For a modern individual, identifying and classifying oneself and others through the professional community to which one belongs is highly relevant. In modern obituaries, the working life, public service, and professional qualities of the deceased often overshadow their individual personality traits. As a result, references to profession, involvement in specific organizations, and a list of professional achievements have become distinctive and even integral features of modern obituaries. The procedure for publishing an obituary in a newspaper reflects social hierarchy and denotes the social status of the deceased during their lifetime. The author of an obituary is often presented as a collective voice — representatives of a specific organization. Furthermore, the involvement of the deceased in particular institutions and professional fields is frequently evident in the design of tombstones in modern urban cemeteries. The earthly successes of the deceased are often recorded in the space of the dead, thus immortalizing their achievements. Institutions, therefore, dictate a particular procedure for integrating the deceased into the space of public memory. This article will focus on the ways in which the professional affiliations of the deceased are articulated and their working achievements externalized through an institutionalized set of expressive means and clichés. It will also examine the choice of specific life scenarios used to describe the life of the deceased. The conclusions presented in the article are based on data from a study of obituaries (2000–2015) published in the Tsarskoselskaya Gazeta, the leading print media outlet in the town of Pushkin (a locality within the Pushkinsky District of St. Petersburg), as well as an analysis of early 21st-century tombstones at Kuzminskoye Cemetery, one of the main burial grounds in the town.

This paper is dedicated to the lullaby “The Tired Toys Are Sleeping” from the popular Soviet series “Goodnight, Little Ones!”. The data collected through primary research conducted by the author in Saint Petersburg from 2008 to 2024 show that this song is one of the most frequently mentioned lullabies in the modern urban repertoire. The study examines the inclusion of a new media-based format of lullabies into daily oral practices. This paper analyzes the textual, visual, and musical components of the program in which the lullaby was featured. As a result of this analysis, the author draws the following conclusions. Unlike traditional lullabies, which are addressed to infants, this lullaby, played from a screen, was intended for a wide audience. The text contains formal elements of the lullaby genre, such as the motif of wishing sleep and markers like “bau-bai”. However, it is more aligned with authorial lullabies and the literaturebased canon established during the Soviet era than with traditional folk lullabies. Throughout the series’ existence, its opening sequence changed multiple times, starting with a black-and-white hand-drawn version and culminating in the audience’s favorite introduction by A. M. Tatarsky, created using plasticine animation. Broadcasted every evening and designed for a broad audience, the lullaby, in combination with its musical and visual elements, took on a personal character due to its direct address to the child, the male vocal performance, and the animated components that aided in text comprehension. An initially media-based lullaby thus became integrated into private family practices and entered the oral tradition.

The article examines the communication of summer residents through the lens of their agricultural activities. Based on material collected during folklore fieldwork in 2018, it introduces a classification of the ways agricultural skills are transmitted and explores hypotheses about the practical significance of such transmission. Various forms of interaction between summer residents and plants (including both non-verbal and verbal “communication”) serve as a medium for passing down practices, both from the older generation to the younger (the primary form) and among members of the same generation. When both actors perceive the possession of agricultural skills as an essential attribute of the status of a “good summer resident”, the transfer of practices enables the adviser to assume a dominant position. Meanwhile, the recipient can either accept this role distribution or reject the status of “junior”. The possibility of such a refusal arises through recounting the advice to a third party: the person adopting the practice can indicate either that they did not follow the advice or that the advice holds no value for them. Alternatively, there is a version of the story in which the recipient acknowledges following the advice without elevating the adviser’s status relative to their own.