Snesarev Gleb (1910—1989) – Soviet ethnographer and specialist in religious studies, and in the field of spiritual culture of the peoples of the Central Asia.
Having graduated from the Ethnographic Department of the Moscow State University, in 1931 —1936, he worked in Samarkand, at the Central State Museum of the Uzbek S.S.R. Then, he returned to Moscow and started to work at the Central Antireligious Museum, where he became a specialist on exhibition management, and a researcher with a obvious interest to the expedition activity (he gathered and studied monuments of the history of Islam in the republics of the Soviet Middle Asia. After a short work (1945—1952) in the office of the Ministry of State Security of the Moscow Region, S. became one of the leading ethnographers and specialists in religious studies at the Institute of Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., where in 1950-s — 1960-s, he kept conducting his field research in the frames of the Khorezm and Middle-Asian archaeological and ethnographic expeditions.
During many years, the attention of S. was centered at the worldview of Moslems interpreted by him in the context of specific social practices. He shown that, in spite of political and educative struggle against the phenomenon, known in 1930-s — 1960-s as ‘religious survivals’, the religious mentality of the local population passed through some transformation, but had not been lost by significant part of people living in the Soviet Republics of the Central Asia.
In the field of methodology of the field research, S. argued for the strategy of long stationary studies — he treated it as the only way to understand the reasons of such sustainability of religious survivals in the mentality of believers. After the WWII, on the base of his field notes, he wrote several books which still are a precious source on the beliefs of Moslems of Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan of the mid-twentieth century.