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Abstract

Preservation of historical and cultural heritage is one of the top priority aspects of the modern state cultural policies in the Russian Federation. State authorities have issued a number of legal acts aimed at the protection of archaeological sites. Despite all the close attention paid to the issue, in the last decade, there have been many cases of damage to the cultural layer of the sites, registered by protection enforcement authorities. ‘‘Black diggers’’, who are looking for artifacts and destroying archaeological sites, are only expanding the scale of their activities. Every year new internet resources with more than tens of thousands of subscribers appear: this is where ‘‘black diggers’’ coordinate their activities, sell search and detection equipment, as well as purchase “loots”.

To counteract this phenomenon and develop a respectful attitude among the population to the historical and cultural heritage, archaeologists and government agencies create Internet communities. Within the framework of this study based on the example of the Bashkortostan Republic, it is proposed to compare the two most numerous communities of “treasure hunters” and archaeologists in order to establish the effectiveness of propaganda of the illegal search for artifacts by the fi rst group and encouragement to instill careful attitude to the monuments by the second group. Using a number of software programs, age and sex, place of residence as well as the level of education of subscribers have been compared; interests of the doers and the intersection of communities’ audiences have been identifi ed; the level of interest of the audience in the published information in general and in individual publications that caused the greatest reaction from subscribers has been determined.

As a result of the research, the author has found out that under the existing policy in the community of treasure hunters, the number of participants will continue to grow, though slightly, and the majority of subscribers are not likely to show interest in the published information. While maintaining a high level of published materials with a well–thought–out content plan and varying types of content may result in the online community of archaeologists being an effective tool for implementing the policy of preserving and popularizing the heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation and countering the activities of ‘‘black diggers’’.

Keywords

Archaeology, historical and cultural heritage, treasure hunters, internet communities, Bashkortostan.

Aynur I. Tuzbekov

R.G. Kuzeev Institute for Ethnological Studies of the Ufa Federal Research Centre of the RAS, Ufa, Russia

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