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Studying the process of the modern human formation at the Eurasian ecumene has always been relevant during all periods of the Stone Age history research. The article contains results of recent studies of a Mid Palaeolithic complex of Darvagchai-Zaliv-1 site, materials of which are crucial for understanding the development of this vast cultural-chronological range for the northeast Caucasus. In 2012-2014, Darvagchai-Zaliv-1 site excavations were carried out in the upper terraced ledge slope, where the monument is situated. Lithological paleosol studies including archaeological materials allowed us to include this complex in the general regional paleogeographic picture. The chronological period of the ancient man living in the region is determined by the Riss-Wurm interglacial oxygen-isotope stage 5e. The stone industry is characterized with Levalloi technology of knapping and tools typical of Mid Palaeolith. The presence of focal spots accompanied with the archaeological material dispersion over wide area indicate multiple visits by ancient man to the third Caspian terrace. Based on the available data, the authors conclude that, despite a significant number of well-known mid-Palaeolithic sites in the Caucasus and a large technical and typological diversity within their groups, direct analogies among them with the Middle Palaeolithic materials of the Gedzhukh reservoir valley are currently not possible to trace. This may be due to incomplete representation of Dagestan industries, as well as to cultural diversity that existed at that time in the region, which does not exclude the possibility of the original Mid Palaeolithic culture’s presence in this territory.

Cave sites provide the most comprehensive insights into Paleolithic culture and environmental contexts of early human occupation. Archaeological caves are often recognized as stratified sites. A section structure in cave sediments as well as distribution of associated archaeological evidence depend on many different factors. The results of research carried out at stratified Paleolithic sites in the Altai Mountains, a key region for studying prehistory of North Eurasia, can be considered a prominent example of an integrated approach to investigate culture-bearing cave deposits. The most important findings have been obtained from examination of Paleolithic sites located in the Northwest Altai. Amongst them Denisova Cave is the most intensively studied archaeological locality. The investigation of loose sediments at the site involved a wide range of modern research techniques developed for archaeology, stratigraphy, lithology, paleontology, geochronology and other related disciplines. Thanks to such complex approach, a long sequence of sediments from Denisova Cave, containing cultural evidence spanning from the Middle Paleolithic to the Late Middle Ages, has now become a key section to study prehistory of the region. The cave deposits discussed in this paper represent a complex multi-component geological body, which contains evidence for human occupation. Each studied site in the cave reveals its own characteristic lithologic and stratigraphic sequence formed depending on the morphology of isolated cavities and their location in the karst system. Many sedimentation features change considerably starting from the cave entrance up to its far reaches. The chronological sequence of deposits in the cave sections has been made based on a dataset resulted from lithological and biostratigraphic studies, as well as absolute dating and paleomagnetic analysis of the Pleistocene deposits. The integrated research of stone tool industries, supported by geochronological evidence, has made it possible to correlate archaeological data recorded in different parts of the cave and to develop a cultural and chronological pattern showing changes that occurred in the Paleolithic assemblages of Denisova Cave.

About 40 major volcanic eruptions have occurred on the Kamchatka Peninsula over the last 10,000 14C years, which led to ecological changes throughout the peninsula. In turn, restructuring the environment has changed lives of human beings who lived through these events. A tephrochronological technique restores the history of volcanic deposits, which makes it possible to use it to specify the stratigraphy and chronology of archaeological sites; assume the reaction of inhabitants to volcanic activity in the region involving archaeological, ethnographic data. Based on the research of the multilayer Ushki V site , it was established that the territory of the modern Big Ushki Lake and surrounding areas were in the center of ash falls of the biggest catastrophic volcanic eruptions situated 30 to 630 km away from the place. For example, the population of a culture layer V (Initial Neolithic, 14C 7,705±38 BP (KIA-35,662) has been affected by a catastrophic eruption of the volcano Hangar (6,900 BP). The key episodes of volcanic activity were earthquakes, fires, devastating tsunamis, spreading eruptive clouds (ash falls) products, changes of relief, destruction and redistribution of biota, forming uninhabitable soil, etc. The population reacted to these phenomena by reducing sites and settlements, moving them to river banks, lake and sea coasts; this led to desolation of inhabited places during the period of 1,000 to 2,000 years. According to ethnographic data, volcanic eruptions and their consequences were reflected in omens, prognostications, faiths, and in granting anthropomorphic qualities to volcanoes. The fear and doom in the face of the forces of nature were in the basis of them all. In the future, interpretation of the data obtained based on the tephrochronological method allows reconstructing the environment in time, to identify patterns of changes of human living conditions in certain periods. The author does not exclude, that the stages of settling Kamchatka, changes in technologies, and, possibly, in population were related to catastrophic eruptions.

The work objective is to determine the similarity of the Gumsanni burial mound findings in the southern Korean Peninsula with Kofun materials from the mounds of Japan. The cultural contacts between the population of the Japanese islands and mainland, including the Korean Peninsula, is an actual topic in the modern science. The authors discuss the directions of contact, the time of their occurrence, nature of borrowing elements of socio-economic, political and cultural life, a degree of population mutual influence in these territories. The presence of clay sculpture fragments in the Geumsan-ni mound in the southwestern Korean Peninsula aroused interest from both Korean and Russian archaeologists due to its uniqueness. Producing clay sculpture was not typical of Korea in the V-VI centuries. Attempts to interpret the findings led to the Kofun materials in Japan. A comparative analysis of the burial mound’s upper part (the inner part excavation has not started yet), the funeral goods found in the mound, allows authors to find features similar to the characteristics of the Kofun period in Japan. Typologically the Geumsan-ni mound has similarities with Japan mounds in the embankment form and structure. The fragments of the sculpture have analogies among Haniwa clay sculpture in Japan. Korean findings are head fragments of two anthropomorphic figures, fragments of the horse head and legs, part of a bird head and body, presumably a chicken. Japanese Haniwa represent images of people, animals, houses, boats, household items, which were installed in a certain order around the mound perimeter, along tiers and on its top. The discovery of similar clay figures in the Korean mound leads to conclusions about the existence of cultural contacts between the two territories, borrowing of traditions, and even kinship ties between influential clans.

The article studies a finding of the Kyrgyz iron battle-axe “ai-balta” from the archaeological collection of the traditional Kyrgyz culture in Tian Shan kept in the private museum “Rarity”, that belongs to V. V. Kadyrov - a famous businessman and philanthropist in Kyrgyzstan. The museum is situated in Bishkek in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. The paper considers main events related to the history of studying battle-axes used to arm warriors of ancient and medieval nomadic peoples and states of Central Asian historical and cultural region. The author suggests the definition of typological, chronological and cultural identity of the Kyrgyz battle-axe finding; substantiates belonging of the analyzed finding to battle-axe tools for close combat of Kyrgyz warriors in Tian Shan, that relate to historical periods of the late Middle Ages and Modern era. The battle-axes “ai-balta” had a prominent element as a part of close combat armament complex available to Kyrgyz warriors in the territory of Tian Shan and adjacent regions during the mentioned period. Such battle-axes had wide rounded blades with curved tips after which they were named. They were fixed on the long wooden handles. Kyrgyz warriors attacked their adversaries using battle-axes in a close combat. Applying battle-axes by the Kyrgyz warriors to deliver striking blows to their opponents is reflected in the Kyrgyz epos. Similar combat clashes using battle axes of Kyrgyz are described in the Kyrgyz heroic epic “Manas”. The studied battle-axe from the museum «Rarity» is an important source of weapons history of the Kyrgyz warriors of the late Middle Ages and Modern era. The Kyrgyz warriors used such weapon while attacking their opponents on horseback. The battle axes “ai-balta” were used by the Kyrgyz warriors in the Tien Shan and Semirechie up to the chronological period of ethnographic modernity.

Apart from the main versions of the origin of the Chuvash people, there are quite curious ones. The article deals with two versions: Syanbi and Yuhuani. As is well known, those tribes lived and migrated in South Siberia. Syanbi which were ancient Mongolian nomads originally lived in the north-eastern part of Internal Mongolia. They separated from the Donghu tribal confederation as early as before Christ. It is common knowledge that originally Syan-bi is not an ethnographic name, but a geographic one. Peoples of the Syanbi race named themselves by the names of those mountains and valleys where they lived. In this particular case, the mountain Syan-bi-shan is meant, now it is called Great Khingan Mountain. It is believed that Syanbi, Uhuani and Donghu were ancient Mongolian tribes. The relation of the ethnonym syanbi with sebir is just one of a number of working hypotheses of the Chuvash origin which is far from being irreproachable. Anyway, in the 4th century, the Syanbi were still the northern neighbours of China, and by the 6th century they dispersed among the tribes of the southern part of West Siberia and China. The historical ancestors of the Chuvash (Savars/Savirs) were fixed in the Caucasus no later than the 2nd century A.D. Even if we leave aside all other aspects of ethnogenesis, identification of Savirs/Suvars with Syanbi in the spatiotemporal terms is untenable. This assumption only relies upon the remote and doubtful consonance of the ethnonyms. Uhuani belong to the Montolian anthropological family and trace their origin to the Donghu tribes. They are known in history by their relations with Syanbi and North Chinese tribes. The attempt to identify the Uhuani with East European Ogur tribes is untenable. Orientalist scholars tend to believe that Uhuani are ancestors of Avars. Such being the case, the attempt to speak of Uhuani as historical ancestors of the Chuvash is absolutely hopeless. Using an integrated historical and anthropological analysis the author comes to conclusion that none of the two versions (Syanbi and Uhuani ones) have any relevance to the history of the Chuvash people’s origin.

The author continues elaborating the topic of symbolic demarcation of the space inhabited by Russian pioneers in Siberia in the XVII century. The paper considers using natural objects as symbols of fencing the territory. For the first time, the study focuses on various types of borders’ definition including natural ones. The first Siberian settlers often use drivers, reservoirs, ravines, noticeable trees and other objects as natural boundaries. The author introduces a concept of adaptive populated space into scientific use. It is a space that allows different groups of residents to live in a conflict-free area in accordance with their established lifestyle and, at the same time, to create new forms of interaction. Adaptive behavior patterns in the habitable space are life strategies that members of a population group choose without limitations imposed by intra-group prescriptions, customs, rituals. The study objective is to find answers to questions: how strongly multicultural, fragmented and isolated territories can turn into a single administrative space with a strictly defined structure; to what extent communities with highly adaptive models of behavior can function here; what other behavior models can occur in such territories. The author declares that the boundaries establishment is, in fact, a division. Fencing a territory in any space means establishing the ownership of this part of the space, or claiming possession of a territory. This universal rule is preserved not only in human communities, but in the animal kingdom as well, where animals mark their territories showing habitats to other fauna representatives. Human communities have been demarcating the space into their own and that of others since ancient times. The archetypal nature of this opposition demonstrates transpersonal forms of consciousness, leading to transformation of chaos into order. Individualizing space, the territory is divided into its own and someone else’s, dangerous and hostile. Later, the borders were lined up between the states entailing conflicts due to increase of territory.

The choice of a place for religious buildings is a multifaceted problem, the solution of which takes a symbolic aspect. It is established that there were regularities in placing iconic religious buildings as Orthodox churches in the Tobolsk diocese based on materials of the late XIX - early XX centuries using a case-study techniques and architectural analysis. A chapel was built in small villages, a church, or a church and a chapel- in big villages. Their place was chosen in the settlement center or its outskirts facing the natural landscape. When located at the crossroads, the churches did not close the perspective, but were slightly out of the way allowing to view the natural environment. In some cases, there was a cemetery near the church. A church and a clergy’s houses near it often formed a building complex, administrative and educational buildings occupied places away from it, but on the same street, central one as a rule. It is impossible to determine the ratio of the height of churches and other buildings, because horizontals were not indicated on plans, however, the location of the church is noted mainly on high river banks. All temple buildings were within walking distance from any part of the settlement (up to 1.5 km or 20 min walk), which was important for the possibilities of worship. Every plan preserved churches’ location, although the existing structure of residential buildings could be broken in favor of a two-way street type. Moreover, the importance of the temple was enhanced by architectural means: newly planned streets led to it, church buildings rose above the one-story buildings fixing a planning structure of a settlement by placing them at the end or crossroads of streets, solid stone buildings stood out among the predominantly wooden buildings.

The article objective is studying groups of Old Believers of the Upper Syda river basin (Idrinsky District of Krasnoyarsk Region). It deals with such problems as identifying the place of their exit, the time of appearance in the territory, settlement patterns, the “tolks” and “agreements” of Old Believers, who lived in the rural settlements of the region, description of the worship features, functions of mentors, marriage issues including marriages with “worldly” men, peculiarities of funeral and commemoration culture peculiarities. These aspects are poorly studied, as well as the Old Believers population of Minusinsk region as a whole. The article is based on expedition data of Minusinsk Museum of Local History in 2009 and 2016, most of which are published for the first time. The interview method was used to collect materials, a systematic approach - to analyze the data. Old Believers, natives of Perm-Vyatka Region, settled remote sub-taiga areas in the mid XIX century. They lived in Maly Knyshi, Ekaterinovka, Tobolka, Silkino, Il’inka, Oktyabryovka, Lutag (Cheremshanka), Migna, Kinzel’ village and in taiga borrowings. They were representatives of Belokrinitsky agreement and several tolks of Bespopovtsy. Old Believers led a closed way of life manifested in a number of behavioral and household attitudes; held prayers separately choosing as a place either a house, or natural objects (springs). They buried their dead in a separate cemetery or in a separate half of a regular one. There was a ban on marriages with representatives of other denominations, but the materials of the 2016 expedition showed it was not always observed. The longest preserved traditions were crossing with two fingers and a special attitude to dishes.

Krasnoyarsk Krai is a leading region in Siberia on a number of Belarusians who settled the territory at the period of mass peasant resettlements in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Despite this fact, it remains one of the least studied Siberian as regards the ethnography of Belarusians living in its territory. The ethnographic expedition held in 2017 in Mansky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai partially filled the gap. The expedition materials become an empirical basis of this study. The research methodology is based on a comparative historical approach. Features of traditional culture of the Belarusian peasants-migrants were compared with its prototypes in Belarus and a new ethnic environment of migrants in Siberia. The expedition revealed the most stable patterns of traditional culture brought to the Siberian territory by the immigrant ancestors. Adaptation processes most actively took place among the first and second generations of migrants. Originally, they were connected with adapting to new climatic conditions and ethnic environment. Later such factors as changes of social and economic life of the Soviet village related to collectivization, life modernization, as well as the World War II consequences affected the adaptation. Nowadays, the prevalence of the multiethnic population is typical for all villages in the surveyed area, where descendants of the Belarusian migrants live. A number of factors contributed to its formation. Initially, lots of sites were populated by people from different provinces with equal economic and social situation. It promoted faster interethnic integration of Belarusians with other migrant groups in comparison with those areas where they lived neighboring Cheldons, Russian old-timer population. In the 1930-1940s the composition of population in the surveyed villages became more ethnically mixed due to resettling residents of individual farms (hutors) to large collective farms (kolhoz), and a demographic failure after the Great Patriotic War. These factors led to mixed marriages becoming more widespread during this period. Due to this situation, today, the migrants identification with Belarusians is connected only with echoes of historical memory kept in their families.

Nowadays the decline in fertility takes place in a great number of countries and regions. It makes scholars to search for reasons forcing people to reduce a number of children in families. Using only statistical and mathematical methods cannot provide full explanation. It is necessary to study reproductive behavior that is realized through reproductive setting of a person. The paper considers peculiarities of the Buryat population’s reproductive setting in Ivolginsky Region. To solve this objective the authors apply sociological and mathematical methods. The research methodology is the theory of demographic transition. 300 people between 20 and 50 years of age have been reviewed during the research. Women that live in 15 villages of Ivolginsky Region took part in the sociological review, which revealed the ideas of Buryats about the optimum number of children (3,159 children per a woman). It is explained by the fact that the research was conducted in the countryside region where birthrates are traditionally higher than in urban areas. The expected number of children was close to an ideal number - 2,902 children. Demographers regard similarity of these indicators as a proof of high harmony of reproductive settings. The authors reveal that ideal and expected number of children have not significantly changed for over more than 20 years. Sharp decrease of the parameters is observed among the youngest group of women. The study confirms that women with high and incomplete high education have a lower ideal number of children than the rest of population. The survey results show the link between reproductive settings and financial situation. The lower is income size the higher is an ideal and expected number of children in families. Thus, the field research result proves that the Buryat population have clear ideas about the best number of children and their reproductive settings are characterized by a high harmony. In the short term one can expect further decrease in the number of children in a family and, consequently, declining birth rates.

The issue of colonization tasks in the context of imperial building became an important element of the public discourse and state policy in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries with growing migration movement to the eastern outskirts. Under conditions of peasantry mass migrations to West Siberia and steppe region (Steppe Krai), activity to define the colonization potential of settlement areas and to assess the capacities of resettlement territories for immigrants came to the fore. Solving current tasks and creating projects for “internal” colonization, the imperial authorities pursued ideological goals trying to put into practice certain elements of the “Russian cause” policy that were not implemented on the empire’s western outskirts. Mass relocations made it possible to implement a nationally conservative plan to create a “big Russian nation”. Special functions in this program belonged to the institution of imperial experts, which was the main conductor of imperial ideas in the eastern regions. The peak of migration movement to the region chronologically coincided with the approval of the governance principles of the country’s eastern outskirts, the meaning of which was to establish the empire’s special powers in russification; it gave chances to overcome the cultural distance between Russia and West Europe. Two periods can be traced in the imperial experts’ activities. Initially, the organizer of the expert activity was the West Siberian Department of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society (ZSOIRGO). However, along with intensifying peasant migration and reanimating nationally conservative ideas, as well as emerging institutions, which claimed the colonial ministries status, the need to re-format the institution of imperial experts appeared. In the 1890s new criteria defining the content of this group of persons were approved, which included strict adherence to instructions of sending institutions, servility, mobility and desire to correlate results of their expeditionary activities with the current state tasks of colonization.

This article objective is to reveal main issues related to peculiarities of the Arctic economic development during the Soviet period. The study is essential to define the historical experience of industrial development of the region rich in natural and mineral resources. The article’s problematic field includes step-by-step implementation of industrial programs in the Arctic. The first program was the industrial project’s realization in Norilsk: the metallurgical plant construction began in 1935; the first portion of nickel (the most important metal for the military-defense industry) was smelted in 1942. Norilsk industrial area continued its development after the World War II. In 1950s Norilsk had already been able to produce a substantial amount of nonferrous metals, which became even larger after Nadezhdinskiy smelter start-up. The article points out other events of the industrial modernization taking place after the World War II in the Arctic and northern Siberia regions under industrial program’s implementation. The next program was forming the West Siberian oil and gas complex to produce large volumes of natural gas and oil. Hydrocarbon extraction in Sub-Arctic and Arctic regions started in the late 1950s and actively developed in 1960-1980s. Nowadays, it is still the main source of fuel and energy resources in the country. The state strategy was aimed exclusively at promoting the growth of industrial capacity of eastern regions including Arctic Siberia. The Northern Sea Route along the Soviet Union’s northern border was very important for economic development of Soviet Arctic. The author concludes that the main factor of economic development of Siberia and Arctic in the USSR was industrial modernization which pre-determined the state approach to this region.

The New Economic Policy failure and transition to accelerated formation of the socialism radically changed not only the Soviet society’s political and economic sphere, but the daily life of people as well. The concentration of financial and other resources to implement forced industrialization, eliminate market mechanisms in the economy, including the population provision, led to a total shortage of everyday goods. Against this background, serious interruptions in supplying the urban population with food, first of all bread, and other goods, took place in Siberian cities, as well as throughout the country. The channels and structure of providing the population changed radically. The private trade which provided between a third and a half of consumer goods in the 1920s was eliminated in the early 1930s. The relationship between the cooperative and state trade changed dramatically in favor of the latter. Introducing the card system, realizing goods through the distributors of enterprises and institutions meant that an average citizen could no longer provide himself. The structure of retail turnover and consumer budgets in Siberian cities indicated that the population acquired mainly foodstuffs, where bakery products occupied the leading place. Thus, during the first five-year plans, the problems of meeting everyday needs became a difficult task for the population. In general, the people life quality and standards were sacrificed for implementing accelerated industrialization.

The article deals with the problems of introducing new methods of obstetrics as a factor reducing morbidity and mortality among pregnant and postpartum women in the late 1920s - early 1930s. The study is based on the materials of the Urals and the methodological concept of everyday life history, its ideas of the life world and everyday life structures. The article objective is to give a general description of the obstetrics in the Urals, to show the role of state maternity hospitals, delivery under medical supervision in the Soviet concept of medicine. It was established that introducing new methods of anesthesia in childbirth started in 1927. The author presents data on the mortality of expectant mothers and children during the treatment of placenta previa with the use of old methods as of 1927; shows activities of specialists of the Sverdlovsk Obstetric and Gynecological Institute and gynecologists from other institutions aimed at promoting the appropriate indications of cesarean section. The paper characterizes the contribution of the medical personnel of the maternity hospitals of Sverdlovsk, Perm, Tyumen, Ishim and others in new methods development and application: a technique of childbirth anesthetizing and women’s psychic-preventive training by A. Yu. Lurie, hypnosis; using evpapan-natrium (hexenal) for analgesia on the initiative of A.A. Ikonnikova, a Ural gynecologist, since the early 1930s. The author studies attitudes of pregnant women to new techniques, when the minority of women demonstrated distrust, while the majority’s attitude was positive. The article shows that Sverdlovsk Research Institute for the Protection of Maternity and Infancy instructed doctors coming to train from Ukraine, Donbass, Caucasus, Chuvashian, Siberian, Kazakhstan clinics since 1935, it promoted development of mass movement for anesthesia of childbirth in the USSR.

The article deals with the issue of the number of civilians evacuated to West Siberia. The paper notes inconsistency of the data number published up to date; analyzes sources of the published data on the size of evacuated population quantity. Based on a legal definition of “evacuated population”, the author identifies the following varieties: “refugees” and “organized population”; reveals features of their accounting and corresponding errors. The article formulates several conclusions: the exact number of people who arrived in the region during the civil evacuation can’t be established due to accounting errors in statistical data. At the same time, errors of generalizing statistical data are greater than the primary data collected by the local population accounting authorities, because the first ones accumulate errors of the second ones. Thus, to determine the evacuated population (and the population in general) size, it is necessary to rely primarily on the documents of the primary population registration, despite the complexity of this approach. Business correspondence of the accounting authorities is of particular importance in this case, as it contains information that allows taking into account the error size inherent in the statistics provided by them. It is important to consider as well, that the error in the accounting the population during the war increased significantly, its value differed significantly in various war periods and in different regions, and, consequently, should be differentiated. In West Siberia, the statistical data errors for each territorial subject (Altai, Novosibirsk and Omsk regions) was about 5 thousand people, and as for general estimates of the number of people who arrived in the region, it is advisable to specify it with an accuracy about 10 thousand people. This value is justified by the peculiarities of preparing data on the natural and mechanical movements of population, as well as the mortality rate in the region, ranging from 13 to 20 thousand people a month during the war.

The article objective is to identify practices of incentive social-labor communication (SLC) in the public space of Novosibirsk and reaction of defense industry workers to this process in the late 1941 - early 1942. The research methodological basis of the research includes SLC concept and typology. SLC is viewed as a process of transferring information from some participants of production relations to others. There are two types of communication strategies in the framework of SLC, that trigger moral factors of labor motivation - prompting and coercion. The institutional form of motivation in the Soviet rear was the epic Stakhanov epos (prometheism) used to create the heroic era of the Great Patriotic War. In this context, the paper shows the process of deploying a propaganda campaign to glorify the foremost workers who performed production tasks by at least 200 %, which was carried out through a combination of channels of verbal and figurative symbolic propaganda providing information exchange between local authorities and factory staff, as well as within the staff. The author concludes that an integral part of such exchange was the theme of labor heroism identified with producing two or several norms. In general, the official propaganda created conditions for strengthening the motivation of Novosibirsk and migrant population, which led to increase of the number of “two hundred” workers (dvukhsotniks) in existing military factories. However, due to many organizational and technical costs associated with establishing defense production, this category of Stakhanovists remained a thin layer in the total mass of workers. At the same time, their motivation to over-fulfill the state defense order, including the influence of the epic cult of two-hundred workers created positive prospects for the further development of social competition as one of the communicative strategies to force social labor relations at the initial period of War with Nazi Germany.

The article objective is to investigate preconditions and stages of new railway construction in the Urals and West Siberia; to identify modernization processes in transport construction, and to establish reasons for low rates of the regional railway network development. The author concentrates his attention on the problems of material-technical provision and scientific support of new railway construction in the regions of virgin lands development in South Ural, Kazakhstan and West Siberian oil-gas province. The study deals with the documents of the Ministry of Railways’ Scientific and Technical Council and the correspondence of the CPSU’s Tyumen Regional Committee on Transport Construction in the northern Tyumen Region. The research methodology is the modernization theory applied to railway transportation as a fundamental technical and economic transport renewal based on electrification, diesel traction and new lines construction. New railway construction is a separate field of transportation modernization associated with increasing the railway network length, rationalizing transportation processes, developing new territories and natural raw materials, forming additional lines between the country regions. The complexity of the construction conditions, weak territorial development, lack of local building materials caused a powerful rise of scientific research and new construction technologies’ elaboration. As a result, the railway network was created at a zero level of the territory development, and without the international experience of railroad construction under severe conditions. At the same time, the Ural and West Siberian railway network was not developed to the extent necessary to optimize the transportation process due to material and financial resources concentration on the drastic technical reconstruction of the existing railway network.

The article objective is to present the idea of creating “Russian Archival Encyclopedia”, which arose during work on the collection “The role of archives in information support of historical science” (Moscow, 2017, published as a part of the project “The role of museums - libraries - archives in information support of historical science”). The author describes necessary and sufficient conditions for its creation: the presence of scientific knowledge of a certain level and its carriers - researchers and specialists in the encyclopedic affair field; management systems capable to solve organizational and logistical tasks and provide financing. The paper substantiates usefulness of the archival encyclopedia for the society: it still characterizes the measure and degree of conventionalism and satisfies the need for reference information resources. The author shows advantages of an interdisciplinary approach. Working on an archival encyclopedia allows correcting our knowledge on the archive, if its creators would follow an encyclopedic canon; collect verified information about the totality of facts reflecting the chosen object objectively; implement the aim of actualization of the documentary heritage in its entirety and diversity related to the texts of culture, the cultural context of our and previous eras, public administration; present individual archives and the archive as an institution of historical memory in evolutionary development. The author determines territorial (Russia) and chronological (the whole protoarchives and archives history) frames and main blocks (sections) of the encyclopedia topic structure: articles on archives and their types, history and organization of archival affairs, biographical sketches. According to author’s opinion, the archival encyclopedia should help to advance significantly in studying the archive and understanding the history of Russia, provide materials to monitor the situation in this sphere and elaborate strategies for its development by the authorities.