The article discusses the relationship between folk traditional culture and historical and cultural heritage as a form of contemporary actualization of the culture of the past. The results of the activities of the local route of the Great Silk Road for the regional culture of the peoples of the North Caucasus are regarded as a model for an ethnographic study of cultural heritage. The basis of the approach is the presentation of regional sections of the routes of the great roads of Eurasia as culture geocenoses. The formation of cultural heritage in such culture geocenoses has both local roots and consequences of their inclusion in the large culture geocenosis of the Great Silk Road. Within the regional culture of the peoples of the North Caucasus such geocenoses are parts of the silk-growing and silk-weaving areas of the Caucasus, large areas of high mountains (the area of handicraft sites of mountainous Dagestan and the area of tower monuments of the Greater Caucasus) and the foothills of the North Caucasus