The Volga Germans, Russian: поволжские немцы, romanized: povolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov and to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain their German culture, language, traditions and churches. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina.
The Yakuts, or the Sakha, are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts of the Krasnoyarsk region. The Yakut language belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages. The Russian word yakut was taken from Evenk yokō. The Yakuts call themselves Sakha, or Urangai Sakha in some old chronicles.
Throughout Russian history famines and droughts have been a common feature, often resulting in humanitarian crises traceable to political or economic instability, poor policy, environmental issues and war. Droughts and famines in the Russian Empire tended to occur fairly regularly, with famine occurring every 10–13 years and droughts every five to seven years. Golubev and Dronin distinguish three types of drought according to productive areas vulnerable to droughts: Central, Southern, and Eastern.
Hippodamia tredecimpunctata, commonly known as the thirteen-spot ladybeetle, is a species of lady beetle.
The Siberian roe deer, eastern roe deer, or Asian roe, is a species of roe deer found in northeastern Asia. In addition to Siberia and Mongolia, it is found in Kazakhstan, the Tian Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan, eastern Tibet, the Korean Peninsula, and northeastern China (Manchuria).
Coccinella septempunctata, the seven-spot ladybird, is the most common ladybird in Europe. Its elytra are of a red colour, but punctuated with three black spots each, with one further spot being spread over the junction of the two, making a total of seven spots, from which the species derives both its common and scientific names.
Rheum is a genus of about 60 herbaceous perennial plants in the family Polygonaceae. Species are native to eastern Europe, southern and eastern temperate Asia, with a few reaching into northern tropical Asia. Rheum is cultivated in Europe and North America. The genus includes the vegetable rhubarb. The species have large somewhat triangular shaped leaves with long, fleshy petioles. The flowers are small, greenish-white to rose-red, and grouped in large compound leafy inflorescences. A number of cultivars of rhubarb have been domesticated both as medicinal plants and for human consumption. While the leaves are slightly toxic, the stalks are used in pies and other foods for their tart flavor.
Yuri Alexeyevich Zuev or Zuyev was a Russian-born Kazakh sinologist and turkologist.
Alexander Nikolaevich Samoylovich was a Russian Orientalist-Turkologist who served as a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929), Rector of the Leningrad Oriental Institute (1922–1925), academic secretary of the Humanities Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929–1933), and director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1934–1937). He was arrested by the NKVD in October 1937, and was executed on 13 February 1938.
Eleocharis parvula is a species of spikesedge known by the common names dwarf spikerush, small spikerush and hairgrass in aquaria. It is a plant of brackish and saltwater habitat, such as marshes and mudflats. It is a perennial herb growing tufts of spongy, compressible stems not more than 10 centimeters tall. The plant grows from a tuber which is J-shaped or horseshoe-shaped, a characteristic that helps in the identification of the species. The inflorescence is an oval-shaped spikelet just 2 or 3 millimeters long, made up of several tiny flowers.
Andrey Aleksandrovich Fedorov was a Soviet Russian biologist, botanist, taxonomist and phytogeographer, who was from 1970 a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He was the brother of the botanist Alexander Fedorov (1906-1982).
Yuri Alexandrovich Orlov — Russian Empire and Soviet zoologist, paleontologist. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Allium obliquum, common name lop-sided onion or twisted-leaf onion, is a Eurasian species of wild onion with a range extending from Romania to Mongolia. It is also widely cultivated elsewhere as an ornamental.
Iris ludwigii, with the common name Ludwig iris, is a species in the genus Iris. It is also in the subgenus Iris subg. Limniris and in the series Spuriae. It is a rhizomatous perennial plant with violet-blue flowers. It is native to the Altai Mountains in Central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan meet. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant in temperate regions.
Iris scariosa is a plant species in the genus Iris, it is also in the subgenus Iris. It is a rhizomatous perennial, from the mountainsides of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. It has sword-like, or sickle shaped, blue green or grey-green leaves, a short flowering stem, 3 or 4 membranous or semi-transparent flower bud leaves, 2 violet, reddish violet, lilac, blue-purple, or blue flowers in late spring, with yellow or white beards. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant in temperate regions. It was merged with another similar iris in the region, and Iris glaucescens became a synonym of Iris scariosa, before being divided into two separate species again. Although some sources still call it the main species, despite a slight colour difference.
Alexei Ivanovich Vvedensky was a Russian botanist.
Mikhail Georgievich Khudyakov – is a Soviet archaeologist, researcher of history and culture of the Volga basin peoples. His main works are on the history of Tatars, Volga Bulgaria, archeology of Kazan..
The Karsakpay inscription is a message carved on April 28, 1391 into a fragment of rock in Ulu Tagh mountainside near the Karsakpay mines, Kazakhstan. It was found in 1935. It consists of three lines in Arabic, and eight lines in Chagatai, written in the Old Uyghur alphabet.
Ekaterina Georgiewna Reineke Czerniakowska (1892–1942) was a Soviet botanist and taxonomist of higher plants.
Alfred Mycolayovych Oxner was a Ukrainian botanist and lichenologist. His research covered various areas: floristics, taxonomy, phylogenetics, phytogeography, and phytosociology. Oxner founded the National Lichenological Herbarium of Ukraine.
