Abstract: The article is devoted to characterizing the role and contribution of regional branches of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIK) in activities related to industrial heritage sites. The relevance is due to the urgent need to attract the attention of the general public to the problem of the destruction of the remaining monuments of the industrial past. To conduct the research, both archival documents and published sources were used, including the regulatory framework for security activities. The scientific novelty of the article is due to the lack of research aimed at fully studying the contribution made by the regional branches of VOOPIK to the process of identifying the industrial cultural heritage. The practical value of the study lies in the attraction of the public attention to the problem of participation of all actors, including public organizations, in the conservation of industrial heritage sites. To conduct this study, archival materials were used: documentation and statistical materials, as well as legislative and regulatory acts, periodicals. The author comes to the conclusion that identifying potential monuments is the first priority step in their conservation efforts. This activity was in line with state policy in the 1960-1980s. In the Sverdlovsk region, there was a targeted identification of industrial heritage sites with the aim of studying them, registering them with the state institutions and further preserving them. Regional branches of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments made a great contribution to this activity. The author found that by the end of the 1980s, more than 40 objects had been identified in the Sverdlovsk region, 37 of which were registered with the state institutions' help by 1989, including 18 as monuments of republican significance.

Keywords: legislation, cultural policy, government accounting, WOOPIK, protection of monuments, industrial architecture, identification, industrial heritage, Sverdlovsk region, factories

Abstract: Due to the fact that the article examines the issues of legal regulation of the penitentiary system in the Russian Empire in the first half of the XIX century, the subject of the study is the organizational and legal foundations of the penal system in this period. The object of the study is the penitentiary system of the Russian Empire itself. The authors attempted a comprehensive analysis of normative legal acts affecting the penal enforcement system from 1801 to 1845, traced their implementation at the regional level, using the example of the Vladimir province as a territorial entity, which represented almost all the places of deprivation of liberty in the country at that time. The time frame is determined by the first attempts to reform the penitentiary system in the XIX century and the publication of the Code on Criminal and Correctional Punishments in 1845 – a kind of the first Russian criminal code. The analysis showed that the first half of the XIX century was a period of serious changes in legislation, the formation of a new penitentiary system in the country. It was then that the sectoral system of government was created, in which there was a place for institutions of the penal enforcement system. A prison trusteeship society arose, which aimed at the moral correction of convicts and improving their conditions of detention. The activities of prisons and prison companies were regulated, torture was prohibited, etc. Unfortunately, as it was revealed during the study, the implementation of many initiatives on the ground, in particular in the Vladimir province, was delayed due to traditional bureaucratic red tape and chronic lack of funds. Although, of course, it is worth noting the contribution of caring people to the difficult and thankless penitentiary work.

Keywords: prison locks, convict companies, Prison Care Society, prisoners, penitentiary law, places of detention, exile, prison studies, penal enforcement system, penitentiary system

Abstract: The article examines the problem of the development of military and political cooperation between Russia and Cuba at the beginning of the 21st century. The relevance of the topic is determined by the current geopolitical activity of Russia, which seeks to develop relations, particularly with Cuba, which already had close military and political ties with the USSR. The current stage of cooperation started with an unfriendly step towards Cuba – the closure of the Lourdes Radio station. The novelty of the work is caused by the concentration of attention on the military and political part of the relations between Russia and Cuba. The focus on the closure of the Lourdes station, as the lowest point in the cooperation, provides an opportunity to follow the consistent development of Russian-Cuban relations in a new modern format. The methodological basis in the article is provided by general scientific, historical research methods and methods of political science. The paper examines the key military-political agreements between the countries and real allied actions in the 21st century. The analysis of the cooperation shows that Russian-Cuban relations which were in decline after the closure of the Lourdes center, gradually began to develop again, and led to the almost complete restoration of the previous level of trust by the early 2020s and the resumption of strategic cooperation. At the same time despite the restoration of allied relations, the real level of the military and political cooperation is an order of magnitude lower than the Soviet-Cuban one. The prospects for its further development strongly depend on the economic efforts of the two countries, financial capabilities and stability of their political regimes.

Keywords: Cuban Revolutionary Army, Lourdes SIGINT station, Raul Castro, Miguel Diaz-Canel, strategic cooperation, Vladimir Putin, Russian-Cuban relations, military-political cooperation, Russian Federation, Republic of Cuba

Abstract: This study is a continuation of our analysis of the foreign policy of the Byzantine emperors from the Macedonian dynasty to build security belts on the borders of the empire. During the reign of the Macedonian dynasty, the Byzantine emperors took a number of measures to strengthen their power in Southern Italy. The empire sought to retain the existing possessions here, but not to acquire new ones. At the turn of the 10th–11th centuries, the lands of the empire, united in the Catepanate of Italy, were protected from the north by the buffer principalities of Salerno, Benevento, Capua and the states of Campania. The attempts made by the basileus, covering themselves with a «Lombard shield» from the north failed. After the death of Basil II in 1025, the loyalty of the principalities of the «Lombard shield» to the later emperors of the House of Macedon began to decline. One of the key factors that predetermined the collapse of both the buffer zone and the empire’s power in the region in general was the gradual latinization of the roman population of the Byzantine possessions. The predominance of the non-Greek element, subordinate to the Roman Church, increased the alienation of the population of southern Italy from the central imperial power. Under the influence of the «geopolitical attraction» from the western «Roman Empire» recreated by Otto I, the princes of Salerno and Benevento increasingly sided with the Germans. The stability of the buffer zone in Italy, in contrast to the eastern direction, was low due to the fact that here the local rulers had an alternative pole of attraction in the fight against the Arab threat. In the 9th - 10th centuries, these were the Italian kings from the Carolingian dynasty, who were replaced by the emperors of the Ottonian «Roman Empire».

Keywords: Theme system, Vasily II the Bulgar-Slayer, Macedonian dynasty, Normans, Lombards, Southern Italy, Catepanate Italy, the Buffer states, Byzantium, Sicilian Arabs

Abstract: One of the most important problems of any economic system is the problem of fair and rational remuneration of labor. A special place in the historiography devoted to the study of labor relations in Soviet Russia is occupied by studies of wages during the NEP period and its differentiation. The article presents the results of a study conducted on the basis of materials from the Sickle and Hammer plant and characterizing the differentiation of wages in the metallurgical industry of the 1920s. The main focus of the work is on the analysis of the remuneration of such categories of workers as workers and employees. Transformations of piecework, time-based and overtime pay, as well as changes in real and nominal wages were considered. The basis of the source base is archival materials, many of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.  Analytical, comparative-historical and dialectical methods were used in writing the article. The method of microanalysis has been widely used, which made it possible to draw conclusions on the trends of wage differentiation during the NEP period using the example of a specific enterprise. The results of the study demonstrate a tendency to decrease the differentiation of wages of workers and employees at the Sickle and Hammer plant during the NEP period. A hypothesis has been put forward about the prevalence of this trend in other metallurgical enterprises of that time. The factors that influenced the change in the wage gap have been identified: seasonal fluctuations, attempts to regulate salaries by the Soviet state and the peculiarities of the economic system of the NEP period. The general trends of remuneration in the period 1921-1928 were revealed: reduction of bonus payments, increase in time-based payments, reduction of unsystematic wage payments, increase in piecework wages. Based on these observations, it was concluded that the decrease in wage differentiation was accompanied by an increase in wages for both workers and employees due to high salaries of officials and the systematization of wages for employees of the enterprise.

Keywords: microanalysis, time-based payment of labor, piecework payment, bonus payments, the history of the metallurgical industry, new economic policy, employment relations, wage differentiation, overtime work, real wages