Travel Diaries of B.A. Kuftin, the Head of the Tunguska Expedition, as Sources of the Epoch of the Formation of Soviet Ethnography

The article analyzes the travel diaries of the head of the Tunguska expedition of 1927–1928, Boris Kuftin (1892–1953). Methods and materials. Participants of the Tunguska Expedition conducted field research on Lake Baikal and the Far East in places where Evenks, Nanais, Negidals, Nivkhs, Oroches, and Udeges people lived. They collected valuable ethnographic materials about the ethnocultural features of settlement, types of dwellings, fishing activities, life cycle rituals, shamanism, holidays, and features of the language and folklore of the Tunguso-Manchus and Paleoasiats. Field notebooks of B.A. Kuftin are stored in St. Petersburg, in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and contain a large volume of ethnographic and anthropological information, drawings, shamanic texts, and various life support technologies. Results. However, in addition to them, the scientific heritage of the scientist has a travel diary, which reflects personal road observations and impressions of B.A. Kuftin, subjective characteristics of regional transport infrastructure in the first quarter of the 20th century, his own assessments of the development of Siberian and far Eastern historical science, their relationship with world science, and museum business in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. During the route, B.A. Kuftin met a large number of scientists – representatives of different scientific disciplines – who showed aspects of their complex social relations at the time.