The article analyzes the works of an outstanding orientalist Galina Tyun (1948 2017) who devoted herself to studying the Malay Indonesian region history. She studied the Chinese minority status in Indonesia and the spread of reformist, enlightenment and nationalist ideas among Chinese immigrants at the beginning of the XX century, as well as the economic and political measures of the Malay Indonesian region leaders during the second half of the XX and the early XXI centuries. Galina Tyun’s remarkable Indonesian studies articles reflected the globalization processes in Muslim education and religion modernization. She made a great contribution to the development of Indonesian studies and was one of the first among Russian researchers to study Islamic banking.