MAPPING OF RECREATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AROUND A LARGE CITY (with particular reference to Moscow)

An analysis of recreation uses in the Moscow region shows a generalized radial pattern focused on the city of Moscow as the center of demand and an outward diffusion with distance from the city combined with clustering along railroad lines. This overall pattern is deformed by landscape differences, with higher density of recreation use in well drained wooded areas and lower density in swampy areas. The locational patterns of recreational use are further broken down by groups of users. [For a previous paper on recreation in the Moscow region, see the paper by Vedenin et al. in Soviet Geography, May 1977.]     

COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE USSR: AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION

Several aspects of the distribution of institutions of higher education and their graduates are compared for the Soviet Union and the United States. The concentration of institutions and students is found to be greater in the USSR. Differences in regional enrollment rates relative to the location of institutions and students may be partly explained by differences in the curriculum structure of American and Soviet institutions of higher education and the greater degree of local control over higher education in the United States. A direct relationship exists in both countries between the percentage of graduates in a region and percentage urban and per capita income. Regional inequality in the percentage of graduates in urban versus rural areas is much greater in the USSR while regional inequality in the percentage of male and female graduates was only somewhat greater in the United States. Level of urbanization, migration of students and graduates, economic opportunity and economic structure are seen as important factors helping explain regional variation in the distribution of graduates.     

The Use of Electric Models in Geography

The use of electrical models, such as conducting sheet analogues, in geography is based on the fact that a wide variety of problems, say, the flow of groundwater and an electrical current, are founded on the same set of differential equations. The technique of electrical analogues is found to be useful in the solution of a number of geographical problems that cannot always be handled effectively by electronic computers. For example, conducting sheet analogues can be used to obtain map transformations in which area is proportional to the magnitude of a particular mapped feature, for example, equidemic projections in which countries or continents are mapped on the scale of their population density. Other problems that may be suitable for analogue simulation include those involving population potential as well as those in which optimization calls for least cost or least effort.     

On the Linkage Between the Demographic Processes and Economy of a Region: (with particular reference to Pskov Oblast)

A low rate of natural increase, deriving from a disrupted age-sex structure, and net out-migration combine to account for a steady depopulation of Pskov Oblast. The introduction of industries providing additional male employment is recommended in the two principal cities—Pskov and Velikiye Luki—to correct the present predominance of women in industrial towns. Several measures (modernization of the countryside, promotion of truck-produce farming around the major urban centers) are suggested to keep more young people in rural areas and thus correct the lop-sided age structure there. Economic decision-making is viewed as a key factor in improving the demographic situation of a region.     

A COMPARATIVE-GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE OF URBAN TRANSPORT NETWORKS IN MOSCOW AND LENINGRAD

A graph-analytic technique is used to compare the public transport networks in Moscow and Leningrad. The technique makes it possible to identify gaps in the public transport systems of the two cities and to suggest remedial measures. In general, the public transport system of Leningrad is found to be better integrated than that of Moscow. The transport network of Moscow is more heavily dissected than that of Leningrad, lacks enough lateral connections between outlying city areas (as opposed to linkages between outlying areas and the city center), and generally lags in providing electric ground transportation (street cars and trolley buses) to newly developed residential areas.     

THE PRESENT STAGE IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE SARYKAMYSH DEPRESSION

The Sarykamysh depression of Soviet Central Asia, southwest of the Aral Sea, has begun to fill with water since around 1960 after having lain dry for 350 years. As of 1976, the lake, fed mainly by irrigation drainage water from the nearby Khorezm (Khiva) oasis, had grown to 2,000 km², with a depth of at least 40 m. The depression was receiving 4 to 4.5 km³ of water a year and continued to fill. While the appearance of such a large body of water in the desert would appear in itself to be a positive development, the question is raised whether the water would not be put to better use by being directed toward the Aral Sea.     

GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE SOLIGORSK AREA IN CONNECTION WITH THE MINING AND PROCESSING OF POTASSIUM SALTS

Environmental problems associated with the mining and processing of the potassium salts of the Starobin deposit in Belorussia (the leading potash producer in the USSR) are described. Natural vegetation communities in areas leeward and downstream from heavily mineralized spoil piles and a sylvinite processing plant have sustained damage from salt pollution, ground and surface water supplies have been contaminated in certain areas, and the potential exists for the build-up of pollutants in the upper layer of agricultural soils if the shift toward shallower [surface] techniques of tillage continues (translated by Andrew R. Bond).