Structural and industrial transformation of resort towns’ economies: The case of urban districts in the Republic of Crimea

The study of transformation processes in economies of various settlements, including those taking place in urban districts of a health resort type, still lacks a fullyformed methodology. There are no confirmed approaches and clear methods of cognition, which is a consequence of the uniqueness of such type of settlements. The difficulties of studying their structural and industrial transformation and specialisation, its stability / variability increase due to the need to build long time series of economic indicators, since only in such case the findings can be considered reliable. The paper aims to identify the processes of structural and industrial transformation in the economies of urban districts of a health resort type in the Republic of Crimea in different institutional contexts, as well as to justify the factors behind and conditions for occurring changes, and describe the ‘genetic code’ of the settlements of this type. Methodologically, the paper relies on the regional and municipal economics. The methods include various types of analysis, in particular, structural, time series, bibliometric and content analysis. The data comes from the Crimea’s socioeconomic statistics for 1935–2021. The ‘genetic code’ of the Crimea’s economy and resort towns located in its territory consists in the dominance of the health care sector due to the developed health resort activity, which is based on the use of unique natural treatment factors and resources. The findings indicate that this code remains stable despite changing institutional con texts unceasingly reshaped by the state geostrategic interests, the world geopolitical situation, and the political atmosphere in neighboring territories.