The president chaired a meeting of the State Council presidium in Ufa on Friday, to discuss measures to foster interethnic understanding in Russian society. The subject caught the attention of Russian authorities following events on Manezh Square in Moscow, where on December 11 last year radically-minded youths staged riots under nationalist slogans, beating up several dozen people. Before the meeting, Medvedev inspected the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Ethnology Institute in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ufa Scientific Center.
The president chaired a meeting of the State Council presidium in Ufa on Friday, to discuss measures to foster interethnic understanding in Russian society. The subject caught the attention of Russian authorities following events on Manezh Square in Moscow, where on December 11 last year radically-minded youths staged riots under nationalist slogans, beating up several dozen people. Before the meeting, Medvedev inspected the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Ethnology Institute in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ufa Scientific Center.
A separate hall was dedicated to Sarmatian gold.
The display featured artifacts found at excavations in the Filippovsky burial mounds of the Orenburg Region carried out by the Bashkir branch of the Academy of Sciences.
The president’s attention was caught by a large bear-shaped vessel made of gold, smalt and brass. Scientists believe it dates from the 4th century BC.
Dmitry Medvedev at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Ethnology Institute, in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ufa Scientific Center.
Dmitry Medvedev at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, at the Ethnology Institute, in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ufa Scientific Center.
The president also met with the heads of ethnic cultural associations and ethnographers from Bashkortostan. Aislu Yunusova (left), the museum’s director, noted that more often than not people are ignorant about members of other ethnicities. The president agreed that this was inadmissible.
The president saw the fact that the meeting with the heads of ethnic cultural associations and ethnographers, as well as the State Council presidium, should take place in Bashkortostan as highly symbolic. “Bashkortostan is a multiethnic republic which is home to 130 ethnicities. In a sense, it is a model republic. For centuries, it has been home to different peoples and ethnic groups which have preserved their culture by combining it with our shared Russian culture,” Medvedev said.
President Dmitry Medvedev is touring the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Ethnology Institute in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ufa Scientific Center. Aislu Yunusova (left), director of the Museum.
