According to the 1989 census, Kazakhs, who for the most part lived in rural areas, made up only 40 % of the inhabitants of the Kazakh SSR. The majority of the population, especially in cities, was Russian. The stage of destruction of the Soviet multi-ethnic demographic system occurred in the 1990s. By the end of the decade, the ethnic composition of Kazakhstan changed significantly compared to 1989: the majority of the population was Kazakhs, whose demographic behavior was largely determined by the traditional family values they preserved, including the view on the ideal number of children. These ideas received full support from the state and became an important part of the republic’s development strategy. The concepts of “high birth rate,” “large family” were perceived as a socio-cultural property, outside the socio-economic context. High rates of natural growth were also due to the process of ethnic change in reproductively active populations. However, the demographic indicators that have developed at this stage are not a trend that can determine the situation in the long term. Currently, the potential of the ethnic change effect has actually been exhausted, the demographic dynamics are almost completely determined by the Kazakhs. It is unclear how the demographic system will operate while the society is becoming mono-ethnic. The authors believe that mono-ethnicity will quickly lead to a decrease in reproduction rates, primarily in fertility. Demographic processes are increasingly clearly determined by the generation of Kazakh youth born and socialized in the cities of Kazakhstan.
The article looks into the specifics of Saudi Arabia's political course towards Yemen. The task was set to present the official Saudi point of view on how this policy was built, what goals it pursued, and what main factors influenced it. In the introduction, the author presents ideas of Saudi scholars about the significance of Yemen for Saudi Arabia. The article examines Saudi policy during the civil war in Yemen and over the period when active fighting was terminated, but the fight between different political powers continued. The author focused on the period from 2015 to 2025, when Saudi policy was intensified and various methods were used to implement it. In 2015, the Saudi Kingdom began a military operation in Yemen. The use of military force, as follows from the official Saudi discourse, was legitimate on the grounds that the legally elected Yemeni government asked the Saudi Kingdom to provide military support to maintain its power. The failure of the military operation forced the Saudi political establishment to return to the use of political and diplomatic methods. The author paid attention to the complications in Saudi – Emirates relations, whose policies in Yemen were aimed at divergent goals. The Saudi state has also intensified the use of a traditional instrument of its foreign policy – providing economic and humanitarian assistance to Yemen. The article provides a detailed description of how the volume of assistance changed its forms and directions.
The article examines Russian “civilizing mission” concepts in Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the lens of four key experts: V. Grigor’ev, N. Petrovsky, V. Nalivkin, and N. Ostroumov. The aim of the study is a comparative analysis of the views of these four imperial experts, whose writings represent distinct and influential voices within the civilizing discourse of Russian Turkestan. The methodology includes contextualizing their texts (letters, memoranda, and journalistic writings produced between 1867 and 1916) as they appeared in the Imperial press and in archival collections. The article’s contribution lies in presenting the first systematic comparative reconstruction of the civilizing discourse. It contrasts their positions across a spectrum ranging from “soft” models (nonintervention, cultural pessimism) to “hard” ones (legalist governance, Russification), a perspective absent from existing biographical or thematic studies. Unlike postcolonial interpretations that focus on elites or Orientalism, this study introduces the archival correspondence of Petrovsky as an underutilized source of criticism of administrative failure, highlighting the gap between discourse and practice. The comparative method juxtaposes “soft” (Grigor’ev’s noninterventionism, Nalivkin’s cultural pessimism) and “hard” (Petrovsky’s legalism, Ostroumov’s missionary agenda) models, revealing the persistent mismatch between discourse and practice, particularly visible in the crises of 1898 and 1916. The study concludes that the Russian civilizing mission remained largely a theoretical and contested construct among Orientalists, never fully implemented in practice due to administrative disorder and local crises, and ultimately laying the groundwork for later Soviet experiments.
The work presented in the article was carried out as part of the study of the fortification system of the Mountain Wall (Dag-bary), which was an integral part of the Derbent defensive complex erected under the reign of Shahanshah Khosrow I Anushirvan (531–579) in the late 560s. This article is devoted to the results of archaeological research conducted on Fort 7, located in a saddle on the pass of the Jalgan ridge and occupying an important strategic position. This fortification was first recorded by Prince Dm. Katemir in August 1722 and is indicated on his schematic map of the initial 15-kilometer section of the Mountain Wall called Kiosc (from M.Pers. kōšk – “palace, castle”). By the name burj Koshk (Arab. burj – “tower, fortification”) he is mentioned by the gen. A.V. Komarov. On a number of plans of Russian military topographers of the late 18th – early 19th century it is called Mesheburg (obviously, from Turk.-Arab. Meshe-burj – “Forest fortification (fortress, tower)”).The fort has relatively good preservation. Judging by the remains of the walls and towers, it had a rectangular shape with angular round blind towers with a diameter of about 5 m. The internal dimensions of the fort are about 24.5×12.7 m with a wall thickness of 2.0–2.8 m, the height of the preserved walls and towers reaches 8–9 m from the modern day surface and, as established by the stratigraphic pit, approx. 10.6–11.6 m from the base of the wall. The identified remains of the fort have the same design features as other fortifications of the Derbent defensive complex – dry armor (header and stretcher) masonry of big rectangular blocks with clogging with rough torn stones and rubble on lime mortar. The small complex of ceramic ware presented in the cultural strata of the pit dates back to the middle of the 6th – beginning of the 13th century and indicates the time of the active functioning of the fort. Considering that the construction of the 42-kilometer Mountain Wall represented the second stage in the construction of the Derbent defensive complex, the construction of the forts of this fortification line can be attributed to the early 570s.
This article examines the stages of India's language policy since the independence in 1947. Even during the drafting of the Constitution, the new government had to develop an ethnolinguistic policy, define its goals. Various forces that came to power had different visions of these goals and the means to achieve them. The country experienced both radical shifts in its language policy and several serious regional conflicts that arose along multiple ethnolinguistic lines. The first 15 years of independence were a time not only of active government implementation of language-related measures but also of a rethinking of its ideological tenets as a whole. This study draws on documents from various periods, reflecting the official policy of the central government and the actual linguistic situation in India. The focus is on the similarities and differences in the approaches of different political parties. The measures they implemented and the results achieved are also analyzed. Thus, the entire period of language policy in independent India is divided into stages, distinguished not only by the central government but also by the trends of language policy. The key features of each stage and the changes in approaches are traced in historical perspective. Each approach is assessed within the political context in which it existed. The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a period of significant changes in both the domestic politics of India and its foreign policy realities. These changes were reflected in the approaches of the country's main political forces to the language issue.
After the overthrow of the Mạc dynasty in 1592, the Lê Trung Hưng dynasty dispatched its first envoy mission to Ming China in 1597, carrying out the duties of paying tribute and requesting investiture, thereby re-establishing diplomatic relations. From this initial mission until 1646, the Lê Trung Hưng dynasty sent a total of 15 envoy missions to the Ming, performing various responsibilities, including requesting investiture, presenting tribute, expressing gratitude, and celebrating the Ming emperor’s enthronement. Among these, requesting investiture and paying tribute were the most central and recurring objectives.Drawing upon Vietnamese historical manuscripts and the Ming Shilu (Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty), this article analyzes the envoy missions of the Lê Trung Hưng dynasty in terms of their number, duties, tribute goods, organizational structure, and the backgrounds of the envoys. It clarifies the frequency and purposes of these missions, the characteristics of the diplomatic personnel selected by the dynasty, and the political significance of envoy activities in the restoration and consolidation of the dynasty. It also shows that these missions were not merely routine diplomatic procedures but an important means through which the dynasty sought legitimacy in its relations with Ming China. Through these missions, the article examines Vietnam–China diplomatic relations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and contributes to a better understanding of tributary diplomacy under the Lê Trung Hưng dynasty.
The Soviet Union was at the origin of one of the key regional institutions of UN economic diplomacy - the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) - but this issue is hardly studied in historiography. The article aims to identify the role of the USSR in the establishment of ECAFE and its work there in 1946-1950. It demonstrates the attitude of Moscow towards multilateral institutions and reveals the specificity of socio-economic diplomacy of the UN in the Far East. Based on the newly revealed documents of the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the author analyses the specifics of the development of universal multilateral interaction in the sphere of economy, industry, trade and agriculture in the ECAFE region in the late 1940s. When establishing ECAFE, Moscow sought to transpose the architecture of the UNECE, and, fearing to be left in minority, the USSR argued for limited powers of the Commission. As a result, the ECAFE became an arena for the Soviet-American narrative struggle, and the Soviet Union actively used it to defend its interests regarding the situation in China and Japan. Concerning the state of the industry, the Soviet-American conflicts were most pronounced in the sphere of regional trade (protectionism, tariffs, etc.) and national industrial development of Asian and Far Eastern countries. The Commission’s agricultural domain was blocked, with industrial development issues given priority. The author concludes that, despite skepticism, the USSR preferred to participate in international institutions rather than abstain from joining them.
The article examines the specific features of Germany’s policy toward international intergovernmental organizations. The African Union is used as a practical case study. The relevance of the stated topic is driven by a decline in the influence of individual European countries—above all, former metropoles—on the African agenda and by the need to create new mechanisms to replace that influence. Germany, as one of the leading economies of the European Union, seeks to occupy an important place in the African agenda. As the theoretical basis of the study, the author proposes Susan Strange’s concept of structural power, based on four main forms of control exercised by European countries over African ones. They cover the basic spheres of interaction between actors: the political and security sphere, the economic sphere, and the humanitarian sphere. Originally, the concept covered the policy of exclusively state actors, but it was later expanded to non-state actors as well, including international organizations, NGOs, transnational corporations, and others. It is precisely these institutions that exert the greatest influence on Berlin’s subsequent voting in external bodies such as the IMF. The study’s aim is presented as demonstrating that Germany is striving not for altruistic assistance to African countries in ensuring security and economic stability, but for solving its own foreign policy tasks. Conclusions are drawn for each of the four forms of control; general traits that are characteristic of Germany’s behavioral model in the process of exercising structural power toward the African Union are also identified.
After the Justice and Development Party came to power in Turkey, Ankara began to pursue an independent and proactive foreign policy. One of the key goals of Erdogan is to achieve regional leadership and transform Turkey into a leader of both the Muslim and Turkic world. In this regard, in 2009 the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey signed an agreement on the establishment of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States (Turkic Council). In 2021 the Turkic Council was renamed the Organization of Turkic States. Turkey’s growing influence in the post-Soviet Turkic-speaking republics directly affects the interests of the Russian Federation, which leads to an even greater complication of the bilateral agenda.The article analyzes institutionalization of cooperation between Turkic-speaking countries within the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) and its impact on the current state of Russian-Turkish relations. The evolution of pan-Turkist ideas and their transformation into a pragmatic project of “neo-Turkism”, where Turkey seeks to take a leading position, is considered. It examines the dual nature of the OTS's influence on relations between Moscow and Ankara, which simultaneously creates new points for geopolitical rivalry in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, but does not negate pragmatic partnership in other areas. It is concluded that OTS is becoming an important factor complicating the already multifaceted interaction between Russia and Turkey, forming a model of “competitive cooperation”, where both powers are forced to constantly balance between rivalry for influence and the need to solve common strategic problems.
The present article examines politeness strategies of Chinese diplomacy as the culturally particular system of semantic and pragmatic means intended to ensure smooth international communication. The focus is on the cross-cultural character of politeness strategies and on the challenges of rendering Chinese diplomatic tone markers into English and Russian. The problem is urgent because there is still a limited number of comparative studies that cover lexical-semantic, pragmatic and other dimensions of translation of politeness in Chinese diplomatic discourse, which is particularly relevant in the context of globalization. The methodology of the research includes conceptual-pragmatic analysis of contemporary Chinese formal diplomatic papers (2019-2025) and comparative analysis of their English and Russian equivalents. The analysis reveals that the most significant structural, semantic, and pragmatic features of Chinese diplomatic politeness are honorific nominations, euphemisms, hedging, and indirect constructions. The analysis shows that literal translation results in the loss of meaning and pragmatics particularly when the transfer involves culturally-specific aspects of politeness such as those pertaining to harmony, hierarchy and relational empathy. According to the results obtained, Chinese diplomatic politeness is a particular communicative model, which is focused on the preservation of harmony, hierarchy and face in international relations. The outcomes of this study can be applied to develop translation theory and intercultural communication by clarifying the cultural rationale of Chinese diplomatic discourse and giving useful instructions to translator education and cross-cultural adaptation of politeness strategies.
The article presents preliminary results of the third field season of the Egyptian-Russian Gebel el-Nour Archaeological Project, conducted in November–December 2025. The work comprised excavations; archaeological, topographic, and geophysical surveys; investigation of the Wadi Ghayada cultural landscape; and conservation of architectural remains. Late Roman and Byzantine buildings, a kitchen complex, pottery, and a coin from early in Diocletian’s reign, found west of the temple, show that the local temple of Isis had been substantially dismantled by the late third century AD. The space before it was subsequently replanned and occupied by domestic and economic buildings. In the northern necropolis and quarry zone, 59 new features and groups of features were recorded, including rock-cut tombs, traces of stone extraction, and anthropoid burial recesses. In the southern necropolis, ground-penetrating radar detected 26 major anomalies. Investigation of one, first identified in 2024, revealed a new tomb (hypogeum GN 6020). Completion of excavations in chambers GN 6012 and GN 6013 of tomb GN 6010 provided new evidence for local Roman-period funerary practices, including ceramic and painted wooden coffins, funerary masks, and mummification. The regional survey in Wadi Ghayada area clarified the present condition of its cultural landscape. It documented traditional caravan routes, a possible chert-cobble extraction site, and two caravan stations on the route to the travertine quarries in Wadi Muathil. The new evidence demonstrates the long and complex development of the cultural landscape on the east bank of the Nile south of Beni Suef and provides a foundation for future research and preservation of the region’s archaeological heritage.
The article investigates main reasons and factors of the crisis in and around Islamic Republic of Iran in December 2025–March 2026, the current war against Iran started by the US and Israel, its political and economic outcomes and influence on Central Asia. In the complex international situation, being on the edge of the global catastrophe, there is no unified position on Iran’s future. The future new world order depends on the crisis outcome and interested powers’ strategies. Special attention is paid therefore to interaction and mutual influence of various factors in Iran’s development, including its ethno-national, historical, cultural, religious and economic development features. It is stated that the problem of survival and further consolidation of the Islamic regime after the war, in conditions of the continuing long-term mass discontent with the country management, will inevitably require acceleration and deepening of the transformation process, the ruling regime’s shift towards greater openness and secularism. In any case, CA countries face a multitude of economic and political problems with a negative potential impact on the current state and prospects of regional development. The selected methods include systemic strategic, constructivist, and economic approaches based on empirical data. The subject of analysis during the period under study, the latest data and theoretical approaches, multi-level approach define the article’s originality. The findings demonstrate that the Islamic regime is still fairly stable and capable of resisting internal and external opposition, transforming toward greater secularization. This does not remove the issue of growing regional and global challenges in Central Asia.
The article examines the total resource potential and the current stage of development of the agro-industrial complex(AIC) of the economy of modern China in global comparison from the methodological standpoint of a system analysis of national and global economies, international economic relations. A comparative study of the structure and dynamics of production of the main branches of the agro-industrial complex of China has been carried out. The author's analysis of the comparison of production volumes, exports and imports of agricultural products by China is presented. The main trends and prospects, as well as problems of the development of the agro-industrial complex of China, related to the impact of internal and external factors and circumstances, are identified. As are result the analysis, a number of specific conclusions and generalizations were made, in particular, it was stated that while in absolute terms China has one of the world's largest resource and production bases of the national agro-industrial complex, according to the corresponding per capita indicators, this populous country does not have sufficient internal resource potential for full self-sufficiency. Due to these circumstances, according to the main nomenclature items of agro-industrial products, especially oilseeds and cereals, China is or is very close to the status of a net importer. The need to solve the food problem, as well as China's high import dependence on agricultural products, are powerful incentives and factors for the development and export orientation of production by other major agro-industrial powers of the world interested in expanding sales markets, in particular Russia.
Kazakhstan is experiencing intensive internal migration processes. They are caused by both push factors related to the shrinking role of agriculture and pull factors of better employment opportunities in urban areas. In Kazakhstan, the processes of internal migration, predominantly rural-urban migration, have significantly accelerated over the last few years. The main flow of migrants is directed to the country’s two megacities, where the number of self-employed has increased significantly during the same period, which was not observed before. This allowed to propose the hypothesis that the growing opportunities to work as self-employed individuals have become a new and major pull factor for migrants. In turn, the active development of self-employment can be linked to the digitalization of some service industries, which has created an additional demand for a workforce that migrants fill. To assess these assumptions, the article conducts a comparative and correlational analysis of net migration indicators, the number of self-employed people, the sectoral structure of the labor market, and the number of organizations selling goods and services online for two megacities in Kazakhstan, as well as several others. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis that digitalization processes influence labor market growth in sectors with a high proportion of self-employed people and, as a result, accelerate internal migration, primarily of the rural population to the country’s largest cities. The study of the direction of internal migration flows has also made it possible to qualify the processes of migrant movement from rural areas of Kazakhstan as megapolization rather than urbanization.
The “Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra” (further the “Lotus Sutra”) is one of the fundamental texts of Buddhism, which came to Japan from the mainland in the middle of the 6th century. The profound and multifaceted doctrinal elements, core ideas and potent symbols and motifs intrinsic to the “Lotus Sutra” have deeply permeated many aspects of Japanese culture, traditional and modern. This article examines how the “Lotus Sutra” was interpreted in the Japanese culture from the 8th to early 13th centuries, drawing on Japanese waka poetry. The comprehensive approach combining the cultural historical method with textual and intertextual analysis enables us to trace the ways in which sutra’s ideas were represented in poetry. The article outlines how Japanese poetry was ascribed a capacity to articulate the teachings of the “Lotus Sutra”, directly and figuratively.The study focuses on primary sources: poetry written in Japanese from the 8th to early 13th centuries. By analyzing these poems, the author has identified the main periods in the process of adapting the Lotus Sutra into Japanese poetry. They are: 1) the origins of Japanese-language poetry inspired by the sutra; 2) the earliest poetry cycles on the twenty-eight chapters of the sutra; 3) poems based on the “Lotus Sutra” incorporated into the established canonical repertoire of the Japanese waka tradition and the evolution of both court and folk poetry; 4) a new theory of Japanese poetry that reconfigured these poems not as mere art, but as a vehicle for spiritual awakening.
This article examines two previously unstudied Persian-language manuscripts housed in the Manuscripts and Rare Editions Department of the A.-Z. Validi National Library of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Both manuscripts were created in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent in the 17th and 18th centuries and contain Sufi writings devoted to various aspects of the mystical practices of the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya and Suhrawardiyya brotherhoods. The discovery of a manuscript describing the practices of the first order in the region is expected given the spiritual continuity of Indian and Bashkir Sufis. Their reading of the Suhrawardi text fits within the framework of their intellectual interests. Both works, presented in manuscripts housed in Ufa, are comparatively rare in Russian book collections. The work “The Treasure of Instructions in Revealing the Beginning and Completion [of the Mystical Path]” by Muhammad-Baqir b. Sharaf ad-Din al-Lahuri al-Husayni al-‘Abbasi is represented in Russia by three copies, two of which are in Ufa. The work “The Collection of Letters of Sheikh Yahya Maniri” is popular in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, but is virtually unknown in Russia. It provides an archaeographical description of both monuments, reconstructing the route and circumstances of their arrival in the Southern Urals based on owner’s inscriptions, as well as various versions of their use in religious practice and education. Based on owner’s inscriptions and marginal comments, the formats of reception of these texts by Russian Muslims are established. The first manuscript was used in religious practice and as a relic, con-firming the authority of specific religious leaders. The second came to Russia as a collector's item. A broad historical and cultural context is used to identify the factors that influenced the changing routes of Indian manuscripts arriving in the Southern Urals, as well as the functioning of the Persian language in the intellectual space of the region. Using two manuscripts as examples, the process of gradual transformation of Sufi manuscripts from reading and study material into collectibles is described.
The final section of the article examines issues related to the dating, location, and circumstances of the manufacture of the kantharoi.When analyzing the paleography of the kantharoi inscriptions, one should first note the double use of the square sigma, which is completely uncharacteristic of the epigraphy of the Hellenistic world. The only exception is Greco-Bactria (late 3rd – early 2nd centuries BC). This allows us to conclude that the kantharoi were made in Bactra at the end of the reign of Euthydemus I (226 – c. 190 BC).Euthydemus I secured recognition of his royal title from Antiochus III in 206 BC and established his own dynasty. His son Demetrius, no later than 200 BC, began the conquest of the regions south of the Hindu Kush. Euthydemus I wished to commemorate such remarkable successes by producing a ceremonial service dedicated to the life of his most revered hero, Heracles.Given the peaceful relations between Euthydemus I and his immediate successors and the nomads on the northwestern borders of Greco-Bactria, the kantharoi could have come to them as a royal gift. However, the vessels could also have been seized by the nomads after the defeat of Bactria in 140–130 BC. Taking into account the data from written and archaeological sources about the resettlement of some of the Asii conquerors of Bactria to the Volga-Don interfluve, it can be assumed that the last owner of the kantharoi was one of the Asii leaders, with whom they were buried in a single burial mound on the left bank of the Volga.
The transformation of traditional holidays in Kyrgyzstan reflects deep ethno-cultural processes, revealing the displacement of native traditions. This study focuses on the New Year festive complex, analyzing the coexistence of the Kyrgyz Zhyl Azhyrash and the borrowed Navruz – a regionally understudied topic. Its relevance is confirmed by significant territorial differences in their practice. The aim is to identify regional characteristics and trace the transformation of this complex in the 20th–21st centuries. The methodology is based on 2023–2024 field materials: 121 in-depth interviews across 9 zones. Based on historical sources and field data, characteristic profiles were reconstructed: Zhyl Azhyrash (flexible lunisolar calendar tied to phenological signs, ritual meat porridge kojo, connection to pastoralism) and Navruz (fixed equinox date, ritual dish sumelek, developed public rituals, agrarian features). Frequency analysis identified four informant groups and assessed Zhyl Azhyrash’s preservation. Results show an uneven “slipping away” of the native tradition: it survives best in highland pastoral zones (Naryn region, Alai Valley – up to 60 % of informants), while Navruz dominates in the agrarian southwest (Batken, Osh, Jalal-Abad regions), often perceived as an adoption. The main conclusion: Navruz gains the advantage due to its superior formalization – a fixed date integrated into the state calendar and clearly regulated, easily reproducible rituals. This feature, combined with state support (since 1991), the decline of native practices during the Soviet era, and historical influences, acts as the key factor displacing the variable, less formalized Zhyl Azhyrash, marking a shift in cultural codes among a formerly nomadic population.
This article examines Islamic education in contemporary Iran as a complex, multi-layered system emerging from the interaction between Shia religious tradition, state educational policy and sociocultural changes in recent decades. Drawing on an analysis of Persian-language academic sources, regulatory documents and empirical research, the article traces the evolution of Islamic education from the traditional Shia seminary system to a broader model incorporating preschool, school and university education, while maintaining an emphasis on Shia principles. Particular attention is paid to changes in pedagogical practices, the integration of traditional forms of knowledge transmission with modern educational techniques, and the challenges of providing effective religious education in a context of digitalization and a growing plurality of worldviews. Islamic education in contemporary Iran is a sphere in which centuries-old religious traditions, the official state ideology in place since 1979 and contemporary educational policy interact. The traditional Islamic education system is centered around theological seminaries. Its strengths include the depth of training, commitment to fostering independent thinking, and preservation of intellectual continuity within the religious tradition. Weaknesses include long training periods, a lack of clear assessment criteria, and poor integration with the mainstream education system. Many of Iran’s post-revolutionary leaders have roots in these seminaries. Iranian academic research defines religious instruction as the acquisition of religious knowledge: Quranic texts, Shia religious concepts, norms and precepts. Islamic education in Iran is not a unified institution, but rather a multi-level network varying in terms of content, purpose and effectiveness.
The article is devoted to the history of foreign trade relations between the Central Asian possessions of Balkh, Badakhshan and Kunduz during the 19th century. Special attention is paid to the trade and economic relations of these states with the Russian Empire through the lands of the Kazakhs, Bukhara, and Kokand. In Russia, the lands of Balkh, Badakhshan and Kunduz were considered important transit centers of trade routes from Central Asia to Afghanistan and India. The article describes the characteristics of goods delivered from Russia to South Turkestan, as well as goods from Balkh, Kunduz and Badakhshan sold on the Russian market. The role of transit trade in the development of trade and economic relations between the Russian Empire and these countries is determined. Based on the assessments of Russian travelers, envoys, and scientists of the 19th century, the perception of the region’s markets in Russia and their importance for domestic foreign trade and the economy is presented. The article describes the main trade routes in the region, trade centers in Balkh, Badakhshan and Kunduz, their connections with foreign markets, and emphasizes the importance of importing lapis lazuli from the territory of Badakhshan to Russia. The article is mainly based on rarely used and poorly studied sources in Russian, English and French. The presented material lays down the main approaches to further study of the history of foreign trade in Balkh, Kunduz and Badakhshan in the 19th century and Russian foreign trade relations with these countries.
