Abstract: This article focuses on the reporting materials compiled by ethnographers working at the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR who in the 1980s participated in expeditions to the Republic of Uzbekistan. They set themselves the goal not only to collect information or artefacts valuable for studying the cultural history of particular region, but also to explore the transformation of national identity, that was a consequence of linguistic, cultural and economic integration of the ethnicities inhabiting Uzbekistan.
After many years of expeditions the collections of the Russian Ethnographic Museum were replenished with valuable and unique objects. The article pays attention to corporeal, illustrative, and reporting materials that attest to traditions and innovations in the material culture of modern Uzbekistan, as well as interethnic relations.
The authors adhered to the methodological principles of historical anthropology, which focus on the evolution and diversity of societies and social relations.
The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, based on the study of sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the authors came to the conclusion that the expeditions not only contributed to the preservation of the material culture of the region under study, but also recorded the difficulties in interethnic relations long before they became part of the official discourse of national policy in the USSR.
The national-territorial demarcation carried out by the Soviet government in Central Asia in 1924 took place, for the most part, not in accordance with the ethnicity of the peoples living in the territory, but according to ideological and economic parameters. Consequently such a significant event, regardless of its overall effect, created the preconditions for interethnic problems, which were indicated in the named reports.

Abstract: This article examines the competition for the Arctic territories between the polar regions that unfolded in the 1920s, which required active development of these lands involving airplanes and airships. At that point, of primary import was the layout of trans-Arctic airways and deployment of flight support facilities in the Arctic territories, with the accompanying use of aviation for ice reconnaissance and rescue expeditions. Special attention is given to the study of the Soviet and international experience in elaboration and implementation of programs on the military and economic development of northern territories. The topic of consistent development of the Arctic involving aviation and aerostatics is reflected not only in scientific and economic programs, but also in state propaganda, publicistic writing and literary works. The novelty of this research consists in the comprehensive approach towards the problems of involving aviation in the Soviet Union during the 1920s for the development of the Arctic, and simultaneously, building the military capacity of the state, and collective perception of the ideas of the development of Arctic territories and aviation. The conclusion is made that the processes of development of polar aviation and division of Arctic territories were the so-called catalyst for each other, which by the early 1930s allowed the Soviet Union to consolidate its position of in the Arctic. The authors’ special contribution lies in examination of various genres of the press as a particular group of sources that had an ideological influence upon public consciousness.