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The Azerbaijan-Russia borderline mainly goes by the Caucasian mountain range and close to the Samur riverbed. Main border posts are situated close to the Caspian seashore while the locals living in the Upper Dagestan area have difficulties with crossing borderline. The locals are represented by the so called "divided peoples" whose living area was divided with the state border after 1991. The former inner borders ignored ethnic areas but now they became the lines crossing the ethnic groups of Legins, Avars, Tzakhurs and Rutuls. Certainly, those peoples are interested in specific rules for crossing the border. At the same time, their areas have not got the equipped border offices and they have to spend a lot of time and money for travelling to the neighboring districts via Baku or Vladikavkaz. Such problems arouse the radical demands among locals. The Lezgin movement for an independent Lezgistan is the most famous among them. Its supporters were involved in a terrorist attack in Baku in 1990-s and now they collect files about any problems connected with border issues, including the results of a demarcation process. They attract attention to the facts of all assignments made by Russian representatives. The activity of other ethnic groups was comparatively lower and they could make an agreement with local authorities about division of powers. Obviously, any solution about development of the border infrastructure may stabilize the separatism activity in the area.

The author determines the key challenges and threats to cross-border security at Azerbaijan-Russia borderline on the basis of analysis of Federal and regional media, declarations made by representatives of the local and borderline authorities, as well as online activities of national movements. The author reveals the infrastructure factors of ensuring cross-border activity, social and economic conditions of borderline districts development. The suggestion is made on the need to develop infrastructure borderline objects for complex development of the crossborder area that will allow preventing separatism.

The administrative-territorial reforms carried out under Soviet power in the Caucasus to delimitate Russia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have always been and remain a bone of contention. So far their governments have not yet come to terms on several problems on certain border stretches. For fourteen years now, delimitation has been going on with varying intensity. Russia and Azerbaijan have come the closest to settling these disputes with respect to the Daghestanian stretch of their common border. The last talks about the debatable territories in the Khachmaz, Gusar, and Balakian districts of Azerbaijan were held in April 2005. Delimitation of the Russian-Georgian border is burdened with the uneasy relations between Tbilisi and the break-away republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The budding advance toward a settlement was cut short by the military actions undertaken by Mikhail Saakashvili's cabinet. Continued delimitation of 13 percent of the Russian-Georgian border is rigidly associated with the restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity. So far, there is no clearly delimitated border between Georgia and Azerbaijan. Chairman of the Border Guard Department of Georgia Lieutenant-General B. Bitsadze offered the following comment on the closed meeting with the Azeri delegation held on 7 July, 2005: "We have an administrative border, but we still do not know where the state border runs." The area where the state borders of the three countries meet gives rise to many debates; the same can be said about the Krasniy Most checkpoint. A glance at the ethnic map reveals the causes of these problems. The borders of the three countries have made the local homogenous population a divided nation: any positive development requires close cooperation among all of the states involved. In the case of the Krasniy Most checkpoint, the countries are confronted with discrepancies between the state and ethnic borders which appeared several centuries ago. After 1801, the Russian Empire was busy dividing the Caucasus into administrative units with the aim of strengthening its influence there. The borders which appeared between the three states during the short period of independence in 1917-1921 are mainly responsible for the current disagreements. According to the Alma-Ata Declaration and the CIS Charter of 1991 the administrative borders of Soviet times should serve as the starting-point of border delimitation in the post-Soviet era. Under Soviet power border delimitation principles went through several stages.

Introduction. The article defines the nodal intersections of international transport corridors in the South Caucasus. Nagorno-Karabakh, after the 2020 war, is isolated from the donor country, and the prospects for its existence are beginning to depend more and more on transport diplomacy in the region. Methods and materials. The study is based on the concept of F. Braudel on the territorial organization of space. To analyze the current regional situation around Nagorno-Karabakh after 2020, strategic documents, news reports, interviews, and statements by officials of the countries of the region and representatives of regional powers were used. Analysis. The transport isolation of Nagorno-Karabakh undertaken by Azerbaijan after 2020, while simultaneously developing transport infrastructure bypassing it and the central regions of Armenia, created conditions for a humanitarian crisis in the unrecognized state. During the negotiations with Armenia, the fate of the Karabakh population is becoming more closely associated with the development of transport infrastructure in the region, calling into question the participation of Armenia itself in the development of projects. This situation forces its Prime Minister to take unpopular measures, gradually yielding to Baku's demands. Azerbaijan, having taken part in the implementation of European transport projects, is developing new ones with the participation of China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran. The unresolved conflict hinders the security of investments in the region. The speed of development of competing transport corridors does not create prerequisites for long-term projects to resolve the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. Results. Thanks to Azerbaijan's initiative, new transport geography is being formed in the South Caucasus, creating diversified corridors for Azerbaijan and Turkey, and at the same time increasing the Russian Federation and Iran's dependence on the level of relations with these states. Taking into account Azerbaijan's negotiations with Iran as well as Russia's interest in the development of the North-South ITC, it can be assumed that tougher steps will be taken in the future with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh as well as the Zangezur corridor.

Introduction. The Transcaucasian states waged war with each other and desperately wanted to find some disinterested party to resolve their territorial disputes in 1918–1921. The territory was first occupied by the countries of the Triple Alliance, then by the Entente countries, and each of them contributed to the formation or resolution of territorial disputes. Methods and materials. Based on the historical-systemic and historical-genetic approaches, the author determines which territorial changes were proposed in the region by representatives of the United States and why. The documents collected in the State Archive of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Archive of Political Documents of the Office of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the National Archive of Armenia were involved for analysis. Analysis. The influence of the United States on the solution of territorial issues was determined by the general approach to the territory as passing into a mandate state. During the discussion of this issue, the understanding of the American representatives about the borders of this zone expanded first from Armenia in a general sense to Transcaucasia, and then narrowed to the borders of Turkish Armenia, which brought them back to the issue of the borders of the Republic of Armenia. At the same time, representatives working in the region proposed a plan for interstate disengagement, different from the British plan, and tried to introduce a governor-general in the disputed territory. Results. The remoteness from the region, the presence of a single channel of information about it through the Armenian Diaspora in the United States affected the narrow perception of the situation in the region by American representatives. The issue of the adoption of a mandate over Armenia or Transcaucasia and Armenia somehow got connected with the issue of costs for its effective implementation. The failed attempt to create an American governor-general in the disputed territories recorded a lack of understanding of the situation in the region and the possibilities of its control and provoked more conflicts between Armenians and Azerbaijani.

Introduction. The contemporary university in the conditions of globalization has enriched its traditional functions to educate and create new elites with attracting not only domestic students but also the foreign youth to the educational and research process. In some cases it can maintain public diplomacy held by the domestic government still influencing it via the requests made by research professionals. This influence may come through the collision of interests of both researchers with students and the government. A Russian university represents mainly the government, that's why it's important to discover its role in public diplomacy. Methods and materials. The neoliberal approach to J. Nye's concept of "soft power" gives the possibility to consider the university as a public institute enriching state's soft power through public diplomacy. Official speeches of Russian government representatives, publications of Russian researchers, university web-sites give the ground to understand the Russian approach to the methods of public diplomacy. Analysis. First of all, it's important to reveal the ways to interpret the word combination "public diplomacy" in Russian. There are several possible terms: "publichnaya", "obshchestvennaya" , "narodnaya" diplomacy. The ways to use the word show different gradations of its meaning in research and political discourses which determine possible actors of public diplomacy in the Russian language. However, Russian officials in contrast to Russian researchers accept the term "obshchestvennaya" to describe the activity of government institutions in public diplomacy. That's why a university can be considered as an actor of "obshchestvennaya" diplomacy. Secondly, we reveal the ways to implement public diplomacy by Volgograd State University as one of regional universities. Results. Russian researchers following the English-language studies differentiate the concepts of "obshchestvennaya" and "publichnaya" (public) diplomacy according to the actors that implement this policy: the state cannot implement "obshchestvennaya" diplomacy, because it is a prerogative of social movements or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). At the same time, the concept of public diplomacy covers both the work of NGOs and the work of the state in creating its favorable image. However, Russian officials, trying to avoid the use of the Russian term "public diplomacy" incorrectly sounding in Russian, give preference to the phrase "obshchestvennaya diplomacy", implying that NGOs carry out public diplomacy with the help and on the initiative of the state. Moreover, they are not only public organizations who can conduct policies in this area. In other words, officials suppose that in comparison with research discourse, the circle of participants in "obshchestvennaya" diplomacy enlarges at the expense of state funds and platforms. Thus, a university that implements educational, research and publishing projects is involved in "obshchestvennaya" diplomacy. The position of the university in society, the authority of specialists whom it manages to attract, their international activity provide the soft power of the state.

Introduction. In the study the authors consider the ways of understanding and overcoming the extreme conditions of the Great Patriotic The task is to define the forms and ways of "overcoming" the war conditions and its traumatizing consequences developed by Russians and to identify their connection with traditional types of worldview and folk ritual practices. Methods and materials. The analysis of folk stories recorded among different generations and rural Russian areas as well as memories about the wartime and the period after the Great Patriotic War compose the base of the article. According to the main task the authors use the method widely used in the Russian Ethnography which is called the "inside the tradition" view, or analysis from the position of its bearers. Analysis. The natural alternation of periods of prosperity and crises explains the inevitability of war, but according to popular beliefs, the impoverishment of the sacred sphere of life is the main factor of a tragedy. On the contrary, human turning to God and his / her repentance determine the possibility of overcoming a tragedy. The concept of "a rule" (and its violation) as well as the concept of "a destiny" (a shared fate) which must be restored and redistributed under the crisis according to popular beliefs play an important role in the mechanism of developing ways to "overcome" the war among the Russians during the wartime. Wartime ritual practices including baking and cutting bread, redistributing it to the front line, organizing joint meals, etc. confirm the statement. The process of the revival of religious (Orthodox) practices, and the formation of a collective memory of the war and the fallen heroes was inspired from below, from the masses. This initiative included folk forms of veneration and remembrance of the dead, the creation of sacred places associated with the war and the memory about it. Women, who became the main keepers of the tradition, who took upon themselves the functions of harmonizing the socio-psychological situation in rural areas during the difficult war and postwar years, were especially active in these processes. Results. The authors confirm the particular role of traditional types of worldview influencing the modern collective memory as well as social practices during both extreme conditions and everyday life. Ordinary people preferred to turn to centuries-old spiritual traditions of overcoming war traumas and to use the experience of preserving collective memory of them formed in the pre-revolutionary time within the peasant and Cossack communities.