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Coastal regions are territorial social systems whose socio-economic and innovative development is strongly influenced by the factor of coastalisation. The effect of movement to the sea determines the dynamics of settlement systems as well as their economic and infrastructure development. This holds for transport, logistics, information and communications, industrial, and other infrastructure. Coastal regions are so diverse that it is impossible to construct a development model that will fit all of them. One can speak only of general trends. This study focuses on identifying differences between the innovation systems of northern and southern coastal regions within the same country. The geographical scope of the study is four Russian coastal territories: Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in the Baltic Sea region and Rostov and Krasnodar in the Azov-Black Sea region. Methodologically, this study carries out a comparative assessment of heterogeneity of innovative development at municipal and interregional levels, using four groups of indicators: human capital, economic growth and clustering, innovation and digitalisation, and quality and standards of living. All these components are vital for regional innovative development. A statistical assessment is supplemented by a qualitative analysis of spatial patterns of innovation capital accumulation; the agglomeration factor is taken into account. It is shown that northern and southern coastal regions perform very differently on innovative development, the latter doing better than the former. Three main models of innovation generation, implementation, and accumulation of coastal regions are described. Each is associated with a different way to benefit from proximity to the sea. These are maritime activities, maritime transport, and the economic use of recreational, natural and climatic resources.

Reinvigorating Russia’s development strategy requires a comparison between the social development of the Russian Federation and other Baltic region states, some of which are world leaders in terms of living standards. The most popular tools for country comparison are composite indices that take into account various components affecting the quality of life. This article analyses the current level and changes in the social development of the Baltic States in 1990—2016. The analysis is based on the values of human development index. Having distinct advantages and disadvantages, this index remains to be the most popular and influential tool for assessing a country’s social development. A statistical analysis carried out with the use of HDI values makes it possible to divide the Baltic States into three groups according to their current development level and advancement trajectories. The greatest gap in progress was observed in 2000. Later, it narrowed as the social advancement of the third group — Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia — accelerated. The nature of the Baltic States’ social improvement in 2015—2016 suggests that a decrease in social development rates will be observed in the coming years across the region, and the gap between the countries will increase.

Local border traffic (LBT) is a tool for cooperation between the EU member states and neighbouring countries. It emerged as a measure to mitigate the barrier effect of the EU’s external border. In 2006, the European Parliament authorised the EU member states to conclude bilateral agreements on a simplified border crossing regime in border areas. This article analyses local border traffic as a cross-border cooperation tool. The territory described in the study includes the external borders of the EU (and Norway) with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The article will be of interest to specialists in international and, particularly, in cross-border cooperation. The authors analyse the mechanism of local border traffic and identify possible trends based on the general socioeconomic situation and foreign policy background in Russia, Belarus, and the EU (Norway). The article employs the cartographic method to enhance the visual component of the study. It is concluded that the LBT mechanism is effective and it has a positive effect on the development of border contacts between countries. There is a need to continue the dialogue between Russia, Belarus and the EU countries on both expanding the geographical scope of the LBT mechanism and ensuring its qualitative development.

102 Signing the agreement on local border traffic (LBT) between the Republic of Poland and the Russian Federation was welcomed by experts as an important step towards the future visa-free regime between the European Union and the Russian Federation often discussed in the international dialogue. The three years of LBT mechanism have shown its practical significance for the development of research and cultural contacts, cooperation between municipalities and NGOs of the Kaliningrad region and the borderland (Pomeranian and Warmian-Masurian) voivodeships of Poland. When considering retail trade as a structural element of economy, it is important to address the differences in the effect LBT has had on the development of this sector in the Kaliningrad region and the neighbouring Polish voivode-ships. According to Russian experts, LBT results in 7—20 % losses in the Kaliningrad region’s retail sales, whereas in Poland LBT stimulates retail trade (accounting for 12 % of sales in the border voivodeships). This article analyses the role of LBT in the development of retail trade in the Kaliningrad region and the Polish border voivodeships as well as prospects of its development in view of the changing geopolitical situation and adjustment of the currency exchange rates at the end of 2014. Based on statistics and analytical data, the authors arrive at the conclusion that the positive effect of LBT outdoes its negative impact on various sectors of the border regions’ economies, including retail trade.

29 Network cooperation — the most efficient form of unlocking the economic and natural potential of territories — is rapidly developing in Russia under the influence of global processes. Due to its unique geopolitical position, the Kaliningrad region is one of the regions where such networks develop at both the regional and international levels. When studying such forms of cooperation, the traditional methods of social sciences as research tools are not sufficient. It can be explained by the dynamic nature of network cooperation as well as by the fact that it involves a significant number of independent agents. We believe that one of the important tools of research on network cooperation is regional integral geoinformation systems (GIS). Modern GIS are successfully used in related fields, such as environmental and climate studies, geology, urban studies, and serve as rather efficient tools of analysing spatial objects and phenomena. One of such systems has been developed and is successfully functioning at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, which makes it possible to use it in studying network cooperation in the framework of crossborder development with the involvement of Kaliningrad municipalities. The key objective set by the authors of the article is to justify the need for studying the emerging network cooperation with the help of both traditional methods of geography and modern GIS; a specific case is made of the crossborder Vistula lagoon region — the one that brings together Russian and Polish municipalities. The authors provide with the background for the search of possible development strategies in the region, and note that the creation of a regional GIS structure can become a necessary component of the region’s information and communication structure; this conclusion can be considered the key result of the research conducted. The practical significance of the article lies in justifying the use of modern geoinformation systems as a tool of territory development as well as for the purpose of making efficient managerial decisions at different levels.

In this paper we focus on the structure and territorial borders of the Baltic Sea region, and examine the key structural elements of the transnational territorial transport system. In this respect, we clarify some terms used in transport geography. For the first time the transport system gets territorially localized, which allows for a broad range of new studies of transnational transportation in the Baltic Sea area. We also identify the main principles of development and operation of international territorial transport systems and present them taking the Baltic Sea region as an example. Our findings, we hope, will have a great practical application for researchers of transport geography, especially those studying international logistics.