Irina Rodionova, Tatiana Kokuytseva – Innovation development and competitiveness of countries in the world economy: positions of Russia and Central Eastern Europe countries – the new EU members

The positions of Russia and countries of Central Eastern Europe – the new EU members are revealed in ranking tables by aggregated indices which characterize the readiness of the countries to transfer their economies to the innovative development. The connection between usage of information technologies and national economic development on the basis of innovative economy formation is revealed. The authors characterize the positions of Russia and the new EU members by the international indices, including the Global Competitiveness Index.

Viliyan Krastev – Tourism regionalization models of the world space and the position of Bulgaria

The article is focused on issues concerning tourism regionalization models of the world. The study is about models of horizontal and polarized tourism regionaliza- tion of the world according to the World Tourism Organization and the researches of leading authors on the topic. The aim of this study is to conduct a spatial-empirical analysis of the development of regional patterns of the world tourist area in order to trace the geographical reality in relation to contemporary situations affecting tourism. Based on individual comparisons are formulated spatial trends and specific guide- lines for the optimization of world tourism structure. Our opinion is that geo-cultural aspects are not enough involved in the regional structure of world tourist area. These aspects could help for the disclosure of some “invisible” spatial characteristics. In this relation, there is a need to improve existing models or develop new ones by using a culturally-shaped approach, able to provide a better methodological vision over the regional structure of tourism space.

Based on the importance of tourism industry for the economic development of Bulgaria, the article emphasizes on Bulgaria’s various tourist geographical patterns of regionalization. We suggest that the highest extent is determined by the total score of its geographic location on the main markets of origin and its tourist poten- tial to the regional competitors. Bulgaria’s position in the system of world tourism can be described without exaggeration as “semi periphery.” The Main reasons we see for this position are: highly polarized concentration of tourism in limited areas in the national territory; poor adaptiveness to innovations in the tourism sector; tourism policy myopia of the Bulgarian national authorities towards the traditional foreign markets.

Keywords: tourism regionalization, Bulgaria, geo-cultural aspects, world tourism area

Chavdar Mladenov, Boris Kazakov – Contemporary demographic development and problems of urban settlements in Bulgaria

The basic goal of the regional development strategies and plans, including the National Strategy for Demographic Development of the Republic of Bulgaria 2006-2030 (http://www.mlsp.government.bg/bg/docs/demography/demograph.htm) and The Millennium Development Goals (UNDP, 2003) is to offer means and measures for solving the various problems posed by the demographic situation, according to the specificity of the socio-economic development of each municipality. The aim of this paper is to detect the trends in the demographic development of the Danubian urban settlements and the socio-economic prob- lems that result from their specific demographic situation. The paper focuses on urban settlements located in all municipalities in Bulgaria which have access to the Danube River banks. Those municipalities are linked to one another by the river, which serves as a transport artery, but is not used rationally and on full- scale capacity, because of little or no economic integration between the Danubian municipalities.

Keywords: demographic development; Danubian region; urban settlements; demographic situation

Rositsa Mikova – Analysis of the reasons for domestic migration in Bulgaria

The current paper clarifies and analyses the reasons for domestic migration in Bulgaria during the period between 2001 and 2010, together with their relation to the ongoing socio-economic transformation processes in the country. The various rea- sons for migration have been discussed, as well as the share and the sex structure of the migrants. The influence of the various reasons for migration has been scrutinized, regarding the migrants’ preferences for choosing a place for settling, which shows that the large settlements are being preferred the most, and that the migration flow is directed from smaller to larger settlements.

Tamás Hardi – Spatial structure and urban types of the Danubian areas

Since the birth of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, several scientific issues have been raised by the Strategy, which has also led to discussions on the Danube Area as a development macro-region (Hardi 2010). It is clearly visible that beyond the Danubian examinations done so far, focused primarily on culture and arts, more and more emphasis is put on the survey of the relationship between the river and the socio-economic space (D ö v é n y i , H a j d ú , G l a t z , 2002; C s e r et al., 2008; Rechnitzer 2009; Hardi, 2012); in addition, this will have a practical signifi- cance as a positive effect of the efforts of the European Union. During these surveys, basic questions will also have to be answered. How exactly and when, is the gener- ally acknowledged “development” role of the Danube River manifested? Is there a Danube Area, and is there a genuine Danubian identity? If so, what does it involve, and how is it related to the concept of Central Europe – another concept evoking many debates? We often hear the concept “Danubianness”; it is easy to express this idea in general, but it is hard to find its real content in regional development. What is the role of the river in the strategy? Is it only a symbol or is it an exactly defined resource that we must use and preserve together, in cooperation during the process of overall development?

Zoltán Hajdú – Transformation of the Hungarian spatial structural view concerning the Danube and the neighbourhood in the period of the end of World War II and the start of the rearrangement, 1944-1948

The frequent changes of state territories and state borders, and the often dis- puted existing state borders, are among the historical, economic and social characteristics of Central Europe, including the Carpathian Basin, and this issue is also one of the (usually hidden) political problems for certain social groups in several countries.

Emil Gachev, Krassimir Stoyanov – Contemporary glacial features in the Prokletije Mountain (Albanian Alps)

Recently it has been proved that Balkan Peninsula is the home of the most south- erly situated contemporary glacial features in Europe. Along with the two small gla- cierets in the Pirin mountains of Bulgaria, a number of larger glacierets and at least one small glaciers exist in the highest mountains of the Dinaric chain near to the Adriatic coast – Prokletije (the Albanian Alps – 2694 m a. s. l.) and Durmitor (2522 m a. s. l.). The existence and the relative stability of these forms in the conditions of the present climate is favored by a relatively high altitude (2000 m a. s. l. and above), lightly colored carbonate bedrock, strongly shaded locations at the bottom of deep cirques left from the Pleistocene prone to avalanche, great amount of precipitation (2500–3000 mm/y), most of it falling in winter.

The article summarizes results from a fieldwork in Prokletije (the central part of the massif, also called Albanian Alps) that took place in October 2011. Several glacierets were confirmed to exist in this mountain massif. Although the Maja e Kol- jaet glacier that had been mentioned by M i l i v o j e v i ć et al. (2008) as “the largest glacier on the Balkans”, was found to had shrunk to just a small snow patch, there were described three more glacierets that have not been mentioned in the previous studies – two at the slopes of Maja e Jezerces (2694 m a. s. l.), the highest peak of Prokletije mountains, and one on the northern slope of the massif of Mertur. Two firn bodies have the characteristics of small glaciers – they have ice snouts at its ends, surrounded by crescent-shaped (moraine) ridges. This fact needs to be confirmed in a closer look, as these small glaciers were seen only from distance.

The largest body of firn/ice observed in the autumn of 2011 had an area of al- most 3 ha. However, on the photo of Google Earth, taken in October 2006 numerous snow spots are observed, the largest of which (3.7 ha) lied in the Kolata massif. It has to be taken in mind that the year 2006 was the snowiest of the last decade, at least in the high mountains of SW Bulgaria.
Year-to-year changes of the small glacial features in the Albanian Alps are con- siderable and have controversial character with no expressed trend in during the last decade. This should be a reflection of regional and local climate specifics in this area. For a proper categorization and inventory of these forms more research is needed on a regular basis.

Emilia Tcherkezova – Multi-scale morphographic classification of Ada Tepe and Krumovitsa River watershed (Eastern Rhodope Mountains, Southern Bulgaria).

In this paper a landform classification оf the watershed basin of Kroumovitsa is presented. The landform feature extraction is based on multi-scale quadratic approxi- mation of some local moving windows. First, some geomorphometric derivates were spatially delineated in the study areas: slope, cross-sectional curvature, maximum convexity values and minimum convexity values. There are used as criteria for the multi-scale quadratic approximation of some local moving windows. The result rep- resents the landform units peaks, ridges, channels, plains and pits. This information can be used to determine the fuzzy membership of those landforms that indicate the degree of peakness, ridgeness, channeless etc. The results of applying this process are grids. They can be analyzed together with other relevant spatial data. The classification methods are useful for the extraction of landform units in the investigation mountain areas in different scales. They can be combined with other geomorphologi- cal methods.

Keywords: Digital terrain Models (DTM), landform classification, geomorphometry, fuzzy logic, SRTM – Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) – LiDAR.

Milen Penerliev – Dobrudzha in the studies of professor Anastas Ishirkov

Angel Velchev, Nikola Todorov – A book of great scientific and practical value in the field of morphodynamics and morphotectonics

Tzanko Tzankov – A response to a critical review

Tzanko Tzankov – About the critical remarks of Mitko Paskalev, PhD

Vesselin Peychev, Rayna Hristova, Stoyko Stoykov – Professor Dimitar Parlichev at the age of 80

Ivanka Boteva – 145 years since the birth of academician Anastas Ishirkov

Ivanka Boteva – The original ideas have no age (celebrating the 65th anniversary of Assoc. Prof. Petar Petrov, PhD)

Ivanka Boteva – Geopolitics and contemporaneity (celebrating the 65th anniversary of Prof. Boris Kolev, PhD)

Dimitar Parlichev – Professor Todor Ivanov Krastev (1943-2011)