Cultural Mosaic and Tourism Resources of Samara Region: Universalities and Originalities

Anatoly V. Malafeev¹ / Galina I. Zabolotni¹ / Nikolay I. Kuznetsov²

(1Samara Branch of Moscow State University of Service, Samara, Russia / 2Department of Design and Art Service, Samara, Russia)

Cultural mosaic of Samara rigion, its universalities and originalities, its past and present are the great resource of the development of tourism, poliethnical creativity and intercultural integration. Samara Povolzhie is situated within territory of Middle Basin of Volga river. Northern and western parts of this area lie in European forest-steppe zone, but southern and eastern parts stretch for Pre-Ural steppe province. Mid-Volga’s region belongs to extremely active cross-contact ethnic-cultural areas of Euroasian continent. The cultural heritage of Samara region is great and diverse. It is created by means of many generations and different nations. The ways of eastern and western, southern and northern cultures, ethnicities, religions were transcrossed here. This process of transcrossing had determined the complicated multiethnical population’s structure of Samara region from prehistorical times. The settling of Samara Povolzhie had begun in palaeolithic time, but wide development of this land had taken place just in neolithic. In last years the series new neolitic sites were discovered here. These monuments enable to show the originality of local cultures already in prehistorical time.The Samarskaya Luka is a rich and original environmental musium, a unique part of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. There are over 120 significant natural objects and over100 historical and cultural monuments , over 100 species of animals and plants.