethiopia faced the growing involvement of religious organizations in socio-political processes against the background of the aggravation of religious competition and interethnic rivalry. This contributed to the strengthening of centrifugal tendencies in the political life of Ethiopia, which have serious implications, for instance the unbundling of several administrative-territorial units in the southwestern and central parts of the country.

The results of paleosol and paleogeographic reconstructions on the new key site “Bol’shaya Kuzminka” within the northern part of the forest-steppe zone of the East European Plain (the high floodplain of the Vorone-zh River, the northern outskirts of the Bolshaya Kuzminka village, Lipetsk Oblast) are presented. To determine the age of alluvial deposits at different depths within the soil profiles, we used archaeological artefacts, Pleistocene faunal remains, soil humus, and charcoal. We reconstructed two main stages of floodplain formation during the Holocene: the early phase of low-intensity alluvial accumulation (beginning of the Holocene to the end of the Atlantic period, with mean rate of sedimentation–0.6 cm per 100 yr) and the late phase of increasing alluvial sedimentation (the second part of the Holocene, with mean rate of sedimentation–1.3 cm per 100 yr). Analysis of a closed depression within the floodplain allowed to reconstruct a complex synlithogenic soil profile with relic traces of three paleosols: a dark-colored Chernozem-like paleosol of the first half of the Holocene, the Luvisol of the Subboreal climatic phase (Gray Forest Soil), and the Stagnic Phaeozem (Chernozem-Meadow Soil) of the Subatlantic climatic phase of the Holocene. Flat areas around depressions hosted grassland vegetation; Stagnic Phaeozems (Meadow-Cheronozem soils) were formed here during the entire Holocene synchronic with alluvial sediments’ deposition. Palynological analysis of floodplain soils and deposits indicated that forests developed in the trend of widespread their areas on adjacent watersheds since the beginning of Subboreal period. Anthropogenic impact on soils and plant cover was noticeable from the Subatlantic period, and its intensity was increasing over time. Introduction of anthropochores was the main anthropogenic signal that resulted from utilizing floodplains and gullies as pastures and ploughlands.

The history of the Urals as part of Russia is closely related to industrial production. It developed during the main waves of modernization in the country and was accompanied by economic development of the territory, the formation of new villages and cities. A significant stage is the post-war period, when large projects for the extraction of minerals, the construction of energy enterprises, and the nuclear industry were implemented in the Ural region. In particular, in Sverdlovsk oblast in the late 1940–1950s, three small cities arose on a compact territory between the cities of Nizhny Tagil and Serov, in the upper reaches of the Tura River. Nizhnyaya Tura, founded in the middle of the 18th century, acted as a springboard for the construction of Kachkanar and Sverdlovsk-45 (modern city of Lesnoy) and thanks to this developed as a diversified center. This territory, at the present stage composed of three urban districts, should be considered as a group of geographically close settlements of the same administrative rank. Its development reflects all-Russian problems: small towns and urban districts; single-industry and multi-industry cities, polarization and compression of the developed space; internal and external challenges. The article examines the formation of a group of geographically close settlements, the dynamics of the population, the trends of socioeconomic development of the territory in the second half of the 2010s–early 2020s. It is shown that the development of a group of settlements was decisively influenced by resource and defense factors, which at the present stage were supplemented by an innovative factor. Kachkanar, a mining center, is a single-industry town; Lesnoy, center of electrochemical engineering, has the status of a closed administrative-territorial entity; in Nizhnyaya Tura there are enterprises of energy, engineering, construction industry. City-forming enterprises were able to adapt to the realities of the modern economy. The number of inhabitants of the territory is decreasing, in the medium term this trend may negatively affect the age composition of the population, the quality of labor resources.

The article examines historical and statistical sources abd analyzes the degree of study of the materials of socioeconomic statistics from the second half of the 19th–early 20th centuries. The author reviews scientific papers containing statistical data for the specified period, divided into thematic groups. The classification of historical written materials characterizing the development of the population and economy of rural areas, both for individual provinces and for the entire territory of European Russia, is given according to several principles (chronological, territorial-hierarchical, and problem-thematic). The author has developed an original classification of sources on socioeconomic statistics in accordance with their content and territorial coverage with the definition of such groups as cartographic materials, local history studies, archival documents, scientific papers and research, statistical materials containing demographic and economic characteristics, land use features; systematization as they arise for three periods has been carried out; on separate examples, various types of statistical materials containing demographic, social and economic characteristics are considered in detail, with a clear division into industries (agriculture, industry, the state of the population, characteristics of regions); sources in the form of office materials, various censuses, scientific works of a complex nature, complex works – statistical reports, statistical reference publications, statistical essays – descriptions of individual provinces, zemstvo surveys of peasant farms, etc. As a conclusion, the geographical information contained in the sources is divided according to the sectoral principle and the principle of territorial coverage (detailed comprehensive statistical characteristics, descriptions, statistical studies; statistical essays; economic and statistical research, and descriptions of individual villages and villages; materials from censuses, collections of information, collections of cartograms and diagrams, and address calendars). The article identifies possible prospects for the use of socioeconomic statistics in works on historical geography.