Social portrait of a pilgrim and a tourist in the Solovetsky Archipelago

Introduction. Currently, the Solovetsky Archipelago is a popular pilgrimage and tourist destination, which, from the point of view of popularization of such routes, sets a positive impetus for the socio-economic development of the remote island territories of the North and the Arctic of Russia. At the same time, questions naturally arise about taking into account the risk of increased anthropogenic load on the ecosystems of such territories and the need to study the features of the social portrait of visitors.

The purpose of the research is to describe generalized social portraits of the two main categories of visitors to the Solovetsky Islands, tourists and pilgrims, considered as potential factors impacting the natural complexes of the archipelago; at the same time, to evaluate the validity of sociological methods as additional tools for assessing anthropogenic impact.

Materials and methods. The information basis of the study was made up of legal acts and documents of strategic planning for the Russian territories’ development (including the northern regions and the Russian Arctic), the work of Russian scientists on the formation of a social portrait of pilgrims and tourists, and sociological data collected by the authors. Systematic approach, methods of logical, conceptual and comparative analysis, methods of statistical data processing was used in working the article.

Results. The article analyzes the concepts of “tourism” and “pilgrimage” in the legal perspective, as well as legislative differences regarding the implementation of tourism products and the organization of pilgrimage activities. A review of Russian research, devoted to the study of the tourists and pilgrims’ social portraits, as well as the ways for its use for the various Russian territories development has been conducted. Based on the survey results a social portrait of visitors to the Solovetsky Archipelago was describe, tourists and pilgrims were assessed in terms of their potential anthropogenic impact on the island ecosystem. A shortage of waste bins, toilets, stands with maps and reference information about tourist or religious sites and route signs has been identified.

Conclusions. The survey results allowed us to put forward and confirm the hypothesis that the majority of Solovki visitors due to the specific purposes of their stay in the territory, due the cultural and education level do not constitute a factor increasing the pressure on the island’s ecosystem. At the same time, the authors think that a further solution to the problem of more accurately determining the risk of increasing anthropogenic impact is supplementing the survey data through the use of mobile applications for collecting anonymized data, as well as in integration with video recording systems.

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