The basic problems of Russia’s presence in the South Caucasus through historical and retrospective analysis are identified. The geopolitical component of Russia’s foreign policy toward the region since the ХVII century was shown. The configuration of the main political forces in the South Caucasus was analyzed, Russian nowadays influence in the political and economic processes in the region was estimated. The basic geographic, geo-economic and other benefits of the South Caucasus were shown. In particular the transit potential of the region was assessed. Weaknesses of Russian geopolitics in the South Caucasus direction were identified, some recommendations were made.

Interest in the common law of the Ossetians used to be and is still of current interest. Nowadays adats of the Ossetians as well as of other mountainous peoples exist both as an important historical resource and as a practical guidance. The author of the article bases this conclusion not only on studies of published collections of common law documents but also on his own experience gained during the extensive travels in the mountain regions taken by him to understand the reason for these archaic norms to survive through ages.

This article analyzes the 1920s methodological guidelines to conduct tours of Petrograd-Leningrad. Key themes for the formation of the city’s image and the recommendations for sightseeing for the local and visiting tourists are identified. Author concludes that there were four main ideas of the excursion literature for Petrograd-Leningrad in the early Soviet period. Firstly, the City as the center of the revolutionary movement; secondly, historical significance of the former capital was also quite important; thirdly, the city was seen as a center of culture; and finally, Petrograd-Leningrad was presented in textbooks as the economic center of the country, and the large industrial city.

Making use of archive documents that previously were classified the author seeks to understand the background of complex conflict emerged in the second half of the 1950s between leaders of the USSR and the Soviet writers' union on one hand and Howard Fast, the prominent American writer, on the other hand. Trying to comprehend why Fast was the most published and the most highly paid foreign writer in the most cruel years of Stalin’s rule and why he, as if suddenly decided to put the end to his relations with the Communism and the USSR (and did that in the scandalous way) in the earlier years of Khrushchev’s liberalization the author presents his own documented version of this contradictory situation that does not lend itself to an univalent assessment.

The magazine publishes materials of the conference held in October, 2013, at the Department of philology of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The conference was dedicated to one of the most ancient monuments of the Russian literature, The Primary Chronicle. It is the most ancient code of the Russian history. It contains the most important mythologemes and ideologemes of the East European past. Participants of the conference focused of issues of hermeneutics, the text’s integrity and origins of The Primary Chronicle. The significance of the monument is not limited to narrow professional interests of medievalists. For The Primary Chronicle was intended to provide the answer to the question: «Wherefrom the Russian land has emerged?»

Volga region woods had strategic meaning for Russian Empire in the 18th century. Its ship groves provided the material for Russian navy. No wonder it was the region where Russian forestry started. Volga region was experienced the most of Peter 1st's restrictions, the hardness of procurement obligations. Forests of Kazan, Nizhni Novgorod, Voronezh provinces were the best known, the best specialists were sent there, the most attention was paid to keep these forests in order.

This article is dedicated to the problem of how intertextual and contextual factors influence an autobiography. The aim of my thesis is analysis of the both S.Y.Alliluev's autobiographies, written in 1922−1923 and 1944−1945. I am trying to show peculiarities of the first text’s influence on the next, differences in systems of argumentation and plots' choice.

In August, 1946, A.A.Zhdanov, the Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) launched the campaign against dissent and nonconformity in the Soviet literature. Zhdanov chose literary magazines «Zvezda» and «Leningrad» as well as M.M.Zoschenko, the writer, and A.A.Akhmatova as and his main targets. Preparing his huge report A.A.Zhdanov used the reference cited below and produced by the Ministry of State Security Department for Leningrad region.

The newspaper «Nedelja», published in Czechoslovakia in 1929−1930, is an important source of information on the economic adaptation of Russian emigrants in this country. Analysis of the publications of the newspaper allows us to consider the basic directions and ways of organizing economic activity of Russian emigrants in Czechoslovakia, to evaluate the nature and forms of mutual aid, characteristics and extent of their participation in the economy of Czechoslovak Republic and other countries.