On August 11, the XIII Bolgar International Archaeological School was opened in the conference hall of the museum and exhibition complex “Memorial Sign” at the Bolgar Museum‑Reserve.
The Bolgar International Archaeological School has been organized since 2014. Over the past 12 years, 844 people have become participants in the School. Training was organized in more than 40 scientific fields covering current areas of archaeology and the preservation of historical and cultural heritage — the history and restoration of ceramics, metallurgy, jewelry making, traceology, paleoanthropology, archaeozoology, bioarchaeology, geoinformation technologies, geoarchaeology, and others.
The opening ceremony was attended by Rifkat Minnikhanov, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan; Sergey Tyunyov, Deputy Head of the Spassky district; Damir Natfullin, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan; representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Tatarstan; Airat Sitdikov, Director of the A. Kh. Khalikov Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of RT; and Ramil Ziganshin, Director of the Bolgar Museum‑Reserve.
In total, the number of participants includes 75 people — students, postgraduate students, doctoral candidates, young scientists and specialists from 24 regions of Russia and 5 foreign countries — Uzbekistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, India, and Turkmenistan. Among the participants are also skilled specialists: A. V. Kostyukevich, head of the department of scientific conservation of archaeological artifacts at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus; N. M. Ikromov, professor at Termez State University; and A. M. Avlasovich, head of the archaeology center at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
Six people from Tatarstan are participating this year, including 5 from the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, 1 from KFU.
The faculty included 25 specialists from 12 scientific research centers in Russia, Kazakhstan and China, including the Khalikov Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of RT, the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novgorod State University named after Yaroslav the Wise, Ural Federal University, Kazan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, NTI Foundation, Institute of Archeology of the Northern Peoples, Chinese People’s University, etc.
Additionally, during the implementation of the School’s program, within the framework of cooperation between the A. Kh. Khalikov Institute of Archaeology of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences and the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg), the work of a joint experimental‑traceological expedition will continue in Bolgar. The expedition is led by N. N. Skakun, a senior researcher at the experimental‑traceological laboratory of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Historical Sciences — a student of the outstanding scholar S. A. Semenov, the founder of the traceological method. She is the scientific secretary of the traceology commission of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP). The expedition continues the long‑standing tradition of conducting such research expeditions.
The goal of the expedition is to develop experimental-traceological research in archaeology in order to obtain new sources for interpreting the features of ancient economies.