The paper discusses the digitization of diplomacy and the consular assistance at the present stage of the communication technologies development. Globalization, and especially the rapid development of the mass media and social media has affected almost every citizen. This process allowed the Foreign offices to come closer to resolving the issue of smart personal communication with nationals who are abroad. The first part of the paper analyzes the possibilities of using the power of the modern social media by the Ministries of foreign affairs to create and maintain effective crisis communication. The second part of the article focuses on the analysis of a digital consular assistance to nationals at home and abroad using the example of a specialized application created by the US Department of State.

The article aims at assessing consumer potential of the East Asian region in the context of diversification of economic growth sources and its transition to consumption-led economic growth model. Favorable social, demographic and economic trends, as well as demand-stimulating policies, implemented by governments and monetary authorities of the most of regional economies, entail a rapid increase in the private consumption contribution to economic growth, lead to a gradual transformation of the commodity structure of consumption, and import demand, which opens up new opportunities for exporters from the third countries, including Russia. The analysis made it possible to make a number of practical conclusions. Given consumer potential and mutual trade dynamics, China and Vietnam, to a lesser extent Malaysia, are of the greatest interest to Russia, while Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines’ potential can be implemented in medium-term perspective (5-10 years). Russian mining, agricultural and heavy engineering industries (mainly, aircraft, space and power engineering) can become the key beneficiaries of the growing consumer potential in East Asia.

The article is devoted to the study of the succession problem in Saudi Arabia. Despite the fact that the Arabian monarchies so far remain outside the zone of the “Arab spring”, domestic political and social conflicts, economic problems are escalated here hiding behind the apparent tranquility. Internal political modernization is closely connected with the change of generations in the top leadership. The country is on the verge of changing the succession system that has existed for many decades, in which power passed from one to the other son of the founder of the Saudi state, King Ibn Saud. Today, when there are almost no real candidates for the throne among this group of royal relatives, the third generation of the Saudi family is entering the struggle for power. The influence of the “Khashoggi case” on the course of the struggle for power is analyzed. The forecast part examines the prospects for reforming of Saudi society, the development of partnerships between Russia and the Kingdom.

The article is devoted to the problem of doping in the sport of high achievements (“big sport”). The author notes the leading role of UNESCO in the fight against this evil as an international intergovernmental organization, endowed with appropriate powers by the UN General Assembly. He believes that various non-governmental organizations (WADA, IOC, etc.) should play a supporting role, which will avoid potentially very dangerous situations for international law, when nongovernmental organizations assume the authority to condemn or accuse sovereign States of non-compliance with certain requirements or to attribute to them the implementation of certain policies. Emphasizing the importance for Russian sport to be at the forefront of the fight against doping in sports, the author focuses on the need to quickly overcome the doping crisis faced by Russian sport in recent years. In this context, he proposes to establish strict public monitoring of the processes taking place in the “big sport” of Russia.

This article contains the detailed comparative analysis of Russian and Chinese participation in the economic development of one of the most important African countries. The article highlights the history of credits and loans, foreign direct investments to Angola, dynamics of Russian and Chines trade turnover in the 21-st century. Main projects of Russia-Angola economic co-operation, activities of the biggest Chinese companies in Angola are in the scope of this research. Main economic interest of both powers – China and Russia – is to obtain access to the rich energy and mineral resources of Angola. However, any numerical indices of Russian and Chinese involvement into Angolan economics show that Russia cannot compete with China in this respect. Incomparable scale of trade turnover and economic cooperation make the hypotheses about possible “rivalry” between Russia and China in this region groundless. In spite of the fact that China has reduced loans volumes to Angola recently, the trade between the two countries shows increasing trend. For the time being Russia seems competitive to China in military cooperation with Angola though falls behind in humanitarian sphere.

The paper considers the course and outcomes of 2019 Presidential election campaign in Abkhazia as well as factors that stipulated its character (postponement of elections because of Aslan Bzhania’s disease, the number of contenders, etc.). The alignment of forces before the campaign is outlined, and the principal contenders are characterized, together with political forces that promoted them. A due attention is paid to the extraordinary polycentrism of Abkhaz politics, in  which not only the authority, opposition and the “third force” but also various electoral competitors of both the authority and the opposition, as well as numerous contenders to the role of the “third force” co-exist. Such disposition led to scattering of the electorate at the presidential election. The course of the electoral campaign is scrutinized with an emphasis put on the analysis of programmatic provisions of the contenders and their political style. The political maneuvers of the authority, opposition and Alexander Ankvab’ team between two rounds of the elections are traced. A special attention is paid to the causes of Raul Khajimba’s victory. The situation after the elections is also considered in the paper, and a prognosis is suggested of possible development.

 After the end of the Cold War many variants of space organization at macro- and microlevel were suggested instead of traditional West–East division. There were in detail worked projects of invented regions building and discoursive projections of regions. Among them the ideas deserve special attention, which were put forward by the states that had been within frontier zone of the European politics poles before. The “Amber gateway” and the “Yule land” are examples of mental projections of the Baltic Sea area which were constructed by Latvia’s and Estonia’s political elites. 

In the article research of the ideas leans on I. Newmann’s region-building approach. Articles and speeches which were the work of representatives of two republics’ organs of government served sources. They were consecutively collected, systematized and analyzed. Categorical apparatus of the article includes the concepts which are derived from concept “mental map” often mentioned by the author. In general mental map means the map of part of surrounding space which was created in consciousness of a man or any social group. This category is concept of relatively new science – imaginal geography which is interpreted here as one studies forming of system of ideas, concepts describing any territory in people’s consciousness. 

When the research was made, it became evident that the Latvian mental construction did not presuppose liquidation of the barrier between Europe and Russia / West and East. Russia had to remain on the other side of dividing line, but not in isolation. Latvia assigned the role of “mediator between two worlds” for ensuring communication and transit to itself. Claim that Estonia was among the Northern countries gave the opportunity to the republic’s ruling circle to distance from post-Soviet space as a whole and Latvia and Lithuania in particular. The “Amber gateway” and the “Yule land” reflected specific character of spatial imagination of Baltic republics’ governments. The use of cultural markers in the mental maps was caused by aspiration to make imaginary regions natural and clear for other participants of intended integrations, as the lasts preferred connections at the level of public institutions, but not of state ones. But the Latvian and the Estonian politicians looked at the process of region–building in the light of interstate interaction. Estonia strove to emphasize its belonging to “Europe of regions” by means of “Yule land”, but Latvia accentuated strengthening of its own role in limits of “Amber gateway”.