The relevance of the article is determined by the fact that it describes the creation and functioning of museums of a very popular profile today — the Oriental one. The analyzed practice of the French museums, in many respects the foremost in the European museum space, can be creatively applied in the design and creation of museums of this type in our country. The article is the first in the domestic scientific tradition to explore the history of the creation of French museum collections devoted to the Himalayas and Tibet.

Initiation rituals occupy a significant place in the structure o f traditional culture and embody its most relevant components. However, the study o f ritual culture is complicated for modern research due to the apparent lack o f empirical ethnographic material. As an a ttempt to solve this problem, this article offers an examination o f the logic and specificity o f the reflection o f initiation rituals in written texts characteristic o f the respective culture, primarily mythological and heroic-epic.

Article is devoted to the analysis of high school educational literature on the history of Russia, published in the 21st century. The subject of the analysis were subjects related to the battle of Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941, the 80th anniversary of which is celebrated this year. The research was conducted on the following points: 1) causes of failures in the first phase of the Battle of Moscow; 2) reasons for the success of the defensive and offensive actions; 3) the situation in Moscow in October 1941; 4) the significance of the Battle of Moscow.