Spatial development of the South of Russia: prolonged trends, current structures
A.G. DRUZHININ1,2
1Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
2Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: spatial structures, socio-economic development, southern vector, global changes, Great South of Russia, Russia
Abstract
Multidimensional global changes are projected onto Russia and its regions, initiating priority attention to the problems of spatial development. The purpose of the article is to form systemic ideas about the South of Russia as one of the key and most dynamic macroregions of the Russian Federation, about prolonged trends and current problem situations of the implementation of the “southern vector” of the spatial socio-economic dynamics of the country, and about the strategic priorities of the South Russian regionogenesis and its new (“large”) formats. Priority attention is paid, in particular, to the long-term trend of the “flow” of the population to the South of Russia and the transformation of its ethnic structure. The “wave-like” dynamics of population growth in the South Russian macroregion has been identified; it is related to its position in the center-periphery system of the country, as well as ethnodemographic and geopolitical circumstances. The article shows the socio-geographical specificity of the South of Russia that developed in the post-Soviet period and is transforming in the “post-Crimean” conditions (polyethnicity, coastalness, near-border location, comparative agroclimatic and recreational “southernness”, stability of the residential structure, etc.), as well as its functionality on a nationwide scale (agricultural-industrial, residential-recreational, transport-logistics, and military-geostrategic). The current megatrends in the natural-economic and ethnocultural spheres inherent in the South Russian macroregion are characterized. It is emphasized that the deepening stratification of the South Russian space (including under the influence of ethnodemographic processes at the regional and municipal levels) and its development as a whole according to the polycentric model are combined with the accelerated formation (due to changes in geopolitics, transport infrastructure, economic sphere) of interregional, transboundary aqua-territorial integrity - the Great South of Russia.
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