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As it is known, the ethnological tourism is based on the interest of the public to the traditions of different peoples, mainly aboriginal ones, with their culture, customs and traditions and folk art. As far as Russia is a multiethnic and multicultural country, the possibilities for the ethnical tourism in Russia are very wide. The Finno-Ugric peoples have kept their folklore, crafts and languages. The aboriginal peoples of Gorny Altai have saved their traditional lifestyle and house holding, the Buryats, living near the Baikal Lake keep up the traditions of the ancient spiritual culture of shamanism.
Leningrad Region
The Indigenous Peoples of the Finno-Ugric group live on the territory of the Leningrad Region. They had lived here before the Slavs came in the 7th century. There are the Ingrians, Finns, Livonians, the Karelians, the Votes, the Vepses and some others. Their traditional culture of these ethnic groups is being revived. The enthusiasts created the centres of the folk art and crafts of such nations as the Vepses, Votes and Ingrians. Museums of regional studies open the ethnographic expositions. The historical and folklore festivals are carried out for the popularization of their traditional culture. Such crafts as weaving, patchwork, woodwork, webbed belts and birchbark craft are being revived.
The traditional puppet show functions by the Veps Cultural Centre (Podporozhsky district, Vinnitsy settlement). The Veps language is being explored on its base.
The Local Studies Museum of Yalkala (Byborgsky district, Ilyichevo settlement) is focused on the history of Karelian Isthmus Ingenious peoples.
The Museums of the Votes and Ingrian culture (Kingisepp district, settlements Vistino and Luzhitsy) are reviving the customs and culture of these peoples. There is a club by the museum of the Ingrian culture, where the festivals are carried out and the languages of the ingenious peoples are being studied and learned.
The Inkerin Liitto community concerns itself with the culture and traditions of the Ingrian Finns.
Gorny Althai
Gorny Althai is a mountainous district in the Althai Republic. As far as the peoples of the region have survived the traditional lifestyle, it provides wide possibilities for the ethnographical tourism. Here you can see live five-walled houses of the Russian Old Believers, immigrated here in the 17th century, felt yourts of the nomad peoples and many other interesting and exotic things. Moreover, the shaman traditions of the Ingenious Peoples are being actively revived last time, and the new Althai religion of Burkhanism. If you are interested in the traditional culture of the Althai peoples, you should visit the settlement of Mendur-Sokkon, where I. Shadoev lives, an enthusiast, who has created the unique museum on this theme in Mendur-Sokkon. The tour operators offer various tours, mainly the riding ones, which let the tourists not only to learn something new about the aboriginal peoples, but to try to feel like they do.
Baikal and Buryatia
Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and the largest reservoir of the fresh water in the world. Different peoples gave different names to it, but all of them mean “large, as an ocean”. The peoples, living here, for example, the Buryats (the word Baikal has the Buryat origin), worship the Master of the Lake. Although the Buriats do not live next to Baikal now, every year they come there and carry out a rite in honor of Ukha Lusan, the master of the lake.
The tourists are welcome in the Ethnographical open-air museum of the Transbaikalia peoples (not far from Ulan-Ude), the Museum of Buryatia history with the exhibition of the Buddhists traditional art (the Buryats profess Buddhism as well).
All in all, there are many different possibilities for the ethnographic tourism in Russia, and only some of them were mentioned here.
Book Classic Trans Siberian Tour
Yulia Buzykina
Sources:
www.lentravel.ru
www.altaitravel.ru
www.extremal.ru
www.morintour.com
