As an Image of the Other: Buryats in Russian Popular Literature of the Twenty First Century

Introduction. Contemporary Russian popular literature shows a trend to depict non-Russian citizens as minor and negative characters, the malign features proper being often somewhat attributed to race and ethnicity. Goals. The study provides an insight into the image of Buryats in Russian popular literature of the twenty first century, since some of the identified narratives can artificially ignite xenophobia in Russian society. Materials and methods. The article examines a variety of literary and research material, published field data collected by S. Zhambalova and N. Igaue, online sources. The employed methods comprise those of historical imagology and theory of stigmatization. Results. The considered detective novel (Taxi for an Angel) by V. Platova depicts four Buryats and one German as ‘othered’ — secondary and negative characters. Body-related portrayals are adversely supplemented with elements of Buryat mythology, religion, and ethnography. As for the work by I. Stogoff, he articulates therein some negative impressions of his stay in Buryatia. And both the literary compositions are abundant in critical accounts of Buddhism, Buddhists, and Ivolginsky Datsan. Discussion. The examined narratives are distinguished by xenophobia towards Buryats and basically contradict the state of the art, Russia’s Constitution, current nationalities policies of the Government, and may threaten interethnic relations. The bulk of Buryats are Russian citizens successfully integrated into global contexts, and the negative public stigmatization of one indigenous people attests to rudiments of the post-Soviet self-stigmatization of Russia are still there. Conclusions. Both the books are products of early twenty-first-century literature characterized by identity crisis — and bear traces of nationalism and ethnocentrism. Images of the Other attributed to Buryats are toll opinion-based, questionable, and falsify the actual present-day interethnic agenda in Russia. Like other indigenous communities, Buryats are civilized members of the contemporary world, while the manifested stigmas may adversely influence intra-nation harmony. Such publications and nation-wide self-stigmatization in Russian popular literature are definitely inadmissible

Anthropogenic Vegetation in the River Valley Amalat

The article presents the results of a research study of anthropogenic affects of gold mining on forest landscapes in Northern Transbaikalia, Russia and processes of natural reclamation of vegetation cover of the disturbed areas. The study area is located northwest of the Maliy Amalat River, which flows along the Vitim Plateau; in the floodplains of its two tributaries the Aunik River and the Bagdarin River. It is an area where a large number of alluvial gold deposits have been discovered. Some of these deposits are currently being developed, some have already been explored, and some have been abandoned. The authors consider the current state of vegetation cover in a key area of the Amalat River basin, near villages of Malovsky and Bagdarin. The problem of natural resources development and conservation is becoming extremely important for the area under study because open-pit gold mining methods that are used here drastically change the environment and affect water, land and forest resources

About some peculiarities of calcephyte flora of the Small-Amalatian depress (Northern Transbaikalia)

The article is devoted to the study of the calcephyte flora of the Small-Amalatian depress. The main objective of the study is to carry out floristic analysis of limestone outcrops. The calcephytic flora was analyzed on the longitudinal element, biomorphological, taxonomic and ecological analyzes were carried out