Tokhtamysh–Timur war
The Tokhtamysh–Timur war was fought from 1389 to 1395 between Tokhtamysh, khan of the Golden Horde, the warlord and conqueror Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire, in the areas of the Caucasus mountains and Eastern Europe. The battle between the two Mongol rulers played a key role in the decline of the Mongol power over early Russian principalities. In the late 1370s and early 1380s, Timur helped Tokhtamysh assume supreme power in the White Horde against Tokhtamysh's uncle Urus Khan. After this he united the White and Blue Hordes, forming the Golden Horde, launched a massive military punitive campaign against the Russian principalities between 1381 and 1382, restoring Turco-Mongol power in Russia after the defeat in the Battle of Kulikovo; the Golden Horde, after a period of anarchy between the early 1360s and late 1370s, passed for a reestablishing as a dominant regional power, defeating Lithuania in Poltava around 1383. But Tokhtamysh had territorial ambitions in Persia and Central Asia, on account of this he turned against his old ally, Timur.
After the death of Abu Sa'id in 1335, the last ruler of the Ilkhanid Dynasty, a power vacuum emerged in Persia. Persia's vulnerability led to military incursions from Persia's neighbours. In 1383 Timur started his military conquest of that country. In 1385 he captured Herat and all of eastern Persia. In the same year Tokhtamysh raided northwestern Iran; the city of Tabriz was plundered and Tokhtamysh could retire with a rich booty. Between 1389 and 1391, Timur and Tokhtamysh started fighting, with the Battle of the Kondurcha River awarding victory to Timur. Despite the setback, Tokhtamysh recovered his position and in the spring of 1395 raided the Timurid territory of Shirvan. Timur counter-attacked, reconquering the area and raiding the Golden Horde's territories, he decisively routed Tokhtamysh in the Battle of the Terek river on April 15, 1395. In the same year Timur plundered Sarai, Majar and burnt Astrakhan. After his resounding defeat in the Battle of the Terek River, Tokhtamysh was deposed and replaced by Edigu, fleeing to the Ukrainian steppes and asking for help from Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania.
The two combined their forces in the Battle of the Vorskla River in 1399, but were crushingly defeated by Khan Temur Qutlugh and Edigu, two of Timur's generals. Around 1406 Tokhtamysh was killed in Siberia by Edigu's men; the Golden Horde never recovered from this war. In the middle of the 15th century, it fragmented into smaller khanates: the Kazan khanate, Nogai Horde, Qasim Khanate, Crimean Khanate and Astrakhan Khanate, thus Tatar-Mongol power in Russia was weakened and in 1480 the'Tatar yoke' over Russia, a reminder of the bloody Mongol conquest, was definitively shaken in the Great standing on the Ugra River. The last remnant of the Golden Horde was destroyed by the Crimean Khanate in 1502, the Khanates that arose after the Golden Horde's fragmentation were annexed by Muscovite Russia between the 1550s and early 17th century, except the Crimean Khanate which survived until 1783, under Ottoman protection. "Кондырча буендагы сугыш". Tatar Encyclopaedia. Kazan: The Republic of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences.
Institution of the Tatar Encyclopaedia. 2002. Marozzi, Justin. Tamerlane Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-711611-X. Hookham, Hilda. Tamburlaine the Conqueror. Hodder and Stoughton
Peter the Great
Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death in 1725, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars, he expanded the Tsardom into a much larger empire that became a major European power and laid the groundwork for the Russian navy after capturing ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea, he led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific and based on the Enlightenment. Peter's reforms made a lasting impact on Russia, many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign, he is known for founding and developing the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1917. The imperial title of Peter the Great was the following: By the grace of God, the most excellent and great sovereign prince Pyotr Alekseevich the ruler of all the Russias: of Moscow, of Kiev, of Vladimir, of Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan and Tsar of Siberia, sovereign of Pskov, great prince of Smolensk, Yugorsk, Vyatsky and others, sovereign and great prince of Novgorod Nizovsky lands, Chernigovsky, of Ryazan, of Rostov, Belozersky, Udorsky and the sovereign of all the northern lands, the sovereign of the Iverian lands, of the Kartlian and Georgian Kings, of the Kabardin lands, of the Circassian and Mountain princes and many other states and lands western and eastern here and there and the successor and sovereign and ruler.
Named after the apostle, described as a newborn as "with good health, his mother's black, vaguely Tatar eyes, a tuft of auburn hair", from an early age Peter's education was put in the hands of several tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon, Paul Menesius. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peter's elder half-brother, the weak and sickly Feodor III of Russia. Throughout this period, the government was run by Artamon Matveev, an enlightened friend of Alexis, the political head of the Naryshkin family and one of Peter's greatest childhood benefactors; this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne. Peter's other half-brother, Ivan V of Russia, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind; the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent. This arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, was ratified.
Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis' daughters from his first marriage, led a rebellion of the Streltsy in April–May 1682. In the subsequent conflict some of Peter's relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence; the Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, with Ivan being acclaimed as the senior. Sophia exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat. A large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and problems; this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not concerned that others ruled in his name, he engaged in such pastimes as sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peter's mother sought to force him to adopt a more conventional approach and arranged his marriage to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689.
The marriage was a failure, ten years Peter forced his wife to become a nun and thus freed himself from the union. By the summer of 1689, Peter age 17, planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns against the Crimean Khanate in an attempt to stop devastating Crimean Tatar raids into Russia's southern lands; when she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, who continually aroused disorder and dissent. Peter, warned by the Streltsy, escaped in the middle of the night to the impenetrable monastery of Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. Sophia was overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Foy de la Neuville records that Sophia requested influential members of Peter's family, notably her aunts Tatyana and Anna, to mediate with him. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name and her position as a member of the royal family. Still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs.
Power was instead exercised by Natalya Naryshkina. It was only. Formally, Ivan V remained a co-ruler with Peter. Peter became the sole ruler when Ivan died in 1696. Peter was 24 years old. Peter grew to be tall as an a
Ukase
A ukase, or ukaz, in Imperial Russia, was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader that had the force of law. "Edict" and "decree" are adequate translations using the terminology and concepts of Roman law. From the Russian term, the word ukase has entered the English language with the meaning of "any proclamation or decree. Prior to the 1917 October Revolution, the term applied in Russia to an edict or ordinance, legislative or administrative, having the force of law. A ukase proceeded either from the emperor or from the senate, which had the power of issuing such ordinances for the purpose of carrying out existing decrees. All such decrees were promulgated by the senate. A difference was drawn between the ukase signed by the emperor’s hand and his verbal ukase, or order, made upon a report submitted to him. After the Revolution, a government proclamation of wide meaning was called a "decree". Both terms are translated as "decree". According to the Russian Federation's 1993 constitution, an ukaz is a Presidential decree.
The English term "Executive Order" is used by the official website as an equivalent of the Russian ukaz. As normative legal acts, such ukazes have a status of by-law in the hierarchy of legal acts. Presidential decrees may not alter the regulations of existing legal sources - Russia's international agreements, the Constitution of Russia, Federal Constitutional Laws, Federal Laws and laws of Russian regions - and may be superseded by any of these laws. For example, thanks to Article 15 of the Constitution of Russia, the European Convention on Human Rights, as an international document, has higher status than any Russian law or presidential executive order. Rule by decree OED staff. "ukase, n.". Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1921; the dictionary definition of ukase at Wiktionary
Bolgar, Spassky District, Republic of Tatarstan
Bolgar is a town and the administrative center of Spassky District in the Republic of Tatarstan, located on the left bank of the Volga River, 140 kilometers from Kazan. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 8,650, it was known as Spassk, Spassk-Tatarsky, Kuybyshev. The excavated monuments of the medieval capital of Volga Bulgaria, are within easy reach from the town; the modern town of Spassk was formed from the village of Spassk on the bank of Bezdna River in 1781. It was renamed Spassk-Tatarsky in 1926 Kuybyshev Куйбышев), in honor of Valerian Kuybyshev, in 1935, before getting its present name in 1991, it served as a district administrative center since 1930. In 1957, due the construction of Kuybyshev Reservoir and flooding of the original Spassk, the town was moved from the place of its foundation closer to historical Bolgar. In 1991, the town changed its name to Bolgar in honor of the remains of the medieval city of Bolghar located nearby. Since 2010, on the initiative and the supervision of the first president of the Republic of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev, the complex programme'Cultural Heritage - Island-Town of Sviyazhsk and Ancient Bolgar' has been implemented in Bolgar.
The programme involves the conservation of architectural and archaeological heritage of Bolgar and the development of its touristic infrastructure. The programme has the following results: Ket architectural monuments as Small Minaret, Cathedral Mosque, Khan's Shrine, Eastern Mausoleum, Northern Mausoleum, Eastern Chamber, Assumption Church were conserved. Within the framework of administrative divisions, Bolgar serves as the administrative center of Spassky District, to which it is directly subordinated; as a municipal division, the town of Bolgar, together with the selo of Bolgary, is incorporated within Spassky Municipal District as Bolgar Urban Settlement. As of 1997, the town's industrial enterprises included a meat factory, a bakery, a brewery, a clothing factory, a forestry farm; the nearest railway station is Cherdakly on the Ulyanovsk–Ufa line, 71 kilometers south of Bolgar. Since 2010, the tourism flow to Bolgar has increased about 20 times: in 2010 Bolgar was visited by 50 000 tourists, in 2018 the annual visitation number has reached 541 000.
In 2016, Bolgar became the most popular touristic towns of Russia. As of 1989, the population was ethnically Russian and Chuvash; as of 2018, the town is on the 989 place from 1113 cities and towns of the Russian Federation in terms of the number of its inhabitants. The town is bordering the Bolgar Historical and Archaeological Complex World Heritage site; the property was inscribed to the World Heritage List in 2014 in accordance with criteria and. Its architectural and archaeological heritage is considered as an evidence of the medieval city of Bolgar, which existed in the 7-15th centuries as a key political centre of the Volga Bulgaria and the first capital of the Golden Horde; the property has a significant religious value as a symbolic place of the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgaria in 922 and serves asa pilgrimage place for Tatar Muslims. The following historic monuments are located in the complex: Northern Mausoluem Eastern Mausoleum Cathedral Mosque Big Minaret Assumption Church Small Minaret and Khan's Shrine Khan's Palace Black Chamber Eastern Chamber White Chamber Bath House No 2 Bath House No 3 Red ChamberThe Bolgar Historical and Archaeological Complex is managed by the Bolgar State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve, which museums are located inside of the property: Museum of the Bulgarian Civilization Quran Museum Healer's House Museum Museum of the History of the Assumption Church Turkic-Tatar Writing Open Air Museum Bolgar Tea Party Museum Town on a River Museum Museum of the Nobility of Spassky Uyezd Abdulla Alish Museum Interactive Historic Riverside Saint Abraham's WellThere are several attractions located close to the Bolgar Historical and Archaeological Complex: Museum of Bread Small Town Camel Farm Министерство юстиции Республики Татарстан.
Приказ №01-02/9 от 4 февраля 2014 г. «Об утверждении реестра административно-территориальных единиц и населённых пунктов в Республике Татарстан», в ред. Приказа №01-02/160 от 11 марта 2015 г. «О внесении изменений в Приказ Министерства юстиции Республики Татарстан от 04.02.2014 №01-02/9 "Об утверждении реестра административно-территориальных единиц и населённых пунктов в Республике Татарстан"». Опубликован: Официальный сайт правовой информации Министерства юстиции Республики Татарстан, 27 февраля 2014 г. (Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Tatarstan. Order #01-02/9 of February 4, 2014 On
Mecca
Mecca spelled Makkah, is a city in the Hejazi region of the Arabian Peninsula, the plain of Tihamah in Saudi Arabia, is the capital and administrative headquarters of the Makkah Region. The city is located 70 km inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m above sea level, 340 kilometres south of Medina, its resident population in 2012 was 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during the Ḥajj period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah. As the birthplace of Muḥammad, the site of Muhammad's first revelation of the Quran, Mecca is regarded as the holiest city in the religion of Islam and a pilgrimage to it known as the Hajj is obligatory for all able Muslims. Mecca is home to the Kaaba, by majority description Islam's holiest site, as well as being the direction of Muslim prayer. Mecca was long ruled by Muhammad's descendants, the sharifs, acting either as independent rulers or as vassals to larger polities, it was conquered by Ibn Saud in 1925.
In its modern period, Mecca has seen tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure, home to structures such as the Abraj Al Bait known as the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, the world's fourth tallest building and the building with the third largest amount of floor area. During this expansion, Mecca has lost some historical structures and archaeological sites, such as the Ajyad Fortress. Today, more than 15 million Muslims visit Mecca annually, including several million during the few days of the Hajj; as a result, Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Muslim world, although non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the city. "Mecca" is the familiar form of the English transliteration for the Arabic name of the city, although the official transliteration used by the Saudi government is Makkah, closer to the Arabic pronunciation. The word "Mecca" in English has come to be used to refer to any place that draws large numbers of people, because of this some English speaking Muslims have come to regard the use of this spelling for the city as offensive.
The Saudi government adopted Makkah as the official spelling in the 1980s, but is not universally known or used worldwide. The full official name is Makkah al-Mukarramah or Makkatu l-Mukarramah, which means "Mecca the Honored", but is loosely translated as "The Holy City of Mecca"; the ancient or early name for the site of Mecca is Bakkah. An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure. Believed to be a synonym for Mecca, it is said to be more the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that surrounds and includes the Ka‘bah; this form is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96, while the form Mecca is used in 48:24. In South Arabic, the language in use in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad, the b and m were interchangeable. Other references to Mecca in the Quran call it Umm al-Qurā, meaning "Mother of All Settlements"/"mother of villages". Another name of Mecca is Ṫihāmah.
Another name for Mecca, or the wilderness and mountains surrounding it, according to Arab and Islamic tradition, is Faran or Pharan, referring to the Desert of Paran mentioned in the Old Testament at Genesis 21:21. Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran, broadly speaking, is the Tihamah and the site where Ishmael settled was Mecca. Yaqut al-Hamawi, the 12th century Syrian geographer, wrote that Fārān was "an arabized Hebrew word, one of the names of Mecca mentioned in the Torah." Mecca is governed by the Municipality of Mecca, a municipal council of fourteen locally elected members headed by a mayor appointed by the Saudi government. As of May 2015, the mayor of the city was Dr. Osama bin Fadhel Al-Bar. Mecca is the capital of the Makkah Region; the provincial governor was prince Abdul Majeed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud from 2000 until his death in 2007. On 16 May 2007, prince Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud was appointed as the new governor; the early history of Mecca is still disputed, as there are no unambiguous references to it in ancient literature prior to the rise of Islam.
The Roman Empire took control of part of the Hejaz in 106 CE, ruling cities such as Hegra, located to the north of Mecca. Though detailed descriptions were established of Western Arabia by Rome, such as by Procopius, there are no references of a pilgrimage and trading outpost such as Mecca; the first direct mention of Mecca in external literature occurs in 741 CE, in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, though here the author places it in Mesopotamia rather than the Hejaz. Given the inhospitable environment and lack of historical references in Roman and Indian sources, historians including Patricia Crone and Tom Holland have cast doubt on the claim that Mecca was a major historical trading outpost; the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus writes about Arabia in his work Bibliotheca historica, describing a holy shrine: "And a temple has been set up there, holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians". Claims have been made. However, the geographic location Diodorus describes is located in northwest Arabia, around the area of Leuke Kome, closer to Petra and within the form
Kizhi Pogost
Kizhi Pogost is a historical site dating from the 17th century on Kizhi island. The island is located on Lake Onega in the Republic of Russia; the pogost is the area inside a fence which includes a bell-tower. The pogost is famous for its beauty and longevity, despite that it is built of wood. In 1990, it was included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites and in 1993 listed as a Russian Cultural Heritage site; the pogost was built on the southern part of Kizhi island, on a hill 4 meters above the Lake Onega level. Its major basic structural unit is a round log of Scots Pine about 30 cm in diameter and 3 to 5 meters long; the Kizhi Pogost was built without using a single nail. Many thousands of logs were brought for construction from the mainland, a complex logistical task in that time; the Church of the Transfiguration is the most remarkable part of the pogost. It is not heated and is, called a summer church and does not hold winter services, its altar was laid June 1714, as inscribed on the cross located inside the church.
This church was built on the site of the old one, burnt by lightning. The builders' names are unknown. A legend tells that the main builder used one axe for the whole construction, which he threw into the lake upon completion with the words "there was not and will be not another one to match it"; the church has 22 domes and with a height of 37 meters is one of the tallest wooden buildings in Northern Europe. Its perimeter is 20×29 meters, it is considered that the 18-dome church on the southern shore of Lake Onega — built in 1708 and destroyed by fire in 1963 - was its forerunner. According to the Russian carpentry traditions of that time, the Transfiguration Church was built of wood only with no nails apart from the domes and roof shingles. There are 180,000 nails securing the 60,000 roof shingles. All structures were made of scribe-fitted horizontal logs, with interlocking corner joinery — either round notch or dovetail — cut by axes; the basis of the structure is the octahedral frame with four two-stage side attachments.
The eastern prirub contains the altar. Two smaller octagons of similar shape are mounted on top of the main octagon; the structure is covered in 22 domes of different size and shape, which run from the top to the sides. The refectory is covered with a three-slope roof. In the 19th century, the church was decorated with batten and some parts were covered with steel, it was restored to its original design in the 1950s. The church framework rests on a stone base without a deep foundation, except for the western aisle for which a foundation was built in 1870. Most wood is pine with spruce planks on the flat roofs; the domes are covered in aspen. The iconostasis contains 102 icons, it is dated to the second half of the 18th – early 19th century. The icons are from three periods: the two oldest icons, "The Transfiguration" and "Pokrov" are from the late 17th century and are typical of the northern style; the central icons are from the second half of the 18th century and are of the local style. Most icons of the three upper tiers are of the late 18th century, brought from various parts of Russia.
The Church of the Intercession is a heated church where services are held from October 1 until Easter. The church was the first on the island after a fire in the late 17th century destroyed all previous churches, it was first built in 1694 as a single-dome structure reconstructed in 1720–1749 and in 1764 rebuilt into its present 9-dome design as an architectural echo of the main Transfiguration Church. It stands 32 meters tall with a 26×8 meter perimeter. There are one larger in the center, surrounded by eight smaller ones. Decoration is scant. A high single-part porch leads into the four interior parts of the church; as in the Transfiguration Church, the altar is placed in the eastern part shaped as a pentagon. The original iconostasis is lost; the original bell-tower deteriorated and was re-built in 1862 and further reconstructed in 1874 and 1900. The tower stands 30 meters tall with a 6×6 meter perimeter, it has a square wooden frame resting on a foundation. Above the square frame, there is an octagonal part with the zvonnitsa on top.
There is a pyramidal roof resting on pillars. The roof is topped with a cross. Wood types are the same as in the churches: pine and aspen; the fence serves no defensive purpose at all. It is a symbolic division between the outside world, it was reconstructed in the 1950s as a 300-meter-long log structure surrounding the two churches and the belfry. The structure rests on a tall boulder basement; the main entrance is 14.4 meters wide and 2.25 meters tall, faces east near the Church of the Intercession. There are wicket gates at the eastern and northern sides and a small wooden tower in the north-western corner; the tower has a four-slope batten roof with a spire. The walls and wickets are roofed. From the history of the Church of the Transfiguration repairs and restoration Inner structure of Kizhi Pogost churches
Media related to Bolghar ancient settlement at Wikimedia Commons
