Modern Russian Black Sea region: approaches to delimitation and structuring

Abstract

The development of the Russian Federation as a maritime power is largely connected with its positions in the marine waters surrounding the country, with marine economic activity taking into account their natural resource and geopolitical specifics, as well as with the socio-economic situation on the sea coasts under Russian jurisdiction. This initiates the solution of a wide range of research tasks aimed at identifying specific socio-geographical structures and processes in the land–sea contact zone. The article, methodologically based on the generalization of domestic and foreign developments in the study of the phenomena of maritime regionalization, aqua-territorial system formation and socio-economic thalassoattractivity, based on extensive analytics, reveals the geopolitical and politico-geographical determinants of the isolation of the Russian Black Sea region. Based on the consideration of the ecological and economic effects associated with the “sea factor” (and the assessment of remoteness from it) (most clearly manifested in the last decade), the delimitation of the Russian Black Sea region is proposed, its central-peripheral structure is identified. Particular attention is paid to the spatial stratification of marine economic activity in the Russian Black Sea region (marine transport, extraction of biological resources, extraction of natural gas on the shelf, etc.), as well as its structuring with the separation of four aqua-territorial «support bases» (Sevastopol-Crimean, Rostov, Novorossiysk and Sochi-Tuapse). It is shown that the military-political events of 2022 increase the fragmentation of the entire Black Sea region, while significantly increasing the geopolitical and socio-economic significance of its coasts gravitating to the sea for Russia.