As part of the All-Russian Scientific-Practical, Historical and Regional Studies Conference “The Tatars of St. Petersburg and the Northwestern Regions of the Russian Federation and Their Interaction and Contacts with the Tatar-Muslim Communities of Eurasia: History and Modernity. Issues of Regional History and the Development of Tatar Regional Studies,” the responsible organizer from the Executive Committee of the World Congress of Tatars, Professor A. A. Burkhanov, also took part in parallel in an International Scientific Conference held at the State Hermitage Museum.

The annual International Scientific Conference “Urban Culture of the Middle East: Archaeology, Art, Ethnography” was held in the Council Hall of the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Dvortsovaya Emb., 34). This year, it was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the birth and in memory of the outstanding archaeologist and orientalist G. L. Semenov (1950–2007).

The conference opened with welcoming remarks from M. B. Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and renowned Arabist; Dr. D. K. Mirzaakhmedov, Head of the Bukhara Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan (Samarkand); and N. D. Sobirov, Director of the Paikend Museum of Archaeology (Bukhara).

The three-day forum brought together prominent historians, archaeologists, ethnographers, art historians, and Arabist philologists from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan; from Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Samarkand, Nukus, Bukhara, Chirchik, Panjakent), Tajikistan (Dushanbe), as well as participants joining online from New York.

At the closing session, a scholar from the Republic of Tatarstan — Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Head of the Committee for Work with Local Historians of the Executive Committee of the World Congress of Tatars, Professor A. A. Burkhanov — delivered a presentation titled “Archaeological Sites on the Right Bank of the Middle Amu Darya within the Lebap Province of Turkmenistan (Some Results of Research).”

The scholar from Tatarstan also donated to the libraries of the State Hermitage Museum and the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences the newly published (Kazan) collection of scientific articles “The Volga-Ural Region and Central Asia in the System of Cultures and Civilizations of Eurasia” (Kazan: Otechestvo, 2025, 628 pages), released as the 30th volume in the series “East–West: Dialogue of Cultures and Civilizations of Eurasia.” The comprehensive collection (editor-in-chief and compiler: A. A. Burkhanov) includes works by scholars from Tatarstan, various regions of the Russian Federation (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Saratov, Astrakhan, Simferopol, Perm, Novosibirsk, Tobolsk, Serov, Yakutsk, Gorno-Altaysk), Kazakhstan (Almaty, Astana, Semey), Uzbekistan (Tashkent), Turkmenistan (Ashgabat), Turkey (Ankara, Trabzon), Lithuania (Vilnius), and Belarus (Minsk, Brest).

The volume is dedicated to the memory and 85th anniversary of the outstanding Russian and Tatar philosopher, orientalist, and historian E. S. Kulpin-Gubaidullin (1939–2015), grandson of the distinguished Tatar historian and philologist, and the first Tatar graduate of the Imperial Kazan University, Gaziz Gubaidullin.

The presentation of this collection will take place during the International Conference on Socio-Natural History at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow on November 11, 2025.

During the conference at the Hermitage, Professor A. A. Burkhanov received the latest issue of Archaeological News No. 32, published in St. Petersburg, which includes his article “A Sogdian Inscription from Keshk Zukhra-Takhir” (pp. 352–356).

Information by A. A. Burkhanov.