Transformation of transport-geographic space of Central Asian countries in the Post-Soviet era

The structural and morphological restructuring of the transport-geographic systems of the countries of Central Asia has become a reflection of the radical transformation of the geopolitical space of the region in the post-Soviet era. From the very beginning of a new period of development in the countries of the region, the disintegration of a single (end-to-end) road transport framework that developed during the Soviet period was consistently taking place. This was due to the desire of the countries of the region to minimize their own transport dependence on neighbors, while simultaneously enhancing transport-logistics advantages to exert geopolitical pressure on neighboring states. Under the influence of the corresponding geostrategic landmarks, the countries of the region have consistently built a new configuration of transport-logistics systems during the post-Soviet period. The article examines the changes in the geography of the main road transport communications of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan that have occurred over the past three decades. It was revealed that the most morphologically transformed transport systems of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, characterized by relatively favorable geomorphological conditions for transport construction and more significant economic opportunities. In the predominantly mountainous terrain of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which also have a significantly more modest investment potential, the transformation of the transport-geographic space has occurred to a less pronounced degree. Special attention is paid to the prospects for the reintegration of transport systems of the Central Asian countries, which emerged after 2016, in connection with the profound changes in Uzbekistan's foreign policy towards the border countries of Central Asia, initiated and consistently implemented by the new leadership of the republic, headed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Large spaces and polarized landscapes in the life of a traveler and scientist (to the 90th anniversary of the birth of B. B. Rodoman)

The article is devoted to the 90th birth anniversary of Boris Borisovich Rodoman — an outstanding Soviet and Russian geographer, the founder of theoretical geography, the creator of the original method of geographical cartoids, the author of the “polarized biosphere” concept, who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of the geography of recreation and tourism.

Russian as a native language in the post-Soviet space in comparison with the results of the 1989 census

In the post-Soviet period, there was a significant narrowing of the Russian language distribution space. The aim of the study is to identify the changes that have taken place since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the level of the post-Soviet countries in the number and proportion of people who named Russian their native language. The novelty of this study is based on the level of regions in the post-Soviet space and the analysis of the dynamics of such indicators as to the share of the non-Russian population, who named Russian their native language. Almost all post-Soviet states experienced a decrease in the number and share of the Russian-speaking population. Currently, the minimum indicators of the proportion of Russians and Russian-speaking people are characterized by the states of Transcaucasia, as well as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The biggest losses in the post-Soviet period of both the Russian and Russian-speaking population, in relative terms, were experienced by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. A special dynamics of these indicators have developed in two states — in the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine. In these countries, the part of the biethnic population that adopted the identity of the titular ethnic group retained the Russian language. Russian, for example, has declined more rapidly in Ukraine than in the categories of people who consider Russian as their native language, and this has led to a decline in the number and share of the Russian population. The situation in the Republic of Belarus, which is unique in the post-Soviet space, was the result of the 1995 referendum that established the status of the state language for Russian. As a result, along with the decrease in the Russian population in the Republic of Belarus, there has been a significant increase in the category of citizens who named Russian their native language.

Forecasting the national electric vehicle markets development

The problem of forecasting the development of national electric vehicle markets in the context of the global trend of energy transition is considered. The urgency of the problem is due to the fact that the development of the electric vehicle market plays an important role in the process of replacing traditional energy sources with renewable sources. At the same time, forecasts for the development of national electric vehicle markets are often characterized by significant errors, which necessitates the development of reliable forecasting methods that take into account regional characteristics. To solve this problem, a multi-trend approach to building a mixed trend for the volume of electric vehicles and their share in the car market is proposed, which is based on modeling the development trend of the national market in the form of a linear combination of logistic, linear and exponential trends with weight coefficients depending on the degree of deviation trends from actual data. Based on the proposed modification of this method, forecasts of the development of the electric vehicle market for ten countries for the period 2018–2019 were made, which showed high reliability. A forecast for the period 2020–2024 has also been developed. It is shown that the reason for forecast errors is often the desire to use the logistic curve as a universal analysis tool without taking into account the peculiarities of the dynamics of the development of national electric vehicle markets.

Mental image of planting of greenery and improvement of microdistricts of the city of Brest by its citizens

The article is devoted to the issues of studying the mental perception planting of greenery and improvement of the city by creating mental maps. The development and creation of mental maps allows you to see the opinion of urban residents about the state and main problem situations of various components of the urban environment. The study of the mental perception of planting of greenery and improvement of the city was carried out on the example of Brest at the level of its microdistrict. There are 17 microdistricts in the city, which are quite different from each other in terms of area, configuration and population. The study was carried out on the basis of a questionnaire survey of the population of its individual microdistrict. The majority of the city's residents consider Brest a fairly green city. The greenest microdistrict are named by the majority of respondents as Center and East. The majority of respondents believe that their microdistrictis greened more than others, or it is green well, but the plantings are not well-groomed. Inhabitants of the majority of microdistricts believe that the planting of greenery of the territories of their districts does not change. According to residents, the main problematic situations associated with the greening of the city's microdistricts are the presence of old trees, a significant number of trees that are poorly suited for the urban environment. Most often, the residents of Brest are not satisfied with such types of landscaping as green areas, lawns and flower beds. The practical significance of the study is that its results can be claimed at the local administrative level to justify projects of measures aimed at preserving and preventing the degradation of natural and natural-anthropogenic urban geosystems, as well as ensuring sustainable development of the urban environment of Brest.

India: moving forward?!

The article is a classic review of a monograph. Includes such traditional sections as: bibliographic description of the book; the main idea of the research; technical characteristics: design, cover, illustrations; structure of the work and a brief description of its content; scientific genre; personal impressions of the reading and their argumentation; target audience for the monograph; recommendations to readers about the level of usefulness of the work.

The changing geo-cultural space of the CIS countries in the 20-21st centuries (on the material of renaming cities)

The article deals with the main cultural and geographical approaches to the study of renaming — critical-toponymic, palimpsest, geoconceptual. From the position of conceptualization of space, a typology of renaming geographical objects is proposed. Among the main motives for renaming are the following: status, national renaming, de-Sovietization and de-Russification of space, “new Russification” of space. On the basis of a large amount of factual material, the changes in the geocultural space of the Neighboring countries are investigated. At the same time, there are 3 groups of countries: countries with a transformed geocultural space, where renaming affected more than half of the studied objects, countries with a changed cultural and geographical space, where renaming covers from 25 to 50 % of the cities considered, and countries with a slightly changed geocultural space (renaming covers less than a quarter of the studied objects). A significant group of countries of the Near Abroad (Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, South Ossetia) belongs to the countries with a transformed cultural space. These countries are characterized by the processes of revolutionary attitude to the Soviet heritage (with the exception of Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and active cultural and linguistic innovations. Two countries of the Near Abroad (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) belong to the countries with a changed cultural space. A significant group of countries in the Near Abroad belongs to countries with poorly modified cultural space (renaming covers less than a quarter of the studied objects). These are Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia and Uzbekistan. Some of these countries are characterized by a low rate of cultural and linguistic innovation. Others — the Baltic states, Armenia, and Georgia-experienced waves of renaming much earlier, in pre-Soviet or Soviet times.