URAL ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY
Since Stone Age the Ural was an area of (a) interaction of mobile mainstream cultures and ethnocultural crossroads, (b) formation of stable local cultures. It became a cradle for large communities such as Ural linguistic family which scattered over the vast space between Fennoscandia/Hungaria and Taimyr/Altai. In Bronze Age the Ural served as one of footholds for ancient Steppe Indo-Europeans. In the early AD it was a starting point of the Hun expansion, then, in Middle Ages, of the Magyar migration. Northern Ural provided Stone Samoyeds with backbone territory wherefrom they moved with their reindeer herds westward to the White Sea and eastward to the Yenisey River. In the era of Russian colonization Ural became a meeting place of two Russian free-will streams, northern Pomors and southern Cossacks, who rapidly conquered enormous spaces of Siberia while Moscow state was ruined by terror and havoc. Later on the towns-plants essentially enriched the multicultural Ural environment. During all these periods Ural dwellers tested and formed various schemes of ethnodiplomacy which are visible until today. It is historical platform of so called Ural tolerance pointed out by both residents and visitors.