Abstract: Forming a cultural image of the two Russian capitals is a recent and important challenge. Historical collisions that resulted in Moscow and St. Petersburg being brought apart were the basis for the forming of two major paradigms in history, which reflected the complexity and ambiguity of Russia's path in history. This is why we see a dichotomy in the image of the two capitals in A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s creative work, as well as its emerging depth and dialectic nature. Nostalgic images of pre-Revolution Moscow, as evident on the pages of the "Red Wheel" are replaced by political metaphor which became the main stylistic technique of works devoted to Stalin-era Russia. The main method of this research is the analysis of text meaning from the perspective of social and cultural context. The author explores an area that few ever touched upon, as far as A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s work is concerned, as he analyzes the cities not as mere historical setting, but rather as full actors on the stage of the great author's books. A city is presented as a collective actor, an animate being which actively impacts the lives of the main characters.

Abstract: The Moscow superregion (Moscow and Moscow region) boasts fairly stable birth rates, especially in comparison with other Russian regions. However, this involves the necessity for solving such social problems as creating comfortable environment for children and their parents, including pre-school facilities, playgrounds, etc. Properly organized architectural environment is paramount to children's socialization. However, the steps taken are not yet enough to solve this problem. Basing on publicism and polling, this article studies the problem of social space for the young urban dwellers. To overcome the demographic lapse, urban planning that takes into account the comfort of children and young parents becomes highly necessary. At the same time, organization of space for children and teenagers results in local conflicts, based on clashing interests of different social groups in modern cities.

Abstract: This article examines reading as one of the traditional leisure activities of urban dwellers. The reading culture as a distinct kind of communication has already been studied by social and cultural scientists of XX-eth century like N.A. Rubankin, I.A. Butenko, P.B. Biryukov, B.A. Uspenskiy. Reading is presented as a necessary attribute for urban cultural life. Attention is focused on youth reading, especially technical collegehigher education institution student reading. This defined the object and subject of the research for this work. The authors employ public opinion surveys, based on MGSU control groups. The authors also employed the systemic analysis methods that enabled the authors to link the state of modern information culture with reading traditions. The novelty of this research is defined by the fact that the authors have successfully conducted a synthesis of cultural and social science approaches to studying reading as a phenomenon, as well as information culture as a whole. Cultural science's non-numerical conclusions were taken into account, as well as social science's numerical data in youth control groups. Another novelty is the attempt to compare traditional forms of reading head to head with IT-spread-based information exchange forms.