Russias Regional Museums

This book presents the results of extensive research into the very interesting phenomenon of local museums—kraevedschskyi museums—in Russia’s regions. It outlines how numerous such museums are, how long they have existed, what they display, and how this has changed, or not, from Soviet times up to the present. It shows how the museums’ displays often are about nature, history, and society. It goes on to discuss how what is portrayed represents particular interpretations of knowledge— including the heroism of the Soviet past, a colonial-style view of Russia’s very many non-Russian people, and the failure to mention things which might present Russia in a critical way. The book is much more than ‘museum studies’: it sheds a great deal of light on how Russians think about themselves and about how this self-view is fostered, and it also highlights the vast regional differences which exist in Russia.

Now available in PDF format. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Russia, a new title in the award-winning DK Eyewitness Travel guidebook series, showcases the best of this diverse country, from the majestic cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg to the sandy beaches of the Baltic Coast and from the lush Volga delta to the snow-capped Caucasus Mountains. Using unique illustrated maps and 3-D cutaway drawings of key locations, travelers can discover the grandeur of the Kremlin, the Palace Embankment in St. Petersburg, and the historic sights in the Olympic city of Sochi-nearly 100 illustrations in all. Throughout, special features illuminate Russia's history and cultural heritage, local cuisine, and experiences sure to last a lifetime, like where to watch the world-famous Russian Ballet. Full-color maps, city plans, and thematic tours and walks enable travelers to explore the country region-by-region, as well as when traveling in the main cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Hotel and restaurant listings include DK Choice recommendations, and the practical trip-planning section covers visa information, air and train travel, when to go to Russia, and so much more. With hundreds of full-color photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, and custom maps that illuminate every page, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Russia truly shows you this country as no other guidebook can.

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Russia will lead you straight to the best attractions this diverse country has to offer. From the majestic cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg to the sandy beaches of the Baltic Coast and from the lush Volga Delta to the snowcapped Caucasus Mountains, explore the largest country in Europe. Experience the grandeur of the Kremlin, the Palace Embankment in St. Petersburg, and the historic sights in the Olympic city of Sochi, immerse yourself in the flavors of the local cuisine, and don't miss out on the world-famous Russian Ballet. Discover DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Russia. + Detailed itineraries and "don't-miss" destination highlights at a glance. + Illustrated cutaway 3-D drawings of important sights. + Floor plans and guided visitor information for major museums. + Guided walking tours, local drink and dining specialties to try, things to do, and places to eat, drink, and shop by area. + Area maps marked with sights. + Detailed city maps each include a street finder index for easy navigation. + Insights into history and culture to help you understand the stories behind the sights. + Hotel and restaurant listings highlight DK Choice special recommendations With hundreds of full-color photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, and custom maps that illuminate every page, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Russia truly shows you what others only tell you.

Contemporary Russia is often viewed as a centralised regime based in Moscow, with dependent provinces, made subservient by Putin’s policies limiting regional autonomy. This book, however, demonstrates that beyond this largely political view, by looking at Russia’s regions more in cultural and social terms, a quite different picture emerges, of a Russia rich in variety, with different regional identities, cultures, traditions and memories. The book explores how identities are formed and rethought in contemporary Russia, and outlines the nature of particular regional identities, from Siberia and the Urals to southern Russia, from the Russian heartland to the non-Russian republics.

A pioneering history of medical care in Stalin's Gulag--showing how doctors and nurses cared for inmates in appalling conditions A byword for injustice, suffering, and mass mortality, the Gulag exploited prisoners, compelling them to work harder for better rations in shocking conditions. From 1930 to 1953, eighteen million people passed through this penal-industrial empire. Many inmates, not reaching their quotas, succumbed to exhaustion, emaciation, and illness. It seems paradoxical that any medical care was available in the camps. But it was in fact ubiquitous. By 1939 the Gulag Sanitary Department employed 10,000 doctors, nurses and paramedics--about 40 percent of whom were prisoners. Dan Healey explores the lives of the medical staff who treated inmates in the Gulag. Doctors and nurses faced extremes of repression, supply shortages, and isolation. Yet they still created hospitals, re-fed prisoners, treated diseases, and "saved" a proportion of their patients. They taught apprentices and conducted research too. This groundbreaking account offers an unprecedented view of Stalin's forced-labour camps as experienced by its medical staff.

The main objective of the book is to allocate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to the official Russian hero-orientated concept of remembering the Second World war with almost no attention to the memory of war victims, including Holocaust victims. North Caucasus became the last address of thousands of Soviet Jews, both evacuees and locals. While there was almost no attention paid to the Holocaust victims in the official Soviet propaganda in the postwar period, local activists and historians together with the members of Jewish communities preserved Holocaust memory by installing small obelisks at the killing sites, writing novels and making documentaries, teaching about the Holocaust at schools and making small thematic exhibitions in the local and school museums. Individual types of grass roots activities in the region on remembering Holocaust victims are analyzed in each chapter of the book.