'There are Russian fairy tales where the hero, some kind of Ivan the Fool, stops at the crossroads of three roads. One is to the right, the other is to the left, the third is straight. If you go to the right, you will find death, if you go to the left, you will meet love, and if you go straight, the kingdom with chests full of gold. Plus a golden toilet. What to choose: death, love or wealth?...

The book is devoted to the contemporary internal and foreign policy problems of Afghanistan, which has been at war for over 20 years. The deformation of the country's economy, the almost complete stop of industry, the reorientation of agricultural production to drug-containing crops, and trade to smuggling import-export operations are shown. The role of the interethnic factor and Islamic...

An ethographic study of the customs and holidays of the Tatars of the Urals and Volga regions.

An annual yearbook containing articles on archaeology, archival studies and historiography of Russian history. The 2000 edition has articles examining documents from the XV to the XVII centuries.

The book, written by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111) is dedicated to the Elixir of Happiness and is one of al-Ghazali's later works. Unlike earlier writings, this was his first in Persian. The book contains scanned images of the Persian text and a parallel Russian translation.

The book is dedicated to examining the problems around the development of Soviet political culture in the after war years. The author looks at this development specifically through the MVD and the development of Soviet patriotism.

This book is dedicated to *oberegs*—magical means of protecting an individual and their world from danger. Drawing upon the pan-Slavic tradition, it presents—for the first time—a comprehensive model of the *obereg*, describing its semantics and the specific forms of its manifestation in ritual texts, actions, objects, and ceremonies; it also provides an analysis of the pragmatics of the verbal...

A concise reference work on the Americas containing information of the geography, climate, flora and fauna and other characteristics of the continents of the New World. Also information on culture and customs of indigenous peoples.