Sea ice loss is accelerating in the Barents and Kara Seas in the North-West region of Arctic Russia. Assessing potential drivers and linkages between sea ice retreat/thinning and maintenance of the region's ancient and unique social-ecological systems is a pressing task. Tundra nomadism remains a vitally important livelihood for indigenous Nenets and their large reindeer herds. Warming summer air temperatures in recent decades have been linked to more frequent and sustained summer high-pressure systems over West Siberia, but not to sea ice retreat. At the same time, autumn/winter rain-on-snow events across the region have become more frequent and intense. Here we review the evidence for autumn atmospheric warming and precipitation increases over Arctic coastal lands in proximity to Barents and Kara sea ice loss. Two major rain-on-snow events during November 2006 and 2013 led to massive winter reindeer mortality episodes on Yamal Peninsula. Fieldwork with migratory Nenets herders has revealed that the ecological and socio-economic impacts from the catastrophic 2013 event will unfold for years to come. The link between sea ice loss and affects for the frequency and intensity of rain-on-snow events is suggested. This led to extensive icing of pastures and to the highest case of reindeer mortality in the entire history of Yamal. If Barents and Kara sea ice continues to decline, better forecasts of autumn ice retreat could help to buffer against reindeer starvation following future rain-on-snow events. Precise and real-time weather forecast and warning of the probability of wet precipitation during winter may have serious implications for the future of tundra Nenets nomadism.

Since 2006, the monitoring of landscapes on nature protected areas (NPA) of Saint Petersburg has been realized. By 2017, the monitoring network included 55 permanent key plots of size from 100 to 2.500 square meters in 12 NPA, in different types of landscape sites and plant communities. The article presents the main results of the 10-11-year monitoring of landscapes with a predominance of taiga forest vegetation. It is shown that pine (Pinus sylvestris) forests on drained landscape sites on sandy and sandy loam deposits (terraces of different levels, kame hills, long slopes) are in stage of forming mature monodomi-nant stands with a stable annual growth and development of processes of intra-population competition. Processes in the ground vegetation cover of pine forests are caused by after-fire successions or the restoration of herb-dwarf shrub and moss layers after the reduction of recreation load. In the woods on drained locations on a glacial-lacustrine sand and sandy loam and glacial boulder deposits (moraine) with a predominance or a significant rate of spruce (Picea abies) the «expansion» of spruce and replacement of other species (pine, birch, aspen) by spruce are slowed down: reduction of annual growth of spruce stands, increasing the share of damaged trees (including the affected with various diseases), mass fall-outs of spruce trees are observed. In the forests of poor-drained and boggy plains with shallow peat an opposite dynamic trends are revealed: increasing growth of forest stands and decreasing and stabilization of growth with signs of decay of the stands of some species (e. g. black alder Alnus glutinosa) as well. In the forests of almost all landscape sites the participation of broad-leaved trees becomes more visible, especially oak (Quercus robur), which is present in the young growth and somewhere starts to become a part of the forest stands.

The Kyrgyz Republic is a former Soviet republic where fundamental changes of a geodemographic situation have happened since the 90th of the XX century. During the period of independence, positive Kyrgyz population dynamics was being maintained only due to expanded natural reproduction offsetting migration outflow. Being undergone several critical events, transformation of outflow main directions and change in their structure, population shift has become the main factor and an integral part of the geodemographic development of the country. Migration for Kyrgyzstan is an essential aspect of inter-ethnic communications, an instrument for formation of new nation geography, for evolution of ethno-regional structures and the state's movement toward a mono-ethnic and mono-confessional type. Kyrgyz joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEC) in 2015 may change the vector of its geode-mographic development.

The paper is devoted to analysis of state and discovery of the new World Karst Heritage (WKH) sites across the globe. As for today, there are 39 such sites, 36 of which have the natural Heritage status and 3 sites have the status, natural and cultural object. The WKH sites distribution by countries and by parts of the world is analyzed. A brief description of outstanding universal value of the Natural Park «Lena Pil-lars», being currently the only Russian karst area nominated at the List of World Natural Heritage by a specific type of karst - ground frozen karst, is given. The necessity of the nomination of new WKH sites associated with karst development in sulphate and salt rocks is underlined; of the karst areas are developed there in the conditions of extreme (cold or warm) climate are in the focus of separate attention.

The Russian geographical society is the most popular public institution in Russia of the XIX and early XX centuries which made a significant contribution to geographical knowledge of the country. On the basis of already published and little-known archival materials the author acquaints the reader with the details of creation of the Russian geographical society, and gives some information about the attitude of contemporaries to the event.