Introduction. The natural productive forces of each region have remained unchanged for thousands of years. The nature of their use is changing. Analysis of the process of construction of the Volga-Don channel in the scientific thought of Russia in the 18 th-mid 20 th centuries allows us to determine: 1) the formation and evolution of projects of infrastructure economic reforms in scientific and public thought, 2) the political conditions and reasons leading to their implementation. Methods and materials. The authors use the principles of historicism and objectivity, analysis, synthesis, historical and genetic method, systematic approach. The construction projects of the Volga-Don channel were discussed in the works of A.G. Brikner, S.V. Bernshtein-Kogan, V.F. Gnucheva, I.I. Golikov, A.N. Minkh, V.V. Bulatov, M.M. Zagorulko. These works deal with different options of project implementation and the possibility of its use on the basis of concession. Analysis. The paper analyzes how in the scientific thought of Russia in the 18 th-20 th centuries different projects of connection of the Volga and the Don by the channel were created. The research shows that attention of the scientific society and the state powers to this scientific and technical question increased in the periods of the great reforms-in the times of Peter I, Catherine the Great and in the time of the Soviet economic reforms of the 1920s-1930s. From the beginning of the 18 th century and till the middle of the 20 th century empirical data on this problem were accumulated. Results. On the one hand, for over two centuries the empirical data on the channel construction had been accumulated, the focus had being shifted from the one-scale consideration of this problem as a transport and military-political one to the complex research of the channel influence on geography, economy, nature of the region. On the other hand, the most important details of economic model had remained unchanged, and finally, the connection of the Volga and the Don was carried out by the decision of the State power, with the use of unfree labor and was funded by the State, i.e. in the same way as it was planned in the times of Peter I. I. O. Tyumentsev has worked out the key conception of the work, carried out the academic editing of the paper. A. L. Kleytman has analyzed scientific projects of the Volga-Don channel construction in the 18 th-early 20 th century. T. B. Ivanova has analyzed economic and technological projects of the Volga-Don channel construction in the Soviet times.

Венгры в ГУЛАГе (по воспоминаниям инженера-конструктора И. А. Маханова) 1 Hungarians in the GULAG (on the Memoirs of the Design-engineer I. A. Makhanov) The fragment of the memoirs written by I. A. Makhanov, the chief designer of artillery weapons of the Kirov plant, allows us to trace the fate of the Hungarian communist community in the USSR. The memoirist reports many interesting facts and details on some Hungarian communists during the Great Terror. The author of the memoirs, I. A. Makhanov supposed that I. V. Stalin physically destroyed the leaders of the Hungarian communist movement, and drove the Russian proletariat and peasantry to slavery and serfdom a severe blow to the communist movement, from which it could not recover.

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Introduction. The published material contains a fragment of the memoirs of I.A. Makhanov, an employee of the artillery department of the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. The text of the memoirs is kept in a manuscript in a single copy in the personal archive of the author’s son and has not been published yet. The publication has been prepared on the base of modern methods of source study and archeography. Archaeographic notes are provided in footnotes. In the comments to the text, reference data on geographical names, personalities, events mentioned in the memoirs are given. Analysis. As a participant in the Civil War in the Far East, I.A. Makhanov made interesting descriptions of the battles at the In and Olgokhta stations – the final battles of the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic against the last military formations of the White Army. Memoirs of I.A. Makhanov are an important and informative source on the history of the final stage of the Civil War in Russia. Results. The scientific publication of memoirs gives opportunity to introduce significant clarifications in the prevailing ideas about the end of the Civil War and the establishment of Soviet power in the Far East. Key words: The Civil War in Russia, the Far Eastern People’s Republic, the artillery department of the People’s Army, the end of the Civil War, memoirs of I.A. Makhanov.