The name of the real state adviser, ethnographer, researcher of Siberia Nikolai Lvovich Gondatti (1860-1946) has been undeservedly forgotten for more than half a century. Meanwhile, many of his research works on statistics, anthropology and ethnography at the beginning of the 20th century were highly appreciated by contemporaries in Russia and abroad. To the attention of readers, we present one of the works of L. G. Gondatti - a report on his scientific trips to Northwest Siberia, devoted to the study of traces of paganism and the cult of the bear among indigenous peoples. The book is designed for specialists in the field of archeology, ethnology, cultural studies and everyone interested in this topic.