Contrasts of socioeconomic space in the center of Russia and their evolution: two cross-section cases

The article reveals the level of contrasts in the center of Russia by municipal units, based on some economic and social indicators for two sections, or profiles, that together resemble the letter X on the map. The first profile follows the way from St. Petersburg to Moscow, crossing Leningrad, Novgorod, Tver’, and Moscow oblasts and then to the south of Tula region; the second one also follows the highways from the southern part of Kaluga Oblast via Moscow and Yaroslavl oblasts to the eastern outskirts of Kostroma Oblast. Inequalities in intra-regional, interregional and international migration to permanent residence along the selected profiles, as well as in intra- and interregional temporary labor migration, are studied and graphically shown. The long-term dynamics of population and the post-Soviet transformation of industry and agriculture, obtained including from field research and literary sources, allow us to partially explain modern population movements. It is shown that migration losses in the areas around the Moscow region are both a consequence and a cause of the local economic crisis. It is observed that the pre-revolutionary industrial potential was largely destroyed by the end of the twentieth century, while the accumulated late Soviet potential had a significant impact on the contemporary urban and areal development. However, the possibilities of its post-Soviet use varied greatly from place to place. The cumulative effects of economic spatial shrinkage and population concentration in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, regional centers and their suburbs are clearly visible. Population migration to large cities and agglomerations turn into losses of the most active population in the regions’ peripheries, and, consequently, into spatial economic polarization. Although the economy is partially recovering, changing specialization, its consolidation and modernization, including in agriculture, increases the problems in employment and social sphere, particularly acute at the municipal level. Migration losses in areas around the Moscow region are both a consequence and a cause of the local economic crisis.

LOCAL GEOGRAPHIC TERMS AND MICRO-TOPONYMS POSKOTINA, PODSKOTINA IN KOSTROMA PATOIS

The article is devoted to the names connected with one of people’s ancient occupations such as cattle breeding. Being an important source of all kinds of data, they are of interest from both linguistic and historicalethnographic points of view. The research is conducted on the material of the appealative and micro-toponymic lexis available in the patois of Kostroma Oblast. The article studies the names of pastures «podskotina» and «poskotina» as well as micro-toponyms formed on their basis. The attention is paid to distribution and features peculiar to the semantics of these words in Russian folk patois. The paper singles out basic meanings of the pasture names under study in Kostroma patois. The author provides examples of their use in live folk speech as well as explanations of their meanings by the dialect native speakers. The study of the pasture names functioning features in folki speech makes it possible to refer their considerable part to micro-toponyms science, within small space, they, being names of single objects, are intermediate between common nouns and proper nouns. The micro-toponyms reflect main features of geographic terms being a ground of their origin. The research of the microtoponyms shows that in the toponymic system of Kostroma Oblast there are names formed due to transition of an appealative to a micro-toponym without any transformations according to the scheme «an appealative + an attribute characterising the called object» and on the basis of case-prepositional construction. The compound names more often are connected with the names of settlements and anthroponyms (usually, with possesive meaning). A pasture name frequently becomes a name of its location and adjacent objects; the name is reserved for the latter ones in case of the pasture disappearance.There are words «podskotina» and «poskotina» as both appealatives and micro-toponyms in the patois of many districts of Kostroma Oblast. The study of these local geographic terms, along with micro-toponyms formed from them, makes it possible to find out their semantics, features of functioning in the patois more precisely and completely and to present the data in different studies.

Terra Incognita of the Russian Near North: Counter-Urbanization in Today’S Russia and the Formation of Dacha Communities

This article considers the salient features of counter-urbanization, which take place when urban residents, during the summer months, move to live in their second homes or their dachas [country homes or summer cottages]. Due to the social forces that are the result of incomplete urbanization, class polarization, and the rapid growth of major city centers, there are two powerful oppositional flows of migration taking place today in Russia. The first is centripetal migration or the movement of rural populations to large cities. The second form of migration is centrifugal migration or counterurbanization, which is the relocation of urban populations to rural areas. The article gives a theoretical overview of a new vision of migration as a part of modern flexible ‘liquid’ mobility, which enables urban residents to be constantly ‘on the move’, migrating between their urban apartments and suburban or distant dachas. A theoretical sociological background provides the field research, presented in the article, with an understanding of the realm of meanings of de-urbanization in a short and long historical run and in perspective. Russian men and women, who work in various professions due to advances in telecommunication technologies, are able to spend some extended periods at their dachas where they simultaneously work and enjoy the natural beauty and countryside. The different types of dachas in Russia that are either close to cities or in remote regions are examined. The case study of dacha counter-urbanization in the periphery region of Kostroma oblast' considers: 1) various features of the return counter-urbanization to remote dacha and 2) the social, economic and cultural effects that these dacha settlements have had on both the urban and rural residents.

Protoventuria myrtilli. [Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria].

A description is provided for Protoventuria myrtilli (Gibbera myrtilli), which colonizes living leaves of Vaccinium and related species, causing a leaf spot. Some information on its associated organisms and substrata, habitats, dispersal and transmission and conservation status is given, along with details of its geographical distribution (North America (Canada (British Columbia, Quebec), USA (Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin)), Europe (Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia (Kostroma oblast, Nizhny Novgorod oblast, Ryazan oblast, Yaroslavl oblast), Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK)) and hosts (including Vaccinium spp.). No reports of negative economic impacts of this fungus have been found.