Soloneshensky district of the Altai Territory was established in 1924. He united large and small settlements along the Anuya Valley and its tributaries, founded at different times by Russian peasants - old-timers and immigrants. This corner of the Northwestern Altai is characterized by a variety and richness of natural resources; within its borders there are different landscape zones: mountain taiga and steppe lands, floodplain meadows and alpine pastures. The complex interaction of ecological and ethno-cultural factors determines the agricultural technological cycle that has developed in the region and the corresponding peasant calendar. The history of active development of Soloneshenskaya land began in the XIX century. The oldest surnames here number up to seven or eight generations. During the 19th century, villages appeared one after another in the valleys and mountain tracts: Sibiryachikha (1824), Soloneshnoye (1828), Topolnoye (1829), Telezhikha, Demino, Karpovo, Tumanovo (1857), Cheremshanka (1867), Alesandrovka, Bolshaya Rechka, Kalinikha, Lyutaevo,Medvedevka (1876), Berezovka (1877), Matveevka, Talovka (1878), Verkh-Solonovka (1890), etc. They developed as a result of the interaction of old-timers ' communities and irregular migration flows (Drozhetsky, 2004). At the end of the 19th century, the villages along the Anuya Valley were dominated by old-timers. Its main mass was made up of the first settlers of the XVIII century. Elements of their culture were formed in the conditions of the Russian North, the Urals (Vyatka and Perm provinces) and the Trans-Urals (Tobolsk Province), where the main migration flows to Siberia were initially formed. A special role in the development of Altai was played by the Old Believers, who, in their desire to preserve the original faith, moved away from the official authorities and the church. Beyond the Ural Stone, they were looking for the promised land - the so-called Belovodye. "Sectarian hermits," wrote the well-known Sib ... Read more