Active involvement of modern Russia in information wars requires a thorough study of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and strengthening Russia’s position in modern affairs with fair arguments from the past. The rough foreign policy of the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, the invasion of troops into Afghanistan and the condemnation of this action by a large part of the world community caused in the world a feeling of special aggressiveness of the Soviet Union and its imperialist ambitions. In this context, of great interest is the little-studied foreign policy of the USSR in Indochina during the Third Indochina War (1975-1990), where Vietnam’s military actions against Cambodia were perceived by China as a part of the Soviet ‘socialist imperialism’. The article attempts to clarify whether the policy of the USSR in Indochina actually had an imperialistic character or it is a myth. After the many years of ideological and political confrontation, relations between the PRC and the USSR were in deep crisis. The development of relations between the USSR and Vietnam, and namely the 1978 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the countries was perceived by China as an attempt of the Soviet Union to gain through Vietnam a base on the southern borders of China. After the Vietnam invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, the Sino-Vietnamese War (February-March 1979) began. The military conflict did not last long, but relations between the countries remained tense and began to normalize only after the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in 1989. The geopolitical ambitions of Vietnam within the borders of the former French Indochina were in the interests of Moscow in the context of creating a rival to China on its strategic southern direction. The emergence of the Indochinese Federation would certainly be a distraction for China and, in this connection, would contribute to strengthening of the security of the Soviet Far East. However, it is arguable to what extent Vietnamese expansionism was a part of the Soviet strategy as it was seen in the PRC. Firstly, in the Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation between the USSR and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam of 3 November 1978, the part relating to mutual assistance in the event of war, discusses only mutual consultations, and mentions no USSR’s obligations to protect Vietnam, which shows little interest of the Soviet Union in Indochina. Secondly, the minor importance of the Vietnamese direction of the anti-Chinese policy of the USSR is reflected in the low degree of military presence of the USSR in Vietnam during the Sino-Vietnamese War. Thirdly, the attitude of the USSR towards Indochina is reflected in the nature of the Soviet base in Cam Ranh leased from Vietnam, which, as this article argues, was not an offensive element of the USSR in Indochina, but represented a transshipment point of the USSR Navy on its way to the Indian Ocean and southern part of the Pacific Ocean. The above arguments show that the China propagandized Soviet ‘socialist imperialism’ in Indochina was nothing more than a myth emerged from the PRC’s fear of the Soviet Union and used by China in an information struggle to eradicate the Soviet influence in the strategically important to China regions of the South China Sea and the Indochina Peninsula.

By the mid-16th century, the Mordvinian territories had completely and voluntarily joined the Russian state, which had been accompanied by significant structural ethnic transformations within the population of the region. The changes were largely due to the accelerated inflows of ethnic Russians to the Mordvinian lands and further to southern and eastern territories of the Volga Region, as well as due to migrations of the Mordvins within their native lands and subsequent resettlements to other parts of the Volga Region. A large number of Russian villages appeared in the Mordvinian lands. While Russian state authorities were coming into existence in the new territories, the noble government officials turning into ‘landlords’, the lands were distributed between the native inhabitants and the newly arrived population as actually owned by the mentioned groups. Thus, the landlord system in the Mordvinian territories took shape as a result of both land distributions and land grabs. At the same time, there was a trend towards a substantial increase of landed estates and their population accompanied by an increase in the number of lands owned by monasteries. As the population of the basic Russian towns within Nizhny Novgorod Region grew, the colonization activities of monasteries got accelerated. During the period, a number of friaries and nunneries were established, including one of the oldest Orthodox Christian centers - Alatyr Holy Trinity Monastery founded as an affiliated friary of Diocese of Kazan, and duties and services of peasants increased multifold which lead to great discontent. The peasants had to look for additional means of sustenance for such friaries. The supplementary duties imposed by new administrators upon monastery peasants also resulted in heavy irritation. The article focuses on taxation of monastery peasants throughout the Mordvinian territories in the last third of the 17th century. Tax burdens on peasants from different monasteries varied significantly. For example, administrators of Purdyshevsky Monastery exploited their subject peasant households very intensely. Moreover, the former extensively used non-economic coercion, such as extortions. Local authorities pursued a policy of non-interference towards monastery estates, monastery administrators acting as deterrent agents to control and suppress the discontented peasant population, which gave way to further and wider abuses of monastery administrators.

The article defines the problem of criteria for the Russian modernization accelerated by war needs in 1914-1917 and consequences of such acceleration. It underlines that the existing deductive methods once inherent to Soviet historiography are of hardly any use when it is required to adequately describe and estimate multiple events of the Red Time of Troubles, though it is evident enough that there were a number of relatively autonomous scenarios of descent into chaos. Thus, the paper aims to analyze certain historical subjects against the background of the all-Russia drama of 1917. Deconstruction of these discourses shall also facilitate understanding of the general nature of 1917 collisions. Studies of the history of the Muslim feminist movement in Russia seem to be a most promising line of research. The ideas of gender equality were not that popular with the Muslims, but the very fact of their existence could be interpreted as an indicator of a crisis of Russian Mohammedans’ traditional social structure initiated by the Great War that contributed to the further qualitative modernization of the society. Women’s congresses became an innovational form of social communication and introduced a requirement of gender equality to the agenda of the all-Russian Muslim movement. The short-lived period of rapid growth over, the women’s movement within the ummah was opposed by male Muslims who considered the women’s activities untimely. At the same time, Bolshevist decrees went far beyond any feminist projects as such and - as social tensions escalated - predetermined the rollback of Muslim women’s social activities: existential modernization projects were removed from the agenda; practices of social bricolage were initiated behind the fence of utopia, the former aiming to reduce the public spirit to zero. Still, the spiritual emancipation of women in Islam held back in the early 20th century is relevant enough for the 21st century when traditional Islam has faced some radical subcultures and extremist movements the ideology of which happened to be popular with the female public. And though Islamic feminism in national and foreign historiography is still a provoking trend rather than a socio-political movement deserving scholarly attention, the early 21st century might become a starting point in the systematic struggle of Russia’s Muslim women for their civil and social rights.

The article examines bibliographically rare autobiographical works (some of them being manuscripts) by the distinguished Bashkir social, political and cultural activist, historian Karim A. Idelguzhin, who rose from the rank of record clerk in the Tsarist army to that of Soviet public official. In terms of the regional Bashkir historiography, K. Idelguzhin's works remain understudied which is partly due to the fact those had been written in the Arabic script. During the post-perestroika period, when lots of once classified archive funds were made accessible, thus significantly enlarging the thematic range of research studies, data about most popular social and political activists of the first third of the 20th century - such as A. Validov, A. Inan, M. Murtazin - were introduced into scientific discourse; the works of the latter were published. After access was granted to personal funds of public figures who represented different political movements, the data were mirrored in multiple journal, newspaper, and book publications. One such publication is the series called 'Baskortostan in the 20th century. Historical Portraits'. However, numerous papers and manuscripts are still there awaiting to be examined. The article studies Karim Idelguzhin's works notable for breadth of mental outlook resulting from the author's experiences in different positions and ranks. The papers deal with the history of establishment of Bashkortostan's autonomy, the manning and equipping of Bashkir national military units, issues of children's education and school system development, problems of Bashkir language development, culture, most of the materials being largely supplemented with interesting and rare photos. The uninvestigated layer of Arabic script sources is nowadays scattered through diverse archives, libraries, rare book collections. Even when it came to the already published works by K. Idelguzhin, the researchers had to search for them in the central state archives and libraries. The researchers have discovered a total of 9 books and over 10 articles, thus introducing them into scientific discourse and significantly contributing to the fullnes of the 1920s national historiography, which shall also facilitate thematic widening for further studies on the history of the region.

The article deals with the formation and development of the model of federalism. The academic novelty is that it comprehensively studies three stages in the development of the Russian federative state: the political-transformational, constitutional-contractual, and stabilizing ones. Analysis of the first stage (1990-1995) shows that due to the signed Treaty of Federation and it inclusion in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, centrifugal trends that could threaten the unity of the country were avoided. At the second stage (1995-2000), according to article 78 of Russia’s Constitution there were signed approximately 50 treaties On Delimitation of Competences and Mutual Delegations of Authority between Government Bodies of the Russian Federation and Those of Russia’s Federal Subjects. The documents were signed due objective reasons: federal subjects of Russia differ both in terms of their legal status and their ethnic composition, which is aggravated by varied socio-economic, climatic and other features. Meanwhile, analysis of the bilateral treaties between the federal center and Russia’s regions, their constitutions and charters revealed their non-conformity to certain provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. In particular, the Constitution of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic (1997) proclaimed national sovereignty - despite the fact that according to the Constitution of Russia republics were not sovereign. Similar discrepancies could once be found in constitutions of some other federal subjects. At the same time, no balance of interests was observed, and the general situation in the sphere of federative relations was unstable in the early 1990s. Thus, at the third stage (2000-2005) an administrative reform was implemented to consolidate the Russian statehood. The federal laws - On Principles and Order for the Delimitation of Competences and Powers between Government Bodies of the Russian Federation and Those of Russia’s Federal Subjects (24 June 1999), On Introduction of Amendments and (Additional) Provisions to the Federal Law On General Principles for the Organization of Legislative (Representative) and Executive Bodies of State Power of Russia’s Federal Subjects (6 October 1999) - systemized and elaborated the procedure of contractual delimitation of competences and powers. The laws set forth that the existing treaties were to be brought into line with the federal legislation and further ones to be approved by special federal laws. The enacted laws demand that government and local authorities faithfully execute article 71 of the Constitution of Russia which determines the exclusive competences of the Russian Federation. The competences can be transferred neither to federal subjects or local municipalities otherwise than through definite amendments to Russia’s Constitution. Besides, eight federal districts were established headed by plenipotentiary representatives of the President. Their goal was to bring regional laws into line with the Russian Constitution and federal legislation. Within a short period, over three and a half thousand legislative acts of federal subjects were brought to conformity with the main law of the country which strengthened the positions of the federal center, consolidated the federation, and unified the legal framework nationwide.

The article analyzes the traditional beliefs and contemporary state of ritual practices related to Mount Bogdo - a natural place of worship - among the Kalmyks. The paper suggests that the ethnic objects of worship divided into landscape (natural) and man-made ones reflect the syncretism of religious convictions of the Kalmyks comprising elements of both pre-Buddhist beliefs and Buddhism as such. The research notes that after the ancestors of the Kalmyks arrived in the Lower Volga steppes from Central Asia, they found themselves in alien suroundings and, thus, needed some new places to worship. So, they started selecting such landscape objects - to designate them as sacred - that resembled those left behind in their ancestral lands, due to which the culture-specific basis was retained under the new conditions. According to the Kalmyk traditional view of the world, rising grounds - like mounts in Central Asian territories - were considered to link the Upper and Lower worlds, places that secured the circulation of life. This is evident from life-cycle rites: any mount (a hill or rising ground) in its upright projection was perceived as both a fertility center bestowing powers and multiple progeny, and a grave site. Moreover, mounts and rising grounds were viewed upon by the Kalmyks as anthropomorphic deities which was mirrored in the terms to denote their parts similar to names of human body parts. The work concludes that any rising ground or hill is still locally perceived by the Kalmyks as a place of some deity's stay supposed to act as protector of a certain kin community and their living territory. In a wider sense, any hill or rising ground is traditionally considered to be a place of the White Old Man's (Kalm. Tsaγan Aav) residence - a universal protector-deity of all ethnic Kalmyk communities. The White Old Man's cult and the related Kalmyk cult of ova replaced the ancient beliefs about mountains as sacred symbols and their protector-deities in the new territories with differing landscapes. At the same time, the long and wide presence of Buddhism among the Kalmyks resulted in the emergence of somewhat syncretic forms to comprise elements of ancient beliefs which can be traced in folk rites performed in cult places. The paper suggests that Mount Bogdo was chosen by the Kalmyks as a landscape place of worship due to the reasons as follows: the highest geographic location in the steppes, its unusual form and color, the ability to 'emit' some specific sounds in windy weather. The choice was also determined by the fact the people had come from highlands, thus, giving rise to tales and legends according to which the mount had been transported as a sacred center from ancestral territories; corresponding calendar and life-cycle rites. Though the cult of Mount Bogdo is actually based on ancient beliefs, it is nowadays closely tied with the Buddhist tradition. In the context of the emerging ethnic and religious self-actualization trends with pilgrimage as a social institution, as well as due to the development of Kalmykia's tourist cluster, Mount Bogdo has become place of regular public resort.

The article analyzes the symbolism of belt decorative elements and peculiarities of fashion typical for the tsegdeg sleeveless dress that had once been a compulsory garment of married women in the culture of Western Mongols (Oirats) and Kalmyks, as well as among some other Turco-Mongols. The semantics of tsegdeg is considered as a multilayer one. First of all, it manifests itself in the garment's cutout which semantically denoted a fertile woman. At the same time, the garment was supposed to act as a limiting symbol which is evident from its fashion, decorative parts (wide strips comprising both passementaries and zeg rainbow color tread embroideries), and the fact it was to be worn with a terlg underwear dress. The semantics of belt decorative elements of tsegdeg among the Oirats and Kalmyks, such as valves and loops called bel, is - in the author’s opinion - connected with childbearing as the main function of the woman. The bel loop or a part of the decorative element that acts as the former can be semantically compared to a hole, slit, or passage. The custom of tying kerchiefs (white or sole-colored ones) to bels indicates that here a kerchief symbolizes a ‘container’, ‘womb’ which is illustrated by registered beliefs of Western Buryats - kin people of Oirats and Kalmyks - that kerchiefs provide connection with ancestors and traditions. The paper also concludes the word stems from the term with the meaning of ‘limiting’ (from the Mong. *čege + affix -dg denoting a recurring action), and is related to the Kalmyk custom of putting a special bridle on a killed swan, while Turkic peoples of South Siberia in similar situations dress the bird in chegedeg - a sleeveless garment.

Nowadays special attention is paid to studies on the role of leisure-time activities in the preservation of ethnic customs and traditions. Culture comprises the diverse fields of human activity and historical achievements - from economy to household aspects, including social, material, and spiritual spheres of human life. The spiritual one, in its turn, comprises the field of folk knowledge which is a sub-system of traditional culture. Ethnic medicine contains important and vast knowledge accumulated by the Mordvins. Yu. Bromley characterized ethnic medicine as a set of healing methods and means applied by a certain people. L. Nikonova notes that ethnic medicine also comprises methods of how to stay healthy, sanitary-hygienic standards, and disease prevention measures. Thus, in the realm of ethnic medicine leisure-time activities act as a means to prevent diseases and strengthen health with positive emotional effects. When it came to arrange such activities, the Mordvins gave attention not only to healthfulness but also to communicative opportunities. Communication is a universal way, form, and means of cultural activities, being based on processing and transmission of information obtained by mankind. The communicative function of culture is to accumulate, store, and transmit experience, knowledge, customs, traditions, etc. Leisure-time activities comprise holidays, games, gatherings, circle dances, theatre performances, etc. The paper concludes that folk leisure-time traditions play a significant role in health preserving and disease prevention for the Mordvin people. Active leisure-time arrangements facilitate the physical development of children and youth, the emotional uplift being essentially health-beneficial. For adult Mordvins those were means to diversify their activities, that somewhat added to psychological comfort. The emotional life of the ethnos was influenced by magic elements of holidays and games. Leisure-time activities also served to impart folk knowledge upon younger generations and develop skills required in adult life.

Within the diverse materials discovered during archaeological surveys in the territory of Kalmykia, burials of early medieval nomads are of utmost interest. Certain features of the burial ceremony, submound pits, backing niches, splendid burial accessories, accompanying livestock burials (horses and sheep) help date some of the burials to the Khazar period. The article considers three burials that in terms of ritual can be referred to the archaeological culture of the Khazar Khaganate. ‘Khazar’ mounds are the ones with burial chambers placed within four-cornered pits. It is noteworthy that so far most of such few burials of horsemen have been found in the Kalmyk steppe. The burials were discovered in 1982 during rescue excavations along the route of the Principal Kalmyk Channel. The mound group was named ‘Dyuker’. The field works over, no archaeological survey report was submitted to the Field Studies Department of Institute of Archaeology (RAS) that exercised academic control over the excavations to facilitate high methodological standards. Nowadays the report is just a manuscript containing neither photographs nor schemes. With evidence from the manuscript part of the 1982 archaeological survey report, the work identifies three burials as those of the Khazar period and describes the burial facilities (submound pits, graves), the burials as such, and accompanying accessories analysis of which made it possible to conclude about the social status and professional activities of the buried individuals. The paper also studies the mutual spatial arrangement of human and animal remains within the graves and provides a situational layout of the burial field. Moreover, findings from the burials have been identified, partially restored and taken pictures of in the depository of Kalmykia’s National Museum. The performed work attempted to eliminate the historiographic gap in studies of Khazar monuments within the mentioned burial site. The survey outcomes shall facilitate deepening of our knowledge about the Khazars and their culture.

The article considers archaeological collections formed in the Palmov National Museum of Kalmykia between 1961 and 1972. The monuments explored from 1961 to 1972 can be classified in two groups as follows: burial sites from the southern side of the Ergeni Upland (Lola 1 and Lola 2, Arkhara, Elista, Gashun, and Kermen Tolga), and burial sites of the Kuma-Manych Depression (East Manych and Tachin Tsarang). The surveys were organized by the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History (now - Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS), Kalmyk Republican Museum of Regional Studies (now - National Museum of Kalmykia) and Saratov State University, and directed by Uryubdzhur E. Erdniev (Elista) and Ivan V. Sinitsyn (Saratov). Having been compiled from elements of burial monuments, the collections primarily serve as sources on sacred beliefs of peoples that had inhabited the Volga-Manych steppes in different periods. Still, those can also clarify the technology level of tools, cult-objects, weapons, means of protection, horse harness produced from various materials (bronze, clay, wood, iron, stone, bone, copper, etc.). Due to the fact the objects had been burial implements they are in far better condition than massive fragmented materials from settlement monuments. The collections are examined from a perspective of their value as a source for scholarly research, including with a view to create a permanent exhibition dedicated to archaeological monuments of the region. The work evaluates the current state of the collections, their integrity and condition of identification marks. The inspection revealed that in some cases the integrity has been compromised and id-marks lost. Since in the absence of a ‘passport’ a finding loses its value as a scholarly source, the authors attempted to restore the data, which is largely due to the high level of in-office studies conducted both during and short after the field works. With evidence from data of survey reports containing detailed descriptions and photographs of the findings, they created a database of the collections that proved instrumental for restoring the majority of such ‘finding passports’. Moreover, the structure of the collections and opportunities for the use of the items within a permanent exhibition of Kalmykia’s archaeological monuments have been studied. The analysis concludes that the bulk of the collections are burial implements of the Catacomb culture that date back to the Bronze Age. Items of the Early Bronze, Early Iron and Middle Ages are far fewer, their condition being unsatisfactory for decent description of the monuments. Burial monuments of the periods contained scarce implements, and some of the graves had been plundered in ancient times. Besides, those contained some iron items that are more subject to corrosion. Metal objects to be exhibited require the use of special restoration techniques. The article concludes that for exhibiting some categories of the implements it is urgent to develop illustrative materials, provide for additional photographs and videos, as well as to restore some findings in the form of replicas, e. g., a Neolithic zoomorphic scepter (Arkhara Burial Site), wooden carts and wheels of the Bronze Age, their clay models (Elista and East Manych Burial Sites).

This article discusses interjectional phraseological units in the Shughni language which is one of the non-written Eastern Iranian languages spoken in Afghan and Tajik Badakhshan - in the Amu Darya headwaters region. The number of its speakers is estimated to be approximately 100-150 thousand people. The research is based on more than 5 000 phraseological units newly collected by the author within the period of 5 years in the territory of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. Shughni phraseology has been studied in a few general articles only and, thus, requires further analysis in terms of semantics and grammar. The paper presents the first linguistic analysis of the voluminous materials. In addition to such types of phraseological units as verbal, adverbial, substantival, modal, adjectival, copulative ones and others, the collected materials also contain interjectional phraseological units that constitute approximately 3 to 7 % of the total scope. Interjectional phraseological units are semantically characterized by frequent reinterpretation, increasing emotional/evaluative connotations, expressive semantics and their application in the form of modal units in different contexts. Interjectional phraseological phrases express emotions, declaration of will and have emotional/evaluative figurative meanings. The diverse expressed emotions - enthusiasm, indignation, approval, surprise, annoyance, resentment, distrust, delight, excitement - serve to denote censure, warning, greeting, invitation and vows. Set phrases are used in the Shughni language to convey the will of the speaker and for other more general objectives. Most of them are idiomatic and stem from different historical periods being usually used in different communicative contexts to reflect emotional reactions of communicants. In different speech situations they perform modal functions based on the emotional evaluation of events. Some of them require broader cultural and historical comments. Each phraseological unit has a unique semantic structure; in terms of grammar, rarely do those differ from modern Shughni. Each phraseological unit has its own history of formation and adaptation to the Shughni language environment and requires to be considered separately. Ancient phraseological units have been well preserved in the Shughni language, moreover, for most of the speakers those are not loan ones. There are also common-Persian and foreign-language phrases (mostly Arabisms with few Turkisms).

The article attempts to measure the use of combined graphical word forms in Mongolian. The work applies quantitative methods developed in corpus linguistics. The calculations were made with evidence from the General Corpus of Mongolian. The paper identifies the most frequently used combinations constituted by two word forms (graphical word bigrams) and three word forms (graphical word trigrams). The analyzed materials are represented in the form of statistical tables. Tables 1а-1в deal with the frequencies of bigrams. The ranking list (table 1a) comprises 260 most frequently used bigrams the absolute frequency of which is over 83 instances, the relative one being equal to 76 ipm. The alphabetical lists (1б and 1в) show the frequency use of 1041 most frequently used bigrams, the absolute frequency of which exceeds 37 instances, the relative one being 33 ipm. Table 1б is arranged in alphabetical order (from the beginning to the end of a bigram), and table 1в - in reverse alphabetical order (from the end to the beginning of a bigram). Tables 2а-2в deal with the frequencies of trigrams. The ranking list (table 2a) contains 257 most frequently used trigrams the absolute frequency of which exceeds 1 instances, and the relative one is 15 ipm. The alphabetical lists (2б and 2в) illustrate the frequency use of 257 most commonly used trigrams with the absolute frequency over 1 instances and the relative one - 15 ipm. Table 2б is arranged in alphabetical order (from the beginning to the end of a trigram), and table 2в - in reverse alphabetical order (from the end to the beginning of a trigram).

The article examines - from the comparative and historical perspectives - names of traditional homes in Khalkha Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk, and Old Written Mongolian with a view to identify the common Mongolian terms as well as regional and specific ones typical for one of the mentioned languages. In Mongolic languages there is no unity in terms of naming different types of dwellings. Only few of such words can be viewed as common Mongolian, namely: ger ‘house/yurt’, esgiy ger ‘felt yurt’, names of frame elements, felt coverings and binding straps, baishing ‘building’, ӧrgӧӧ ‘yurt of a khan, prince, high-ranked official’, ord, kharsh ‘palace’. Other terms are either territory-specific, such as Kalmyk-Mongolian jolom ‘yurt of rafters only’, chachir ‘tent’, Buryat-Mongolian tur ‘fortress; town’ (Western Bur. tura ‘house, izba’), maikhan ‘tent’, urts ‘chum’, or typical for a certain Mongolic languages: Western Buryat dialects - sool ‘house, izba’, bulgaaγan ‘wooden yurt’, otog ‘bivouac with a bonfire’, Khalkha Mongolian - altsag ‘summer remote shepherd dwelling’. It is noteworthy that almost all territory- and culture-specific terms have Turkic parallels, their etymology being traced to Turkic languages just like the case of the common Mongolic term denoting a palace. This signifies that every Mongolic people kept communicating with neighboring Turkic populations, thus borrowing different elements of material culture, including those related to dwellings.

The article discusses one of the aphoristic genres in Bashkir folklore - the riddle. The riddle is a widespread aphoristic genre to be found in all languages worldwide. Riddles generalize historical, social and everyday life experiences of a people. In Bashkir folklore, riddles exist as separate genre but to a certain extent can be also included into other genres. Riddles consist of two parts: a riddle ass such (a question) and a solution (an answer). Such expressive means as metaphor, metonymy, comparison, antithesis, epithet, alliteration, and onomatopoeia are used in riddles. When solving riddles, people learn to see and understand the beauty of the world, as well as learn about the past and present of their nation. Taking into account the importance of studying and saving folklore materials in electronic format and opening free access to the information provided for the public, employees of the Laboratory of Linguistics and Information Technologies of the Institute of History, Language and Literature (Ufa Scientific Center of the RAS) established the Folklore Corpus as part of the Machine Fund of the Bashkir Language comprising various folklore materials. Riddles take an important place among them, being divided into thematic sections as follows: 1. The earth and sky, natural phenomena - riddles about celestial bodies and other natural phenomena, 2. The plant world - riddles about plants, trees, vegetables and fruit, 3. The animal world - riddles about domestic and wild animals, 4. The man and human life - riddles about human life and all the objects used by human beings in everyday life. As a result, as of today over 3900 Bashkir riddles have been introduced into the Folklore Corpus.

The article considers literary devices applied by the famous Mordvinian writer G. Pinyasov for the depiction of the characters’ self-examination in Don’t Pluck My Flower. The analyzed literary composition is distinct for the little-used (in Mordovian literature) narrative form, the narrator’s image in the story (Boris Kurnyaev) acting as a conventional transmitter of the author’s speech. This gives room to the writer’s imagination which makes it possible for the author to disassociate from his ‘I’, and, thus, focus on tackling the artistic and creative tasks. So, though the story has a simple plot and is abundant in inner monologues, its originality still provokes great interest amongst readers. The paper notes that most significant means to convey a personal reflexive position are non-traditional reminiscences (in the form of the characters’ phrases from earlier compositions) and retrospection, the efficient artistic means being comparisons and metaphors. Due to the successfully chosen form of a tale (narrated by the author-taleteller), non-standard reminiscences, retrospection device, vivid comparisons and metaphors, the author not only expresses the individuals’ reflexive state but also identifies a number of ethical and moral problems. Those notably deal with the understanding of the meaning of life and creative work, including relations between men and women. The writer proves to be a proficient psychologist and a superb narrator.

Nowadays the role of the entire cultural heritage, including its multiple symbols, is being actively studied. The article shows that literature (fiction) containing numerous symbols is also essential to the process. One of the tasks of the Word is to act as a symbol within a literary text. Being a symbol, it is integral to the system of writers’ world outlooks and worldviews, thus contributing to further plots and new meanings that require special consideration. The problem of understanding its role as a symbol, its meaningfulness has been considered not only in literary works, including separate philosophical reflections and spiritual quests of authors as masters of the Word, but also in research works, since the Word and its inexhaustible potential as well as its role in the field of arts and culture have always been - and shall remain such - a subject of permanent academic research. The article is primarily based on an analysis of 19th/21st century literary fiction texts. In terms of methodology, the research is based on academic works discussing descriptive, analytical, textual, historical and cultural approaches to studies of the Word, its meaningfullness and representativity as a symbol. The paper shows that the role of the Word as a symbol within the framework of writers’ world outlooks, worldviews, and spirituality is unquestionable and crucial.

The article analyzes an Ossetian translation of A. Rimbaud’s (1854-1891) sonnet Vowels performed by Sh. Dzhigkaev. Assuming that a translated text is a form of artistic perception, the researchers reveal the means for reconstructing the differing national and cultural worldviews through translations, including the meaningful points in A. Rimbaud’s poetic view of the world, and opportunities for its preservation and recoding. The paper considers versions for the interpretation of the ‘color’ sonnet introduced by researchers and translators in the 19th-20th cc., proposes a new original representation proceeding from the dynamics of Rimbaud’s poetic search and constant features of his world perception. Rimbaud reinterprets the idea of synthesis - a key idea of French Symbolism - into a thoroughly elaborated and deeply gцeneralized unity of material and spiritual existence. The sonnet is a sequential and logically immaculate unfolding of the topic of the way as an ascension: from spontaneous and unconscious desires - through their purification in awareness - to the ultimate harmonious completeness of the universe. The extreme point of the ascension, his ‘Omega’, is expressed in images of the Apocalypse as both the last foresight and foretell. The order of sounds / letters in the sonnet also aligns with the theme of overcoming and ascension - from A to O (Alfa and Omega). It is color which is central to the chain ‘sound - color - idea’. The world created by the demiurge-artist is being transformed through his visualizations; such feature of picturesqueness expresses not only the diverse aspects of the perceived world but rather shows its concealed, unevident and generalized essence. This approach to the theme is expressed in the title of the poem. The phonetic word ‘voyelles’ combines sound (‘voix’ - voice), optics (‘voir’ - to see) and the image of the way upstairs (‘voie’ - way, path). The final semantically meaningful word of the poem - Eyes (‘Ses Yeux’). The Ossetian text of the sonnet clearly tends towards the ultimate syncretism of the spontaneous existence and awareness elegantly and intently created by the French author. This deals with the color symbolism of the sonnet particularly. The syncretic meaning of the Ossetian ‘цъæх’ unites ‘кæрдæгхуыз’ - color of the grass and ‘арвхуыз’ - color of the heaven which corresponds to the images of Omega in the original text. Sh. Dzhigkaev’s interlinear translation is considered to be closest to the philosophy of the symbolic myth of Vowels.

The current attention towards the problems of rural communities results from a number of negative trends as follows: the rural population decline, increase in the share of poor households, high migration. So, it is urgent to study the demographic potential of rural communities. The article considers peculiarities of the age structure of populations of Astrakhan Oblast, Volgograd Oblast and the Republic of Kalmykia. According to statistical data, over half of Kalmykia’s residents live in rural areas, in Astrakhan Oblast the share is a little over a third, and in Volgograd Oblast - less than a quarter of the region’s population. The analysis of age structure of Astrakhan and Volgograd Oblasts’ populations shows that the share of children and adults aged 36 to 59 is higher than that in urban populations, while the share of young and elderly people is lower. The age structure of Kalmykia’s rural population is characterized by features as follows: the share of children, young and elderly people in rural areas is lower than that within urban communities, and the share of adults aged 36 to 59 is higher. A comparative analysis of demographic indices from the three regions testifies that, in terms of age structure, there is a small share children and a large share of elderly people in Volgograd Oblast. Thus, from this perspective, Volgograd Oblast has a most unfavorable demographic structure. Further consideration of data from the three regions of Southern Russia helps us conclude that there are certain peculiarities in the age structure of rural populations. Special attention should be given to attracting the youth to villages for the development of rural territories and improvement of the demographic situation.

The article examines features of tourism industry’s development in the Republic of Crimea, and determines some aspects of socio-economic importance of tourist activities. It also analyzes advantages of cluster policy as a key instrument in solving tasks that are necessary for the qualitative development of tourism industry in the region, innovative potential and level of economic development of the country as a whole. Due to the necessity of defining a set of measures implemented by the interested economic entities and executive authorities, aimed at the unification of the logistical, financial, technological, and innovation resources of potential participants, there increased interaction between them, thus creating a favorable environment for development. The paper systemizes groups of factors that contribute to the creation of a tourist environment that reflect the nature of influence and the factors that determine the development of the market of tourist services determine the nature of the impact. The consideration of these factors will ensure the effective regulation of tourism clusters’ (TC) development on the basis of the focus control actions on anticipation of the negative impact and strengthening positive impact of factors with the aim of creating favorable conditions for their development. In this regard, with the creation of the tourist cluster it is planned to implement a complex of actions for the implementation of organizational measures aimed at the development of the formation concept, determining the composition of the participants, the rationale for the structure and management system, creation of measures to stimulate the development. Identification of the main organizational stages of TC formation allowed us to formulate a structural-logical scheme of organization of eight stages as follows: 1) creation of contact groups, which provides for the organization of the initiative group and giving it its powers to address issues related to the creation of tourism cluster and attracting the interested enterprises and organizations; 2) development of the concept of TC, which is necessary to justify the target orientation of its creation project, to establish deadlines for key actions and necessary resource support; 3) to identify members of a TC involves determination of the quantitative composition taking into account their specialization; 4) formalization of cooperation between the members of TC, which involves the choice of schemes for their interaction, influencing the formation of conditions for cooperation between them, increasing the level of confidence and adequacy of management decision-making; 5) establishment of TC management system, including the allocation of management levels and creation of management bodies and distribution of competences between them; 6) optimization of tourism management aimed at improving the forms, methods and ways of cooperation with the management bodies, its structural subdivisions and provides for the detection of hidden institutional reserves, can increase the effectiveness of its activities and includes implementing a system to evaluate the quality of cluster management, application process, situational management in structural subdivisions; 7) stimulating activity of the tourist cluster, which includes the development support activities undertaken by regional bodies of Executive power; 8) evaluation of the performance of TC - includes the development of scientific and methodical support of efficiency assessment and synergies arising in various areas of the region.