Shifts in global food situation in the beginning of 21st century are described. The author marks the extension of problem field of the food situation, which comprises the necessity to consider quality issues and excessive food consumption along with the food shortage. The method of assessment of the food situation based on the calculation of the integral index of food consumption is described. Factors of formation of the food situation are revealed. The systematization of factors based on their spatial influence with the release of three groups is proposed: factors of total influence; factors of differentiated influence and factors of focal distribution. Typology of countries by current food situation is carried out based on the food consumption index and taking into account the role of countries in the global food system. Six types of countries are defined, which represent stages taken by countries in process of food situation development. Analyzing types in pair with place and role of countries in the global food supply system 13 subtypes of countries are defined.

Social deviance (negative and positive) is a very important cross-national distinctive characteristic of social space that reflects features of social, economic, political and cultural development of countries and regions of the world. Among human geographical disciplines the author proposes to allocate geography of social deviance (geodeviantology) as scientific area that studies specifics of regional expansion and territorial structure of deviance as well as their relationship with socioeconomic conditions. Special attention is paid to the most developed subdiscipline with a scientific point of view – geography of crime (geocriminology). A case study of negative deviance in terms of socioeconomic geography is the geography of felonious homicides. Areas of the highest (Caribbean, South American, and East African) and lowest (West European, North American, North African, East Asian, and Pacific) levels of homicide are identified. The analysis of statistical correlation of the distribution of homicides and the level of economic development of countries is conducted. The conclusion is made about the nonlinear nature of impact of the factor of economic welfare of countries on distribution features of heavy types of violent crime.

In the article, the current state and the dynamics of cross-border cooperation between Russia and Ukraine after the 2014 crisis events investigated on the case study of Belgorod and Kharkiv oblasts. The dynamics of the main socioeconomic indicators of neighboring regions under the impact of the crisis in mutual political relations is analyzed. It is revealed that the strengthening of barrier functions of the border leads to the reduction of bilateral interactions and the intensification of shadow forms of labor and entrepreneurial activity. The directions of cross-border population flows are analyzed, their asymmetry is shown. Four main dimensions of cross-border cooperation have been explored: infrastructural, institutional, economic and social. It is concluded that in the context of political crises the infrastructural and institutional dimensions of cooperation are influenced by external factors and are significantly transformed. At the same time, economic and social interactions although noticeably weaken, do not stop completely, keeping the possibilities for renewed cooperation under favorable conditions.

The article suggests an analysis of structural and regional changes in Russian agriculture and the contradictory tendencies of its development over the last 25 years. The author examines the regional differences in the acreage decrease that has not hampered the intensification of crop production and growth of grain exports. The changes in balances of production, consumption, export and import of grain, meat and milk are traced year by year, as well as regional shifts in key products outputs. The dynamics of different types of livestock and poultry, as well as the change of the ratio of meat and milk production in agricultural enterprises, farms and personal plots of population are investigated. The increasing concentration of production in agricultural holdings and large enterprises is promoting the urban food supply, but affects the spatial polarization of agriculture. Changes in production as a result of the crisis and modernization of agriculture are examined on the background of declining agricultural employment, the non-prestige farm labor and its low pay. This resulted in growing unemployment in rural areas and in spread of moving rural residents to cities for earnings. Their outflow from the regions nearby to Moscow agglomeration has blocked the development of agriculture. The article widely uses graphics and maps for the analysis.

The widespread abandonment of ameliorated lands, which occurred after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, has resulted in emergence of a new postameliorated type of landscapes. The research of new trends in dynamics and evolution of such landscapes forms the informational base for the assessment of the losses of a part of former natural and socioeconomic functions. The drained in 1966 landscape in the Central Meshchera Lowland was selected as a model area, where since 1977 stationary studies for its dynamics and functioning have been conducting in the zone of influence of the melioration system and beyond. The qualitative estimation of the changing of landscape functions over the periods of active use of drainage systems from 1966 to 1991 and from 1993 to 2015 by the 18 environmental and socioeconomic indicators is given. The method of relative scaling is reasoned. Based on this method, the four most important landscape functions providing biological productivity, surface water quality, soil fertility, and aesthetic attractiveness are analyzed. For the assessment of landscape functions from the viewpoint of the local society, the references at the regional level are taken. The weights method for these four functions allows concluding that in a greatest degree this area is suitable for agricultural activities and in a lesser degree for nature protection objectives, although the differences are small.

The seasonal precipitation changes in the East European Plain in the periods of warm and cool anomalies of North Atlantic surface temperature in the 20th – beginning of the 21st century were studied in the paper. The difference between spatial distributions of seasonal precipitation in the East European Plain in the opposite phases of Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation was found to be significant. In spring, the warm phases of the North Atlantic (1926–1962 and 1995–2012) are associated with a larger amount of precipitation in the East European Plain in general than in cool phase (1963–1994). In contrast, in summer, drier conditions were observed in the same warm phases in the most parts of the East European Plain. It was shown that the coherence of spatial patterns of seasonal precipitation changes during the warm phases of the North Atlantic caused by their response to the similarities of the sea level pressure patterns in the Atlantic-European sector in the same periods.

The paper presents new results of pollen and carpological analyses, as well as the plant macrofossil analysis and the radiocarbon dating of the peat profile of the Istochek peatland (the village of Yasnaya Polyana, Tula oblast). Based on these data, the reconstructions of vegetation dynamics on the north of the Middle Russian Upland during the Middle and Late Holocene were performed. The obtained data indicate that in the period 6500–4500 cal. years BP the study area was in the ecotone band between forest and steppe zones of the East European Plain. The boundary of the forest zone passed nearby the study area and was located in 50–70 km to the north in compare with its present position. Climate cooling and rise in moisture at 4500 cal. years BP led to increase of forested areas and shifted the forest boundary to the south. Human induced vegetation changes are traced in paleobotanical data from the Istochek peatland since 2000 cal. years BP, however dramatic environment deterioration when the natural vegetation was replaced by secondary forest stands and agricultural lands occurred during the last 300 years.

In driftless area of the East European Plain in the basin of the Middle Don River, the soil-sedimentary series, which includes 2–3 levels of soil formation related to the final stage of the Pleistocene (the lower Dryas – belling – average drias 2 – allered – upper Dryas) are studied. Complex of underdeveloped soil, enclosing and separating sediments is called Divnogorsk pedolithcomplex. A complex internal structure of late-glacial warming of belling and allered is revealed by paleosoil, paleobotanical and lithogenic data. The lower most developed paleosol (Rendzic Chernozem) is related to belling warming, the medium (Rendzic Leptosol) and upper (Cambisol) paleosols – to allered warming. The paleosols were developed during periods of climate warming at the late-glacial period in periglacial forest-steppe conditions. The lower soil (belling) was formed in conditions of increased moisture and extensive development of lowland spruce-pine forests, the average (first half of allered) – in more arid conditions, the upper (second half of allered) – in warmer and wetter conditions with increased participation of nemoral vegetation. None of the soils does not correspond to the rank of interstadial paleosols – each of them was formed during the first hundreds years.

The changeover of the vegetation of the steppe zone into the desert zone takes place on the plains of the southeast of the European part of Russia. In 1907, N. A. Dimo and B. A. Keller have proved an existence of special semidesert zone in the Northwestern Precaspian. However, from the geobotanists point of view the term “semidesert” should be used for the name of a natural zone, and the type of vegetation that characterizes a zone should be set on according to dominant life forms (ecobiomorphes) forming a plant community. The paper is justified the affiliation of the Northwestern Precaspian vegetation to the steppe zone, subzone desert steppes. The method of studying the spatial-temporal changes of vegetation was the ecological and topological profiling conducted repeatedly in different years. The Sarpinskaya Lowland and Chyornye Zemli landscapes were studied as a typical for the Northwestern Precaspian. It is established, that the features of vegetation cover is defined by a combination of zonal turf-grasses communities with intrazonal xero-halophytes groups. The displacement of the turf-grasses by Artemisia typical for northern deserts does not occur in the Northwestern Precaspian. Intensive agricultural activity is a cause of degradation of vegetation and anthropogenic desertification of the landscape.

History of hydronym “Southern Ocean” is long and dramatic. During three and a half centuries outstanding scientists, authoritative scientific congresses, international maritime organizations were either perceive or reject the Southern Ocean as a geographical object. On the basis of the best available synthesis of the works of the last century, the article is traced the struggles and changing views of famous oceanographers, geographers, polar explorers and hydrographs about the problem. The formal boundary of the South Polar Region of the World Ocean on the 60° parallel of south latitude leaves almost entirely outside of the Southern Ocean the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which is fundamental feature of the circulation of its waters. Therefore we suggest continuing to define the borders of self-sufficient geographical object the Southern Ocean: on the South by shore line of Antarctic continent, and on the North by the line connecting the southern tip of Africa, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Last line is almost identical with the subtropical convergence.