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This article compares interethnic and interreligious marriages in Russia and Norway during the decades around 1900. State churches dominated religious life in both countries with over 90 percent of the population but both were losing influence during the period we focus on—rapidly in Russia after the 1917 Revolution. The part on Norway employs nominative and aggregate census material which from 1865 asked questions about religious affiliation, while the Russian case study utilizes the database of church microdata being built for Ekaterinburg—a railway hub and an industrial city in the Middle Urals, in Asia—in addition to census aggregates. Our main conclusion is that religion was a stronger regulator of intermarriage than ethnicity. Religious intermarriage was unusual in Ekaterinburg, even if official regulations were softened by the State over time—the exception is during World War I, when there was a deficit of young, Russian men at home and influx of refugees and Austro-Hungarian Prisoners of War (mostly Catholics and Lutherans). The situation was also affected by the 1917 Revolution creating equal rights for all religious denominations. The relatively few religious intermarriages in Norway were mostly between members of different Protestant congregations—nonmembers being the only group who often outmarried. We conclude that representatives of ethnic minorities and new religions seldom outmarry when religion was important for maintaining their identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the marriage behavior of the Old Believers--conservative dissenters who split from the Russian Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century. Persecuted by the state, they migrated to the country's fringe areas, including the Urals. Far away from the authorities, they maintained their pre-reform traditions and way of life. The biggest religious minority among ethnic Russians, they gained legal status and started to register vital events in church books after the Religious Freedom Manifesto was introduced in 1905. We present here first results from the computerized analyses of these records, including marriage frequency, age at first marriage with special attention to gender, social status and migration as determinants of marriage timing. We also address the issue of remarriage and conversion in connection with marriage. We argue that this was a sign of social elevation and of abandoning religious endogamy, which in its turn could be a sign of modernization of the institute of marriage in early twentieth century Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Formulations of protective polymeric coatings for sea craft, which contain natural aluminosilicates (zeolite and vermiculite from Primor’e deposits) as fillers and polyheterosiloxanes, oxides, and fluorides of some metals and mixtures of these as modifiers of binding resins, were developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Our previous abstract failed to elucidate if early diagnosis of CF by neonatal screening which had been introduced in Russia since 2006 had a positive influence on the nutritional status of CF children. We suppose that the higher portion of patients with low z-scores is a result of early diagnose but inadequate treatment in some distant Russian regions (Caucasus). The aim of the study was to determine the nutritional status of CF children in Russian regions versus some neighboring territories and Caucasus region. Methods 61 children with CF from Moscow region (112 measurements), 64 children (141 measurements) from other Russian regions, 19 children from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Moldova, receiving treatment in Moscow (41 measurements), and 25 children from Caucasus (40 measurements). Weight and height of CF children were recorded according to standard methods and expressed as standard deviation scores (z-score) and percentiles adjusted for age and gender using WHOAnthro- and WHOAnthroPlus programs. Results Mann–Whitney test showed statistically significant differences in z-scores: weight/age (p<0.001) and body length/age (p<0.001) in Caucasus group versus Moscow region; weight/age (p<0.001) and body length/age in Ukraine group (p<0.001) versus Moscow region; body length/age in Moscow (p<0.001) was better versus other Russian regions. Conclusion Children with CF in Moscow and Russian regions have relatively good nutritional status compared with Caucasus region and Ukraine/Kazakhstan/Moldavian patients with CF, which require better primary care in these regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]