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One of the leading factors in the development and efficiency of the innovation economy is human capital. The competitiveness of a country’s economy directly depends on its ability to develop, preserve, and accumulate human capital. The economy of modern developed countries is primarily characterized by high quality and level of human capital and considerable investment in its development. The primary purpose of our research is to study human capital as a concept underlying the strategic guidelines of social and economic development of the Republic of Tatarstan. The law of the Republic of Tatarstan, “On Approval of the Strategy for Socio-Economic Development of the Republic of Tatarstan until 2030,” has been chosen as the fundamental information source. The research objectives are met by using content analysis as a qualitative-quantitative method of studying the content of text arrays. We apply two types of content analysis during the research: non-quantitative and quantitative. Based on non-quantitative content analysis, we construct a non-frequency model of the text content from the Republic’s strategy for socio-economic development in view of the human capital concept. On the other hand, quantitative content analysis allows us to record, describe in quantitative terms, and meaningfully interpret the categories most relevant for the study purposes: human capital, human potential, labor resources, and labor potential.

Given that rural settlement patterns actively transform due to a depopulating village network, agglomeration and urbanization processes, mass migration from suburbs and concentration of population in large cities, rural territorial systems demand to resolve the spatial organization of individual living environments. In particular, fewer residents and settlements render the educational system inefficient, both in terms of how much the educational process costs and how it is organized. In this regard, the issues of educational system logistics associated with optimizing schoolchildren’s transportation flows between settlements and planning the placement of social elements by territory are highly relevant. The article analyzes the existing spatial organization of the educational system in rural areas of a municipality as illustrated by Elabuzh municipal district in the Republic of Tatarstan. Based on analytical study findings, we designed alternative models to organize a general educational system, which were then cross compared by performance indicators. The models built upon cluster formations with passenger turnover minimization have proved optimal; they allow us to determine the accommodation options with moderate costs and low transport load on the transported children. Another mechanism of traffic flows optimization is bound to developing the existing transport infrastructure so that a new level of the system’s spatial organization may become attainable. The results of this study can be applied in regional (municipal) management, forecasting and design, spatial and urban planning.

The article presents the results in a study of Russian agro-industrial regions as a special group of territorial socio-economic systems with the features of economy and social sphere development and problems of prospects forming. The presented results complement the materials previously published in “Region: Economics and Sociology " (2019, No. 2), which reveal the specifics of the development of agro-industrial regions in statics. The purpose of this article is to identify changes in composition of agro-industrial regions, as well as dynamics of their socio-economic and demographic development for almost three decades. We describe a methodology and results of the transformation that the territorial and sectoral structure of the Russian economy underwent. The article studies the shifts in the territorial and sectoral structure of the Russian economy, evaluates the changes that have occurred in each type of region, and characterizes the level and dynamics of the gross regional product of the agro-industrial regions. We consider the socio-economic and demographic dynamics of the agro-industrial regions against the background of Russia. The population incomes, poverty, and inequality in the agro-industrial regions are described depending on the economic period characteristics. Regional differentiation for these indicators is assessed. The agro-industrial regions demonstrate the heterogeneity of demographic space. Regional grouping is proposed in terms of the level and nature of demographic development. The research reveals how the regions demographic characteristics depend on their centro-peripheral position. We present an integrated estimate of the well-being dynamics of the agro-industrial regions on economic, social, and demographic indicators. On the one hand, they show a lack of correlation between the economic and social well-being in regions; on the other hand, the demographic well-being is not associated with those as well. The study concludes with exhibiting the unique traits of each agro-industrial regions.

The budgetary policy is among the main tools for managing local development. Its effective implementation contributes to budget replenishment, allowing regions to increase expenditures on social and economic measures. This study aims to analyze the most important directions that state policy takes to fund the activities of local self-governments in large cities and to study the impact of budgetary policy on the development of urban areas with at least one million inhabitants. The paper considers the primary fiscal indicators for the largest cities of the Russian Federation; assesses the structure of budget revenues to identify, on the one hand, how sufficient tax and non-tax revenues accumulated in cities and credited to their budgets are and, on the other hand, how dependent city budgets are on grants from the budgets of their respective regions; and carries out a detailed analysis of urban budget expenditures. Since the city of Novosibirsk is the largest municipal entity in Russia, this article takes a close look at its budget specifically. By calculating fiscal coefficients, we study the city’s budget stability and reveal its stance both among the other largest cities of the federation and urban districts of Novosibirsk Oblast. We analyze in greater detail crucial revenue items for Russian cities with a population of over one million, both accounting for their own tax and non-tax revenues and considering gratuitous transfers to urban budgets from regional ones. The article concludes that it is necessary to secure stable income tax sources to local budgets in general (and to cities in particular) to enhance their tax potential. We have noticed that between 2011 and 2018, urban areas with over a million inhabitants had the significantly poorer fiscal capacity and were less self-sufficient in terms of their revenues. Moreover, we have examined the main expenditure items for the largest Russian cities to determine whether they correspond to the socio-economic development goals of cities with over one million inhabitants. In Russia, such cities must be separated from the total population of municipalities as they act as the country’s growth drivers and have a decisive impact on its economy. Large cities need tax sources of income sufficient for their stable functioning and the formation of development budgets secured legislatively and at the federal level.

This article examines the positions of large cities (250-1,000 thousand people) and towns (100-250 thousand people) in regions’ economic space drawing on the example of the Ural macro region. We assess spatial significance in terms of specific weights in population size, investment, the volume of manufacturing output, retail trade turnover, and the commissioning of residential buildings. All indicators are found to have disproportions, which testifies to a violated spatial structure and a deformed economic space. Large cities and towns in the Urals are characterized by low population density, and their shares in the retail trade turnover and the commissioning of residential buildings are lower than shown by demographic indicators. The traditional industry is the only proverbial “anchor" that maintains the existing settlement structure. Compared to 2007, 2017 saw the spatial significance of large cities and towns in the Urals decreased. Such urban localities cease to function as trade and service centers for neighboring regions. Preserving the status quo poses the risks of growing imbalance in the national economic space and requires the advanced development of large cities and towns.

In this review, we aim to analyze the development and mutual influence of the ideas of efficiency and equality in spatial development, the reflection of these ideas in competing concepts of regional policy from the 1990s to the present day, drawing on the three literature strata. The first stream of publications captures the debate about the role of space in an era of globalization and revolutionary changes in how information transmits. The polar hypotheses - from the “death of space" to the “tyranny of space" - have stimulated empirical assessments of the impact that distance has on the level of economic interactions, which have not confirmed the thesis of a “flat world" where economic activity is distributed evenly. At the same time, dissatisfaction with the results of traditional redistributive regional policies matured in the expert community, giving rise to the second stratum of literature: a debate between the proponents of “space-neutral" and “place-based" policies. The former focuses on urban agglomerations as sources of growth, while the latter seeks to unlock the underutilized potential of each place. The discussion clarified the possible implications of these approaches for national economic efficiency and the reduction of regional inequalities. Recognizing the value of each place has brought forth a new requirement for the place-based policy to be “place-sensitive”. A similar discussion about the directions that the spatial development of Russia’s economy takes, and the principles of regional policy developed simultaneously in the Russian-speaking segment. The territorial concentration of growth in cities and the ways to reduce interregional inequality became major talking points. The peculiarity of such a debate was that it took place around the changing versions of spatial development strategies, often based on opposing principles.

This article deals with the categorization of Russia as the continental type of countries typical of classical geopolitics and the concepts based on its approaches. An analysis is made of the main aspects of continentality of countries: the territorial, populaton distribution and activity aspects. A number of indicators have been proposed to reflect these aspects. The resulting sample of countries, including Russia, are characterized according to the degree of continentality based on these indicators. It is pointed out that in terms of transport and geographic continentality, the number of seaports, the cargo turnover of the country’s largest port and the location of the capital city relative to the sea, Russia should be classified as a continental country. In terms of the ratio of sea and land borders, the potential of the Navy, the number of merchant ships and fish catch, Russia should be assigned to the oceanic type of countries. It has been determined that integrally Russia can be assigned to the transitional continental-oceanic type. A positive correlation was found between the number of merchant ships per capita and gross domestic product per capita, exports per capita and life expectancy. This correlation shows (confirms) that the more continental a country is, the less economically developed it normally is. It is noted that within the framework of classical geopolitics, the classification of Russia as a continental country is associated with the concept the difference between «sea» and «land» which gives rise to international conflicts. A departure from the idea of explaining the conflict between Russia and the West by these geographical factors also entails a rejection of the image of Russia as a purely continental country. The use of military-political and economic advantages of both the sea and continental location was characteristic of Russia in the past and is relevant at present.

This article considers the deterioration trends in structure and quality of the oil-producing regions of Russia and systematizes the criteria for distinguishing the category of hard-to-recover oil reserves in the domestic literature. We investigated the characteristics of the resource base of hydrocarbons and their impact on the innovative development of the oil-producing regions of Russia. A unique information base for study of resource regions has been compiled: total recoverable reserves, the share of small and very small deposits, the average size of the deposit, and degree of exploration are among the resource factors; the factors of the fluid property included the contribution from dense, sulphurous and viscous oil, and the oilfield factors involved water cut and the degree of depletion. The analysis included the factors of regional innovative development: the share of innovative goods in the volume of shipped products, the work done and services rendered, the share of technological innovation costs, and the share of internal research and development costs for gross regional product. Thus the hierarchical clustering method has been used to classify the oil and gas regions of Russia according to the quality and structure of the resource base, as well as to the level of innovative development. Calculations identified three clusters (groups of regions): one cluster included regions with a high degree of innovation and a high degree of hard-to-recover reserves, the other cluster involved regions with a medium degree of innovation and a low degree of hard-to-recover reserves, and the third cluster included regions with a low degree of innovation and a moderate degree of hard-to-recover reserves. This study verified and confirmed the hypothesis that a low quality of the resource base of hydrocarbons in oil-producing regions of Russia stimulates innovative development. The results of the study indicate that production of hard-to-recover oil has an extensive innovative component which has a multiplicative effect on the related industries and economy of the regions as a whole.

The synchronism and asynchrony of variations in the annual runoff of 18 major rivers (153 pairs of the rivers) in the Asian part of Russia were estimated by the new original methodology. The methodology is based on taking into account three groups of water discharges of the rivers (years of low, moderate and high water discharges) and on the numeric rating of the runoff in the years being compared. The runoff of the rivers is assigned to a particular group of water discharge by using its mean value over many years. The years in which the runoff was less than 0.95 of its mean value over many years were assigned to the years of low water discharge, and the years with the runoff larger than 1.05 were assigned to the years with high water discharge. The years with moderate water discharge included the values of the runoff in the interval 0.95-1.05 of the multiannual mean value. The runoff of the years with low, moderate and high water discharge was identified by number 1, 2 and 3, respectively. A comparison of water discharges was made for all 153 pairs of river basins for the correlative periods of observation under investigation. The years with identical water discharges (1 - 1, 2 - 2, 3 - 3) were assigned number 1; the years with opposite water discharges (1 - 3, 3 - 1) were characterized by number -1, and the years with adjacent water discharges (1 - 2, 2 - 1, 2 - 3, 3 - 2) were identified by number 0.5. For each pair of the rivers we estimated the numeric sum expressed in fractions of the total period of observation: the parameter of synchronism (asynchrony) of variations in the runoff. For 18 pairs of river basins the values of the parameter of synchronism were equal or exceeded 0.5. For these pairs of the rivers it was determined that the contribution from the years of low, high and a moderate discharges to the synchronism averaged 45.1 %, 36.3 and 10.7 %, respectively. The years with adjacent discharges showed an increase in the synchronism parameter by 29.2 %, whereas the years with opposite discharges decreased the synchronism by 21.3 %. The synchronism was also assessed by using the method of correlation.

Results of a paleobotanical (paleocarpological) layer-by-layer study of three peat sections located near the Pogorel’skii Bor experimental station operated by the Institute of Forest SB RAS (the interfluve of the Buzim and Sukhoi Buzim rivers) are presented. The study area is located in the transitional zone between subtaiga grassy small-leaved and coniferous forests and the Krasnoyarsk non-zonal forest-steppe. The climate of the region is extreme continental, moderately warm and insufficiently humid. The objects of paleocarpological analysis were macrofossils (macro-residues of fossil plants (generative and vegetative parts of plants)). Data from each section were used to construct carpograms (histograms showing the quantitative distribution of macro-residues in the identified fossil complexes, in accordance with the section stratigraphy). As a result of a comparative analysis of the species composition of paleocarpological complexes, taking into account the data on radiocarbon ¹⁴C dating (nine dates), the evolution of the vegetation cover of the territory of Pogorel’skii Bor was reconstructed by using hypsometric levels and seven time intervals, starting in the second half of the Atlantic period of the Blytt-Cernander chronological scheme of the Holocene. On this basis, digital maps of paleophytocenoses were compiled. An analysis of the formation of vegetation over the last 6000 years has shown that in the first half of the period under consideration the birch-larch forest-steppe with an alternation of shallow lakes prevailed on the territory. The onset of cooling and humidification (5000-3500 BP) contributed to the development of a subaiga forest-vegetation complex with the involvement of dark coniferous species. The subsequent warming (3500-3000 and 1300-800 BP) contributed to the return of forest-steppe and the development of steppe complexes. The leading tree species in the first half of the period under consideration were Siberian larch and birch, and, later, Scotch pine. A decrease in the role of larch, and an enhancement of the position of pine and steppe elements in forest phytocenoses during a later period (300 BP) were caused by climate change as well as by the increased influence of the anthropogenic factor. The regional features of the paleoclimatic regime of Pogorel’skii Bor forest in the latest Holocene are highlighted.