Assessment of the degree of severity of local ethnic contact zones of the Republic of Bashkortostan

The Republic of Bashkortostan is one of the most multi-ethnic regions of Russia. At the same time, the republic can be considered as an ethnic contact zone on a regional scale, consisting of local ethnic contact zones identified at the level of municipal districts and urban districts. The purpose of the study is to assess the degree of expression of local ethnic contact zones on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan based on the results of the population census conducted in 2021. This assessment takes into account the heterogeneity of the components that make up the ethnic contact zones, which determines the novelty of the study. The study showed that the ethnic mosaic index used to determine the degree of expression of ethnic contact zones allows only a formal assessment of the complexity of the ethnic structure of the population of the territories, but does not give an idea of the features of this structure. To take into account the factor of heterogeneity of the components of ethnic contact zones, the work carried out classifications of local ethnic contact zones according to the combination of ethnic components and the degree of proximity/contrast of their constituent ethnic groups. The second classification is based on the value of the ethnic contrast coefficient, or Soroko coefficient, calculated at the district and city level. The final typology of local ethnic contact zones, taking into account the heterogeneity of their component structure, showed that the maximum severity of ethnic contact zones characterizes the middle part of the republic, corresponding to the territory of the most pronounced Bashkir-Russian interaction. At the same time, the degree of expression of ethnic contact zones in the north-west of Bashkortostan, in the region of the Bashkir-Tatar continuum, turned out to be lower.