Vestnik Rossijskoj akademii nauk

The experience of creating and exploring the Russian Empire belongs to Peter I, who had the qualities of a researcher and experimenter, and all institutions involved in the study of Russia, including the Kunstkamera and the Academy of Sciences, were his projects (the word “project” entered the Russian lexicon under Peter). At the end of the Northern War, Russia, in the person of its emperor, became interested in itself at a new geopolitical level, sending expeditions to explore and cartograph the southern, northern and eastern borders of the country. The continuation of the self-knowledge of the empire was the unprecedented Second Kamchatka, or Great Northern Expedition (1733–1743). Among its results was not only the compilation of maps (more than 60) of the empire and a description of its remote regions (Siberia, Kamchatka), but also the birth of a secular “fashion for peoples”, expressed in the “procession of peoples” during the amusing “Ice Wedding” (1740), in the preparation of which the Academy and the Kunstkamera took an active part. A breakthrough in self-research of Russia during the Enlightenment era was the Physical (Academic) expeditions of 1768–1774, which brought the birth of the science of ethnography (narodovedenie, Völkerkunde) and the formation of the national (imperial) idea of Russia as a country abundant and rich in peoples.

The article analyzes the number of pediatric cardiologists in the subjects of the Russian Federation, the routing procedures for patients with congenital heart defects and the relationship of these factors with the infant mortality rate. In our country, the specialty of a pediatric cardiologist is updated, and the provision of doctors for the child population is quite high compared to other countries. Nevertheless, the uneven distribution of doctors by subjects may provoke an undesirable increase in infant mortality in them. To improve the situation in problem regions, it is necessary to strengthen the appropriate staffing, improve the regulatory framework for routing patients locally, and also check the effectiveness of medical care.

The article presents a retrospective review of some forecasts, plans and projects of anthropogenic impact on water resources that did not materialize, were not implemented by the planned date or were incomplete. Values of full (water intake) and irrevocable water consumption for 2000, predicted in the 1960s and 1970s by well-known domestic and foreign researchers, are compared with the actual water consumption in 2000 in the world, the USA, and our country. It is shown that most of water consumption forecast parameters turned out to be significantly higher than the actual one, which gives reason to consider these forecasts were not borne out. In the Water Strategy of the Russian Federation, developed in 2009 for the period up to 2020, these values were also significantly overestimated (by tens of percent). Incomplete implementation of various programs did not lead to the expected significant improvement in the water quality of rivers, including the Volga, and reservoirs in Russia. Such failed projects as NAWAPA in the USA and Canada, projects of interzonal redistribution of water resources in the USSR, projects of Nizhneobskaya and Turukhanskaya (Evenkijskaya) hydroelectric power plants, partially implemented projects of Cheboksary and Nizhnekamsk hydroelectric power plants, as well as a number of others are considered. Among the main reasons for unsuccessful forecasts, unfulfilled plans and projects are the lack of reliable data, incomplete knowledge about laws of nature and society development, financial problems, environmental demands, and the dramatically changed economic and political situation.

According to the World Bank in 2016. China’s total GDP has reached the level of the United States, and in 2022. exceeded by 19,2%. But as for relative characteristics, for example, per capita GDP, in 2022. in China it was only 28.1% of the US level. With such a correlation of key socio-economic indicators, the issue of a country with number 1 status in the world acquires special interest. The main objective of this article is to identify and evaluate the processes of convergence of per capita GDP indicators of the USA and China, and try to predict their relative position in the long term. Calculations are carried out on a classical, but still relevant, model foundation. An important feature of the approach used is the consideration of exclusively investment parameters as factors of GDP growth. If the retrospective dynamics are prolonged, the leveling off of the per capita GDP of the USA and China is estimated to occur by the mid-2040s. It is also shown that in the American economy, as such, there are most likely no prerequisites that could prevent the contraction of the indicators under consideration already in the visible future. The actual pace of their convergence is determined by the state of affairs in the Chinese economy.

Ten strategic offensives of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in 1944 (“Stalin’s ten offensives”) led to the liberation of vast territories in the western part of the USSR, the beginning of the cleansing of the “brown plague” of the countries of Eastern, Southeastern and Northern Europe, and the critical weakening of the Wehrmacht itself. Nevertheless, these events have not yet received sufficient attention in the politics of Russia`s historical memory. When referring to the lists of days of military glory, hero cities, cities of military glory, as well as art cinema, it turned out that no more than half of the 10 key operations of 1944 were noted. The focus is on the campaigns of 1943, when the mass liberation of the territories of the USSR began, and 1945 when there was the final surrender of the Third Reich. Russian society perceived 1944 only as an intermediate stage, although eventful, but not so bright. It is also important that in 1944, not only the territories of the RSFSR were already liberated, but the Union`s republics located to the west, which became independent states after the collapse of the USSR.

Currently, Western policy, together with the policy of the Kiev regime, is trying to turn the coverage of the Red Army’s liberation role into a purely national agenda of Russia. The article suggests possible solutions to this problem which are the expanding the list of days of military glory due to the landmark dates of 1944 and the establishment of a day of complete liberation from Nazi occupation of each subject of the Russian Federation, as well as close coordination in this area with Belarus and Serbia.

In 2024, there are three important dates in the fate of the Russian writer academician Leonid Leonov: the 125th anniversary of his birth, the 30th anniversary of his death and the publication of his last novel “Pyramid”, work on which lasted for five decades. The Pyramid is rightly considered a novel-the testament of the writer. It examines such important issues as the existence of world evil, the future of the world and humanity, the role of the devil in world history, Russia’s place in world civilization, gnostic theories of the future of the world and man. Since The Pyramid was published in uncensored conditions, Leonov could write openly about the problems that tormented him. This property of the novel led researchers to attempts at so-called recursive reading (decoding hidden meanings) and earlier works by Leonov. In the “Pyramid” itself, there are a lot of riddles, sometimes deliberately left by the writer for future readers to think about. The article examines the main problems of the novel and by way of copost.