The International Scientific and Practical Conference “Ethno-regional Resources of Human Harmony with Nature and Society as Factors of Psychological Health, Interethnic Concord and Intercultural Communication” was organized last weekend by the Institute of Social Sciences of Irkutsk State University, Buryat State University named after D. Banzarov and with the support of the Ministry of Youth Policy of the Irkutsk Region. The participants were welcomed at the opening of the conference by Minister of Youth Policy of the Irkutsk Region Margarita Tsyganova, ISU Vice-Rector for Research and International Cooperation Konstantin Grigorichev and Head of the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology of BSU Aryuna Monsonova.

Alexander Karnyshev, the initiator and organizer of the conference:

It is significant that a conference dedicated to nature and interethnic harmony took place in Irkutsk and at Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is a place where people are most attuned to feeling harmony with nature. This has been evident for thousands of years among the peoples living along its shores, and it becomes even more relevant in today’s tourist “era”. Before Russia Day, on June 12, 2024, VTsIOM [Russian Public Opinion Research Center] conducted a poll among Russian citizens, asking them which territorial “objects” in the country they consider to be symbols of Russia. The majority of respondents named St. Petersburg (39%), Moscow (37%), and Lake Baikal (20%), followed by Altai, Kamchatka, and Crimea. It is the care for preserving Lake Baikal and nature, as well as improving connections with its attributes, that formed the basis for all activities of the conference.

More than 50 researchers from St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kemerovo, Chita, Krasnoyarsk, Ulan-Ude and other cities of Russia submitted their publications for the conference. International participants included scientists from Vietnam, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and Italy, both in person and remotely.