Trends in Urban Studies in Russia: The Subject Matter in the Light of Geography’s State of the Arts

Since 2022, the journal Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya geograficheskaya is publishing special issues on actual topics in geography. This issue, already the seventh in a row, is the first one entirely devoted to sociogeographical topics, and the second (in this case out of eight), if we count the extensive special section prepared for the anniversary International Geographical Congress in Paris in 2022, which included seven review articles on areas of social geography in which the most striking results have been achieved and which are specific to Russia. The articles in this issue reflect the results of original scientific researches presented at the large-scale International Scientific Conference The City and Its Surroundings: Modern Challenges and Promising Development Paths, which took place in the spring of 2024 at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences as part of the IV Geourbanistic Readings. The articles in the issue, as well as the reports at the conference, clearly show that Russian studies of current processes of interaction between cities and their suburbs, centers and peripheral territories, territorial transformation of cities and formation of new urban structures, development of agglomeration processes and pendulum migrations, as well as rural-urban migrations, fit completely into the international context and in this sense are characterized by two features. In a number of areas, the most advanced methodological approaches are applied. With the coincidence of many processes with those developing in other countries, the specifics of their course in Russia are revealed both at the national level and in the regions.