The article describes the rock carvings discovered during the winter expedition of 2024 on the Kan River in the highlands of the Eastern Sayan Mountains. The colorful images of animals, people, and symbols were preliminarily attributed to the Early Bronze Age or the period between the Early Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages. They reflect a symbiosis of various pictorial traditions in depicting scenes of cattle breeding and hunting. The Early Bronze Age images include a mask with teardrop-shaped eyes and a bull in the Minusinsk style, as well as an anthropomorphic figure of the Tas-Khaza type. They belong to the Okunev culture and mark the migration from the steppes to the east that happened 4,000 years ago. The more recent images follow the traditional regional rock art themes, but their style and iconography are more typical of the neighboring territories, e.g., the Middle Yenisei or the Lower Angara. The rock art of the Upper Кan River area marks the ancient communications and ethno-cultural ties between different regions of Siberia. The main trajectories of intercultural contacts went through the eastern tributaries of the Yenisei and the left tributaries of the Angara, as well as across the radial network of the Sayan Mountains. The Eastern Sayan highlands remain understudied as an ancient intercultural hub and require further archaeological research.

The rock art of the Middle Yenisei often depicts shamans with various shamanic attributes. The local shamanism has its roots in the Bronze Age. It influenced the plots and patterns of the Middle Yenisei rock art. The earliest images of shaman figures with shamanic attributes date back to the Tesin period. Shamanic images also appear in the art of the Tashtyk culture. However, it is the shamanic images of the Modern Era that are the most numerous. They show shamans in dynamic poses. The images are either individual or incorporated into complex multi-figure compositions. The shamans are wearing coats decorated with ribbons, long robes or fur coats, and hats trimmed with feathers or adorned with animal / bird ornaments. The shamanic attributes include large or small tambourines depicted as circles divided with vertical lines into two or four parts. Some shamans are holding bows or arrows instead of tambourines, which they probably use to fight evil spirits. A shaman’s wand is the least popular attribute. With three claws on a handle, it resembles a bird’s foot.

Professor Yakov A. Sher (1931–2019), Doctor of History, was a world-famous specialist in prehistoric art. This research relied on the archives of the Institute for Material Culture History, the State Hermitage Museum, and the Kemerovo State University to trace Professor Sher’s career path. Yakov Sher did his postgraduate research at the Institute for Material Culture History, USSR Academy of Sciences. Upon defending his PhD thesis, he obtained a position as Head of Laboratory of Archaeological Technology at the Institute of Archaeology, Leningrad. When he was not re-elected, Yakov Sher had to turn to school pedagogy but did not give up his research. With I. S. Kamenetskiy and B. I. Marshak, he co-authored a profound Analysis of Archaeological Sources (1975). Professor Sher dedicated ten years of his academic career to the Department of Museum Informatics at the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. For more than half a century, he worked at the Department of Archaeology of the Kemerovo State University, where he founded a scientific school of prehistoric art studies.

The rock art of the Minusinsk Basin has a long academic history; however, it still brings about new fascinating discoveries. Some petroglyphs of the Tesin period show people sitting cross-legged on the floor in the so-called Oriental fashion. These images have not yet received special scientific attention. Such images are most often single; they are to be found on such petroglyph sites and mound stones of the Minusinsk Basin as Oglakhty, Kamenka, Togr-Tag, Abakan-Perevoz, Tepsei, etc. The present analysis of their legs made it possible to describe the variability of the sitting posture. Their arms are symmetrically arranged, the hands being devoid of any attributes but for one exception: the cross-legged sitter on a mound stone in Tepsei is holding a snake. Ancient Oriental art has no iconographic patterns for the Snake-Holder. In some cases, the Snake-Holder is depicted kneeling. The Early Iron Age art renders a certain analogy to the Snake-Holder from Tepsei, i.e., the horned deity from the Gundestrup cauldron. The earliest images of an anthropomorphic creature sitting cross-legged on the floor belong to the Neolithic Age (Crete) and Bronze Age (Harappan civilization). The archaeological and ethnographic analysis revealed the polyvariant character of the cross-legged sitter. The images from the Minusinsk petroglyphs demonstrate obvious similarities with the art of the Early Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. Multiple variants of the cross-legged sitter appeared in ancient art of different peoples across the world. However, the similarity hardly indicates borrowing: the universal conditions of human routine and religious practices rendered similar body postures captured in art.

Memorial plaques are a widespread form of perpetuating history. The earliest memorial plaques appeared in Russia in the XIX century. Their popularity peaked in the second half of the XX century, and they retain their relevance to this day. The article describes the general trends and approaches to the installation and study of memorial plaques in the Russian Empire, the USSR, and the Russian Federation. The first national legislation and cataloguing of memorial plaques started in the Soviet period. Nowadays, memorial plaques are a subject of interdisciplinary research. The comparative analysis relied on the following criteria: installation details, functional characteristics, protection, social attitude, academic interest, etc. The analysis revealed general and special characteristics of memorial plaques throughout Russian history. The author focused on the memorial plaques installed in the Kemerovo Region by the regional All-Russian Voluntary Society for the Protection of Cultural and Historical Monuments.

The article describes the recent Russian historiography (2010s – early 2020s) on the anti-cosmopolitan campaign launched by the Soviet authorities in 1949–1953. The research relied on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The authors used the methods of comparative-historical and problem-chronological research, retrospective and prospective analyses, and periodization to identify the research areas that keep attracting modern Russian historians. The latter seem to pursue the following problems and topics: the authorities vs. the Soviet intelligentsia; the Doctors’ Plot (1953); the state policy against Jewish communities; the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in provincial regions. The relationship between the authorities and the Soviet intelligentsia proved to be the most popular topic. The authors identified the main approaches that modern Russian historians applied to this topic. In addition, they compared the most recent Russian historiography with earlier research data to identify the topics that still maintain their debatable nature. Modern historians seem to focus on the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in peripheral Soviet regions. Apparently, the ethnic regions of the RSFSR interpreted the campaign in their own ways. The regional specifics of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign still need comprehensive research. Another promising direction is represented by biographical reconstructions of the repressed Soviet intelligentsia.

Pentecostalism is one of the world’s most numerous branches of Protestantism. It emerged in the United States in 1906 and began to spread to the USSR in the 1920s. Pentecostalism presupposes baptism of the Holy Spirit and miracles in the mundane. At the time of the collapse of the USSR, Pentecostalism was less popular in Russia than in Ukraine and Belarus. As a result of the long isolation, most Russian Pentecostal churches maintained the religious culture that had not changed since the 1950s. They embraced foreign missionaries in the early 1990s in an attempt to catch up with the social changes. The centralization of Russian Pentecostals was brought about by the changes in religious legislation. New congregations had to join larger congregations to get an official registration. Classical Pentecostals united into the Russian Church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith, and the charismatic churches united into the Russian Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith; both became independent from international organizations. Unregistered churches retained their supranational character: the United Church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith included communities throughout the post-Soviet space. In the 2000s, Pentecostal churches launched a lot of social projects, primarily in the field of rehabilitation. They had more rehabilitation centers for alcoholics and drug addicts than the Russian Orthodox Church. The number of Pentecostals grew 13 times in 30 years, reaching 280,000 adult members. The rapid growth could be explained by the active social activities and the belief in miracles. In addition, Pentecostals have always been active missionaries: they see it as their mission to convert relatives and friends to their faith. The main factors hindering the development of Pentecostalism in Russia are the social secularization and the strong link between Orthodoxy and the national identity. As a result, children of Pentecostal parents are the main source of replenishment for Pentecostal congregations, which is a serious obstacle for the spread of Pentecostalism in Russia.

The mentality of Russian peasants underwent a fundamental transformation during the late collectivization. These changes were reflected in reports made by students of the Moscow All-Union Communist Agricultural University in 1934–1936 during their annual summer practices on collective and state farms or in tractor depots of Central Russia. The documents demonstrated a great information potential as a source on the Soviet rural history in the period of turbulent social transformations. The theoretical part of the research relied on the historical and anthropological approach that focuses on the human dimension in the history of social development. The empirical part included several dozen reports stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The students’ reports described anti-technical and anti-machine sentiments in rural workers, who demonstrated a general reactionary attitude to Soviet culture. Collective farmers were only superficially familiar with the new approaches to organized farming labor. As a result, they gave their own meanings and interpretations to the new concepts. Farmers in retrogressive collective farms mistrusted machine technology. They lacked the necessary skills to use machines and were not aware of their benefits. It took new values and skills a long time to take root in the peasant environment: the new worldview coexisted with the old morals and habits, which endured the blunt propaganda and administrative pressure. The resulting clash of rural and urban attitudes illuminated the gap between the traditions and the revolutionary ideology. These findings expand the scientific ideas about the everyday life, customs, and worldview of Russian peasants during the early years of Socialism.

In the current geopolitical situation, the Russian Federation needs a scientifically optimal strategy to achieve a technological sovereignty, which has become a factor of national security. This research relied on newly-declassified archival documents that describe governmental decisions made in the second half of the 1960s on the Ryad computer complex. The research objective was to explain the technological backwardness of the USSR in the field of computer technology. The theory of modernization made it possible to conclude that the Ryad project was slowed down due to poor technical documentation, element base, mathematical support, and allocations, not to mention the insufficient production facilities and slow construction. The project turned out to be much less effective than expected and failed to bridge the technological gap. The Soviet authorities chose to copy American samples at the expense of the domestic R&D. As a result, Soviet computing centers accumulated computers that were based on borrowed technologies, and the domestic computer manufacturing never became a catalyst for structural adjustment. It happened as a result of poor planning and management, as well as the priorities of the contemporary economic policy. The defense and civil sectors had no proper interaction while the immediate interests of ministries dominated over long-term prospects. Soviet enterprises did not invest in modernization, and the government ignored the recommendations of leading scientists.

The article offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of digitalization in the sphere of fossil fuel business between XX and XXI centuries. This economic sector has always resisted changes, which makes the research relevant both scientifically and technologically. The authors applied the theory of modernization to analyze the key forms and methods of digitalization as part of the innovative movement in the Russian economy that took place in the early 2000s. The comparative analysis made it possible to identify the patterns behind the economic, scientific, and technical development model, including individual segments and industries. The research revealed the causes and factors that guided the processes of automation, informatization, and computerization in the domestic fuel and energy complex, also in the intersectoral context. The analysis made it possible to describe the role of the state and the business in this process. The digitalization was more active in informatization and computerization. As the scientific and technological leadership passed on from the gas industry to the oil industry, the coal mining failed to achieve technological parity by 2010. The extensive methods of implementing digital solutions, which prevailed in the 1990s and early 2000s, gave way to intensive ones. It took fuel and energy enterprises 20 years to shift from occasional automation, informatization, and computerization to a comprehensive digital transformation. The latter resulted in innovative products in other industries. As Russia’s energy security strengthened, the digital support grew more and more dependent on foreign software and hardware.

In 1933, Kuzbass entered the national passport system project to become one of its leaders in Western Siberia. Modernization proceeded here at an accelerated rate and had a pronounced industrial character. The article describes the passport system campaign in the so-called closed cities of Kuzbass in 1933. The list included young industrial centres of all-union significance, e.g., Stalinsk, Prokopievsk, Leninsk-Kuznetsk, and AnzheroSudzhensk. On the one hand, the passport system was a national project; on the other hand, it was a mobilization and repressive campaign. The author identified the features of the nationwide policy in the field of registration and passportization and characterized its dynamics in Siberia in 1932–1940. The essence of the passport regime and its structural elements, including passport restrictions, was defined by correlating the statuses of passported and non-passported communities. The analysis of the regional passport system policy revealed the mechanism of introducing a nationwide system of administrative registration, bureaucracy practices, and repressive measures in a region with a rapid migration and urbanization. A set of archival materials on militia activities made it possible to describe the goals and mechanisms of introducing of the passport system, as well as to identify its regional specifics, quantitative parameters, and public response. The documents were obtained from the State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region, collection of the West Siberian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1933, the passported population was 214,000 people; more than 27,000 people left the cities; 4,189 people were deported.

The first local organs of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks appeared in the Tomsk Province on various territorial levels after Kolchak’s troops had left it. As Soviet power returned to the region, the underground Bolsheviks and Red Army representatives started to organize communist meetings to elect party bureaus and committees. They were temporary party organs that functioned until party conferences could officially be held in accordance with the Charter of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The Tomsk provincial committee was the largest one: it participated in the life of smaller, district committees by selecting party candidates. The lower level included local committees, which either had the power of district committees or were subordinate to them. The local committees could be urban or rural. The volost party committees were subordinate to the district committees or local committees. They were formed through election by the peasant population at volost party conferences and congresses. If the political and socio-economic situation made it impossible to organize elections, the volost committees were appointed by the local committees or district committees. The cells were the bottom link in the party hierarchy. They were formed at general meetings of members and candidates for party membership and approved by the district party committees. The rural cells could be organized by the peasant population or appointed by the political workers of military units and instructors of higher party organs. The development of local organs of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the Tomsk province was complicated by the constant lack of party workers. Severe staff shortages were typical of all party organizations in the province at all levels and had a negative impact on the party work. Attempts by the provincial committee to resolve the situation were futile. As a result of the personnel problem, Novonikolaevsk and Tomsk were the only urban settlements with their own urban party committees in the province.

The article describes the way the population of the Kemerovo Region responded to the death of Joseph Stalin at mourning events as a projection of the Soviet myth. The author studied verbal and non-verbal reactions to identify the main concepts and patterns used by the local people to describe their psycho-emotional and mental state after receiving the news of Stalin’s death. The content and discourse analyses revealed the following verbal reactions: "shared loss" and "personal grief"; Stalin as a father figure, personifying the paternalistic attitude of the Soviet state towards its citizens; a connection between Stalin and the achievements of the entire country; appeals to citizens to strengthen production and political activity, to support the government; "immortality" of Stalin, his system, and Soviet achievements, and the "eternal significance" of his ideas. The non-verbal reactions included a total mobilization of political and production activities to consolidate people around the party and state institutions. In general, people’s response to Stalin’s death could be reduced to a reproduction of certain patterns that reflected the main ideologemes of the Soviet myth.

Well-organized relations between the authorities and the population provide prompt feedback on the effectiveness of state reforms. The so-called letters to the authorities were a means of obtaining feedback from the population in the USSR. The author analyzed the archival letters to the authorities sent by the rural population of the Altai Region during the administrative and territorial reform of 1962–1966. The research objective was to reveal the strategies, tactics, and forms of interaction between the rural population and the authorities. The materials from the State Archive of the Altai Region included letters to the authorities and legal documents received by the regional executive committee, which were directly related to the reform in question. The rural population turned to two main strategies to solve the problems caused by the new administrative and territorial division: 1) they tried to achieve a complete restoration of the liquidated district; 2) they attempted to transfer their village to the subordination of the neighboring district. The senders adhered to passive or active tactics but failed in all their attempts to restore their districts. The strategy of transferring villages, village councils, collective farms, or state farms to the subordination of an adjacent district or region proved to be more successful in terms of logistics and management. To resolve the transfer issues, the regional authorities used an established decision-making pattern, in which they were not limited by the necessity to merge the districts, imposed by the central authorities.

The article describes the policy on Afghanistan conducted by Germany during its temporary membership in the UN Security Council in 1995–1996. As a permanent member of the Security Council, the Russian Federation was responsible for global peace and security, Sergei V. Lavrov being the Russian ambassador to the UN during the period under consideration. Based on archival and previously unpublished documents, the authors identified the key parameters, characteristics, and trends of the Afghan vector in Germany’s policy in the UN system. They relied on the principles of historicism and objectivity, as well as on Clive Archer’s role concept of international organizations. Germany’s activities in the Security Council revealed the duality of its foreign policy regarding the conflict in Afghanistan. After several decades of post-war diplomatic efforts to regain political influence, Germany opposed the crucial role of the Security Council on the Afghan issue. It focused on the General Assembly in an attempt to support Norbert Hall, who was the German Special Envoy in Afghanistan and the Head of the UNSMA mission, which was initiated by the UN General Assembly. As a result, Germany tried to minimize the role of the Security Council in Afghanistan in favor of the General Assembly.

The religious and political reforms of the early Yamato period remain largely understudied in Russian historical science. This article describes the cult standardization and the changes of the Miwa high priesthood that took place during the reign of Emperor Sūjin, also known as Emperor Mimaki (Sujin, 324–331 AD [corrected chronology]). The High Priestess of the Miwa shrine was substituted by High Priest Ō-tata-neko (ancient Jap. Opo-tata-neko); the High Priestess of the Yamato patron god Yamato-no kunitama was replaced by Ichishi-no Nagaochi (ancient Jap. Nagawochi) in the Yamato-no kunitama-no jinja shrine. The research included detailed genealogical information about the family tree of Ichishi-no Nagaochi and Ō-tata-neko, as well as about the descendants of Ō-tata-neko. Ichishi-no Nagaochi belonged to the Yamato-no kuni-no miyatsuko clan of Yamato governors, who descended from the youngest son of Toyotama-hiko of Toyotama, the Tsushima islands. The name of the latter was Furu-tama-no Mikoto, and he belonged to the Azuma-no muraji clan of priests of the sea god Watatsumi, who were maternal relatives of the founder of the Yamato dynasty, i.e., Emperor Jimmu (301–316 AD [corrected chronology]). Ō-tata-neko was a relative of Jimmu’s second wife Isuzu-hime, who came from a family of Koto-shiro-nushi priestesses (possibly a branch of the family of Ō-mono-nushi priestesses): he was a great-grandson of her older brother Ama-hikata-kushi-hikata. The noble lineage gave Ō-tata-neko the opportunity to compete for supremacy in the Ō-mono-nushi cult with princess Yamato-totohi-momoso-bime, the daughter of Emperor Kōrei. As a result, the Priestess Princess was replaced by a High Priest. The article also described the process of territorial arrangement of Shintō shrines in the newly united Yamato state.