"Treasure-hunting" as a factor of destruction of Modern Age archaeological sites (the case of the Republic of Bashkortostan)
The formation of caring attitude to historical and cultural heritage sites is one of the top priorities set by the contemporary government cultural policy of the Russian Federation. For some of the Russian regions, including the Republic of Bashkortostan, the problem of archaeological site preservation is of crucial importance. Despite close attention paid by the Federal and regional authorities to this issue, public bodies responsible for the heritage protection record numerous cases of destruction of the sites' occupation layer. Recently, site looters who call themselves “treasure hunters” have been increasingly widespread. In order to satisfy their individual interest or solely for profit, they destroy the very possibility of obtaining new historical knowledge. The results of inventory procedures, reports on the activity of the Department for Cultural Heritage Protection in the Republic of Bashkortostan and some publications of archaeologists cannot fully assess the scale of “treasure hunters” activities and damage they cause to archaeological sites of the region. In this regard, it is necessary to develop new interdisciplinary methods to study this issue. In this work, on the basis of the analysis of materials (the Unified State Register of Objects of Cultural Heritage, the list of the revealed objects of cultural heritage, analytical reports of public authority of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the sphere of preservation, use, promotion and state protection of cultural heritage) the author concludes that the monuments dated by the Modern Age (the 16th-19th centuries) are the least protected. For a more in-depth study of the activities of “treasure hunters” the author identified two most numerous groups in the social network “VKontakte”. Profiles of communities members, their communication activity in the network, messages, comments, republications, current and most discussed topics were studied using several software products. As a result of the research, the author composed a generic portrait of the “treasure hunter”, identified the most frequently looted sites, traced the cohesion degree of each of the analyzed communities and the possibility of their arranging large gatherings for joint search for treasures.