Aleksei Leont"ev (b. 1936) is an outstanding Russian philologist, psychologist, and linguist, the author of many books translated into 22 languages. This book is a teaching aid and handbook on the history of peoples and their languages of the Russian Federation and its neighbors, the New Independent States. The first chapter introduces the main concepts: ethnos, races, classification of world languages, their literatures, cultures, and religions. Chapter 2 is about languages of the FSU in general. The third chapter describes specific ethnocultural zones in the territory. The final chapter is a handbook which has a short description of the languages and cultures of about 170 ethnoses.