ULAN-UDE, Buryatia. At the picture, the young Buryat scholar is busy with a cultural-preservation campaign, one that opposes President Vladimir Putin`s plan to merge dozens of regions, national republics and autonomous districts -- including those in Tsyrempilov`s Lake Baikal neighborhood. On Friday, Putin met with Irkutsk region Governor Alexander Tishanin in the Kremlin to discuss the latest regional merger initiative: joining the Irkutsk region with the Ust-Ordynsky Buryatsky autonomous district. The Kremlin wants to increase its hold over the far-flung regions by reducing their number from 89 to as few as 30 through mergers. Since 2003, three such initiatives have been approved in local referendums. A referendum on the Irkutsk merger is planned for April. "The main goal from the Kremlin`s point of view is to make the regions easier to govern," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. But Tsyrempilov and other activists among Russia`s ethnic minorities fear that the restructuring will rob them of their language and traditions -- and lead to precisely the regional instability it is meant to prevent. Ust-Orda, as it is usually called, is one of the three Buryat regions that Stalin carved out of the formerly unified republic. Today, the district is home to about 15 percent of Russia`s 400,000 ethnic Buryats, though the majority of its population is ethnic Russian. The district is also in economic shambles. Tishanin told Putin on Friday that 80 percent of Ust-Orda`s population lives below the poverty line, compared to 20 percent in the Irkutsk region, Ust-Orda administration head Valery Maleyev said the merger would "balance the socio-economic level of the two regions, preserve and elevate living standards." At the same news conference, Tishanin said the new federal subject would have "an effective administrative system and a competitive economy based on both regions` strategic advantages." Buryat activists are doubtful that the lives of Ust-Orda`s citizens would improve significantly -- and they fear the merger process would further erode Buryat cultural heritage Yevgeny Khamaganov, administrator of the web site Buryatia.org, said he was unconvinced by assurances from Tishanin that Ust-Orda`s Buryats would be able to preserve their culture after the merger. The only guarantee of that is "the ability to influence organs of local self-rule, which only the regional authorities can do," he said in e-mailed comments. Khamaganov noted that various Buryat cultural organizations were already active in the Irkutsk region. "But they can hardly be said to do enough ... to preserve and develop the Buryat language and culture," he said. Activists also say the pressure to assimilate into mainstream Russian culture will increase as Buryats go from being 25 percent of Ust-Orda`s population to less than 5 percent of a post-merger Irkutsk. TheMoscowTimes