Since 2022, the journalIzvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya Geograficheskayais publishing special issues onimportanttopicsin geography. Thecomprehensivespecial section offered to readers’ attention is another innovation of the journal. Thiscollectionhas been prepared for the centennial of the International Geographical Union and its congress in Paris (July 2022). It includes seven review articles. Their English translations are simultaneously published in the journalRegional Research of Russia, no. 1 for 2022.These circumstances determine articles’ genre and fundamental features. The topics of the articles were chosen so that the special section reflects areas in which the most striking results have been achieved and which are specific to Russia. The authors are leading Russian experts in their respective fields. They have tried, as far as possible, to compare the topics, methodological approaches, and research results with the world mainstream. The main focus is on the last decade, 2010–2021; when necessary, the authors also have referred to earlier publications. The authors of most of the articles pay attention to the peculiarities of spatial development that arose in 2020–2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article discusses the main concepts that characterize spatial inequality (uneven development, concentration, polarization, fragmentation, shrinking of socio-geographic space) in domestic and foreign literature as applied to the problems of modern Russia. Russian geographers pay much attention to both interregional and intraregional inequality, as well as to their links with natural, historical, economic, demographic, and institutional factors. On the vast and unevenly developed territory of Russia, with its natural contrasts and different results of post-Soviet transformations, spatial inequality has become one of the main characteristics of socio-geographic space. On the one hand, inequality facilitates the country’s development by focusing its population and economic activities in certain regions and cities where the agglomeration effects are great; on the other hand, it narrows the space for the development, leaving no chance for other territories. The article uses official statistical information on regions and municipalities to analyze the cumulative effects of the shrinking socio-economic space along the North-to-South, East-to-West, and center−periphery axes. The inequality of the old-developed regions from the Central Russia to the Urals is shown in more detail, taking into account the historically inherited and new geographical differences. The results are presented in the form of thematic and complex (typological) maps, drawn by subjects of the Russian Federation, municipal and urban districts. Foci and growth factors are identified against the background of peripheralization and lagging of other areas. The research leads the authors to the conclusion about the significant inertia of the Russia’s spatial development, the stability of the endogenous factors structuring its space under all changes, including post-Soviet ones.

The article is a research overview and is devoted to the trends of the last decade in the development and study of the urban system of Russia, its largest agglomerations, especially Moscow. The features of the country’s urban network against the global background and key shifts in it are noted, including the ongoing process of population concentration in the largest cities and agglomerations with the degradation of the lower levels of the urban system–small towns and urban-type settlements. The reasons for these processes are connected both with the movement of the population, natural and especially mechanical, and with administrative decisions: the expansion of large cities, the liquidation of urban-type settlements, etc. The differences between the regions of Russia in the number and size of urban settlements, as well as the direction of drift of demographic centers are shown. A review of studies on agglomerations found their continuity with the Soviet ones. The main conclusions on the dynamics of the development of agglomerations correspond to those obtained earlier (the growth of the largest, primarily Moscow and St. Petersburg) continues. The demographic resource for feeding smaller agglomerations is gradually decreasing: they grow more slowly or even decrease in size. The key mechanism of transformation remains mechanical movement, largely due to the strong polarization of the labor market between the centers of agglomerations, their belts, and the non-agglomeration periphery. It initiates large-scale return labor and permanent migration. Against this background, the Moscow agglomeration stands out more and more noticeably, growing into the core of the emerging Central Russian megalopolis. The direct impact of the capital’s labor and housing markets and related migrations covers Central and Southern Russia, while the indirect impact is felt throughout the country. The growth of the share and role of agglomeration in the settlement system determines a set of factors that have consolidated its image of the “land of opportunities”: capital rent, centralization of economic and political decisions, agglomeration effect, concentration of the best human capital, polarization of the labor market and career opportunities.

The paper summarizes recent studies by Russian researchers on various types of temporary mobility and related temporal population pulsations. It is shown that the practice of their study in Russia is in line with the key areas of research on the spatiotemporal population dynamics currently developing abroad. The methodology of commuting studies is enriched, the first research studies on the event-related mobilities tend to appear. Forms of mobility specific to Russia are also being actively studied, including dacha migration (in many respects close to international studies of migration to second homes) and otkhodnichestvo. In addition to objective trends associated with the growth of population mobility, the rapid growth of research interest stems from the expansion of information and the resource base on temporary mobility, including agricultural census materials, information from mobile operators, interpretation of satellite images, etc. The review of certain types of mobility provides estimates of the scale of their distribution in Russia, intensity, and rhythmic patterns and summarizes key factors (spatial, social, labor, etc.). The content of the approaches used by Russian authors is revealed, the results obtained by referring to special methods of studying temporary mobility and the mechanisms of its dynamics are given. The main directions, methodological barriers, and challenges of future studies of mobility and pulsations, including the need to research territories with the greatest intensity of temporary migrations, have been identified. The potential for using methods to analyze temporal population pulsations in relation to the spatiotemporal variability of settlement systems is shown. In particular, the case of the Moscow metropolitan region demonstrates the basic laws of polyrhythmic pulsation mechanisms, leading to maximum variability (involving up to 40% of the permanent population). The theory of population pulsations is at the formation stage: despite the development of the first models of pulsating settlement systems, including the pulsating urban agglomeration model, many of their quantitative parameters still remain informal.

The development of population migration studies in Russia’s social geography in 2010–2021 is analyzed. Publications on this topic in leading geographical journals are studied. The possibilities of studying Russia’s internal population migration of using new data are considered. Dissertations defended in Russia in the specialty of “Economic, Social, Political, and Recreational Geography” are summarized. Based on the results of the analysis, it is concluded that the period under review is characterized by an increased number and broadening of population migration research topics. After 2010, Russian geographers have intensified their study of migration in foreign countries. Among the new areas compared to the early 2000s, one can cite analysis of the settlement pattern of migrants at the intracity level based on cases studies of foreign countries. New directions in the study of Russian migration are related to specification of the migration information base at the municipal level. The appearance of fundamentally new data—mobile operator networks—makes it possible to study the time cycles of the population’s spatial mobility. Social network (e.g., VKontakte) data is used to analyze educational migration. The main problems are related to the formulation of research questions, the depth and complexity of study of the migration process, and the low popularity of the methods and approaches of other social sciences among geographers. Analysis of the publication activity of authors showed a rather low level of cooperation between Russian researchers and their foreign colleagues, as well as the virtual absence of scientific cooperation between geographers from different Russian regions in migration studies.

The article reviews and analyzes trends in the development of Russian cultural geography at the beginning of the 21st century, its specific features, and the latest scientific achievements with respect to the evolution of cultural geography in Western countries. Similarities and differences in the transformation of the main theoretical approaches, scientific methods, and subject areas of specific cultural and geographical studies in foreign countries and Russia are revealed. The most important thematic sections of the article cover the most significant segments of cultural and geographical research in Russia in the 2000s–early 2020s. It is shown that the main focus in the formation of Russian cultural geography (after several decades of neglecting anthropocultural approaches in the Soviet period) was cultural landscape science. The latest advances of Russian cultural geographers in the field of cultural landscape for the first decades of the 21st century are characterized. Domestic ethnic geography, which developed during the Soviet period as part of population geography, is gradually transforming to ethnocultural. Much attention is paid to the correlation of ethnic and regional identity in polyethnic regions, ethnocultural aspects of the geography of natural resource use, cultural geography of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East. Religious geography is a new direction of cultural geography for Russia, which has gained great relevance in the post-Soviet period in the revival of religious life in a country characterized by exceptional complexity and the diverse religious composition of the population. The article discusses and analyzes the experience of Russian developments in humanitarian geography—a set of research areas focused on studying systems of ideas about the geographic space in different sociocultural contexts. The great practical significance of cultural and geographical research and the possibility of their use for regional development and optimization of the spatial organization of society are emphasized.

Against the backdrop of global trends, the main directions, methodological approaches, and the most striking research results in the field of geopolitics and political geography in 2011–2021 are considered. Political geography is being widely integrated with adjacent scientific areas. Russian political geography and, to a much lesser extent, geopolitics are based on a wide range of concepts known in world literature. Researchers in these areas are promptly responding to current foreign policy and other challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. Particular attention is being paid to geopolitical publications about the pivot of Russian foreign policy to the East and the Greater Eurasia concept. Since the 2010s, the theory of critical geopolitics has become more widespread in Russia, operating not with speculative reasoning, but with large amounts of information analyzed by modern quantitative methods. The flow of studies of state borders and frontiers is growing. In such publications, a large place is occupied by works devoted to the growing gradients in the pace and directions of economic development between former USSR countries. Shifts in the topic of border studies are associated with the deeper study of security issues. Many works reflect the desire to preserve the positive experience of cross-border cooperation between Russian and European partners in a deteriorating environment. The greatest number of Russian publications on regionalization at different spatial levels involve the Baltic Basin. There is a growing body of research on territorial conflicts and separatism. Russian geographers and representatives of related sciences have made a significant contribution to studying the problems of uncontrolled territories and unrecognized (partially recognized) post-Soviet states. Conflicts around unrecognized (partially recognized) states in the post-Soviet space are considered in relation to their internal differences, complex composition, vicissitudes of formation and identity of the population, influence on neighboring regions of Russia and in historical retrospect.

The transformation of the environmental situation in the course of post-Soviet changes in Russia’s economy is considered from the standpoint of structural features and dynamics of industrial production, GRP, and energy output. A multiscale (country–regions–cities) comprehensive assessment of the transformation of the environmental situation due to changes in the territorial and sectoral structure of the economy at the Russian, regional, and city levels was carried out. Factors and spatiotemporal patterns in the dynamics and structural characteristics of the environmental situation during periods of crises and economic growth are revealed. The comprehensive index of anthropogenic impact is used to assess the dynamics and variability of the environmental situation in Russian regions and cities: a general decline in most environmental indicators is identified, as well as a gradual leveling of regional shares and increased localization of the impact in individual cities versus a general slowdown in economic growth. Gradual weakening of the role of industrial specialization in the the environmental situation and simplification of the structure of types of impact within regions are shown. The highest level of discrepancy between economic development trends and the integral load indicator is typical of regions with the highest level of impact; the highest degree of dependence is typical of agrarian or agroindustrial regions, as well as of regions where one of the key sources of pollution is fuel energy production with coal predominant in the fuel balance structure. In general, the trends of changes in the environmental situation in regions are smoother than in cities. The more diversified the economy of a region, the smaller the range of fluctuations of the comprehensive index of anthropogenic impact; the more developed a largecity settlement pattern, the more complex and diverse the factors of the regional ecological situation.

Sparse rain gauge grid over Russia and instrumental heterogeneity of the measurements make use of reanalysis data more suitable for some researches. We examined the accuracy of daily precipitation by ERA5 over Russia in 1950–2020 against the gauge observations over 526 locations, including 457 locations with bias-corrected observations. The main flaws of ERA5 precipitations are overestimation of their amount and too high number of days with false detected precipitations. On average, ERA5 overestimate precipitation amount from 14% in summer to 37% in spring. Comparison with bias-corrected observations for ERA5 shows the least systematic error in winter and more even spatial distribution of the error. ERA5 false detected from 30% (winter and fall) to 40% (spring and summer) days without precipitation. However, the random error in general is less than 2/3 of daily precipitation variability. The error is more in spring and summer and less in winter and fall. The share of days with precipitation identified by ERA5 is about 84–89%. The share in general less in summer than in other seasons. Overall, ERA5 shows less accuracy in dry area with few days with precipitation. The tendency is most pronounce for systematic error and for share of days with false identified precipitations.

The Mikulino (penultimate) interglacial’s deposits are well distinguished according to palynological, carpological, and other types of analysis. Therefore, they serve as an important stratigraphic benchmark in the upper part of the Quaternary sediment cover. However, no agreement has yet been reached on the extent of this interglacial, and the chronological framework of the deposits attributed to it is discussed in the interval from 15 to 70 thousand years. The main goal of this study is to obtain accurate numerical estimates of the age of individual stages of the Mikulino interglacial based on 230Th/U dating data and paleobotanical study of organic-rich deposits from the known reference section “Nizhnyaya Boyarshchina.” The sequence was chosen due to thickness of organic-rich layer reflecting completely the Last Interglacial phases. An improved geochronological approach was applied. On the basis of experimental radiochemical data, organic-rich layers suitable for the use of 230Th/U isochronous approximation were identified. Detailed comprehensive palynological and carpological studies of the lacustrine-bog strata made it possible to identify 91 taxa of fossil flora (59 + 32) and to reveal the change in the phases of vegetation development during the Mikulino interglacial. As a result, the 230Th/U dating of three pieces of lacustrine-bog deposits corresponding to narrow time intervals of plant formations development at different stages of the Last interglacial was fulfilled. The gyttia layer in the depth range of 3.03–2.89 m, correlated with the second half of the M1 pollen zone, was formed ~130–126 Kyr ago at the end of the transitional stage from glaciation to the beginning of the Mikulino interglacial. The peat layers in the depth interval 1.65–1.83 m were deposited ~110–108 Kyr ago and correspond to the first half of the M5 pollen zone, that is, the beginning of the climatic optimum of the Mikulino interglacial. The upper part of peat deposits at a depth of 1.37–1.19 m was formed ~102–97 Kyr ago and is compared with the pollen zone M6, which reflects the second half of the climatic optimum. The time duration of the vegetation development period corresponding to the M1–M6 interval of the Mikulino interglacial includes the substages MIS-5e, MIS-5d and partially MIS-5с and covers approximately 25–30 thousand years. The results obtained indicate that the applied complex approach is promising for establishing the chronology of the Last Interglacial.

The growing urbanization impact on the average annual river runoff of Russia, continents (world parts), and the world, as well as on water quality is considered. The impact of two urbanization aspects is assessed. One of them is the influence of urbanized landscapes, a significant part of which are settlements and roads. On the area they occupy, more often being polluted, there is a sharp decrease in water permeability and an increase in the surface and total runoff. Another aspect is municipal and industrial water consumption associated with water withdrawals, partly irrecoverable, and with the discharge of polluted wastewater into rivers and water bodies. It is shown that for the most of considered regions and the world, both the current increase in runoff from urbanized landscapes and its decrease because of water consumption are tens and even hundreds of cubic kilometers per year, although both of the effects are relatively small in relation to the available water resources. In the most inhabited part of the territory, the total urbanization impact on runoff is more pronounced, and, as a rule, a general increase in runoff prevails. Urbanization has a much greater impact on water quality since the dilution of wastewater and polluted water coming from urbanized areas is clearly insufficient.