Report on a Conference Devoted to Resource-Evaluation Methods (Moscow,February 1970)

Motor transport has not contributed to economic expansion in the Soviet Union to the extent seen in other industrialized countries. This paper investigates constraints in the USSR to the greater use of trucking during the 1980s: low road density and quality, insufficient trucks, a narrow variety of vehicles, inadequate repair facilities, and fuel shortages. These problems reflect in part the lack of incentives both for the trucking industry to satisfy demand for transport and for machine-builders to improve truck quality, limited investment in road construction, and the neglect of requirements for spare parts.     

Present Problems in Soviet Cartography and the Tasks of the Geographical Society

After having long existed as a technical discipline serving the needs of geographers, cartography in the Soviet Union has become increasingly a research discipline involving many common interests with geography. Collaboration between cartographers and geographers is becoming increasingly essential as more attention is being given to thematic cartography involving not only particular disciplines (geomorphology, economic geography, population geography) but what may be called an integrated “geographical” cartography. Much effort continues to be devoted in the Soviet Union to the compilation of regional atlases and to a wide range of thematic maps. Increasing attention is being given to the production of evaluative maps, assessing the potential use of the physical environment and natural resources. School maps represent a major part of Soviet map production. Tourist and hiking maps need to be seriously improved.     

Geographical Problems of Development of the Tayga (Northern Forest)

The author reviews the geographer's role in the study of the tayga environment from the viewpoint of resource development and the contribution geographers can make in the formulation of development plans for the tayga, which occupies one-third of the Soviet Union's total area. Published research and future study projects are discussed.     

Impact of Cliff and Ord (1969, 1981) on Spatial Epidemiology

The influence in spatial epidemiology of the seminar work on autocorrelation by Cliff and Ord is discussed. Quantifying the evidence of spatial clustering was an important step in the development of modern statistical methods for analyzing spatial variations of diseases. Autocorrelation is nowadays mostly accounted for at a latent level within a hierarchical framework to small area disease mapping. The importance of accounting for autocorrelation in geographical correlation studies is also reviewed.     

A Soviet Interdepartmental Coordinating Conference on the Geography of the Capitalist Countries

Following is a brief account of the proceedings of the inter-agency conference on the geography of countries outside the Communist bloc held in Moscow in May 1961. The listing of papers provides a survey of current Soviet work in this field of regional geography.     

Problems of Geographical Education in the USSR

Geography education in the Soviet Union is found to lag behind advances in geography as a research discipline. Courses in both elementary and secondary schools and at the college and university level are overloaded with factual material at the expense of theoretical problems and general concepts. An essential requisite for improving the content of geography education is better training of geography teachers. Soviet geography teachers are now being trained mainly in the combined geography-biology faculties of teachers colleges. Combined training in more than one teaching discipline is essential because a teacher trained in geography alone would not have a full teaching load of 18 hours a week in most schools. However, the geography-biology combination does not appear to be optimal because the emphasis in biology is no longer on botany and zoology, as in the past, but on human physiology and genetics, with less relevance to geography. It is recommended that geography as a teaching discipline be combined with other subjects of instruction having greater relevance to geography teaching, possibly chemistry, physical education or foreign languages. Less emphasis on fact-loaded regional courses and more stress on systematic courses is recommended, together with training in mathematical techniques.     

The International Geographical Congress (Stockholm)

Following are excerpts from a report read by Professor Salishchev on October 14, 1960, at a meeting of the Council of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University. The omitted part of Professor Salishchev's report is substantially the same as the report of the National Committee of Soviet Geographers, printed in Soviet Geography, April 1961, pp. 40–46. Professor Salishchev's report on the work of the Commission of National Atlases, of which he is chairman, is translated in full.     

The Moscow Branch of the Geographical Society of the USSR in the Next Few Years

This survey of the program of activities of the Moscow Branch includes a list of topics suggested for discussion at meetings of geographers and a detailed program of activities for the dissemination of geographical knowledge through lectures, publications, exhibits, excursions, radio-television, photographs and films, and library services.     

《静方鼎》的时代、铭文书写者及其相关联的地理、历史

本文系联相关古籍与出土文物,对《静方鼎》进行了考证、断代,认为其年代为西周穆王时期,其铭文书写者为小臣静,并对《静方鼎》所载“省南国”相关联的几个方国的地望进行了考证。     

邓小平并未出席1966年3月的杭州会议

1966年3月17～20日,毛泽东在杭州主持召开中央政治局常委扩大会议(以下简称三月杭州会议)。对这次会议,《周恩来传》下卷作了这样的记述:三月十七日至二十日,毛泽东在杭州召开中央政治局常委扩大会议,研究进一步开展学术界、教育界的政治批判。周恩来从天津回北京后,十八日赶到杭州出席会议。刘少奇、邓小平、彭真等也到会,杭州会议期间,毛泽东还因上海沪剧《芦荡火种》不能在北京演出,当面批评彭真是搞‘独立王国’。毛     

Ethnogenesis from the Geographical Point of View (Landscape and Ethnos,IX)

The author deals with the question whether the biological evolution of the species Homo sapiens is continuing under conditions of established civilizations. He replies in the affirmative, but qualifies his answer. The evolution of modern man affects behavioral patterns rather than anatomical or physiologic traits, and is reflected in a greater capacity for adaptation and an expansion of the area of settlement rather than in the improvement of a particular phenotype. The evolution is analyzed best in terms of the ethnos, or ethnic group. Two states of the ethnos are distinguished: a persistent (static) state, in which the ethnos may be said to stagnate, each generation copies the behavioral patterns of the previous generation, and the life patterns are adapted to the landscape; a historical (dynamic) state, in which the new generation breaks new paths, the landscape is adapted to the needs of the economy, and the ethnos strives to expand its area of settlement.