DOI 10.3792/3033-6015-2025-3-7-9
THE TRANSBOUNDARY REGION OF RUSSIA AND INNER ASIA:
POLITICAL ECONOMIC SPECIFICS AND CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
THE TRANSBOUNDARY REGION OF RUSSIA AND INNER ASIA:
POLITICAL ECONOMIC SPECIFICS AND CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
In the third issue of our journal, using examples of various local zones of the transboundary region, both the distinctive features of this space, manifested in economics and politics, and the universal properties of human culture are illustrated.
In the section «Economics. Infrastructure and Institutions: Factors of Territorial Development,» the first two articles are devoted to the study of infrastructural factors of economic development. In the work of S. N. Naiden and O. V. Demina, a comparative analysis of the electric power system of the Republic of Buryatia and the Trans-Baikal Territory is conducted. The authors examine the results and consequences of the liberalization of this complex, assess the purchasing power of household incomes, and substantiate the possibility of implementing investment programs in the electric power industry at the expense of consumers only with active state participation. The topic raised in the article is extremely relevant and topical. And we cannot resist the following comment: electricity supply in these territories has a pronounced socially significant character, which should raise the question of limiting classical market mechanisms in pricing and supplying electricity to the population. And the success and effectiveness of modernizing the electric power infrastructure here depend on the positions of the state and large system-forming production enterprises, primarily on the resource-supplying organizations themselves. Without serious investment programs from these two actors and without strict state control, there can be no talk of building a modern competitive energy complex.
The article by E. Yu. Piskunov is devoted to the study of transport accessibility of district centers in Buryatia, which is done by averaging the distances from settlements of the district to their administrative center. The study of these spatial characteristics is of key importance in the analysis and modeling of the socio-economic development of the region. For Buryatia, this is due to a number of factors related to the geographical, demographic, and ecological features of the territory.
In addition to infrastructural factors, an important prerequisite for creating and maintaining a successful economy is the presence of an appropriate institutional environment that would promote innovation, the creation and implementation of new successful business projects. The article by D. Z. Ubonova analyzes the activities of development institutions in the Republic of Buryatia, the mechanisms of their influence on the socio-economic development of the region, and the key areas of work of federal and regional development institutions. The author concludes that the system of support for small and medium-sized enterprises demonstrates certain disproportions in the formation of individual areas. Overall, the observed trends indicate a stable system of business support in the region.
The authors of the section «Sociology. Civil Society and Local Self-Government: Specifics of Inner Asia» focus more on the political specifics of social development in transboundary regions.
Our Mongolian colleagues O. Khatnbold and B. Purevsuren, in the article «The Effects and Factors of Civil Society in the Development of Mongolian Democracy,» discuss the problems and limitations in the development of the «classical» democratic model. In all likelihood, the civilizational and cultural specifics of Mongolia are one of those constraints that push civil society and its institutions to develop their own non-trivial path of political development.
The article by E. V. Petrova is devoted to the analysis of various models of municipal governance in the subjects of the Baikal region. The author identifies five such models, traces the evolution of each, and comes to the following main conclusion: there has been a unification of forms of exercising municipal power in the Irkutsk Region, the Republic of Buryatia, and the Trans-Baikal Territory. The abandonment of direct elections in large cities and capitals of the subjects, the abolition of the position of city manager, borrowed from the practice of municipalities in Western countries, and the orientation towards a single-level system of local self-government – all this, in essence, means strengthening the vertical of power, including at the level of municipalities. And this also indicates that the forms of «classical democracy» are undergoing a noticeable transformation in the context of the specifics of the transboundary region, and each individual part of this space develops its own special variants of political self-organization.
If economists and sociologists have emphasized the uniqueness and specificity of their research objects, the block «Ethnology. The Spiritualization of Matter: How Ethnic Culture Fills Things with Sacredness and Symbolism,» on the contrary, places unique cultural phenomena within a broader general context of the functioning of ethnic traditions.
In the article by K. M. Yakovleva and A. N. Prokopyeva, the emphasis is on a meticulous analysis of the traditions of Yakut jewelry craftsmanship. Detailed descriptions, comparisons, and typologization of jewelry as objects of material culture are accompanied by historical and cultural excursions and a study of their evolution. At the same time, this classic ethnographic analysis allows the authors to go beyond purely material and pragmatic instrumentalism and raise the question of modern trends in the development of jewelry craftsmanship, highlighting the role of traditional Yakut jewelry in preserving the ethnic expression and cultural identity of the Yakuts.
The work of D. B. Batoeva is devoted to the peculiarities of the formation of traditional clothing of the Mongolian peoples, which resulted from Manchu-Mongolian cultural interactions. The author concludes that historical borrowings are multi-vector in nature and that traditional costume is of great importance as a living element of cultural identity in modern society.
In the modern context, when traditional costume is increasingly used as an element of representation—in festivals, reconstructions, museum exhibitions, and designer interpretations—this element of material culture becomes an effective mechanism for maintaining and reproducing ethnic group self-awareness.
Finally, the text by M. S. Mikhalev is entirely focused on studying the processes of sacralization of material objects and the subsequent conversion of their significance into the realm of public consciousness and politics. The article attempts to analyze a specific case of using sacred objects, or relics, to legitimize the right to spiritual autonomy in the Okinsky District of the Republic of Buryatia at the beginning of the 21st century. The author argues that relics, like any other material object of ethnic culture, cannot be considered in isolation from the social environment, as they acquire value and become actualized only in a certain historical, cultural, and political context, and their power is derived from their fictional or real biography and the perception of this biography by contemporaries.
Thus, the universal logic of the cultural development of tradition is that any material object created within the framework of ethnic culture becomes an integral part of the spiritual and conscious sphere, and in this capacity, it performs the functions of social structuring and political legitimization of the system of traditional communities.
In the «Trial of the Pen» section, a text by trainee researcher A. A. Mikhalev is published, devoted to the study of such a social group as the self-employed. The author examines the process of legalizing the informal economy, analyzing one of the main mechanisms proposed by the state for this purpose. This mechanism is the social contract, which is a multifunctional tool of state support that facilitates the legalization of economic activity, reduces the level of shadow employment, and improves the living standards of socially vulnerable groups of the population.
The «Scientific Life» section opens with a note by B. Ts. Gomboev about the VI International Ethnocultural Festival of the Barguts «Bargazhin-2025,» held on August 9–10, 2025, in Mongolia. Based on expedition materials, it examines the ethnographic and religious features of the Bargut ethnic group, vividly presented in ritual ceremonies and mass events. By decision of the festival’s organizers and founders, the next festival will be held in Choibalsan, Mongolia, in 2028.
On September 18–19, 2025, the International Scientific Conference «The Buryat Language as a National Treasure» was held at the IMBT SB RAS (Ulan-Ude), dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of one of the leading Russian Mongolists, Doctor of Philology, Professor L. D. Shagdarov (1930–2022) and the 150th anniversary of the creation of the chronicle by Vandan Yumsunov «Qori-yin arban nigen ečige-yin ǰon-u uγ iǰaγur-un tuγuǰi» – «History of the Origin of the People of the Eleven Khori Clans.» The author of the article, L. B. Badmaeva, emphasizes that holding the conference is very relevant in the context of the overall research process. The study and publication of written monuments of the Buryats in Mongolian script are of great importance. Moreover, mastering the monuments of Buryat book culture appears to be one of the important aspects of language policy in the Republic of Buryatia in terms of actualizing the national identity and self-awareness of the Buryats and expanding the social functions of the Buryat language.
In the final article of the issue, B. S. Dugarov provides an overview of the III International Conference «The Epic ‘Geser’ – Spiritual Heritage of the Peoples of Central Asia,» held on October 29 – November 1, 2025, at the IMBT SB RAS. The event served as a creative communication platform for specialists studying the epic traditions of the peoples of Siberia and Central Asia. The conference discussed key issues in epic studies, questions of historical memory, and images of epic heroes in a sociocultural context. The topics of the presentations covered a wide range of issues related to the study of the epic heritage of the peoples of Eurasia from the perspectives of folklore studies, literary criticism, ethnomusicology, ethnology, and religious studies. Issues of the typology and poetics of the Buryat Geseriad in the context of the epic creativity of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples were also addressed. Conference participants agreed that the Geseriad is considered an epic phenomenon and serves as one of the spiritual pillars of the traditional culture of the Buryat people.
In summary, we note that the various themes collected in this issue, focused on the study of economic, socio-political, and cultural aspects of the development of the Inner Asian borderlands, convincingly illustrate the diversity and complexity of this space. Interdisciplinary integration appears to be a very interesting and heuristic way of studying and understanding it.
Sincerely,
Member of the Editorial Board, Candidate of Historical Sciences,
Senior Researcher at IMBT SB RAS
P. K. Varnavsky.
