Tourism and the preservation of Old Belief in Estonia: the frontstage and backstage of Estonian Old Believers

The Estonian Old Believers (EOB) are a culturally endangered small Estonian national minority. Thanks to the government’s support to tourism development some secular and religious aspects of the EOB’s cultural heritage have been used to organize ‘tourism of Old Belief’. The organization of such tourism and its effects on the preservation of Old Belief have not been addressed in the relevant policy-making. Analysis shows that project-based tourism organization, which lacks coordination and the application of sustainability in the context of this community, has only a minimal economic effect. And due to the effect of commodification, tourism challenges the EOB culturally. This raises a question about the limits of tourism organization, which is understood in terms of a differentiation of the frontstage and backstage of EOB life.     

The gravity model: monitoring the formation and development of the Tripolye culture giant-settlements in Ukraine

The formation, development and decline of the Tripolye culture giant-settlements in Chalcolitic Ukraine are strictly linked to complex processes of migration and settlement relocation. Despite being traceable through pottery typological analyses linked to contextual seriations, their identification is sometime not obvious. This paper shows how the application of the ‘gravity model’ not only facilitates their recognition, but it also helps increase the reliability of determining diachronic and/or synchronic occupations, shedding at the same time light upon the crucial ‘internal’ development of single settlements. Instead of clear-cut consecutive occupations, a more gradual settlement rotation with some synchronous phases seems to have prevailed.