Trudy Obshchestva ispytateleĭ prirody pri Imperatorskom Kharʹkovskom universiteti͡e = Travaux de la Société des naturalistes à l'Université Impériale de Kharkow.

t.44 (1911)

Trudy Imperatorskago S.-Peterburgskago botanicheskago sada.Acta Horti Petropolitani.

v.23 (1904)

Post Roads, Central and Eastern Europe Regions, 1802 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: A new map of the post roads of Germany and Hungary with the adjacent kingdoms, republics and states : from the large map published at Vienna, with additions and improvements by J. Enouy, geogr. It was published by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street in 1802. Scale [ca. 1:2,500,000]. Covers the Central and Eastern Europe regions. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Europe Lambert Conformal Conic coordinate system. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as drainage, cities and other human settlements, postal roads, territorial and administrative boundaries, shoreline features, and more. Relief shown pictorially.This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from the Harvard Map Collection. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features. The selection represents a range of originators, ground condition dates, scales, and map purposes.

Maryland, West Virginia & Virginia : Civil War Telegram Map, 1862 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map: War telegram marking map. It was published by L. Prang & Co. in 1862. Scale [ca. 1:490,000]. Covers portions of Maryland, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, and eastern Virginia. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection (WGS 1984 UTM Zone 18N). All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as roads, railroads, drainage, selected points of military interest, and more. Relief shown by hachures. Includes text: "Explanations.The extraordinary large scale on which this map is drawn has been adopted to make it just what we designed it to be, namely 1st. The most distinct map ever published of the whole Virginia territory, where the decisive battles for the Union will be fought. 2nd. A marking map, that is a map to mark the change of positions of the Union forces in red pencil and the rebel forces in blue, on the receipt of every telegram from the seat of war..." This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps of the Civil War from the Harvard Map Collection. Many items from this selection are from a collection of maps deposited by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States Commandery of the State of Massachusetts (MOLLUS) in the Harvard Map Collection in 1938. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features, in particular showing places of military importance. The selection represents a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates, scales, and purposes.

Guatemala, 1902 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: Guatemala : from official and other sources, prepared in the Bureau of the American republics, William Woodville Rockhill, director, compiled and drawn by M. Hendges, 1902. It was published by Andrew B. Graham, photo-litho. in 1902. Scale 1:792,000. Covers Guatemala and portions of Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the 'World Mercator' projection. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as drainage, cities and other human settlements, ruins, territorial boundaries including Departamentos, roads, railroads, telegraph stations, mines and minerals, ports of entry, shoreline features, lighthouses, and more. Relief shown by hachures. This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from the Harvard Map Collection and the Harvard University Library as part of the Open Collections Program at Harvard University project: Organizing Our World: Sponsored Exploration and Scientific Discovery in the Modern Age. Maps selected for the project correspond to various expeditions and represent a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates, scales, and purposes.

Lisbon Treaty: Year I

The completion of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty (from now on the Treaty) in November and its entry into force on 1 December 2009 marked the end of an extraordinary and unprecedented lengthy process of institutional change of the European Union. The Treaty had been signed on 13 December 2007, almost two years before its entry into force, by no means an excessive duration compared to the ratification of previous modifications of the Treaties. But the Treaty – in strictly legal terms a substantial set of amendments to two previous treaties renamed in the process – has a long history. Initial proposals for institutional reform date back to the German reunification in 1989-1990. They went through lengthy debates that eventually led to the European Convention and the 'Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe' of 20031 and from there to the 'Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe' of 20042. If the current form of the Treaty is a clear consequence of the difficulties of the ratification process of the Constitution, the ideas that provide the substance can be traced back to the final years of the past century. The pages that follow are not a legal analysis but an attempt to identify changes and to assess their significance3.

Russia goes on the offensive ahead of the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius. OSW Commentary No. 115, 30.09.2013

In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up its efforts to prevent a group of former Soviet republics from tightening their relations with the European Union. The intensification of these efforts comes ahead of the upcoming Eastern Partnership summit, scheduled to take place in Vilnius on 28-29 November. It is expected that during the summit Kiev will sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) initialled in March 2012, including an agreement for a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). Meanwhile, Moldova, Armenia and Georgia are expected to initial similar documents, effectively accepting their terms and conditions, and paving the way for their official signing in the near future. Moscow has always viewed the relations between the EU and the post-Soviet states as a threat to its own influence in the region. Consequently, any attempts to tighten these relations have been actively opposed by Russia. The EU’s Eastern Partnership programme, launched in 2009, has posed a particular challenge to Moscow’s policies in the region.. Russia responded by rolling out a Eurasian integration project, which began in 2010 with the establishment of the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, and is expected to culminate in the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union by 2015. Moscow’s overarching objective has been to persuade the countries in the region, especially Ukraine, to adopt an unambiguously pro-Russian geopolitical stance and to join the integration project proposed by the Kremlin. The Russian government hopes that this would permanently place these states in Moscow’s sphere of influence and at the same time prevent them from developing closer relations with Brussels. Russia has regularly taken actions aimed at showcasing the benefits of integration with the Customs Union (particularly, by promising preferential pricing of Russian energy resources) and at the same time it has adopted measures highlighting the pitfalls of retaining a pro-European orientation (mainly by imposing occasional trade sanctions). The upcoming summit in Vilnius, during which Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Georgia could lock themselves on to a pro-European course, has spurred Moscow to intensify its efforts to torpedo a successful outcome of the Vilnius meeting, with a view to slowing down or even blocking the possibility of closer cooperation between the EU and the former Soviet republics.

Georgia- between a dream and reality. OSW Commentary no. 133, 15.04.2014

Following several years of political turmoil triggered by constitutional reform (a shift from a presidential to a semi-presidential system) and electoral reshuffles (parliamentary elections in 2012; presidential elections in 2013), the political situation in Georgia has stabilised: key posts in the country are now in the hands of democratically elected members of the Geor-gian Dream coalition. Despite its mosaic-like structure and internaltensions, Georgian Dream remains strong and enjoys high levels of public support. This puts it in good stead to play a central role in Georgian politics in the foreseeable future, including securing victory in the local government elections scheduled for June. However, local billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili does not currently hold a political office - despite the fact that he is the founder, sponsor and undisputed leader of the coalition, as well as former prime minister and the most popular public figure in Georgia (besides Patriarch Ilia II). This raises several questions, for example: Who is really at the helm of the Georgian state? What is the lon-g-term vision of the current government? The past achievements of the politically heterogeneo-us Georgian Dream - dominated by Mr Ivanishvili - offer little help in answering these questions. In addition to a series of challenges on the domestic front, the new Georgian leadership is also facing strategic geopolitical challenges, compounded by the current conflict in Ukraine. These include the future of Georgia’s relations with the West (including the process of EU and NATO integration) and with Russia (in response to repeated attempts to re-integrate the post-Soviet republics). The scale and dynamism of the changes in both the geopolitical order in the post-Soviet region and in the relations between Russia and the West are causing further questions to be raised about their impact on the position of the Georgian political elite and about their consequences for the entire country.

No change in the Russian Caucasus. The Winter Olympics amid a local war. OSW Study 47/2014

The North Caucasus has been the most unstable region of the Russian Federation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Considering the scale of violence, the conflict in the region should be regarded as a local civil war between the Salafi Islamic armed underground and the secular authorities of the North Caucasus republics, supported by the security services. The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has made himself de facto independent from Moscow, holds a particularly strong position in the region and his ambition is to gain control of the neighbouring territories. The Russian leadership, which sees the security of the Winter Olympics in Sochi as its top priority, is facing a strategic choice between trying to integrate the North Caucasus with the rest of the federation, or isolating the region and accepting the existence of an informal "internal abroad” within Russia. The cultural processes taking place in the region, including Islamisation, de-modernisation and de-Russification, have been driving the North Caucasus ever further away from the rest of Russia, strengthening a mutual sense of foreignness.

The Kremlin plays the immigration card. OSW Commentary No. 112, 2013-08-19

Russia is currently the world’s second most popular destination country for international migrants (second only to the United States). In recent years, Russia’s relatively high economic growth has attracted foreign workers from poorer neighbouring republics in Central Asia, as well as from Ukraine and Belarus. In the absence of a consistent immigration policy, the largescale influx of immigrants has become a major issue affecting social relations in Russia. The majority of Russians oppose the arrival of both foreign workers and internal migrants from Russia’s North Caucasus republics, claiming that their presence in Russia contributes to the escalation of ethnic and religious tensions, fuels organised crime and corruption, and increases competition on the labour market. As many as 70% of Russians are in favour of restricting the number of immigrants allowed into the country, calling on the government for a more stringent policy on immigration. Since the end of July the authorities have responded to these calls by carrying out a series of raids on markets and construction sites across Moscow, where most immigrants tend to find employment. The raids have led to arrests and deportations. However, these measures should not be seen as a serious attempt to deal with the problem of economic migrants in the capital, mainly because of the highly selective and staged nature of the crackdown. This, coupled with the timing of the initiative, might indicate that the raids are a part of an ongoing election campaign, particularly in the run-up to the Moscow mayoral elections scheduled for 8 September. By adopting anti-immigration rhetoric, the Kremlin is seeking both to garner support among Russian voters, who tend to be easily swayed by nationalist sentiments, and to steal the anti-immigration card from the opposition and its leader Alexei Navalny. The opposition has been calling for a clearer policy on this issue and has blamed the government for the current lack of control over migrant numbers, accusing the authorities of benefiting from the widespread corruption linked to immigration. In a broader context, the actions taken by the government are a response to the declining legitimacy of the current ruling elite. By attempting to address the immigration issue, the Kremlin is trying to restore its image as a government attentive to social problems and capable of solving them effectively.

Chechnya: Between a Caucasian Jihad and ‘hidden’ separatism. OSW Point of View, January 2007

1. Even though Chechnya remains the most unstable republic in the Russian North Caucasus, the open armed conflict known as the Second Chechen War, which broke out in the autumn of 1999, is gradually dying down. 2. Several years ago, the conflict in Chechnya could have been characterised as a war between Chechen separatists and the government of the Russian Federation. However, the nature of the conflict has changed significantly over the last four or five years. 3. Even though the intensity of fighting in Chechnya has abated in recent years, the conflict has spilt over to the other Caucasus republics such as Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. As a result, this is presently not so much a Chechen conflict as a regional clash between the authorities and the Caucasian (including Chechen) Islamists. 4. The Chechen militants are weaker now, and the conflict has changed from a struggle for national liberation into a fight for the Islamic cause; but this does not mean that Russia has ultimately solved the problem of Chechen separatism.

"Creeping" civil war in the North Caucasus. OSW Commentary No. 50, 2011-03-15

Over the last year, the situation in Russia’s North Caucasus has become further destabilised. Attacks and armed clashes happen daily, and destabilisation is spreading to an increasingly large area. The extent of violence in the region is so great that it can already be stated that a de facto civil war is taking place, the warring parties being the Islamic armed underground movement which operates under the banner of the so-called Emirate of the North Caucasus, and the secular governments of the individual republics, who are supported by local and federal branches of the Russian Federation’s Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service. Moscow has no idea how to successfully tackle the Caucasus rebellion. Force has proved to be costly and unproductive, while the attempts made since early 2010 to integrate the region with the rest of Russia by implementing development programmes have not brought the desired results, because of widespread corruption and faint interest from businessmen who are afraid to invest in such an unsafe region. A growing problem for Moscow, particularly for the prestige of the state, is attacks by militants on areas near Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics is to take place. It must be assumed that over the next 3 years before the Olympics, Moscow’s priority in the region will be to ensure the safety of Olympic preparations, and then the games themselves. It cannot be ruled out that the North Caucasus Federal District with its ‘troubled republics’ will be surrounded by a kind of cordon sanitaire (Sochi is situated in the neighbouring Southern Federal District). This could in turn strengthen these republics’ isolation, maintain the state of permanent instability, and postpone the prospects of solving the region’s acute economic and social problems.

North Caucasus: the Russian Gordian knot. The key problems and conflicts in the region and the effect thereof on the future of Russia; Putin after re-election: The Kremlin's policy in Vladimir Putin's second term. OSW Study 16/2004

North Caucasus: North Caucasus is the most instable part of the Russian Federation: since the early 90's, there has been going on the military conflict in Chechnya, which is gradually spilling over into the other republics of the region, terrorism seems to have occupied its regular position in the political life of Caucasus, organized crime is flourishing, the tension persists there and military incidents and attacks are breaking out every now and again. During the recent year, the destabilization of the region, which affects many fields of Russian political and social life, has grown to an alarming size. Putin after re-election: Vladimir Putin's first term as President was a period of submitting political, regional and economic lobbies to the Kremlin. The actions Putin has taken since being re-elected are aimed at consolidating the Kremlin's control over the political, economic and social spheres. Further liquidation of political and informational pluralism, an increase of the ruling group's control over state and private property, and an intensification of state propaganda aimed at generating social support for the Kremlin's initiatives have all proceeded apace. These processes reinforce authoritarian tendencies and strengthen the emerging monocentric political system, with the President's strong domination over political, economic and social life.

Ukrainian economy on the verge of recession. OSW Commentary No. 96, 2012-11-21

In the third quarter of 2012, Ukraine’s economy recorded negative growth (-1.3%) for the first time since its 2009 economic crisis. Q4 GDP is projected to suffer a further decline, bringing Ukraine into formal recession. In addition to the worsening macroeconomic indicators, Ukraine is also facing a series of concomitant economic problems: a growing trade deficit, industrial decline, shrinking foreign exchange reserves, and the weakening of the hryvnia. Poor economic growth is expected to result in lower than projected budget revenues, which in turn could lead to the sequestration of the budget in December. The decline evident across the key economic indicators in the second half of 2012 brings to a close a period of relative economic stability and two years of economic growth, which had been seen as a significant personal achievement of President Viktor Yanukovych and the ruling Party of Regions. The health of the Ukrainian economy largely depends on the state of the country’s export- -oriented industries. The current economic forecasts for foreign markets are not very optimistic. It is impossible to determine whether the current economic downturn is likely to be merely temporary or whether it heralds the onset of a prolonged economic crisis. The limited capacity to deal with the growing economic problems may mean that Kiev will need to seek financial support from abroad. This is particularly significant with regard to external debt servicing, since in 2013 Ukraine will need to pay back around 9 billion USD, including over 5.5 billion USD to the International Monetary Fund. In order to overcome the recession and stabilise public finances, the government may be forced to take a series of unpopular measures, including raising the price of natural gas and utilities. These measures have been stipulated by the IMF as a condition of further financial assistance and the disbursement of the 12 billion USD stabilisation loan granted to Ukraine in July 2010. The only alternative for Western loans and economic reforms appears to be financial support from Russia. The price for Moscow’s help might however turn out to be very high, and precipitate a turn in Kiev’s foreign policy towards a gradual re-integration of former Soviet republics under Moscow-led geopolitical projects.

The EU-Central Asia Human Rights Dialogues: Making a Difference? EUCAM Policy Brief No. 16, April 2011

Structured human rights dialogues are held with each of the five Central Asian republics. They are designed to discuss questions of mutual interest and enhance cooperation on human rights as well as to raise the concerns of the EU on human rights in Central Asia. In addition, the dialogues seek to involve human rights activists, NGO members, and academia representatives from both Europe and Central Asia through civil society seminars. But is this working? Is improvement in human rights noticeable in the region? This policy brief reviews and evaluates the performance of the dialogues to date, paying specific attention to the shortcomings of the existing practices, and provides recommendations for what could be improved with regard to planning and procedures.