by Acad. Vyacheslav MOLODIN, Deputy Director for scientific work of RAS Institute of Archeology and Ethnography Siberian Branch The peculiarities of the Paleolithic Age, New Stone Age, the Bronze and Iron ages, the Middle Ages, as well as modern ethno-cultural processes in Western and Eastern Siberia, the Far East, Northern Caucasia, countries of the Central Asia, Mongolia, Iran-that is time coverage and geography of expeditions which are regularly organized by the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the RAS, Siberian Branch. Today it is one of the leading institutes not only in our country but in the whole world. PLUS HUMANITIES Now it is difficult to imagine that when setting up the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the institutes pertaining to the humanities were not supposed to be established in its structure. However, already at the end of the 1950s this viewpoint was revised. In 1961, organizer and chairman of the Branch Academician Mikhail Lavrentiev invited from Leningrad outstanding archeologist, historian and ethnographer Alexey Okladnikov (academician since 1968) to work in Novosibirsk who headed here a department of humanitarian researches of the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He had to start literally from scratch solving, above all, the problem of engaging personnel. It was this department that served as a basis to organize in 1966 the Institute of History, Philology and Philosophy. Philologist and ethnographer Valentin Avrorin (a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1964) and philosopher Gennady Svechnikov (a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1970) took part in its establishment together with Okladnikov who was appointed its first director. Both the outstanding, well-known scientists and those who were still to become leaders in specialized units of the Institute worked un ... Read more