Russian in Barga: the search of history and national identity in border China

The research is based on the materials provided by the Enhe county government and the Society for studies of Russian nationality in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia. The said data are presented in Russia for the first time. The article addresses the social and historical mechanisms that contributed to the formation of the Russian national community in that region of China as well as the impact of the Chinese national cultural policy. Their ethnicity is determined by their common history and culture. The major factor of self-identification as Russians being painful memories of the repressions in the period of the Cultural revolution.