Burial of a Hunnic Period Noblewoman at Karakabak, Mangystau, Kazakhstan

This study continues a series of publications describing the fi ndings of excavations at the Karakabak cemetery on the Mangyshlak Peninsula, dating to the Hunnic period. Burial 11 was that of a girl dressed in an outfi t imitating a royal vestment. The reconstructed headdress consisted of a cape decorated with round, gold plaques and a diadem-type headband of red cloth with mask-shaped plaques. The central forehead plaque is a replica of Hellenistic gorgoneia. Similar masks were found in the Volga basin and the Northern Black Sea region. Temporal mask-plaques, carved of wood and covered with gold foil, have no parallels but follow the archaic Scythian tradition. Belt and shoe buckles were not attached to belts and were not used in everyday life. In terms of style and technique, the gold casing with an embossed geometric design on a wooden base belongs to a series of artifacts of the so-called Shipovo horizon. The buckle frames are shaped as stylized birds of prey with spread wings. The forehead plaque and details of the shoe straps are paralleled by those from Altynkazgan. The Karakabak artifacts are unique for the Aral-Caspian region, providing yet another indication of close cultural ties with the Hunnic world. All details of the outfi t were likely manufactured at a nearby workshop (the Karakabak settlement) in the second half of the 5th or fi rst half of the 6th century for the burial of a nomadic noblewoman.

Oriental Elements of Russian Folk Speech and Folklore

This study analyses the Eastern character of the Russian folklanguage and folklore which connected whith the character of national mentality. The cultural contacts of Russian people with the Turkish and Finno-Ugrian people in the Volga basin were presented by N. S.Troubetzkoy (1927) who formed the new theory-from Russian culture. Our scientific investigation of the Russian folklanguage and folklore is motivated by the works, which demonstrated the insufficiency of this domain. The results of our comparative investigation prove the Eastern traits of Russian folklanguage and folklore, namely, we discovered the parallel structures in the Eastern languages and folklore.

Ecological Parameters of Water Bodies in the Northern Part of the Upper Volga Region with River Flow Regulations

The regulation of river flow in the Volga basin has caused irreversible changes to aquatic ecosystems. The transformation of the Volga into a cascade of hydraulic structures with a non-flow regime has resulted in a decrease in depth and flow, and an increase in the temperature and concentration of chemical elements, which has induced the process of eutrophication. The change in the species diversity of aquatic organisms under conditions of intense eutrophication was studied on models of water bodies from the Volga basin; the Kostroma section of the Gorky reservoir (Kostroma spill and the middle river section), and lakes Galichskoe and Chukhlomskoe were studied. Rheophilic biocenosis was replaced by a limnophilic one, the migration paths of fish were disrupted, and population characteristics were changed. In accordance with environmental conditions, the level of primary production and the calculated Carlson trophic index (TSI) and Broth-proposed index (ITS) (1987), the water bodies of the northern part of the upper Volga region are classified as follows: the middle river section of the Gorky reservoir is mesotrophic-eutrophic (TSI = 55.2, ITS = 16.2); the Kostroma spill is eutrophic with a tendency to hypertrophy (TSI = 67.4, ITS = 6.8); Lake Galichskoe is eutrophic with a tendency to dystrophy (TSI = 63.2, ITS = 8.4), and Lake Chukhlomskoe is hypertrophic with a tendency to dystrophy (TSI = 77.4, ITS = 8.0). In addition, frequent fluctuations in water level, reaching 1 m, have had an adverse effect on inhabitants of the littoral zone including the spawning fish, which may lead to disappearance of some of the region’s most sensitive species.

An overview of helminths of the European fire-bellied toad Bombina bombina (Amphi-bia, Anura) in the Volga River Basin

The helminthofauna of Bombina bombina (Linnaeus, 1761) has been studied to an unequal degree in different parts of the habitat. Thus, it has been studied in more detail in the west of its range (in the countries of central and eastern Europe) and in less detail in the center (in Belarus and Ukraine). There were few data on helminths of this host in the east of its range (in Russia). For the first time, an inventory of the helminthofauna in B. bombina was carried out for populations in the Volga River Basin. The results of our own research are presented and supplemented with information from other authors. We summarized scattered data on helminths from 390 specimens of amphibians collected over more than 40 years in the territory of five regions: Kaluga and Samara regions, the Republics of Mordovia, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The helminthofauna includes 21 species from three classes: Trematoda (15), Chromadorea (5) and Clitellata (1). For each species, we give the systematic position, localization, places of detection, geographical distribution and characteristics of the life cycle. The leech Helobdella stagnalis (Linnaeus, 1758) was first recorded in the European fire-bellied toad in Europe. Four species of trematodes are new to this amphibian species in Russia: Haematoloechus abbreviatus (Bychowsky, 1932), Paralepoderma cloacicola (Luhe, 1909), larvae, Tylodelphys excavata (Rudolphi, 1803), larvae and Astiotrema monticelli (Stossich, 1904), larvae. Another species of trematode – Strigea strigis (Schrank, 1788), larvae – was first recorded in this host within the boundaries of the Volga Basin. A specific parasite is the trematode Haematoloechus abbreviatus (Bychowsky, 1932). The number and composition of the species of helminths of the European fire-bellied toad vary in different regions; the structure of the helminth fauna is generally stable and includes three groups of species: adult and larval stages of trematodes, adult nematodes-geohelminths. The results of the study create a database for further population studies and contribute to the development of ideas about the distribution and formation of the amphibian helminth fauna in Europe, Russia and the Volga Basin.

Gun and Fire-Steel Flints, Gun Supplies of the 18th C. Annenskaya Fortress on the Lower Don

The Annenskaya fortress is a well-preserved star-shaped earthen bastion located on the right bank of the Don river near the Starocherkassk fortress. Near the Annenskaya fortress, there were unfortified Soldatskaya and Dolomanovskaya villages. The Annenskaya fortification mainly functioned from 1733 to 1760, while the pinnacle of its population (the garrison reached 9,000 people) fell at the Russian-Turkish war of 1735–1739. There were no archaeological excavations at the site, the picked-up findings were collected by various authors in 2000, 2003–2006. Among the findings, there are religious objects, military ammunition, household remains. Significant part of inventory amount gun and fire-steel flints, gun supplies (bullets). The analysis of these materials is the main purpose of the paper. The collection of gun flints includes intact samples (50 pcs) and fragments (22 pcs). Some of them (6 pcs) were preserved in lead clips. A significant part of the worn-out gun flints (22 pcs) were reused as tinderbox components to kindle a fire for domestic purposes. The most of gun and fire-steel flints are made of carboniferous flint raw materials (probably geological sources of the Upper Volga basin). The collection is complemented by lead bullets of two main calibers, i.e. of 8, 13–15 и 17–18 mm in diameter.

Genetic Signature of a Past Anthropogenic Transportation of a Far-Eastern Endemic Cladoceran (Crustacea: Daphniidae) to the Volga Basin

Most studies of water flea (Crustacea: Cladocera) invasions are concentrated on a few taxa with an obvious harmful influence on native ecosystems, while our knowledge of cases of anthropogenic introduction with not-so-obvious consequences, in most other taxa, is poor. We found in the Volga basin (European Russia) a population that contained D. curvirostris Eylmann, 1887 and its hybrids with D. korovchinskyi Kotov et al. 2021. The latter taxon is endemic to the Far East and it has appeared in the Volga basin as a result of past human-mediated transportation. The population from Bakhilovo is represented by two strongly different groups of the COI haplotypes belonging, respectively, to (1) D. curvirostris and (2) D. korovchinskyi. We detected SNPs in the position 60 of the HSP-90ex3 locus and in the 195 positions of 28S rRNA locus, which differentiate two species. Part of the specimens from Bakhilovo belonged to D. curvirostris s.str., demonstrating homozygote SNP sites in two loci, but two specimens had heterozygote SNP sites in both nuclear loci. They belong to D. curvirostris x korovchinskyi hybrids. Most morphological traits of the females were characteristic of D. curvirostris. We found in some specimens some characters which could suggest their hybrid status, but this opinion is a hypothesis only, which needs to be checked on more ample material. The exact hybrid system in this pond is not known. Moreover, we have no evidences of sexual reproduction of the hybrids; they could reproduce by parthenogenesis only as is known for hybrids of the D. pulex group, or continuously crossing with parents like some members of D. longispina group. However, poor parental D. korovchinskyi was not detected in the pond either morphologically or genetically. The exact vector of its past anthropogenic transportation to the Volga is unknown. Most probably, just ephippia of D. korovchinskyi were translocated replaced from the Khabarovsk Territory to the Samara Area somehow. This is the first report on hybrids within the D. curvirostris species complex. Here, we demonstrated that accurate studies with deep resolution increase the number of revealed cryptic invasions. We expect that the number of revealed cases of cryptic interspecific invasions will grow rapidly.

Adventitious coastal-aquatic and aquatic plants - indicators of global climate warming

The paper describes the habitats of Vallisneria spiralis L., Impatiens glandulifera Royle, Pistia stratiotes L. discovered in recent years within the Samara Region. A brief review of the papers devoted to the migration activity of these plant species on the territory of the Russian Federation and the Volga basin is given. Impatiens glandulifera Royle is an annual hygrophyte. In the flora of the Samara Region it was first noted among local coastal plants in 2004 on one of the ponds of Samara on Mirnaya Street. The plant entered the reservoir from the adjacent garden plots of the private sector. Pistia stratiotes L. is an aquatic plant. In the flora of the Samara Region, a pistia was first found on September 17, 2006 in a city pond (near School № 154 of Samara) among thickets of Elodea canadensis Michx. and Typha latifolia L. growing at a depth of up to 50 cm. Vallisneria spiralis L. was first discovered within the Samara Region in September 2020. Long-term monitoring of the distribution of coastal-aquatic and aquatic macrophytes-migrants in the Middle Volga basin will allow us to more confidently attribute them to possible indicators of global and local climate warming and one of the examples when aquatic plant species move from south to north within the Volga basin.