The book by Svetlana Pletneva, Doctor of Historical Sciences, specialist in the history of nomads, is dedicated to one of the largest medieval peoples - the Polovtsians. This people, who lived in gigantic spaces from the Danube to the Irtysh, forced Byzantium, Rus', and neighboring Eastern European countries to reckon with themselves, but the Mongol invasion stopped its independent existence. The Polovtsians scattered throughout the Balkans, Rus', Transcaucasia and Hungary, but the bulk of them joined the population of the Golden Horde, contributing to the formation of the Tatars, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Bashkirs, Crimean Tatars, and some other Turkic-speaking peoples. Svetlana Pletneva examines written and archaeological sources related to the Polovtsians, talks about their worldview and political history. M.: Lomonosov, 2010. – 216 p. – P38 (History. Geography. Ethnography). ISBN 978-5-91678-069-7. Illustrations by I. Tibilova