The article discusses the concepts of “green” economy and “green” investments, analyzes the process of “green” investment in the Russian economy and in its regions. On the basis of Rosstat data, the processes of region’s clustering are constructed, based on the effectiveness of “green” investments in the protection of atmospheric air, water resources and in the field of waste management. When analyzing the results obtained, it is noteworthy that in the regions included in the clusters, with significant “green” investments, there is an unfavorable environmental situation and, as a result, poor public health indicators: high morbidity and low life expectancy. It is in these regions that a well environmental and investment policy is needed. The article suggests measures that stimulate “green” investments, and, consequently, improve the environmental situation in Russia and its regions.

The issues of numerical modeling of the gross product, based on the knowledge of the resources and capabilities of the region, is still an urgent problem. The main task of the work was to create a model of the gross regional product based on the finite-time scheme of the integro-differential equation. The resulting equation will determine the growth of the gross regional product based on changes in production factors: fixed assets, natural and labor resources. The main result in the presented work is obtaining a finite-time model of the equation and its verification. When obtaining the forecast value of the gross regional product, the values of the gross regional product and the main factors of production of the previous two years are used. The considered finite-difference analogue of the equation can become another tool for forecasting the gross regional product in the short term.

After the adoption of the updated Strategy of the state national policy, which presents the definition of the all- Russian civic identity, the issues of its formation are actively discussed by scientists, politicians, representatives of the authorities and civil society. Since the generation of young people determines the future of their country, it is important to study its attitude to the formation of an all-Russian civic identity. At the end of October 2021, an online survey was conducted in the settlements of the south of the Tyumen region in order to study the problems of forming the all-Russian identity of young people. 2,000 representatives of the Tyumen youth took part in the survey. In the course of the survey, it was possible to find out the opinion of young men and women about their own successes and failures, about the achievements and failures of the country; about the attitude towards the concept of “Russian”, about the attitude towards Russia as a whole, towards unifying ideas. According to Tyumen youth, today Russia needs to pay special attention to solving the problems of poverty, health, ecology and education. The results of the study confirm that for the Tyumen region today, the formation and development of an all-Russian civic identity in the minds of young people remains an important task.

The article concentrates on the study of the current state of the regional systems of patriotic education in Omsk and Tomsk Regions. Based on the data of a mass survey of senior schoolchildren and information about patriotic education carried out in the regions, the article assesses both the degree of youth involvement in patriotic projects and the effectiveness of various approaches to patriotism shaping. The analysis of the existing structure of subjects of patriotic education and regional patriotic event and project contents has allowed us both to conclude that military training and patriotic education, as well as other militarized educational approaches dominate in the regions, and to highlight the trend of centralizing the system of patriotic education and predominance of federal organizations influence on educational institutions.

The article attempts to summarize the history of relations between China and the Republic of Belarus. The emphasis is placed on the forms of cooperation - economic, political and cultural. Relations between China and Belarus were officially established in 1992, but since 2013 the relations between these two countries have become deeper and reached a new level because the year of 2013 was the year when China officially launched its “One Belt - One Road” initiative. Belarus is interested in being a part of this project. Belarus’ advantageous economic and geographical position between Europe and China gives it the opportunity to be a kind of “bridge-state” between China and Europe. Nowadays, relations between the two countries are characterized as “iron brotherhood and all-weather cooperation”. Sanctions from Europe and the United States, after the election of the President of the Republic of Belarus in 2020, should not have a great influence on relations between Belarus and China.

The aim of this article is to represent in the systematic manner the conceptual approaches and methods of economic analysis for practice of realizing the idea of green cities in Siberia with purpose for solving problems concerning decarbonisation of Russian economy. Critical review of actual tendencies provides five conceptual approaches - low-carbon development, carbon neutrality, “net zero”, deep decapbonisation and ‘zero’ carbon development. In correspondence with these concepts there are elaborated new modes of spatial development - green cites, eco-villages, sustainable agglomerations, etc. Project analysis appears to be in demand for proper economic evaluation of ecological consequences for development of such areas, e.g. eco-village in Olkhon island and “green” city Baykalsk in Siberia.

The subject of the study is the attractiveness of the development of high-tech industries in the United States in the space of urban areas that economically and statistically correspond to the mega-regions of the country. Modeling the relationship between the field of settlement / field of economic activity and the attractiveness of industry within the framework of the Industry 4.0 concept implemented in the United States in the 2010s allows us to obtain combined empirical results calculated on average over two ten-year periods of time of the current century. The latter fully or partially confirm the urban-oriented nature of the interdependence of innovative/knowledge-intensive areas of production and the urbanized settlement system, which changes under the influence of system-cyclic factors, both in time and in space.

The article considers the issue of relationship between the concepts of 'administrative-territorial division' and 'territorial organization of local self-government'. Regular changes in the definition of the concept 'city district', setting up new types of municipalities create confusion, where not only ordinary citizens but also authority figures are in no state to deal with. Quite frequently in city districts' charters one can come across the notion 'head of city' whereas the city district apart from the city embraces a dozen rural settlements. The residents of villagers are puzzled if they are now citizens or continue to be villagers. The author proposes to reconsider the concept 'administrative-territorial unit' when applied to cities, rayons, settlements, villages as no administrative decisions are taken by them as they are just a seat for federal state bodies.

The development of a market economy involves the active involvement of the structural economic units of the state in foreign economic relations and foreign trade exchange. The level of functioning of the regional economy was largely determined by the structure of its export activities, the degree of participation in the international division of labor, which determined the relevance of the chosen topic of the study. The investigation purpose is performing analysis of the Mari El Republic export structure in the context of identifying priority areas of impact on the growth of foreign trade activities. The use of a deductive approach based on factor analysis made it possible to form principal components characterizing the structure of the Mari El Republic export exchange from the point of view of the main areas of economic activity that determine the directions of exports. The selected indicators provide a generalized description of the export exchange, allow us to identify areas in which it is necessary to make the most impact and direct investments to expand the foreign trade exchange of the region. That was essential for a faster recovery from the crisis and stimulating economic development during the pandemic. The practical significance of the study is to determine the economic spheres of influence for expanding the level of exports of the region and to determine the directions of impact for early recovery of the Republic economy.