Russian Turkology and heritage

The urgency of the problem under study is conditioned by the need to study the history of Turkology development in the modern world. This involves the considering of Russian and European orientalist achievements at the turn of the 19-th and 20-th centuries. The purpose of the article is to give an overview of the Turkic heritage by the Academician A.E. Krymsky and to assess his contribution to Russian and Ukrainian oriental studies. The leading approach to the study of this problem is the problem-thematic approach, as well as the comparative-historical principle. The main results of the study consist in the systematic description of his works on Turkic studies. The main attention is paid to various materials written by him during his work at the Lazarev Institute of oriental languages and at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The scientific directions of his Turkic studies were revealed. The materials of the article can be useful to study the history of world Turkology, for the teaching of languages, history, literature and the culture of the Turkic peoplespeer-reviewe

The project of Hejaz railway construction : a historical and historiographic review

One of the last attempts to raise the prestige of the Ottoman caliphate during the reign of Abdul Hamid II was the initiative of the Sultan in the construction of the Hejaz railway, which was to provide an easier and a faster access for pilgrims to the shrines of Mecca and Medina. At the end of the 19th century, as well as during several previous centuries, the main link between the Ottoman administration and the Hejaz residents were the gifts and the donations from the Sultan of the Caliph to religious figures, the sheikhs of the tribes and the population of sacred cities. Of course, such a grandiose construction could aggravate the financial debts of the Ottoman Empire, but, according to preliminary calculations, the road had to pay off, and besides, to glorify Abdul Hamid II. In this regard, the goals and the objectives of this study are to analyze the official ideology of the Ottoman Empire and ideological projects implemented in practice during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in the form of influence on the social-political situation in the Ottoman Empire, as well as the influence of Islamic unity ideas on Muslims embodied in practice by the carrying out the propaganda campaign for the implementation of the Hijaz railway construction project.peer-reviewe

Helicopter Fuselage Drag ─ Combined Computational Fluid Dynamics and Experimental Studies

In this paper, wind tunnel experiments are combined with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) aiming to analyze the aerodynamics of realistic fuselage con¦gurations. A development model of the ANSAT aircraft and an early model of the AKTAI light helicopter were employed. Both models were tested at the subsonic wind tunnel of KNRTU-KAI for a range of Reynolds numbers and pitch and yaw angles. The force balance measurements were complemented by particle image velocimetry (PIV) investigations for the cases where the experimental force measurements showed substantial unsteadiness. The CFD results were found to be in fair agreement with the test data and revealed some §ow separation at the rear of the fuselages. Once con¦dence on the CFD method was established, further modi¦cations were introduced to the ANSAT-like fuselage model to demonstrate drag reduction via small shape changes

Academic Mongolian studies in Russia

The relevance of the problem under study is conditioned by the coverage of Russian Mongolian studies, including Buddhism study phenomenon formation and development during the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The article is aimed at the study of Mongolian and Buddhism study origins at the St. Petersburg Academy and Kazan Imperial University, the fate of orientalists, the main stages in the formation and the development of educational and scientific disciplines and trends devoted to the history and culture of Mongolian-speaking peoples. The leading methods of this problem study are the basic principles of modern historical science - historicism, problem-chronological, structural-functional, retrospective, anthropological method, etc. The main results of the article include a variety of materials devoted to the historical and scientific study of Russian Mongolian study formation and development, the evaluation of the scientific heritage concerning the founders of Mongolian studies at the Academy, the University of Kazan and other educational centers of Russia. The main materials of the article can be useful for further study of Russian and European Mongolian study history, the development and the reading of university courses on the history of the East, the history of Oriental studies in Russia and Europe.peer-reviewe

The problem of transboundary water resources in China-Kazakhstan relations

The urgency of the problem under study is conditioned by modern international political realities: in a short time, China has become one of the world leaders with huge foreign policy ambitions, and Kazakhstan is one of the leading states of Central Asia with a great resource and geopolitical potential. The purpose of the article is to consider the issue of common water resources of China and Kazakhstan as the factor of instability in relations between these two countries. The leading approach to the study of this problem is systemic one. The article presents the analysis of joint water use issue concerning the rivers Ili and Irtysh, examines the Chinese and Kazakh positions in this area, the threats that entail the delay of transboundary river problem solution. The materials of the article can be useful for a wide range of researchers for the writing of works in the field of history, oriental studies, international relations and diplomatic centers of Kazakhstan, China and Russia.peer-reviewe

A modern research for the Turkish ethnography

The urgency of the problem under study is caused by the need to consider the achievements of field researchers of the XIXth century from the standpoint of modern science. The purpose of the article is to characterize the research method of the ethnographer and folklorist Nikolai Katanov (1862-1922). The historical-genetic method is the leading one to the study of this problem. The main results of the research consist in the systematization of the unrecognized intellectual heritage from N. Katanov to the end and its analysis in the context of contemporary Turkish studies. The article is of interest to the experts who are involved in Eurasian studies, the history of Russia, the history of Oriental studies, anthropology and ethnography of the Turkish people of Central Asia.peer-reviewe

Study of humanitarian high school students’ readiness for intercultural communication formation

© 2015 by the authors. The scope of the international activity of Russia has increased today. This fact demands a good knowledge of foreign languages. Foreign languages are used by high schools graduates in foreign offices of Russian companies, in foreign companies abroad and for communication in all sorts of professional conferences. Modern high school graduates’ competitive advantage, career and success in life is determined along with qualifying characteristics by their following abilities: to adapt to the new information space in the international environment; to be professionally trained to participate in international business communications; to be able to adapt all personal qualities in a particular labor market. Adequate verbal behavior in any profession requires the development of not only the language skills, but also knowledge of the laws, customs, and national mentality of the studied country language. All this requires a qualitatively new approach to foreign language teaching. The article reveals the essence and the basic characteristics of readiness for intercultural communication, the principles of readiness for intercultural communication formation and educational potential of the discipline “Foreign Language” in the formation of this readiness. The study found levels of the students’ readiness for intercultural communication development , defined criteria and proposed diagnostic tools, and complex problem-communicative methods of social and functional competencies formation, providing professional orientation and substantial basis in the course of students’ foreign language activities. The results of experimental work suggest the viability and validity of pedagogical conditions of humanitarian high school students’ readiness for intercultural communication formation

Optical observations of "hot" novae returning to quiescence

We have monitored the return to quiescence of novae previously observed in outburst as supersoft X-ray sources, with optical photometry of the intermediate polar (IP) V4743 Sgr and candidate IP V2491 Cyg, and optical spectroscopy of these two and seven other systems. Our sample includes classical and recurrent novae, short period (few hours), intermediate period (1-2 days) and long period (symbiotic) binaries. The light curves of V4743 Sgr and V2491 Cyg present clear periodic modulations. For V4743 Sgr, the modulation occurs with the beat of the rotational and orbital periods. If the period measured for V2491 Cyg is also the beat of these two periods, the orbital one should be almost 17 hours. The recurrent nova T Pyx already shows fragmentation of the nebular shell less than 3 years after the outburst. While this nova still had strong [OIII] at this post-outburst epoch, these lines had already faded after 3 to 7 years in all the others. We did not find any difference in the ratio of equivalent widths of high ionization/excitation lines to that of the Hbeta line in novae with short and long orbital period, indicating that irradiation does not trigger high mass transfer rate from secondaries with small orbital separation. An important difference between the spectra of RS Oph and V3890 Sgr and those of many symbiotic persistent supersoft sources is the absence of forbidden coronal lines. With the X-rays turn-off, we interpret this as an indication that mass transfer in symbiotics recurrent novae is intermittent.Comment: In press in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Contribution of the Missionary Historic and Ethnographical Museum of the Kazan Spiritual Academy

The urgency of the problem under study is conditioned by the increased interest of contemporary researchers in the problems of interethnic and interconfessional interaction. In the second half of the XIXth - early XXth centuries a major religious and educational, missionary and ethnic-political institution in Russia, the Kazan Theological Academy was one of the leading centers for studying the history, culture, ethnography and the languages of Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Mongolian peoples. The purpose of the study is to present objectively the contribution of the Missionary Historical Ethnographic Museum of the Kazan Theological Academy to the study and the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the Russian state peoples. The museum extensive collections became the basis for modern museums. During the study, the experience of the creation and the functioning of the only missionary historical and ethnographic museum in Russia was analyzed, its contribution to the preservation of spiritual and material culture, written and printed sources, the informative base about the life and work of the multinational and multi-confessional people of the Volga, Urals, Siberia and the Far East was determined. Based on archival materials, the authors revealed the features of the museum activity at the Kazan Theological Academy. In the course of the topic research, the authors succeeded to identify and collect a huge amount of diverse materials (historical, linguistic, ethnographic ones) about the peoples of Russia, which are of great practical importance for the study of modern interethnic and interfaith relations origins in the Republic of Tatarstan and Russian Federation. The materials of the article can be useful to anyone who is interested in missionary politics and modern ethnic-political processes in Russian Federation.peer-reviewe

Two New LBV Candidates in the M33 Galaxy

We present two new luminous blue variable (LBV) candidate stars discovered in the M33 galaxy. We identified these stars (Valeev et al. 2010) as massive star candidates at the final stages of evolution, presumably with a notable interstellar extinction. The candidates were selected from the Massey et al. (2006) catalog based on the following criteria: emission in Halpha, V<18.5 and 0.35<(B-V)<1.2. The spectra of both stars reveal a broad and strong Halpha emission with extended wings (770 and 1000 km/s). Based on the spectra we estimated the main parameters of the stars. Object N45901 has a bolometric luminosity log(L/Lsun)=6.0-6.2 with the value of interstellar extinction Av=2.3+-0.1. The temperature of the star's photosphere is estimated as Tstar~13000-15000K its probable mass on the Zero Age Main Sequence is M~60-80Msun. The infrared excess in N45901 corresponds to the emission of warm dust with the temperature Twarm~1000K, and amounts to 0.1% of the bolometric luminosity. A comparison of stellar magnitude estimates from different catalogs points to the probable variability of the object N45901. Bolometric luminosity of the second object, N125093, is log(L/Lsun)=6.3-6.6, the value of interstellar extinction is Av=2.75+-0.15. We estimate its photosphere's temperature as Tstar~13000-16000K, the initial mass as M~90-120Msun. The infrared excess in N125093 amounts to 5-6% of the bolometric luminosity. Its spectral energy distribution reveals two thermal components with the temperatures Twarm~1000K and Tcold~480K. The [CaII] lines (7291A and 7323A), observed in LBV-like stars VarA and N93351 in M33, are also present in the spectrum of N125093. These lines indicate relatively recent gas eruptions and dust activity linked with them. High bolometric luminosity of these stars and broad Halpha emissions allow classifying the studied objects as LBV candidates.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure