Systematic investigations of archaeological sites in the Oka Plateau situated between the mountain ridges Eastern Sayan and Big Sayan have been beginning from 2018. One of the results of these researches is the discovering of three archaeological sites named Tropa Kropotkina-1, -2, -3, such names have been given because of their location on the travel rout of P. A. Kropotkin’s expedition conducted in the second part of the XIX century. Archaeological materials dated back to the developed Neolithic times are recorded in the second lithological layer typical for all sites Tropa Kropotkina. At the site Tropa Kropotkina-3 several hearths of different state of preservation have been revealed. The hearths contained a big quantity of small burned animal bone debris. Various tools such as a lithic shank of composite Kitoi fishhook, arrow heads and others were found near the hearths. Evidences of a primary knapping are almost absent here. In this relation, the author proposes the using these hearths for ritual activity. For the first time for the Oka Plateau among the findings of the Tropa Kropotkina-3 site author recognized the Ust’-Belaya Ceramic Type fragments of vessels which are wide-spread in Angara Region. Surrounded by mountains Oka Plateau connected with Angara region by the Oka River Valley. The results of natural science methods show that different types of ceramic vessels recognized here were made with the using different raw material sources. This fact leads to the supposition that the sites Tropa Kropotkina-1, -2, -3 were used episodically by different peoples. The most ancient time of the people entry at these places is recorded in the layer of the Final Pleistocene - Early Holocene at the site Tropa Kropotkina-1, these are the first finds of artifacts in the cultural horizon of such age for the Oka Plateau.

This work presents new data on probably the most recent (historical) volcanic eruption in Central Asia. The Jombolok lava field is located in the mountains of Southern Siberia (the Eastern Sayan Ridge), within the valleys of the Khi-Gol, Jombolok and Oka rivers. The lava flow (74 km long and up to 150 m thick) is one of the longest in Eastern Siberia. Beryllium dating (¹⁰Be) showed that the activation of volcanism occurred after the melting of the Jombolok glacier at the end of MIS2. Geomorphological studies and radiocarbon dating (¹⁴C) have shown that the lava field formed over ~14-13 thousand years. Volcanism here had at least four phases of activation. The first two stages were close in time and date back to the period of 14-13 thousand years. The time of the third stage of eruptions is determined by the morphology of lava flows and dates back to the middle of the Holocene. The evidences associated with the last phase have been found in the upper reaches of the Khi-Gol valley and in the Oka-Jombolok basin. They are represented by young basaltic lava flows located among the previously generated lavas. Live and dead trees have been sampled in the young lava field. Nine fragments of wood have been found embedded in lavas of the latest eruption. Dendrochronological analysis, radiocarbon dating and the analysis of historical chronicles have shown that the latest eruption occurred during the period 682-792 A.D. The volcanic activity possibly triggered the migration of Mongolian tribes out of the locality known in historical chronicles as Ergune-Kun in 778-786 A.D.

Stone kurgans are one of the most famous types of archaeological sites found on the Oka plateau of the Eastern Sayan (Oka region of the Republic of Buryatia). The first excavations of these structures were carried out in 1870 by P. A. Rovinsky near the Okinsky guard (currently the archaeological sites of Oka 1 and Oka 2). According to the researcher, the structures unearthed by him were erected in memory of the dead or, marked the places of sacrifice practices. Despite the results of excavations by P. A. Rovinsky, the stone kurgans of Oka continued to be perceived by most researchers as burial complexes. New data on these objects were obtained as a result of excavations carried out in 2020 at the archaeological site Shasnur 3 by A. V. Kharinsky. No traces of human burials were found under the two stone excavated pavements. The study of archaeological sites with stone kurgans was continued in 2021. All stone structures of the Oka 1 and Oka 2 sites were recorded and described, three structures with round stone kurgans were excavated. One of them was located at the archaeological site Oka 1 (complex No. 12), another at Shara-Tala 1 site and the third one at Sondinto 1 site. No traces of human burials were found in any of the excavated structures. Flint blades, microblades and flakes were found under the stones of the Shara-Tala 1 kurgan, and a flint blade under the Sondinto kurgan. The results of the work in 2021 did not allow us to unambiguously determine the age and cultural affiliation of the Oka kurgans. Preliminarily, these structures can be characterized as cenotaphs or memorials, simultaneously performing the marking functions on the territory inhabited by their builders.

The article is dedicated to the armed conflicts that took place on the territory of Yakutia in the Late Middle Ages and the influence of militarized way of life on the cultural code of the Sakha people. The main sources of the work are ethnographic, archaeological and documentary materials. Based on the materials considered, it is assumed that the primary cause of internecine wars lay in the political organization (in the form of chiefdom), economic and social relations of the Yakuts. Warfare was one of the basic pillars of existence of the Yakut chiefdom, an instrument for establishing power and expanding influence for the nomadic elite represented by the descendants of steppe nomads. Global climate changes that occurred in this era played an important role in the periodic aggravation of the conflicts and the preservation of the militarized way of life. Natural disasters were invariably accompanied by an increase in mobility of the cattle breeding population and an increase in the level of its aggression. The article suggests that on the eve of the appearance of Russian pioneers in the Lena Region the Yakuts experienced collapse of a single complex chiefdom into a number of simple ones, which provoked numerous armed conflicts. Due to internal contradictions the militarized elite could not mobilise forces to repel Cossack invasion; the inclusion of Yakutia into the Russian state did not stop the civil strife and accelerated the collapse of the medieval political and social organization of the Yakuts.

Botogol graphite mine, Okinsky District of the Republic of Buryatia, was one of the first mining enterprises of the Baikal region. The history of the discovery and development of the Botogol graphite deposit is connected with the activities of a Russian merchant of French origin, Jean-Pierre Alibert. The article reveals the history of Alibert's stay in Eastern Siberia and the history of the development of a deposit of high-quality graphite. Based on various sources of information the chronology of events related to the discovery and the starting of process of exploiting the Botogol graphite deposit has been restored. Initially, Alibert's interests concerned Siberian gold mining, later the merchant's attention switched to graphite mining. The reason for Jean-Pierre Alibert's interest in graphite mining is the catastrophic shortage of high-quality graphite ore for the needs of the pencil industry in Europe. As a result of prospecting and exploration work carried out for several years on the Botogolsky rocky outcrop Aliber discovered a unique graphite deposit. The article also examines the nature of the relationship between J. P. Alibert and his companions F. P. Zanadvorov and Lothar von Faber who were not always constructive and successful. Alibert failed to realize all his commercial plans. He failed to build his pencil factory in Russia, so he was forced to supply high-quality ore to Faber's factory in Bavaria. The supply of graphite to Germany, despite the large financial costs, allowed Alibert and the partners to earn a decent fortune. The activity of the graphite mine in the Eastern Sayans was interrupted quite suddenly.

The article analyzes the process of origin and development in the Turkestan region of such a phenomenon as book culture. Within the framework of the topic the whole range of areas of book culture is considered, in particular, librarianship, book printing, book trade, educational work of book clubs and organizations. The author comes to the conclusion that in the European sense, book culture originated in Turkestan only with the advent of the Russian community, moreover, precisely the urban residents of the “Russian parts” of cities. The author emphasizes that the greatest role in the development of book culture at an early stage was played by the “organizer of the region” Governor-General K. P. von Kaufman, who created the Tashkent Library, he encouraged all book activities. At the same time, there is no doubt about the geographical limitations of the development of book life: Tashkent became the epicenter, where there was the most serious financial support for libraries and the largest concentration of educated Russian-speaking readers, as well as a printing house; in other cities of the region there is much lower activity in this direction. Attention is also paid to private initiative from below, in particular, within the framework of encouraging interest in reading and books among illiterate residents of the region, educational organizations promoted the ideas of “people's readings” and the work of the Pushkin Society, whose activities are considered separately. The author comes to the conclusion that the initiative from below had a key impact on the development of book culture in the region and contributed to the general education of the population. The study was conducted on the basis of materials from the periodical press of the Turkestan region, as well as journalistic works of the period under review.

In the conditions of the modern transformation of the Russian statehood such subject as attention to the problems of counteracting serious criminal offenses has naturally increased. Historical experience is of key importance. It is no coincidence that over the past decade the study of the manifestations of various types of illegal acts and ways to counter them had noticeably intensified. The object of the study is the features of the development of serious crime in the territory of Eastern Siberia in the pre-Soviet period, the subject is the manifestation of this process in the form of intentional deprivation of life. The purpose of the study is to determine the causes, content, trends and patterns of the spread of serious crime in the Eastern outskirts of the Russian Empire. The scientific novelty of the study is the analysis of the dynamics and direction of the development of serious criminal offense in the conditions of “penal colonization” of Eastern Siberia. Criminal exile, as one of the forms of punishment practiced by the penitentiary system of the autocracy, served as a kind of catalyst that accelerated the spread of this type of illegal acts in the Siberian territories. As a result, already in the 19th century deliberate killings began to prevail over other types of illegal acts committed in the region. Rapidly spreading in the sparsely populated Siberian expanses in a relatively short period of time, premeditated murders have undergone a number of qualitative transformations. In parallel, there was a transformation of the ideology of deliberate deprivation of life. As a result, deliberate killings began to be used by malefactors as a way to hide the traces of crimes and a tool to counteract law enforcement officers. Initially committed as an aggravating circumstance associated with open theft of property, murders eventually began to be used as a main tool for gaining profit.

This article based on a large body of unpublished documents from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RSMHA). The author analyzes the current situation in Irkutsk Disciplinary Company in 1899. In that year, there was a visit of the War Minister of Russian Empire Aleksey N. Kuropatkin to Siberian Military District. That visit was of historic importance as it took place about 4 years prior the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and less than 7 months before the Siberian Military District mobilization in response to the Boxer Rebellion in China. Its purpose was personal acquaintance of the War Minister with the recently created Siberian Military District; specifically, evaluation of the actual state and combat readiness of the dislocated troops, data gathering to further develop defense plans and regional military reforms in Siberia. Traveling by Trans-Siberian Railway, Kuropatkin inspected troops of the largest Siberian garrisons in cities of Omsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, including Irkutsk Disciplinary Company in Irkutsk. In this article is first published the most detailed descriptions of the Company in the end of XIX century. It has been analyzed the quality of regular personnel, the drilling, property and economic status, barracks accommodation. It is described the problem of permanent overwork of Irkutsk Disciplinary Company as a result of sending all soldier-prisoners from Priamour Military District to this Company, because there was no any disciplinary troops in a Russian Far East. It has concluded that the minute improvement took place only after creation of Anutchinskaya Disciplinary Company in Russian Far East in 1908.

This paper examines the amount of monetary allowances and the list of benefits provided to magistrates in the Irkutsk Province in the post-reform period. The main attention is paid not only to the size of salaries and the rules for their increase, but also to non-material benefits for magistrates and their families. The amounts of salaries of judges in the pre-reform and post-reform periods are compared, as well as their comparison with the salaries of various categories of the population in similar periods. The study and analysis of archival data from the State Archive of the Irkutsk Region and legislative acts of the Russian Empire regulating the salaries and benefits of magistrates in a remote region of Russia allow us to more accurately determine the financial situation of judges in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries, as well as to estimate the amount of state expenditures directed to the provision of the judicial corps in the Russian Empire. The conducted research allows us to conclude that when appointed to the Irkutsk Province, a justice of the peace received an increased salary and a wide range of benefits not only for himself, but also for his family members. Taking into account the territorial remoteness of the region from the central part of the country, harsh climatic conditions, the lack of educational institutions for the training of legal personnel, psychological factors of relocation created a problem with the provision of the judicial corps in the Irkutsk Province. The size of salaries, guarantees of their increase and various benefits were supposed to be an incentive to attract qualified specialists to a remote province of the Russian Empire.

Advance combat training and the collection of military information is of exceptional value. The article examines the activities of the structures of the Irkutsk Military District in the Mongolian direction in 1906-1917. Staff officers were thoroughly aware of the economic and geographical conditions of Siberia, which is reflected in voluminous specialized publications. This knowledge was useful in the Civil War. Against the background of the scale of the All-Russian conflict, Siberia was affected by its fighting to a lesser extent. In early-mid 1918, both the Reds and Whites were replenished mainly with a set of volunteers. By September 1918, the whole of Siberia had ceased to be the scene of regular hostilities, and the short-term battles that took place mostly did not go beyond the Trans-Siberian Railway. In addition to the successful mobilization into the Siberian Army, the Irkutsk Military District successfully ensured order on its territory. So in September 1918, the district Headquarters received information about the Red detachment led by N. A. Kalandarishvili, moving from the Jida Valley through Mongolia, the Tunka Valley and further through the Sayans to the Cheremkhovsky district of the Irkutsk province. The timely received information made it possible to take counteraction measures promptly. The passage through the Eastern Sayans, or as the participants of the campaign called it, the White Mountains, and through the lands of the Soyots became a difficult ordeal. In the modern Okinsky district of the Republic of Buryatia, a voluminous social memory of this event has been preserved. This material is based mainly on the memories of the participants of the hike, and their most significant differences from the data of local old-timers relate to the description of the route. The course of events is also highlighted by an interesting document, first revealed in the Russian State Military Archive - the report of the commander of the Separate Cheremkhovsky Battalion, Colonel I. S. Bogatnou. The document is a valuable and previously unknown source. It contains information about the actions of the White command, clarifies the geography and chronology of events.

The reports of Chief Priest of the 15th Votkinsk Rifle Division of the Siberian Army, Georgy Mironovich Zhelvatykh to the Chief Priest of the Army and Navy, Archpriest Alexander Alekseevich Kasatkin, which found in the fund 40253 “Office of the Chief Priest of the Army and Navy” of the Russian State Military Archive, are published for the first time. The published documents are a valuable source on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Civil War in Russia. They shed light on the work of regimental priests in the army of Admiral Kolchak. A detailed examination of the sources, their chronology and content solves auxiliary source research tasks. Based on the published documents it was possible to establish the names and biographies of all the regimental priests of the Votkinsk People's Army. As it turned out, none of them was a career military priest. All of them were representatives of the parish clergy of the Perm and Vyatka dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church, and they lived in 1918 in the areas covered by the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising. In the autumn of 1918 these rural priests were mobilized by the rebel command and took up the positions of regimental priests in the Votkinsk People's Army later reorganized into the 15th Votkinsk Rifle Division. In addition, the published documents are a valuable source on military history. They contain information about the combat path of the 15th Votkinsk Rifle Division, in particular, about its participation in the battles for the city of Tobolsk in September - October 1919, which received the name “Tobolsk quadrille” in historical literature. G. M. Zhelvatykh describes the activities of the regimental priests of the compound against the general background of the fighting of the Eastern Front, and gives characteristics of the command staff, evaluates personal and professional qualities, and the degree of religiosity.

Five stages are distinguished in the study and reflection of the domestic agrarian history of the period of the 1920s: the 1920s; the 1930s, the second half of the 1940s - the beginning of the 1950s; the mid-1950s-the 1980s; the 1990s and to the present. This article examines in detail the first three stages related to the activities of I. V. Stalin. The given reference fragment is devoted to his political role. In the 1920s, in the USSR, there was a limited by the political monopoly of the Bolshevik Party discussion about the further agrarian course. Relying on biased factual material, and the quotes from Marxist theorists the political authors logically simplified but emotionally vividly offered managerial solutions. The publications of such economists as N. D. Kondratiev and A. V. Chayanov were of a complex generalizing nature. For applied purposes the agriculture was also actively studied at the level of Siberian districts, providing both local and Siberian-wide publications with data. The transition to the second period of historiography coincided with forced and violent collectivization. The forced administrative narrowing of the spectrum of scientific interpretations and the priority of Stalin's assessments assigned to the period of the New Economic Policy the role of the antipode of the success of the formation of the collective farm system in the USSR. The proceedings of Communist Party congresses and plenums are filled with assertions about the uncontested fidelity of the agrarian policy of the 1930s. For scientists, the resolutions of these meetings became an indication of what conclusions to formulate. The textbook “History of the CPSU(b): A short course”, published in 1938 with the participation of I. V. Stalin had a decisive influence. Research interest in the events of the 1920s has noticeably decreased, and the political component of the publications clearly prevailed over the scientific one. The growth of national consciousness during the Great Patriotic War somewhat corrected the content of Soviet historiography and initiated the revival of scientific criticism. The researchers focused on highlighting the role of the party, while retaining the citation method of interpreting factual material. In conclusion, an assessment of Soviet historiography is given, its balanced revision and the development of new concepts are recommended.

After the formation of the NKVD of the USSR, in 1934 the Main Department of Fire Protection, which later had various names, began to function. The period under review (1953-1965) included the reform of the law enforcement system at the beginning of the arrival of the new leadership of the country, which began in March 1953, after the death of I. V. Stalin. The fire department was part of a single power structure, along with other police units of the penitentiary system. In the course of numerous transformations at this time firefighters were included in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, then since 1955 in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR, since 1962 to the Ministry of Public Order Protection (MOO) RSFSR. Fires of varying complexity caused serious damage to the national economy of the Altai Territory. People and animals (both domestic and wild) died from the fire, and infrastructure, crops, forests were destroyed. The directors of the fire departments carried out constant monitoring, calculated the so-called percentage of “burnability”, determined the material damage from fires. The causes of fires were, as usual, a gross violation of fire safety rules, faulty electrical wiring, natural phenomena and deliberate arson. Fire protection units together with voluntary formations from among local residents carried out preventive measures aimed at preventing fires as well as together with other “power” services they promptly eliminated fires, saved people, animals and material valuables. The Soviet system of personnel training for all law enforcement agencies (including fire protection) included various levels, which was constantly being improved and was aimed at professional training and retraining of its employees. Equipping fire departments with technical means was still not enough, but their gradual equipping was underway.

German doctor, scientist-encyclopedist D. G. Messerschmidt is considered an outstanding Siberian scholar who collected materials in all areas of knowledge during an eight-year journey through Siberia. During his lifetime, for various reasons, he failed to publish and even fully process his field materials. The scientific legacy of Messerschmidt has recently begun to return to scientific circulation. The book under review is the first translation into Russian of a fragment of Messerschmidt's diary from December 1723 - February 1724. He spent this time in Irkutsk between travels along the Lower Tunguska and Transbaikalia. What he was doing at that time, with whom he was in contact, where he lived in the city, what issues he solved - all this can be learned from a unique source of the first quarter of the 18th century. The publication is made in the best Russian academic traditions. The book has a preface, an appendix consisting of four articles, illustrations and an index. The book was published on the eve of the 300th anniversary of Messerschmidt's stay in Irkutsk. It is of interest to historians of science in the 18th century, the history and anthropology of Irkutsk and Eastern Siberia.

The review analyzes the monograph by A. P. Sheksheev “The Bodies of the Cheka/GPU/OGPU and the Bolshevik Transformation of Society. The Unknown History of the Yenisei Siberia”, published by the Minusinsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in 1921. It examines the author’s study of the main stages in the history of the Soviet state security agencies in this region during the stated period which played one of the key roles in the implementation of the policy of the Communist Party. The review highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the monograph and its contribution to the study of the activities of the Cheka, GPU and OGPU in the Yenisei region during the Civil War, the New Economic Policy, Industrialization and Collectivization in the Soviet state.

A new direction in modern geographical science - the ecological potential assessment - is being developed relatively recently. In this paper, the assessment proposes an integrated approach that combines both traditional main directions - natural and anthropocentric approaches. The integrated approach opens up opportunities for the optimal use of natural and human resources of a particular territory. One of the main properties of the potential is chronological heterogeneity, in this respect it can be successfully applied for humanitarian research. We chose the Okinsky Plateau as an object of research - a sparsely populated, inaccessible and remote region of the Eastern Sayan Mountains, but rich in minerals. The paper provides a brief description of the features of the geomorphological structure, climate and vegetation cover. It is based on the analysis of Earth remote sensing data processed in an appropriate algorithm. The resulting cartographic images, analyzed with the method of analysis of hierarchies - AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process), made it possible to differentiate the area under study according to the value of the ecological potential. The AHP is a mathematical tool for a systematic approach to complex decision-making problems. The difference in the structure of the relief led to the development of high-altitude landscape belts. The structure of landscapes is very diverse, which is associated with a pronounced high-altitude zonation, contrasting relief, and severe sharply continental climate. There are slopes of high-mountain ranges with alpine-type relief here, mountain tundra, in combination with yerniks and low-growing larch woodlands. The lowered parts adjacent to the sides of the river valleys, as well as the flat-topped surfaces of the lower parts of the plateau, are occupied by larch forests with a developed moss-lichen cover. The northern macroslopes of the Kitoisky and Tunkinsky Goletz are occupied by dark coniferous Siberian stone pine-fir taiga. Fir forests grow in river valleys. A characteristic feature of the territory is the presence of steppes on the slopes of the southern exposure (expositional steppe). They are most widespread in the Oka Depression and the Oka River valley located in the central part. Forest-steppe geosystems have the greatest value of ecological potential.

More than one generation of Mongol scholars has been asking about the existence of Ergune-Kun - the ancestral home of the Mongols and its geographical location. Most active have been scholars who support the eastern (Argun) version connecting the location of Ergune-Kun with the name of the River Ergune (Argun). There are also adherents of the western version whose research vector concerns the Khubsugul region, Mountainous Buryatia and Tuva. For the medieval Mongols the location of Ergune-Kun was clear and therefore there was no need to indicate it. Howevere, the opening lines of the "Secret History", outlining the way of Burte-Chino and the wife Goa-Maral from the Inner Sea Tengis (Baikal) to the springheads of Onon, contain an implicit hint to the beginning of their path connected through the Angara region with the mountains of the Eastern Sayan whose pronounced mountainous relief corresponds to Ergune-Kun, according to the description of Rashid al-Din. The Sayan mountains themselves were called Huhei (Heavenly mountains) in the Buryat epic, and in shamanic invocations - Mundarga (rocky peaks). It is important to note that in contrast to the eastern hypothesis of Ergune-Argun, in the case of East Sayan version there is an interesting connection with local toponymy (the Mongolzhon valley in the Oka) and sacred folklore of the Oka Buryats. The motive of the legend about the brothers Kiyat and Nukuz, who escaped from enemies in the hard-to-reach mountain gorges and settled here, is echoed in the local legend about the brothers Burenkhan and Tarkhai, who were the first to inhabit the Oka valley. The name of the leader of the wolf tribe Burte-Chino resonates in the oronim of the cult mountain of the East Sayan highlands - Burenkhan, whose name is composed of two parts: Buren - from Turkic buri ‘wolf’ and khan ‘lord’. The myth about the molten mountain as a metaphorically symbolic element of the Ergune-Kun epic finds real confirmation in volcanic eruptions near the territory inhabited by the Mongols, which, according to Irkutsk volcanologists working on this issue, could have provoked their departure from Ergune-Kun. These coincidences probably have a certain historical context and are sacred signs testifying to the identity of Ergune-Kun and the Okinsky region.

The article is a description of the social and cultural growth of the Oka-Soiots in the first half of the 1980s in the context of their transition to sedentary forms of farming. Using materials from previous researchers, including the 1926 expedition led by B. E. Petri, the evolutionary processes of the Soiots' way of life and their cultural assimilation are considered. The formation of the modern ethnic composition of the Oka population was preceded by a long process that began in the 18th century, from the time when two ethnic groups, different in language, culture and economy, came into contact - the Soiots, reindeer herders and hunters, and the Buryats, who engaged in cattle breeding in the highlands. Soiots are not autochthonous inhabitants of the Oka, they came here with an already established ethnic community with their own language, material culture and economy. The ethnic history of Gornaya Oka is not just the coexistence of two ethnic groups, but the process of gradual assimilation of the Soiots by the more numerous Buryats. This process directly influenced the evolution of the reindeer husbandry of pastoralists. In 1984, the Soiots were not listed in the all-Union censuses under an independent ethnonym. At the same time, field observations showed that in the Oka there are still quite a few mestizos of the first blood, that is, the descendants of mixed Soiot-Buryat marriages. The main result of the author's work in the 1980s was the identification of Soiot ethnic identity among some residents of the area. And if in the 1989 census the Soiots also were not listed yet, then in the All-Russian census of 2010 there were already 3,608 people; in the overwhelming majority it is on the territory of the Okinsky region of Buryatia. This confirms the existence of the process of the revival of the Soiots as an independent small nationality. The article elucidates various approaches to the Soiots' problematics in the historiography of the XX century, also problems and methods of ethnographic research of small peoples of Siberia in the late USSR.