Born in 1958 in the Urals (Chelyabinsk), grew up in Siberia (Omsk), received professional education at Omsk (main course in history) and Moscow (specialization in ethnography) universities. Teachers: Prof. L. P. Lashuk (Moscow State University) and Dr. V. I. Vasilyev (Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences). Defended dissertations in the specialty 07.00.07 (ethnography): "Historical Forms of Economy among the Peoples of Northwestern Siberia," Moscow State University, 1986 (Ph.D.); "Samoyeds and Ugrians of Western Siberia: Complexes of Traditional Cultures," Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1995 (Ph.D.). Since 2000 — professor, since 2003 — corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the past, a history teacher at the secondary school in the village of Ust-Ishim, a teacher and head of the Department of History of the USSR at the Tobolsk Pedagogical Institute, head of the Department of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Ural University, a research fellow at the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yekaterinburg). Lecturer at universities in Russia (UrFU, Ural State Pedagogical University, Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, NSU, Omsk State University, BelSU, etc.) and foreign countries: Germany (Berlin-Humboldt), Norway (Tromso), USA (Arkansas, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth College, Miami, Smithsonian Institution), Finland (Helsinki, Lapland-Arctic Centre). Founder of the scientific school of movement anthropology. Main research directions: movement anthropology, history and theory of colonization, nomadism, ethnophenomenology, mythology, film anthropology. Theoretical developments are combined with empirical (including expeditionary-field) research. A field researcher with 40 years of experience in expeditionary work in Yamal, Taimyr, Gydan, the Urals, the European North of Russia, Chukotka, Yugra, Yakutia, Scandinavia, Alaska, and other regions of the Arctic and Subarctic among the Nenets, Selkups, Enets, Sami, Khanty, Mansi, Komi-Zyryan, Chukchi, Evenks, Yakuts, Siberian and Ural Tatars, Nagaybaks, Bashkirs, Mari, Ural Germans, Russian Pomors, Cossacks, Old Believers, Siberian Old Residents. Author of more than 280 scientific publications. Member of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES); International Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA); International Arctic Association for Social Research (IASSA); Presidium of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2013); Ethnographic Commission of the RGO; expert of the RNF, RFBR, RGNF. Founder and director of the non-profit partnership "Ethnographic Bureau" (since 1991), which has implemented a number of major scientific and practical projects, including the creation of the exhibition "Connection of Times" at the Museum of Nature and Man of Khanty-Mansiysk. Head of the organizing committees of international scientific forums: I–III Northern Archaeological Congress (Khanty-Mansiysk, 2002, 2006, 2010); XI Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia (Yekaterinburg, 2015); I–IX Russian Festival of Anthropological Films (Salekhard, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, Yekaterinburg, 2011, 2013, 2015) and the forum "Multinational Russia" (Yekaterinburg, 2011, 2013). Head of dozens of scientific research projects under Russian and foreign grants/programs, including a grant from the Russian Science Foundation "Mobility in the Arctic: Ethnic Traditions" Chief Editor of the academic journal "Ural Historical Herald", member of the editorial boards and editorial councils of the journals: "Anthropology & Archaeology of Eurasia", "Archaeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia", "Izvestia of Irkutsk State University (series "Geoarchaeology. Ethnology. Anthropology"), "Izvestia of the Ural Federal University (series 'Humanities')", "Bulletin of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University (series 'Humanities and Social Sciences'), "Quaestio Rossica", "Tractus Aevorum".
