The article reveals historical origins, characteristics and formation trends of the “maritime” component of Russian human geography, as well as its key issues and development priorities. The factors of the rapid and productive formation of the so called “economic geography of the World Ocean” in the USSR (1960–1980) are analyzed, including its dominant perspectives, major concepts, and methodological ideas. It is shown that in the post-Soviet period “Maritime theme” in the structure of human geography originally had left by the wayside, and then (since the first half of the 2000s) – has been updated again (but although not having maintained its former leadership position). The range of research associated with the “maritime issues” has increased. They pay more attention directly to the Russian coasts, tending to regional studies, urbanistics and recreational geography. The article accents the need for the full-scale revival of “socioeconomic geography of the World Ocean”, as well as for development of its research tools, delimitation, typology and
sociogeographical monitoring of coastal zones of Russia, justification of factors and mechanisms of their advanced socioeconomic dynamics (including the connection with the tasks of spatial planning).

The Ural mountainous-plain land is the unique transcontinental megaregion of Eurasia, spreading from north to south more than 2500 km. There are represented zonal and mountainous landscapes from deserts and semi-deserts to the tundra. The Ural’s geological and geomorphological structure predetermined development of various types of karsts: sulfate, carbonate-sulfate, carbonate, hydrochloric, ore, as well as various manifestations of pseudo-karsts having natural and anthropogenic origin. Karst landscapes are represented within all physic-geographical areas of the Ural in its pre-mountainous and mountainous areas. Karst, to a large degree, defines geomorphological, landscape and biological diversity of the Ural. Seventeen State Nature Reserves, 6 National Parks, about 1800 Nature Monuments were organized within
the Ural land. It’s important to note, that many key karst-landscapes areas and objects of the Ural do not have the nature protection status, which would be sufficient for their conservation, study and monitoring. On the base of carried field and analytic researches it is offered to form a representative network of key karst objects, which better reflect specifics of their development under various latitudinal and zonal, geological and geomorphological, and hydrogeological conditions. For the first time, there is presented data about karst landscapes of objects of the Ural, which had been formed under untypical for karst formation nature-climatic condition: in Polar Urals – under the tundra and permafrost condition; in Mugodzhary – under sharply continental climate of a semi-desert zone. Specific suggestions on creating new nature reserves and expanding
existing of Specially Protected Natural Areas at the expense of inclusion into them the most valuable karst landscapes and objects is given.

Analysis of structural changes in Christian geospace using Loosemore – Hanby and Ryabtsev indices has shown a decline of inertia in its territorial structure from the 19th to the end of the 20th century. Minimum value of inertia has been achieved in the second half of the 20th century, when Christianity became a really global religion. The intensity of structural changes is decreasing at the beginning of the 21st century.
Christianity has returned to its roots: for much of the first millennium AD it had been a predominantly Afro-Asian religion, for much of the second millennium – European (and North American) one. But the Global South regained its positions in the second half of the 20th century. Only for 5 years (from 2014 to 2019) Latin America has become the leader among regions of the world in the number of Christians. The third millennium (at least the beginning of it) is going to be the second epoch of African Christianity. Changes in the territorial structure of Christian geospace are interrelated with changes in its confessional structure. In the first millennium AD, Afro-Asian Christianity was represented mainly by its Orthodox branch. European Christianity of the first half of the second millennium AD is associated primarily with Catholicism. In the second half of the second millennium, the latter was displaced to the New World, and partly replaced with
Protestantism in Europe. Religious gobalization and westernization in the 20th and 21st century has led to the formation of a new evangelization movement. It has spread from the Center – USA – all over the world by three wages of expansion diffusion: “pentecostal”, “revival” and “charismatic – marginal.”

The article continues a comparative study on the determination of the cycles of evolution of electoral and geographic space in the countries of developed democracy. The cycle of evolution is expressed by the changing models of complementary activity of voters and depends on the form of government, party and electoral systems, etc. The subject of research is the electoral activity of the population of Portugal after 1975, by the country and by territorial districts, along with the circumstances that affect its level. It is established that in Portugal, list-number of voters is a factor having a downward effect on the index of electoral activity. In this country the list-number of voters greatly exceeds demo-migratory proportion. This circumstance is conditional upon the sustainable interests of territories, that does not permit reducing the number of elected representatives of those territories in the framework of a constitutional maximal number of members of Parliament and one-tier system of converting a list-number of voters in seats in elected bodies. At the regional level under the organization of national elections the principle of territorial representation dominates. The second feature of the country is that demographically unreasonable increase in the list-number of voters in Portugal is correlated with administrative-political interests of the regions and with their sizes. Historically feature of Portugal as a territorial unit of a global political space is the so-called “diaspora expansion.” Activity in the elections showed that the political preferences of external electors are represented in Parliament
weightier than the preferences of the residents inside the country. Inside the country the trend “the more populous district, the higher the turnout” emerges with time. The Portuguese model of complementary activity does not reflect the interparty transitions of power. Before the reform of 1991 the chaotic interweaving of mutually reinforcing factors took place. After 1991, there is a stable dominance of the group of middle regions. The specific trend of complementary activity of regions indicates the completion of the two-disc cyclicity of the evolution of electoral and geographical space.

In conditions of intense spatial transformation of Moscow agglomeration (MA), driven by housing construction and migration from Russian regions to MA, urgent task is to build a integrated model of key economic and spatial drivers and outcomes of the transformation. In the article a new model of spatial equilibrium in MA is developed. The model includes three modules: 1) spatial equilibrium model for labour and housing markets in MA; 2) model of dynamic equilibrium between migration and housing construction in MA; 3) model of distribution of housing construction by zones of MA. In the first module equilibrium values of the population, employment and wages are predicted for concentric zones of MA (central business district – CBD, urban zone and zone of new construction). In the second module the equilibrium between migration from Russian regions to MA and new housing construction is shown. The deviation from equilibrium leads to an adjustment of incentives for migration, change of migration flows and finally rebalancing of equilibrium and reproducing of real income gap between MA and other Russian regions. The module 3 describes distribution of housing construction by concentric zones of MA, providing equal profitability of development projects due to adjustment of land prices. Despite the rather generic nature of the model, it is already able to reproduce several trends in spatial evolution of the MA in recent decades, especially the transition from extensive development phase with the spread of urban area in the Moscow suburbs in oil spot fashion and hyper-dense  development of CBD, to intensive phase with in-depth development of the main “body” of the city. The model stresses how closely are integrated processes in the largest agglomeration (of Russia and in the national settlement system. The model shows how
the political and economic processes through changes in rents and agglomeration effect change incentives for work, life and construction in different areas of MA and form the fate of different urban territories. The model describes the reverse side of the coin, how interregional migration is affected by the internal structure of the Moscow agglomeration. When making decision on the promotion of housing construction, especially largescale economy-class greenfield projects of on the periphery of agglomeration, the city implicitly accepts the decision to increase migration from Russian regions, affecting the national system of settlement in Russia.

The article describes linear and nonlinear models of the Caspian Sea level. The possibilities of the linear model – a stationary autoregression of the first order – are analyzed: when generating the desired trajectories by random walks, it turns out divergent process with the ability of the forecast by no more than one step. The necessity of using nonlinear model consisting of, for example, polynomial regression and periodic components is substantiated. The main advantage of the proposed nonlinear model is the ability to scientifically calculate the probabilities of reaching a pre-selected level value. Examples of the calculation of the probability of reaching higher or lower levels compared with the 2010 level are given. The forecast for the average monthly values is given for one and two years.

Reconstruction of landscapes of the Epifan expansion of the floodplain of the Don River for a narrow time slice, the time of existence of the Cossack settlements of the 16th–17th centuries, was carried out using a set of methods of geomorphology and pedology, involving archaeological, historical and paleogeographical materials. The conditions of the natural environment of that time were characterized by weak manifestations of floodplain regime, the lack of accumulation of alluvium, the formation in the floodplain of zonal soils (gray forest and Chernozem). As in previous stages of development (Bronze Age, 12th–14th centuries), at that time, long-term settlements could exist in the floodplain of the Don River. Natural changes of the landscape of the floodplain were connected mainly with changes of climate and location of the riverbed. The surface of the floodplain was relatively stable, the alluvium of the Middle and Late Holocene only in some places overlying soils is mostly found near the modern riverbed and oxbows. The composition of the vegetation mainly reflects the conditions of contemporary anthropogenic evolution of landscapes. The most striking signs of anthropogenic changes in the environment of the 16th–17th centuries were found in the structure and composition of soils of the floodplain in the area of settlements of that time (sloboda Melgunovo, etc.). It is discussed the possibility of their referring to soils of extreme environmental conditions.

Based on the study of sections of unconsolidated sediments and soils formed on area between Selenga and Chikoy rivers, the dynamics of sedimentation and pedogenesis during last 15000 years have been reconstructed. It is shown that the formation of sediments and soils during the Late Glacial took place in conditions of taiga and/or forest-steppe landscapes, which changed into steppe landscapes in Holocene due to climate aridization. Permafrost had a great influence on the formation of soils and the development of exogenous processes in the Late Glacial (15.0–11.7 kyr BP). The warming that occurred in the early Holocene (11.7–8.8 kyr BP), has led to the permafrost degradation, an increase of the active layer and the activation of erosionaccumulative processes. The most intensive sedimentation associated with an aridisation was ~10.5–9.4 kyr BP. In the time span 9.4–8.6 kyr BP, corresponds with an increase in moisture, there was an active development of pedogenic processes. In the Middle Holocene (8.6–3.4 kyr BP) due to the aridity denudation-accumulative processes proceeded fairly rapidly, fading in periods of pedogenesis, the most prominent of which appeared 6.9–5.9 and 4.9–3.6 kyr BP. High dynamics of exogenous processes, which served as the main limiting factor for the pedogenesis were typical for the Late Holocene (3.4–0 kyr BP). This time is characterized by the formation of stratozems and immature organic-accumulative soils. The reconstructed dynamics of sedimentation
and pedogenesis correlates with the landscape-climatic changes in the north of Mongolia and the Baikal region. There is a large convergence of climatic variations in the studied area with changes in the climate and vegetation of the North of Mongolia.

The purpose of this study is to investigate weather and climate conditions of functioning automobile transport in Moscow oblast. For this, statistics on the daily number of accidents in Moscow in 2013-2014 were studied and compared with the weather conditions. Various weather phenomena and meteorological parameters that affect the increase and decrease in the number of accidents in warm and cold seasons were identified; the extent of this influence was assessed. Moreover, an analysis of the distribution and change of the frequency of occurrence of these phenomena and meteorological parameters in 1961-2010 in Moscow oblast was conducted. In the cold season, there are much more weather events influencing the growth in the number of accidents than in the warm season. Fallout of more than 2 cm of snow per date, the reduction in meteorological visibility, drizzle and snow storms lead to an increase of accident rate by 5-15%. In the warm season, when thunderstorms and heavy rainfall there is a decrease in accidents; increase in the number of accidents happens in hot weather (maximum air temperatures over +30 °C). In the period 1991-2010 compared to 1961-1990 in the Moscow oblast the sustained cold period and amount of precipitation under negative air temperature has reduced; a decrease in the number of days with fogs and the offset of the date of the fallout of the first snow aside winter months is observed, which is favorable for automobile transport. At the same time, there is an increase in the number of days with transitions of air temperature through 0 °C, and the number of hot days, which negatively affects the functioning automobile transport.

The article considers approaches and methods to medico-geographical evaluation of the risks to population of the Yaroslavl oblast using hazard identification procedures - one of the key stages of risk assessment to public health. The used criterion of comparative non-carcinogenic hazard allowed typifying districts, in which one can suppose the increase in non-carcinogenic risks to human health, according to their probable priority. This approach shows the possibility to effective identify priority territories for control and monitoring of potential hazards and assessing the effectiveness of management decisions to reduce negative impacts.

The article considers a natural anomaly of 1990 and other similar events on a global scale. It is shown that these complexes of phenomena have a cosmic origin and occur with a periodicity of about 90 years, which is determined by the Sun’s motion relative to the barycenter of the Solar system. Revealing spatial-temporal regularities of development of large anomalies allows moving towards long-term and super-long forecasting.