The interest in using the energy of falling water for the electrification of industry and cities arose among electrical engineers at the turn of the 19th‑20th centuries. The successful experience of building hydroelectric power plants in Western Europe and North America reinforced this interest. Russian engineers developed projects for the utilization of energy from the rapids of the Narova, Vuoksa, Volkhov, Dnepr, Rion, and other rivers. Projects of relatively small hydroelectric installations received practical implementation. But large-scale electrification projects for St. Petersburg were not implemented. They became the subject of discussions about expediency of hydropower development. The article analyzes the points of view of the expert community, public authorities and local governments, as well as industrialists and landowners on the possibilities and potential threats of using hydropower for the electrification of industrial enterprises, railways and cities. On the one hand, cheap electric energy was in demand in production and in cities, and on the other hand, the development of the industry was hampered by the lack of legal regulation and the opposition of landowners and hydraulic engineers in the construction of hydroelectric powerplants.

The article analyzes scientific research conducted in the first half of the twentieth century. in the reservoirs of the Ob-Irtysh basin. The period under consideration preceded the period of active industrial development of Western Siberia (1960–1980s) and is associated with the accumulation and generalization of faunistic material for further systematization and development of recommendations for the economic development of water resources and fishing in the region. Fishery research in the first half of the 20th century. had a pronounced practical orientation, their results were used by economic entities.

The industrial development of natural resources and raw materials of East Siberia began in 1930s and continued at a fast rate up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, spreading to more and more territories in the region. It was accompanied by the pollution of rivers which were used for supplying water to industrial facilities and as sewerage for their wastewater. Work aimed at protecting the environment, and in particular at protecting bodies of water, started in East Siberia after the Environment Protection Law had been passed in 1960 and included the construction of purification facilities, the reduction of raw materials lost with wastewater, and the implementation of water reuse. In certain cases, significant results were achieved, but the attempts to stop water pollution in the studied period failed. One of the reasons for that was the industrial approach to the development of the natural resources of the region and the common practice of prioritizing economic goals rather than environmental ones.

The article examines the consequences of the industrial development of the Middle Volga region in the 1950s — 1980s for small rivers in the region and the measures taken to protect them from negative anthropogenic impact. Industrial, municipal and agricultural pollution, increased water consumption, reclamation construction and irrigation systems functioning — all these factors caused a significant deterioration in the ecological condition of small rivers of the Volga basin in the second half of the twentieth century, and today many of them are under threat of death. The study of the historical origins of regional environmental problems is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of projects for the conservation and improvement of water bodies in the Middle Volga region.

This study is devoted to the study of the water protection aspect of the activities of the standing commissions on nature protection of the executive committees of the councils of workers' deputies. Permanent commissions arose as a result of the adoption in 1960 of the "Law on the Protection of Nature in the RSFSR." The scope of their competence included the need to control pollution of water resources. In the second half of the twentieth century, large-scale industrial construction unfolded throughout Western Siberia. Active industrial oil production in the northern regions of Western Siberia raised the question of the need to create a processing base in the southern territories. However, such industrial construction could not but affect the ecology of this region. The most negatively industrial development affected the river systems of the Ob-Irtysh basin.
In this regard, the main purpose of the study is to study the regional experience of the activities of the permanent commissions for nature protection in the protection of water resources of the Ob-Irtysh basin. As a methodological tool, the concept of environmental history was used, which considers the process of interaction between man and nature in a historical context. The source base of the study was the funds of the State Archive of Ugra and the Historical Archive of the Omsk Region: minutes of meetings of standing commissions, as well as materials of deputy inspections.
It should be noted that the presented work has sufficient scientific novelty. The study of the activities of permanent commissions for the protection of nature in national historiography has become widespread over the past few years. However, the work on this issue is local in nature, without comparative analysis with other regions. The proposed study is intended to fill that gap in part.
As a result, the author concludes that both the southern and northern territories of Western Siberia had similar problems related to the safety of existing water sources. The absence of water treatment facilities and the postponement of their construction, pollution with oil and its processing products, as well as municipal and domestic pollution all this united, as well as a large industrialized city, and the oil production center that is beginning to develop. Despite the fairly wide range of powers, the commissions presented as a whole could rarely change the current picture.

The USSR had planned their ecological development since the end of the 9th five-year plan because of the newest methods and computers which could help in the planning process. There were a lot of disputes about the definition of the concept of ecological planning. Some scientists thought that ecological planning is about human activity, but there were scientists who said that it’s more important to know how many nature resources people use in their economic. The first ecological plan based on statistics from ministries, but they had not had unified forms. So norms of USSR State Planning Committee were incorrect, and plans were not carried out. The section «Nature protection and rational use of natural resources» of global plan based on ministries data. For example, Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources of the USSR planned water resources protection. Starting from the 10th five-year plan the USSR sponsored environmental protection activities, and about 70of the funds were spent on the protection of water resources. So there are some positive moments in ecological planning of the USSR in 1970–1980, but it were things that dealt with the consequences, rather than being a warning.

In the 1930s in the north of Western Siberia, in the recently organized center of the Ostyako-Vogulsky national district, the village of Ostyako-Vogulsk, the construction of a water pipeline began. The first water pipelines in Western Siberia were built in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. in Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tomsk and Omsk. The construction of a water pipeline in Ostyako-Vogulsk was dictated by the need to fight epidemics of typhus and other diseases. The first water pipeline project appeared in 1934, but it was not implemented due to the lack of scarce building materials. The problem of water supply returned in 1937. The previous project was corrected and pipe laying began. But the arrest of one of the designers caused the construction to freeze. Against the backdrop of a deteriorating epidemiological situation in 1940, they returned to design and construction, but it was only in 1970 that the water supply was completed.

The article examines the situation of fish grounds, the ichthyofauna of the Ob-Irtysh water basin and the volume of fish production in the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamal-Nenets national districts. The main focus is to characterize the lands by type and their location, as well as the plans, difficulties and results of their development. Data on available scientific results of resource base research before and during the war is systematized. The author presents the dynamics of fish catches in 1939–1945 and reveals the share of the districts’ catches in the all-Russian fish catch. The consequences for the development of the fishing industry as a result of the excessive strain on the resource base of the industry during the war period are formulated.

Traditional sectors of the economy of the Siberian North in the second half of the 20th century were overshadowed by the active development of industry based on the extraction of mineral resources. In the case of Western Siberia it was the oil and gas extraction industry. But the industrial development of Siberia is not limited to this circumstance. Traditional industries of the region also participated in this process. First and foremost we are talking about the fishing industry. The Tyumen region occupied a crucial place in its development in the USSR. There are practically no works that consider the development of the fishing industry in the context of the interaction between man and nature, where nature is not a fixed background, but an active participant of the historical process. The purpose of the article is to show the evolution of the state policy on the development of fish resources in Siberia (on the example of the Tyumen region) during the period of active industrial development of the region in the context of interaction between man and nature. To solve this problem, the concept of the environment as a product of human activity was used.
The development of the fishing industry was carried out in the context of the transition from fishery to fish farming, from fish harvesting to fish resource management. A new branch of fishery was created — lake commercial fish farming, which showed high economic results. During the period 1945–1975 the fishery industry passed a path from extensive development, using to the maximum extent the natural opportunities of the Ob-Irtysh basin, to the necessity to intensify fishing and transition to fish farming. By 1975 the reduction of fish catches was overcome, and the scientific, technological and institutional basis for intensive fish farming was created. The central and regional authorities adopted a conceptual approach to maximize the marketability of the fishing industry by continuously increasing the planned targets, intensification of fishing, replacement of natural ecosystems with artificial (managed) ecosystems.

The article analyzes the work of the administration and sanitary and hygienic institutions of the cities of KhMAO-Yugra to improve the hydrochemical condition of the reservoirs of the settlements of the district during the years of its oil and gas development. Its purpose is to reconstruct the real history of the influence of natural, climatic and geographical conditions of the north of Western Siberia, as well as the consequences of the man-made impact of industrial oil production and its transportation on the quality of water consumed by residents of the region. Among the main tasks, the author seeks to identify the causes of poor water quality and exceeding the maximum permissible concentration of harmful substances in it.Based on the modernization methodological paradigm and using ideographic, historical-comparative and other concrete historical methods, as well as historical and logical principles of research, the author shows for the first time in Russian historiography how, as a result of the comprehensive measures taken to restore old and build new structures for water intake and transportation of drinking water, as well as the use of effective means and methods of its purification during the study period, it was possible to significantly improve its environmental and sanitary-hygienic characteristics.

Since the mid‑1980s, serious changes in the socio-economic and political system have been taking place in Russia. The problems of nature protection are widely publicized. The deterioration of the ecological situation in the regions is connected not only with the activities of industry, but also with the peculiarities of the state system of nature protection.
During the second half of the twentieth century, departmental institutions solved issues of nature protection, this correlated with the goals of the territorial organization of the economy. There was no single nature protection management body until 1988, when the State Nature Committee was established with regional and local branches. The main functions of the committee are integrated management of nature protection activities in the district, control over the use of natural resources, etc.
Large-scale industrial development of oil and gas fields in the North of Western Siberia during the second half of the twentieth century led to an aggravation of the ecological situation, the generation of many irreversible processes in the environment. The volume of water resources of the district is quite large and has strategic fisheries, transport, and spiritual and cultural significance for the indigenous peoples of the North.
The purpose of this article is to determine the role of the regional committee for Nature Protection of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug in the late 1980s— 1990s in ensuring the preservation of water resources.

The article deals with the problems of water supply and water treatment of the cities of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug — Yugra (hereinafter named as KHMAO — Yugra) in the post-Soviet period.
The article emphasizes that the abundant water resources of the district were often impossible to use for water supply — not only for drinking, but also for technical needs in the household and in everyday life, since they contained an unacceptable amount of iron, some other heavy metals, manganese, nutrients, etc. and, accordingly, needed serious measures for water purification, which required the construction of water treatment facilities. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the real history of the water supply process in the cities of the county during the last 30 years.
Among the sources used in the work, the materials of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-being occupy have a significant place, in particular, the reports given to the Government of the Russian Federation «On the state of sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population in the Khanty–Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug" and information taken from documents and archives of relevant services (housing, energy, natural resources, etc.) city administrations of the district.
Based on the modernization methodological paradigm and using ideographic, historical-comparative and other specific-historical methods, as well as historical and logical principles of research, the author comes to the conclusion that the main problems in the housing and communal services industries related to the supply of water to cities during the period under review, in addition to the problems of water pollution and insufficient purification (which negatively affects the sanitary and epidemiological condition), also a large degree of wear of water supply networks and the obsolescence of both equipment and methods of water treatment, which also affects on the purity of the water that the cities supply. For the first time, the author points out the possibility of solving the problems of water supply and water treatment with the help of the "Smart City" system, those aspects of it that are related to water supply. However, so far this system has become widespread only in 4–5 so-called "pilot" cities.

The problem of the formation of scientific engineering and technical societies (NITO) in the context of the evolution of the system of party-state management of the scientific and technical sphere in the years of industrialization is very relevant in an increasingly complicated geopolitical situation and the critical need for a technological breakthrough. The purpose of the publication is to determine the stages of development of the NITO, the main areas of activity, the nature of relations with the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and government agencies, and to evaluate the effectiveness. The methodological basis of the research was the principles of historicism, objectivity and reliability. The basic theory is modernization. A significant source base was involved in the study, which was based on archival materials. The novelty of the research is determined not only by the study of previously unpublished documents, but also by the identification of the vector of the evolution of the NITO, the factors that determined the content of the activity and the mechanisms of their management, the contribution to the implementation of forced

The article discusses the features of the organization of the second landing of explorers in the Middle Ob region of the late 1950s, the formation of their production and settlement infrastructure on the basis of archival materials collected by the author and memoirs of "shadow actors" — direct participants in the events. The value of the "second wave" of geologists is fixed for adjusting the further vector of geological prospecting in the region, which allowed maintaining the pace on the way to "big oil". The main feature identified by the author was the role of geologists, identified by residents with the Soviet government, as translators of civilization in remote areas of the North, despite the limited resources and capabilities available in their arsenal.

The All–Russian Society for Nature Protection (hereinafter referred to as the VOOP) was a voluntary mass organization whose activities were aimed at involving the public in actively contributing to the activities of the party and the government for the protection, rational use and reproduction of the country's natural resources. The relevance of the appeal to the history of the Society for the Protection of nature, on the one hand, is explained by the little-studied nature of this problem at the regional level, on the other hand, it is associated with the increased interest in the modern world in environmental problems, as well as the search for ways and directions to maintain ecological balance in the world. The Soviet experience can be applied to the organization of volunteer organizations and the implementation of environmental policy of the state. The purpose is to identify and characterize the main activities of the Nature Protection Society in the Tyumen region. The novelty of the study lies in the consideration of the activities of one of the regional nature conservation societies, which was not the subject of special study. As a result, the author came to the conclusion that the EPO did not have its own mechanisms of influence on the organization of environmental activities, due to the departmental disunity of environmental management practices in the country. Therefore, the regional branch of the VOOP was largely delimited by educational work with the population through periodicals, television, radio, organizing contests, exhibitions, holding lectures and talks, and also carried out public control over compliance with the Law on Nature Protection.

Introduction: The study of the hydrological hazards in the north of Western Siberia is important because settlements in this territory are generally located on the banks of rivers and are therefore subject to the negative effects of water. The purpose of this study is to identify the dynamics of hydrological hazards in the settlements of the Konda river basin. Material and methods: The article presents the results of the author’s research on the development of a digital cartographic model of flood zones of the coastline of the Konda River. The research object was the settlements of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous district — Yugra (Kama village, Altay village, Vykatnoy settlement) within the latitudinal flow of the Konda river between 59 and 61 N and between 66 and 70 E, where the manifestation of hydrological hazards is active in nature. The methodology for creating maps of flood zones of the territory of settlements using the geographical information system QGIS is shown. Results and scientific novelty: Natural and anthropogenic conditions and prerequisites for hydrological hazards and negative impact of waters on the studied area were identified. Hydrological and cartographic analysis was carried out, which made it possible to establish critical levels and characteristic water flows in the Konda River, in which floodplain flooding occurs, including the territory of settlements. A hydrologically correct digital model of the terrain on the territory of settlements in the Konda river basin is proposed, as well as modeling of flood zones, during the analysis of which a list of objects falling into the flood zone is determined. Maps of flood zones of the coastline of the Konda River within local areas of these settlements at flood levels of 1%, 2%, 4%, 10% are developed.

There are natural foci of tularaemia in the floodplains of the major rivers of Ugra (Ob and Irtysh). The water vole is the main reservoir of tularaemia infection. Water vole populations show considerable variability, from mass reproduction to almost complete elimination.
The aim of the study was to evaluate changes in numbers of water voles, and their consequences.
Material for analysis was collected during surveys carried out in 2004–2022. Voles were captured using standard zoological methods (pitfall trenches, driving fences, trap-lines).
It was found that water vole abundance peaked in 2013, after which it began to decline and in 2015–2022 it was practically not found in collections. The year 2013 was characterised by an epidemic outbreak of tularaemia among the population (1005 people were infected) when water vole numbers peaked. In subsequent years, a sluggish epizootic of tularaemia among small mammals (the root vole, common muskrat, red-backed voles, shrews) was observed. There were no prerequisites for a spill of tularaemia infection.

The article is devoted to the history of visits which was made by a Canadian-American correspondent F. A. MacKenzie to Ural in Siberia in the first half of 1920s. At that time these provinces were in the process of resurrection to normalcy after the Civil War. In the early years of peace, foreign correspondents were free to move around the country, although journalists’ articles were checked by the Soviet censorship. MacKenzie’s articles were no exception, although he, like other foreign correspondents, attempted to evade censorship. His articles which were published in 1922–1924 depicted a controversial condition of people at the Urals and Siberia. Despite his criticism of Soviet policy and description of daily public life as depression, MacKenzie praised the positive aspects of Bolshevik rule in the economic sphere. McKenzie’s main focus in articles was City of Omsk, which remained the economic capital of Siberia in the first half of the 1920s. Novonikolaevsk, which has become from 1926 Novosibirsk, could hardly be perceived him as the real capital of Siberia. McKenzie noted a significant improvement in railroad transport traffic, but the whole conditions of the main cities of the Urals and Siberia were appreciated him as unsatisfactory and poor.

This article informs the professional community about the opening at Tyumen State University of Russia’s first Master’s degree in Environmental Humanities. The master’s program works on the basis of the Tyumen State University Anthropological School.

The proposed article is a review of key scientific events in which the scientists of Laboratory of Historical researches took part. The article analyzes the prospects for further researches and cooperation between Russian and foreign scientists in this scientific field.