Any economic crisis, even the least important one, immediately affects the social structure of society. The criteria for the effectiveness of social development is the growth of final consumption and the objective awareness of people of the effectiveness of their life strategies. The processes that are unfolding in the world economy have significantly accelerated the destruction of the social strata that in any society ensures the stability. The middle class — the opposite of the precariate — is under the crosshairs of the economy and epidemic. Quantitative differences in the parameters of the middle class in Europe and Russia should not interfere with the perception of the key common point: a precariate devoid of social guarantees has come for a long time, if not forever. The crisis will significantly accelerate the change in the social structure of society, both in Europe and Russia.

The Great Patriotic War was not only the opposition of countries, but also the struggle of ideologies. Fascism was defeated, communist ideology and democratic practices won and began to compete among themselves. Mutual deterrence in post-war Europe contributed to fascism and neo-Nazism not becoming a threat to society.

The weakening of external political governance and the collapse of the USSR led to a qualitative increase in nationalism in Eastern Europe. However, in the Baltic States, transformation of nationalism into authoritarianism, and authoritarianism into fascism, which took place in the 20th-40th years of the last century, is repeated again. Two articles are devoted to the specifics of this process. The first tells about the specifics of the political systems of the modern Baltics, the history of the Baltic countries and the genesis of fascist ideology in the Baltics. The second article is devoted to Baltic nationalism as a factor in the formation of authoritarian and fascist practices, the assessment of the prospects for the revival of fascism in the Baltics and the analysis of this danger for Russia. The anniversary of the Great Victory is not only an excuse for pride in the past, but also a good reason to find threats to the future. 

Climate change and the other environmental problems have been threatening the business and economic sustainability in all over the world and undermine the human existence in general. The article examines various global challenges, stemming from the anthropogenic impact on the nature and assesses their economic consequences. Despite the international community endeavours to react on the environmental change in a number of agreements and actions, their positive effect is still low. The article states the limitation of the fiscal methods, applied for the climate change actions and underlines the lack of the holistic approach needed for overcoming the various types of the anthropogenic pressure on the nature. The proposition is made for classification of the environmental problems in terms of their impact on national economies. The effect of the environmental problems is more severe for the countries having the lower level in economic development, which means that overcoming the ecological problems could be successful when the less developed and falling behind countries have been catching up the more advanced nations. The technological restructurization of the national economies is represented as the main road for coping with the ecological problems. Russia represent a special case in within ecological problems, mostly determined by the substantial raw resources dependence of its economy, which reveals the necessity of technological restructurization of the national economy based on the drastically substitution of raw resources by the science ware and green production.

The development strategy of the municipality is certainly facing the future and contains individual functional strategies, which are commonly called politicians. These policies include cluster policy, which is gaining popularity when developing a strategy at the level of modern Russian regions, however, in some municipalities conditions may arise for the formation of a network of clusters. Therefore, consideration of clusterization issues at the level of municipalities is of interest from a theoretical and practical point of view. 

In the study of theoretical and applied problems caused by the formation of cluster policy at the municipal level, general scientific methods were used, including methods of logical, systemic, comparative and comparative analysis. The place of cluster policy in the structure of regional development strategies of the Central Federal District with an emphasis on the implementation of cluster policy in the Vladimir region is shown. The ideas about the cluster approach are systematized both from the point of view of the integration of organizations and the typology of clusters, and in relation to the relationship of cluster and network structures. An algorithm for constructing a cluster policy at the level of the municipality based on the results of the analysis of factors of the external and internal environment is developed. The scientific novelty of the developed procedures consists, firstly, in the proposal to use the results of the analysis to build morphological matrices that allow obtaining strategically significant solutions; secondly, in structuring the obtained solutions by the method of pairwise comparisons and by building a hierarchy of solutions; thirdly, in highlighting decisions on building a cluster of clusters from the perspective of a cluster approach, taking into account clustering trends, cluster typology options and the possibility of building networks. The proposed approach to the formation of cluster policy in the region was implemented in the process of developing development strategies for the three municipalities of the Vladimir region in 2018–2019. 

Complicated mining and geological conditions for the development of hydrocarbon fields is a modern trend in the development of the world’s oil and gas industry, which leads to rising costs, decreased economic efficiency and increased risks. In these conditions the main factor in increasing the efficiency of the upstream segment of the Russian oil and gas industry is the transition to the principles of “Industry 4.0”, and the key tool is digital technologies. The article presents the results of the studying of the world and domestic experience of the upstream segment digitalization, evaluation of the results of the introduction of digital technologies by the enterprises of the oil and gas sector. There are problems of implementation of digital solutions including financial support of the process of digital transformation of the industry and the necessity of replacing foreign technologies, especially software, in the conditions of sectoral sanctions.

As a measure of state support for the industry, we propose to sign an agreement between two key ministries (the Ministry of Energy of Russian Federation and the Ministry of communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation) and “Gazprombank Leasing. It’s necessary for implementation of a preferential leasing program for the introduction of “end-to-end” digital technologies and platform solutions involving co-financing from the budget, participation in the formation of a high-tech project pool and the organization of information exchange. 

The North-West of Russia has close ties with the countries of the Baltic region for many years. This article discusses the economic interaction of the Leningrad region with the Swedish regions in the last two decades. The authors attempt to give a detailed analysis of the cooperation of this Russian region with Sweden in order to establish the significance of these relations for Ingermanland and Russia. To achieve this goal, the authors consider the agreements of districts and cities of the region with the Swedish partners, as well as their implementation on the example of specific cases of Swedish companies in the region. Particular attention is paid to the recent years of interaction between the Leningrad region and Sweden, the impact of the sanctions regime on them. As a result of the research, the institute of twin cities was found to be of great importance for certain regions of the region in their economic interaction with the Swedish kingdom (Gatchina and Tikhvin) and the potential for development in this area for others (Volkhov and Vyborg). The contradictory role of sanctions in the region’s foreign economic relations with Sweden is emphasized, as a result of which there was no serious drop in trade turnover and investment volumes, and Sweden became a more valuable foreign partner of the Leningrad region.

The role of small and medium-sized enterprises in the economic life of society cannot be overestimated: it contributes to economic growth in the country, increases the level of employment of the population, forms healthy competition, promotes the development of innovation activities and solves many social problems. In this regard, State support for entrepreneurship is essential in order to create an enabling environment for its further development. To date, a national project on the formation of support mechanisms for small and medium-sized enterprises has been adopted and is being implemented. The relevant national project is implemented within the framework of five federal projects aimed at improving the conditions of entrepreneurship, access of business entities to financial resources, acceleration of business entities, popularization of entrepreneurship, and development of rural cooperation. At the same time, in the context of digital globalization, the effective implementation of these directions is impossible without the introduction of information technologies into the activities of the business entities themselves. Research on the introduction of information technologies into business structures is not systematic and reveals certain aspects of this issue. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that within the framework of the national projects approved in our country, no mechanism has been developed to form a business model that ensures the effective introduction of such technologies into the activities of small and medium-sized businesses. Most scientific works of this topic reveal issues of implementation of specific information technologies by business entities. Therefore, the formation of a generalized model of effective introduction of IT-technologies in the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises is a pressing task that contributes to the achievement of the tasks set for national projects.

The purpose of this study is to develop methodological and practical recommendations to increase the efficiency of Russian small and medium-sized enterprises on the basis of the implementation of the concept of digitalization of business. The study was aimed at national projects “Small and medium-sized entrepreneurship and support for individual entrepreneurial initiative” and “Digital economy of the Russian Federation,” interim results of their implementation. The subject of the study is the system of support for the development of Russian small and medium-sized enterprises.

The scientific novelty of this study consists in the development of an algorithm for the transition of small and medium-sized enterprises to digitalization of business processes, in the systematization of business entities by the level of introduction of digital technologies into the activities, as well as in the grouping of the main directions of digitization of business entities. 

The purpose of this article was to analyze and comprehend the strategic role of microcredit and social business in reducing poverty. This article shows some of the socio-environmental and economic consequences of poverty that are significant from the point of view of sustainable development of the region and addresses the effective use of microcredit and social business in the context of reducing poverty. The article contains an analysis of the mechanisms of poverty reduction tested by world practice and specifics of using this accumulated experience in Kyrgyzstan. Entrepreneurship can act as an alternative way for the socio-economic activity of the population and a means of reducing the poverty level of the population.

The practice of municipalities of the Kaliningrad region of citizen involvement into the joint solution of local issues is described in the article. The authors concluded that existing practices of civil participation need to be expanded in the conditions of digital technological development. Changes should be based on the introduction of digital technologies, new approaches to communication with citizens, including those who are engaged in management and business activities in the area of residence. The “Active Citizen / Kaliningrad Oblast” portal with its corresponding refinement can become the resource that will allow implementing modern mechanisms for involving citizens in solving local issues. Among these mechanisms are participatory budgeting, crowdsourcing, targeted opinion polls and public discussions. The portal can also enable citizens to offer their own initiative solutions of problems in the life of the local community.

One of the tasks of the management of the educational institution is the development of measures aimed at improving the training of their graduates. The purpose of this article is to improve the system of planning the workload between disciplines at the university. To achieve this, an optimization model was built on the basis of system analysis and mathematical modeling. As a result, the introduction of this model in the management of the educational process will make it possible to distribute the load within the framework of one direction in such a way as to make it easier for students to master the educational material.

The article is dedicated to the Battle of Kursk. The goal is to show the courage and heroism demonstrated by Soviet soldiers in the name of saving their homeland during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the ability of our national economic complex and military economy to provide the Kursk fronts with forces and means superior to Nazi troops during the offensive operation “Citadel”. In the work, the sources used are the recollections and materials of Marshal of the Soviet Union G. Zhukov, as well as Wehrmacht generals.

The article is dedicated to analysis of influence of Hong Xiuquan’s on the course of Taiping Rebellion. The main focus of the work is directed on the issue of how the given historical persona has been shaped as a leader of low-income layers of Chinese population. In order to illuminate this question, the author observes the central socio-political ideas implemented by Hong Xiuquan during the Taiping Rebellion as well as his religious views, which had a fundamental role in Taiping’s movement ideology. In the course of the article, the author scrutinizes historical data which indicates such qualities of Hong Xiuquan as striving to achieve the highest outcomes, his persistence in realization of set tasks and ability to lead millions of Chinese peasants purposing on the radical reformation in Chinese state, which had experienced a deep crisis. On the other hand, the article demonstrates Hong Xiuquan’s qualities which have negatively affected the course of the revolutionary movement. To be precise, in the article are presented disadvantages of applying principles of mystical worldview and self-deification to the process of administration. In conclusion, the author, relying on the historical sources, highlights the significance of Hong Xiuquan’s personality and peculiarities of his leadership style in the context of their imprint on the Chinese revolutionary processes in the middle of the XIX century.