1.
Bolgar, Spassky District, Republic of Tatarstan
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Bolgar is a town and the administrative center of Spassky District in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, located on the left bank of the Volga River,140 kilometers from Kazan. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 8,650, the excavated monuments of the medieval capital of Volga Bulgaria, Bolghar, 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 and it was renamed Spassk-Tatarsky in 1926, then Kuybyshev Куйбышев), in honor of Valerian Kuybyshev, in 1935, before getting its present name in 1991. It served as an administrative center since 1930. In 1953, due the construction of Kuybyshev Reservoir and flooding of the original Spassk, 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 industrial enterprises included a meat factory, a bakery, a brewery, a clothing factory. The nearest railway station is Cherdakly on the Ulyanovsk–Ufa line,71 kilometers south of Bolgar, as of 1989, the population was ethnically mostly Russian, Tatar, and Chuvash. Приказ №01-02/9 от4 февраля2014 г, «Об утверждении реестра административно-территориальных единиц и населённых пунктов в Республике Татарстан», в ред. Приказа №01-02/160 от11 марта2015 г, Опубликован, Официальный сайт правовой информации Министерства юстиции Республики Татарстан,27 февраля2014 г. Закон №40-ЗРТ от31 января2005 г, «Об установлении границ территорий и статусе муниципального образования Спасский муниципальный район и муниципальных образований в его составе», в ред. Закона №100-ЗРТ от22 ноября2014 г, «О внесении изменений в Закон Республики Татарстан Об установлении границ территорий и статусе муниципального образования Спасский муниципальный район и муниципальных образований в его составе». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования, Опубликован, Республика Татарстан, №№18–19,1 февраля2005 г
2.
Republic of Tatarstan
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Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan is a federal subject of the Russian Federation, located in the Volga Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kazan, the republic borders Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Orenburg Oblasts, the Mari El, Udmurt, and Chuvash Republics, and the Republic of Bashkortostan. The area of the republic is 68,000 square kilometres, the unofficial Tatarstan motto is, Bez Buldırabız. As of the 2010 Census the population of Tatarstan was 3,786,488, the state has strong ties with its eastern neighbor the Republic of Bashkortostan. Tatarstan derives from the name of the ethnic group—the Tatars—and the Persian suffix -stan, another version of the Russian name is Тата́рия, which was official along with Tatar ASSR during the Soviet rule. The republic is located in the center of the East European Plain and it lies between the Volga River and the Kama River, and extends east to the Ural mountains. Borders, internal, Kirov Oblast, Udmurt Republic, Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg Oblast, Samara Oblast, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Chuvash Republic, bugulma-Belebey Upland Volga Upland Vyatskie Uvaly Major natural resources of Tatarstan include oil, natural gas, gypsum, and more. It is estimated that the Republic has over one billion tons of oil deposits, Islam was introduced by missionaries from Baghdad around the time of ibn Fadlans journey in 922. Volga Bulgaria finally fell to the armies of the Mongol prince Batu Khan in the late 1230s The inhabitants, mixing with the Golden Hordes Kipchak-speaking people, another theory postulates that there were no ethnic changes in that period, and Bulgars simply switched to the Kipchak-based Tatar language. In the 1430s, the region became independent as the base of the Khanate of Kazan. The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by the troops of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the 1550s, a large number of Tatars were killed and forcibly converted to Christianity and were culturally Russified. Cathedrals were built in Kazan, by 1593 all mosques in the area were destroyed, the Russian government forbade the construction of mosques, a prohibition that was not lifted until the 18th century by Catherine the Great. The first mosque to be rebuilt under Catherines auspices was constructed in 1766-1770, in the 19th century Tatarstan became a center of Jadidism, an Islamic movement that preached tolerance of other religions. Under the influence of local Jadidist theologians, the Tatars were renowned for their relations with other peoples of the Russian Empire. However, after the October Revolution religion was largely outlawed and all theologians were repressed, during the Civil War of 1918–1920 Tatar nationalists attempted to establish an independent republic. They were, however, put down by the Bolsheviks and the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established on May 27,1920, the boundaries of the republic did not include a majority of the Volga Tatars. The Tatar Union of the Godless were persecuted in Stalins 1928 purges, there was a famine in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921 to 1922 as a result of war communist policy. The famine deaths of 2 million Tatars in Tatar ASSR and in Volga-Ural region in 1921-1922 was catastrophic as half of Volga Tatar population in USSR died and this famine is also known as terror-famine and famine-genocide in Tatarstan
3.
Volga Federal District
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Volga Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. It forms the part of European Russia. Its population was 29,899,699 according to the 2010 Census, Mikhail Babich was appointed the federal districts Presidential Envoy on December 15,2011. The district comprises the Volga, Volga-Vyatka and Urals economic regions and fourteen federal subjects, Sergey Kiriyenko Alexander Konovalov Grigory Rapota Mikhail Babich
4.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
5.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
6.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
7.
Tatar language
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The Tatar language is a Turkic language spoken by Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. It should not be confused with the Crimean Tatar language, to which it is remotely related, there are more than 7 million speakers of Tatar in the world. Tatar is also native for several thousand Maris, mordvas Qaratay group also speak a variant of Kazan Tatar. In the 2010 census, 69% of Russian Tatars who responded to the question about language ability claimed a knowledge of the Tatar language, in Tatarstan, 93% of Tatars and 3, 6% of Russians did so. In neighbouring Bashkortostan, 67% of Tatars, 27% of Bashkirs, Tatar, along with Russian, is the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan. The official script of Tatar language is based on the Cyrillic script with some additional letters, the Republic of Tatarstan passed a law in 1999, which came into force in 2001, establishing an official Tatar Latin alphabet. A Russian federal law overrode it in 2002, making Cyrillic the sole official script in Tatarstan since, unofficially, other scripts are used as well, mostly Latin and Arabic. All official sources in Tatarstan must use Cyrillic on their websites, in other cases, where Tatar has no official status, the use of a specific alphabet depends on the preference of the author. The Tatar language was made a de facto official language in Russia in 1917, Tatar is also considered to have been the official language in the short-lived Idel-Ural State, briefly formed during the Russian Civil War. One should note, however, that Bolshevist Russia did not recognize official languages as such, however, in the Soviet era, Tatar was such a language in Bashkortostan, Mari El and other regions of the Russian SFSR. The usage of Tatar declined from the 1930s onwards, in the 1980s, the study and teaching of Tatar in the public education system was limited to rural schools. However, Tatar-speaking pupils had little chance of entering university because higher education was available in Russian almost exclusively, as of 2001 Tatar was considered a potentially endangered language while Siberian and Crimean Tatar languages received endangered and seriously endangered statuses, respectively. Higher education in Tatar can only be found in Tatarstan, and is restricted to the humanities, in other regions Tatar is primarily a spoken language and the number of speakers as well as their proficiency tends to decrease. Tatar is popular as a language only in Tatar-speaking areas where schools with Tatar language lessons are situated. On the other hand, Tatar is the language in use in rural districts of Tatarstan. There are three dialects of Tatar, Western, Middle, and Eastern. All of these also have subdivisions. In the Western dialect Ç is pronounced and as, there are no differences between v and w, q and k, g and ğ in the Mişär dialect
8.
Chuvash language
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Chuvash is a Turkic language spoken in central Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages. Because of this, Chuvash has diverged considerably from the other Turkic languages, which typically demonstrate mutual intelligibility among one another to varying degrees. The writing system for the Chuvash language is based on the Cyrillic script, employing all of the used in the Russian alphabet. Chuvash is the language of the Chuvash people and an official language of Chuvashia. It is spoken by 1,640,000 persons in Russia, 86% of ethnic Chuvash and 8% of the people of other ethnicities living in Chuvashia claimed knowledge of Chuvash language during the 2002 census. A fairly significant production and publication of literature in Chuvash still continues, according to UNESCOs Index Translationum, at least 202 books translated from Chuvash were published in other languages since ca. A similar situation takes place with the translation of books from other languages into Chuvash, Chuvash is the most distinctive of the Turkic languages and cannot be understood by speakers of other Turkic tongues. Chuvash is classified, alongside the extinct languages Bulgar, as the remaining member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family. Since the surviving records for the non-Chuvash members of Oghuric are scant. The Oghuric branch is distinguished from the rest of the Turkic family by two sound changes, r corresponding to Common Turkic z, and l corresponding to Common Turkic ş. Formerly, scholars considered Chuvash not properly a Turkic language at all but, rather, the modern Chuvash alphabet was devised in 1873 by school inspector Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev. In 1938, the alphabet underwent significant modification which brought it to its current form, the most ancient writing system, known as the Old Turkic alphabet, disappeared after the Volga Bulgars converted to Islam. Later, the Arabic script was adopted, after the Mongol invasion, writing degraded. The consonants are the following, /p/, /t/, /k/, /tɕ/, /s/, /ʂ/, /ɕ/, /χ/, /ʋ/, /m/, /n/, /l/, /r/, /j/. The stops, sibilants and affricates are voiceless and fortes but become lenes in intervocalic position and after liquids, Аннепе sounds like annebe, but кушакпа sounds like kuzhakpa. However, geminate consonants do not undergo this lenition, furthermore, the voiced consonants occurring in Russian are used in modern Russian-language loans. Consonants also become palatalized before and after front vowels, according to Krueger, the Chuvash vowel system is as follows
9.
Volga Bulgaria
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Information from first-hand sources on Volga Bulgaria is rather sparse. As no authentic Bulgar records have survived, most of our information comes from contemporary Arabic, some information is provided by excavations. It is thought that the territory of Volga Bulgaria was originally settled by Finno-Ugric peoples, the Bulgars of Kubrats son and appointed heir Batbayan Bezmer moved from the Azov region in about AD660, commanded by the Kazarig Khagan Kotrag to whom he had surrendered. They reached Idel-Ural in the century, where they became the dominant population at the end of the 9th century. Most scholars agree that the Volga Bulgars were subject to the Khazarian Empire until the mid 10th century, threat from Khazaria was completely gone after Khazarias destruction and conquest by Sviatoslav in the late 10th century, after which Volga Bulgaria grew greatly in size and power. Sometime in the late 9th century unification processes started, and the capital was established at Bolghar city,160 km south from modern Kazan. Most scholars doubt, however, that the state could assert independence from the Khazars until the Khazars were annihilated by Svyatoslav of Rus in 965, abu al-Ghazi Bahadur named the Volga-Bulgar people as Ulak. Volga Bulgaria adopted Islam in 922 -66 years before Russia became Christian, in 921 Almış sent an ambassador to the Caliph requesting religious instruction. Next year an embassy returned with Ibn Fadlan as secretary, a significant number of Muslims already lived in the country. The Bulgarians attempted to convert Vladimir I of Kiev to Islam, however Vladimir rejected the notion of Rus giving up wine, commanding the Volga River in its middle course, the state controlled much of trade between Europe and Asia prior to the Crusades. The capital, Bolghar, was a city, rivalling in size. Trade partners of Bolghar included from Vikings, Bjarmland, Yugra and Nenets in the north to Baghdad and Constantinople in the south, other major cities included Bilär, Suar, Qaşan and Cükätaw. Modern cities Kazan and Yelabuga were founded as Volga Bulgarias border fortresses, some of the Volga Bulgarian cities still have not been found, but they are mentioned in old East Slavic sources. They are, Ashli, Tuxçin, İbrahim, Taw İle, some of them were ruined during and after the Golden Horde invasion. The Rus principalities to the west posed the only military threat. In the 11th century, the country was devastated by raids by other Rus. Then, at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, under Russian pressure from the west, the Bulgars had to move their capital from Bolghar to Bilär. In September 1223 near Samara an advance guard of Genghis Khans army under command of Uran, son of Subutai Bahadur, in 1236, the Mongols returned and in five years had subjugated the whole country, which at that time was suffering from internal war
10.
Volga River
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The Volga is the longest river in Europe. It is also Europes largest river in terms of discharge and watershed, the river flows through central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, and is widely regarded as the national river of Russia. Eleven of the twenty largest cities of Russia, including the capital, some of the largest reservoirs in the world can be found along the Volga. The river has a meaning in Russian culture and is often referred to as Волга-матушка Volga-Matushka in Russian literature and folklore. The Slavic name is a translation of earlier Scythian Rā Volga, literally wetness, cognate with Avestan Raŋhā mythical stream and Sanskrit rasā́- dew, liquid, juice. The Scythian name survives in modern Mordvin Rav Volga, the Turkic peoples living along the river formerly referred to it as Itil or Atil big river. In modern Turkic languages, the Volga is known as İdel in Tatar, Атăл in Chuvash, Idhel in Bashkir, Edil in Kazakh, the Turkic peoples associated the Itils origin with the Kama. Thus, a tributary to the Kama was named the Aq Itil White Itil which unites with the Kara Itil Black Itil at the modern city of Ufa. The name Indyl is used in Adyge language, among Asians, the river was known by its other Turkic name Sarı-su yellow water, but the Oirats also used their own name, Ijil mörön or adaptation river. Presently the Mari, another Uralic group, call the river Jul, formerly, they called the river Volgydo, a borrowing from Old Russian. The Volga is the longest river in Europe and it belongs to the closed basin of the Caspian Sea, being the longest river to flow into a closed basin. From there it turns south, flows past Ulyanovsk, Tolyatti, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd, at its most strategic point, it bends toward the Don. Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is located there, the Volga has many tributaries, most importantly the rivers Kama, the Oka, the Vetluga, and the Sura. The Volga and its tributaries form the Volga river system, which flows through an area of about 1,350,000 square kilometres in the most heavily populated part of Russia. The Volga Delta has a length of about 160 kilometres and includes as many as 500 channels, the largest estuary in Europe, it is the only place in Russia where pelicans, flamingos, and lotuses may be found. The Volga freezes for most of its length for three each year. The Volga drains most of Western Russia and its many large reservoirs provide irrigation and hydroelectric power. The Moscow Canal, the Volga–Don Canal, and the Volga–Baltic Waterway form navigable waterways connecting Moscow to the White Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov, high levels of chemical pollution have adversely affected the river and its habitats
11.
Kazan
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Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,535, it is the eighth most populous city in Russia, Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. The Kazan Kremlin is a World Heritage Site, in April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the right to brand itself as the Third Capital of Russia. In 2009 it was chosen as the Sports capital of Russia, in 2015, Kazan was visited by 2.1 million tourists, which is a 20% increase in comparison with 2014. The Kazan Kremlin was visited by 1.5 million tourists in 2015 and hotel, the origin of the name Kazan is uncertain. The most accepted legends derive it from the Bulgar word qazan, one legend claims that the city was named after the river Kazanka, which was named after the son of a Bulgar governor dropped a copper cauldron into it. Other local legends, including research by the Tatar scholar Shigabetdin Marjani, if there was a Bulgar city on the site, estimates of the date of its foundation range from the early 11th century to the late 13th century. It was a border post between Volga Bulgaria and two Finnic tribes, the Mari and the Udmurt, another vexatious question is where the citadel was built originally. The oldest of these seems to be the Kremlin, if Kazan existed in the 11th and 12th centuries, it could have been a stop on a Volga trade route from Scandinavia to Baghdad. It was a center, and possibly a major city for Bulgar settlers in the Kazan region. Kazan became a center of a duchy which was a dependency of the Golden Horde, two centuries later, in the 1430s, Kipchak descendants of Genghis Khan, such as Ghiasetdin of Kazan, usurped power from its Bolghar dynasty. Some Tatars also went to Lithuania, brought by Vytautas the Great, in 1438, after the destruction of the Golden Horde, Kazan became the capital of the powerful Khanate of Kazan. The city bazaar, Taş Ayaq became the most important trade center in the region, craft-based manufacturing also thrived, as the city gained a reputation for its leather and gold goods, as well as for the opulence of its palaces and mosques. The citadel and Bolaq channel were reconstructed, giving the city a strong defensive capacity, the Russians managed to occupy the city briefly several times. Kazan Khanate was making constant plundering raids on Russia, slavery in Kazan Khanate was legal. The number of slaves was up to 10% of the population, most of the slaves were Russian people who were captured during raids. All captured men were forced to turn Mohammedan, otherwise they could be killed or sold into slavery to other Muslim countries, as a result of the Siege of Kazan in 1552, Russia under Ivan the Terrible conquered the city and massacred the majority of the population. Also as a result of the Siege of Kazan 8,000 slaves were set free, in spite of the fact that under the treaty of 1551 all Russian slaves must be released Kazan Khanate still kept a lot of Russian slaves
12.
Spassky District, Republic of Tatarstan
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Spassky District is an administrative and municipal district, one of the forty-three in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. It is located in the southwest of the republic, the area of the district is 2,028 square kilometers. Its administrative center is the town of Bolgar, the population of Bolgar accounts for 42. 1% of the districts total population. Until October 4,1991, the district was called Kuybyshevsky, Закона №79-ЗРТ от22 ноября2010 г. «О внесении изменений в статьи65 и76 Конституции Республики Татарстан», Опубликован, Ведомости Верховного Совета Татарстана, №9–10, ст. Закон №40-ЗРТ от31 января2005 г, «Об установлении границ территорий и статусе муниципального образования Спасский муниципальный район и муниципальных образований в его составе», в ред. Закона №100-ЗРТ от22 ноября2014 г, «О внесении изменений в Закон Республики Татарстан Об установлении границ территорий и статусе муниципального образования Спасский муниципальный район и муниципальных образований в его составе». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования, Опубликован, Республика Татарстан, №№18–19,1 февраля2005 г. Приказ №01-02/9 от4 февраля2014 г, «Об утверждении реестра административно-территориальных единиц и населённых пунктов в Республике Татарстан», в ред. Приказа №01-02/160 от11 марта2015 г, Опубликован, Официальный сайт правовой информации Министерства юстиции Республики Татарстан,27 февраля2014 г. Закон №116-ЗРТ от7 декабря2005 г, «Об административно-территориальном устройстве Республики Татарстан», в ред. Закона №54-ЗРТ от2 июля2015 г, «О внесении изменения в статью14 Закона Республики Татарстан Об административно-территориальном устройстве Республики Татарстан». Вступил в силу через три месяца со дня официального опубликования, за исключением части второй статьи31, Опубликован, Республика Татарстан, №247,10 декабря2005 г
13.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
14.
Hillfort
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A hillfort or hill fort is a type of earthworks used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages, some were used in the post-Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill, consisting of one or more lines of earthworks, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches. Hill forts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC, the terms hill fort, hill-fort and hillfort are all used in the archaeological literature. They all refer to a site with one or more ramparts made of earth, stone and/or wood. Many small early hill forts were abandoned, with the ones being redeveloped at a later date. Similar but smaller and less defendable earthworks are found on the sides of hills and these are known as hill-slope enclosures and may have been animal pens. It has been estimated that in about 5000 BC during the Neolithic between 2 million and 5 million lived in Europe, in the Late Iron Age it had an population of around 15 to 30 million. Outside Greece and Italy, which were densely populated, the vast majority of settlements in the Iron Age were small. Hill forts were the exception, and were the home of up to 1,000 people, with the emergence of oppida in the Late Iron Age, settlements could reach as large as 10,000 inhabitants. As the population increased so did the complexity of prehistoric societies, around 1100 BC hill forts emerged and in the following centuries spread through Europe. They served a range of purposes and were variously tribal centres, defended places, foci of ritual activity, during the Hallstatt C period, hill forts became the dominant settlement type in the west of Hungary. Julius Caesar described the large late Iron Age hill forts he encountered during his campaigns in Gaul as oppida, by this time the larger ones had become more like cities than fortresses and many were assimilated as Roman towns. Hill forts were occupied by conquering armies, but on other occasions the forts were destroyed, the local people forcibly evicted. For example, Solsbury Hill was sacked and deserted during the Belgic invasions of southern Britain in the 1st century BC. Excavations at hill forts in the first half of the 20th century focussed on the defenses, the exception to this trend began in the 1930s with a series of excavations undertaken by Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle, Dorset. From 1960 onwards, archaeologists shifted their attention to the interior of hill forts, currently, post-processual archaeologists regard hill forts as symbols of wealth and power. Michael Avery has stated the view of hill forts by saying
15.
Golden Horde
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The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate and it is also known as the Kipchak Khanate or as the Ulus of Jochi. After the death of Batu Khan in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a century, until 1359. The Hordes military power peaked during the reign of Uzbeg, who adopted Islam, the territory of the Golden Horde at its peak included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube River, and extended east deep into Siberia. In the south, the Golden Hordes lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the khanate experienced violent internal political disorder beginning in 1359, before it briefly reunited under Tokhtamysh. However, soon after the 1396 invasion of Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire, at the start of the 15th century the Horde began to fall apart. By 1466 it was being referred to simply as the Great Horde, within its territories there emerged numerous predominantly Turkic-speaking khanates. These internal struggles allowed the northern state of Muscovy to rid itself of the Tatar Yoke at the Great stand on the Ugra river in 1480. The Crimean Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, the last remnants of the Golden Horde, in any event, it was not until the 16th century that Russian chroniclers begin explicitly using the term Golden Horde to refer to this particular successor khanate of the Mongol Empire. The first known use of the term, in 1565, in the Russian chronicle History of Kazan, applied it to the Ulus of Batu and its left wing was referred to as the Blue Horde in Russian chronicles and as the White Horde in Timurid sources. Western scholars have tended to follow the Timurid sources nomenclature and call the left wing the White Horde, the khanate apparently used the term White Horde to refer to its right wing, which was situated in Batus home base in Sarai and controlled the ulus. However, the designations Golden Horde, Blue Horde, and White Horde have not been encountered in the sources of the Mongol period. At his death in 1227, Genghis Khan divided the Mongol Empire amongst his four sons as appanages, Jochi was the eldest, but he died six months before Genghis. In 1235, Batu with the great general Subedei began an invasion westwards, first conquering the Bashkirs, from there he conquered some of the southern steppes of present-day Ukraine in 1237, forcing many of the local Cumans to retreat westward. The military campaign against the Kypchaks and Cumans had started under Jochi, by 1239 a large portion of Cumans were driven out of the Crimea peninsula, and it became one of the appanages of the Mongol Empire. The remnants of the Crimean Cumans survived in the Crimean mountains, moving north, Batu began the Mongol invasion of Rus and for three years subjugated the principalities of former Kievan Rus, whilst his cousins Möngke, Kadan, and Güyük moved southwards into Alania. Using the migration of the Cumans as their casus belli, the Mongols continued west, raiding Poland and Hungary and culminating in the battles of Legnica, in 1241, however, Ögedei Khan died in the Mongolia homeland. Batu turned back from his siege of Vienna to take part in disputing the succession, the Mongol armies would never again travel so far west
16.
Timur
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Timur, historically known as Amir Timur and Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty, born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire, but this empire fragmented shortly after his death, according to John Joseph Saunders, Timurs background was Iranized and not steppe nomad. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, in his formal correspondence Temur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian, Mamluk, and Ottoman campaigns as a re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers, to legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referred to himself as the Sword of Islam and patronized educational and religious institutions. He converted nearly all the Borjigin leaders to Islam during his lifetime, Temur, a non-Chinggisid, tried to build a double legitimacy based on his role as both guardian and restorer of the Mongol Empire. Timur also decisively defeated the Christian Knights Hospitaller at Smyrna, styling himself a ghazi, by the end of his reign, Timur had gained complete control over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, and Golden Horde and even attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty. Timurs armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and were feared throughout Asia, Africa, scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population. Timur is also recognized as a patron of art and architecture, as he interacted with Muslim intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun. Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh some 80 kilometres south of Samarkand and his father, Taraqai, was a minor noble of the Barlas, a Mongolian tribe that had been turkified in many aspects. According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim, and he saw himself as Genghis Khans heir, though not a Borjigid or a descendent of Genghis Khan, he clearly sought to invoke the legacy of Genghis Khans conquests during his lifetime. His name Temur means Iron in the Chaghatay language, Timurs mother-tongue, later Timurid dynastic histories claim that he was born on April 8,1336, but most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate in the late 1320s. At the age of eight or nine, Timur and his mother, in his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle. In around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries crippled him for life, some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timurs injuries have given him the names of Timur the Lame, Timur was a Muslim, possibly belonging to the Naqshbandi school of Sufism, which was influential in Transoxiana. However, his official religious counsellor and adviser was the Hanafi scholar Abdu l-Jabbar Khwarazmi. In Tirmidh, he had come under the influence of his spiritual mentor Sayyid Baraka, Timur was known to hold Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt in high regard and has been noted by various scholars for his pro-Alid stance
17.
Grand Duchy of Moscow
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The Grand Duchy of Moscow, or Grand Principality of Moscow, was a late medieval Rus principality centered on Moscow and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia. The state originated with Daniel I, who inherited Moscow in 1283, eclipsing and it later annexed the Novgorod Republic in 1478 and the Grand Duchy of Tver in 1485. After the Mongol invasion of Rus, Muscovy was a vassal to the Mongol ruled Golden Horde until 1480. By his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, he established Muscovy as the state of the Roman Empire. Ivans successor Vasili III also enjoyed success, gaining Smolensk from Lithuania in 1512. Vasilis son Ivan IV was an infant at his fathers death in 1533 and he was crowned in 1547, assuming the title of tsar together with the proclamation of Tsardom of Russia. As with many states the country had no particular official name. The Duke of Moscow or the Sovereign of Moscow were common short titles, in rivalry with other duchies Moscow dukes also designated themselves as the Grand Dukes, claiming a higher position in the hierarchy of Russian dukes. During the territorial growth and later acquisitions, the title became rather lengthy. Since the 14th century various Moscow dukes added of all Rus to their titles, after the title of Russian metropolitans, Dmitry Shemyaka was the first Moscow duke who minted coins with the title the Sovereign of all Rus. Under the Polish-Lithuanian influence the country began to be called Muscovy in Western Europe, the first appearances of the term were in an Italian document of 1500. Initially Moscovia was the Latinized name of the city of Moscow itself, not of the state, later it acquired its meaning and has been used alongside of the older name. The term Muscovy persisted in the West until the beginning of the 18th century and is used in historical contexts. When the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus in the 13th century, the first ruler of the principality of Moscow, Daniel I, was the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. He started to expand his principality by seizing Kolomna and securing the bequest of Pereslavl-Zalessky to his family, daniels son Yuriy controlled the entire basin of the Moskva River and expanded westward by conquering Mozhaisk. He then forged an alliance with the overlord of the Rus principalities, Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, the Khan allowed Yuriy to claim the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir-Suzdal, a position which allowed him to interfere in the affairs of the Novgorod Republic to the north-west. Yuriys successor, Ivan I, managed to retain the title of Grand Duke by cooperating closely with the Mongols and by collecting tribute and taxes from other Rus principalities on their behalf. This relationship enabled Ivan to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Moscows chief rival, the city of Tver
18.
Khanate of Kazan
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The Khanate of Kazan was a medieval Bulgarian-Tatar Turkic state that occupied the territory of former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. Its khans were the descendants of Tugh Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia and it was one of the successor states of the Golden Horde, and it came to an end when it was conquered by the Tsardom of Russia. The territory of the khanate comprised the Muslim Bolgar-populated lands of the Bolğar, Cükätäw, Kazan, the Volga, Kama and Vyatka were the main rivers of the khanate, as well as the major trade ways. The majority of the population were Kazan Tatars and their self-identity was not restricted to Tatars, many identified themselves simply as Muslims or as the people of Kazan. The local feudal nobility consisted of ethnic Bolgars, but the court, according to the Ginghizide tradition, the local Turkic tribes were also called Tatars by the steppe nobility and, later, by the Russian elite. Part of the higher nobility hailed from the Golden Horde and it included members of four leading noble families, Arghin, Barin, Qipchaq, and Shirin. Peoples subject to the khan included the Chuvash, Mari, Mordva, Tatar-Mishar, Udmurt, the Permians and some of the Komi tribes were also incorporated into the Khanate. The Mishars had arrived during the period of the Golden Horde and gradually assimilated the resident Finnic Mordvins and their territory was governed by former steppe Tatars. Some Mishar duchies were never controlled from Kazan and instead gravitated towards the Qasim Khanate or Muscovite Russia, most of the khanate territory was covered by forests, and only the southern part adjoined the steppe. Later, Nogais were transplanted and replaced with Kalmyks, more recently, this area was settled by Tatars, Chuvash and Russians, who erected defensive walls to guard the southern border. Since the khanate was established, Tatar Cossack troops defended the khanate from the Nogais, Russian sources indicate that at least five languages were used in the Kazan khanate. The first and foremost was the Tatar language, including the Middle dialect of the Kazan Tatars and its written form was the favoured language of the state. The Chuvash language was a descendant of the Bolgar language, spoken by the pagan Chuvash people, the Bolgar language also strongly influenced the Middle dialect of Tatar language. The other three were probably the Mari language, the Mordvin languages and the Bashkir language, likewise developed from the Bolgar, the former territories of Volga Bulgaria may have regained a degree of independence within the disintegrating Golden Horde by the turn of the 15th century. The principality was self-governed and maintained a dynasty of Bolgar rulers and it has been suggested that the transfer of power from the local Bolgar dynasty to Muhammad was finalized by his son Maxmud in 1445. Throughout its history, the khanate was prone to civil turmoil, the khans were replaced 19 times in 115 years. There were a total of fifteen reigning khans, some ascending the throne multiple times, the Khan was often elected from the Gengizides by vernacular nobility and even by the citizens themselves
19.
Ivan the Terrible
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Ivan IV Vasilyevich, commonly known as Ivan the Terrible or Ivan the Fearsome, was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547, then Tsar of All the Russias until his death in 1584. The last title was used by all his successors, during his reign, Russia conquered the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan and Sibir, becoming a multiethnic and multicontinental state spanning approximately 4,050,000 km2. Ivan exercised autocratic control over Russias hereditary nobility and developed a bureaucracy to administer his new territories and he transformed Russia from a medieval state into an empire, though at immense cost to its people, and its broader, long-term economy. In one such outburst, he killed his son and heir Ivan Ivanovich and this left his younger son, the pious but politically ineffectual Feodor Ivanovich, to inherit the throne. Ivan was a diplomat, a patron of arts and trade. He was popular among Russias commoners, except possibly the people of Novgorod and surrounding areas, the English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word grozny in Ivans nickname, but this is a somewhat archaic translation. The Russian word grozny reflects the older English usage of terrible as in inspiring fear or terror, dangerous, powerful and it does not convey the more modern connotations of English terrible, such as defective or evil. Vladimir Dal defines grozny specifically in archaic usage and as an epithet for tsars, courageous, magnificent, magisterial and keeping enemies in fear, other translations have also been suggested by modern scholars. Ivan was the first son of Vasili III and his wife, Elena Glinskaya. When Ivan was three years old, his father died from an abscess and inflammation on his leg that developed into blood poisoning, Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscow at the request of his father. His mother Elena Glinskaya initially acted as regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination by poison, the regency then alternated between several feuding boyar families fighting for control. According to his own letters, Ivan, along with his younger brother Yuri, on 16 January 1547, at age sixteen, Ivan was crowned with Monomakhs Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition. He was the first to be crowned as Tsar of All the Russias, prior to that, rulers of Muscovy were crowned as Grand Princes, although Ivan III the Great, his grandfather, styled himself tsar in his correspondence. Two weeks after his coronation, Ivan married his first wife Anastasia Romanovna, a member of the Romanov family, who became the first Russian tsaritsa. By being crowned Tsar, Ivan was sending a message to the world and to Russia, he was now the one and only ruler of the country. The new title symbolized an assumption of powers equivalent and parallel to those held by former Byzantine Emperor, the political effect was to elevate Ivans position. The new title not only secured the throne, but it also granted Ivan a new dimension of power and he was now a divine leader appointed to enact Gods will, as church texts described Old Testament kings as Tsars and Christ as the Heavenly Tsar. The newly appointed title was passed on from generation to generation
20.
Peter the Great
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Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a larger empire that became a major European power. He led a revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized. Peters reforms made an impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. From an early age, Peters education was put in the hands of tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peters elder half-brother and 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, Peters other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent and this arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis daughters from his first marriage, in the subsequent conflict some of Peters relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and 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, Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and 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 Ivan and 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 this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name and he engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peters mother sought to force him to adopt a conventional approach. The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun, by the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name, still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina and it was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign
21.
Ukase
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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, an order or regulation of a final or arbitrary nature. Prior to the 1917 October Revolution, the term applied in Russia to an edict or ordinance, legislative or administrative, 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 usually translated as decree. According to the Russian Federations 1993 constitution, an ukaz is a Presidential decree, the English term Executive Order is also 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, rule by decree Ukase of 1821 Decree of the President of Russia Ukase Bulgaro OED staff. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary,1921, the dictionary definition of ukase at Wiktionary
22.
Hajj
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It is one of the five pillars of Islam, alongside Shahadah, Salat, Zakat, and Sawm. The Hajj is the largest annual gathering of people in the world, the state of being physically and financially capable of performing the Hajj is called istitaah, and a Muslim who fulfills this condition is called a mustati. The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, the word Hajj means to intend a journey, which connotes both the outward act of a journey and the inward act of intentions. The pilgrimage occurs from the 8th to 12th of Dhu al-Hijjah, because the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Islamic year is about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year, the Gregorian date of Hajj changes from year to year. Ihram is the given to the special spiritual state in which pilgrims wear two white sheets of seamless cloth and abstain from certain actions. The pilgrims then shave their heads, perform a ritual of animal sacrifice, Pilgrims can also go to Mecca to perform the rituals at other times of the year. This is sometimes called the lesser pilgrimage, or Umrah, the present pattern of Hajj was established by Muhammad. However, according to the Quran, elements of Hajj trace back to the time of Abraham, according to Islamic tradition, Abraham was ordered by God to leave his wife Hagar and his son Ishmael alone in the desert of ancient Mecca. In search of water, Hagar desperately ran seven times between the two hills of Safa and Marwah but found none, returning in despair to Ishmael, she saw the baby scratching the ground with his leg and a water fountain sprang forth underneath his foot. Later, Abraham was commanded to build the Kaaba and to people to perform pilgrimage there. The Quran refers to incidents in verses 2, 124-127 and 22. It is said that the archangel Gabriel brought the Black Stone from Heaven to be attached to the Kaaba, in pre-Islamic Arabia, a time known as jahiliyyah, the Kaaba became surrounded by pagan idols. In 630 CE, Muhammad led his followers from Medina to Mecca, cleansed the Kaaba by destroying all the pagan idols, in 632 CE, Muhammad performed his only and last pilgrimage with a large number of followers, and instructed them on the rites of Hajj. It was from this point that Hajj became one of the five pillars of Islam. During the medieval times, pilgrims would gather in big cities of Syria, Egypt and this was done in order to protect the caravan from Bedouin robbers or natural hazards, and to ensure that the pilgrims were supplied with the necessary provisions. Muslim travelers like Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta have recorded detailed accounts of Hajj-travels of medieval time, the caravans followed well-established routes called in Arabic darb al-hajj, lit. Pilgrimage road, which usually followed ancient routes such as the Kings Highway, the date of Hajj is determined by the Islamic calendar, which is based on the lunar year. Every year, the events of Hajj take place in a period, starting on 8 and ending on 12 Dhu al-Hijjah
23.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
24.
Mecca
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Mecca or Makkah is a city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia that is also capital of the Makkah Region. The city is located 70 km inland from Jeddah in a valley at a height of 277 m above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although more than triple this number every year during the hajj period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Mecca is home to the Kaaba, by majority description Islams holiest site, Mecca was long ruled by Muhammads descendants, the sharifs, acting either as independent rulers or as vassals to larger polities. It was conquered by Ibn Saud in 1925, 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, despite the fact that non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the city. The Saudi government adopted Makkah as the spelling in the 1980s. The full official name is Makkah al-Mukarramah or Makkatu l-Mukarramah, which means Mecca the Honored, the ancient or early name for the site of Mecca is Bakkah. An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure, the form Bakkah 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 portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad. Other references to Mecca in the Quran call it Umm al-Qurā, another name of Mecca is Tihamah. Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran, broadly speaking, is the Tihamah, 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, which includes neighboring Jeddah. 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 AD, ruling cities such as Hegra, even 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 AD in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, claims have been made this could be a reference to the Kaaba in Mecca
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Tatarstan
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Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan is a federal subject of the Russian Federation, located in the Volga Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kazan, the republic borders Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Orenburg Oblasts, the Mari El, Udmurt, and Chuvash Republics, and the Republic of Bashkortostan. The area of the republic is 68,000 square kilometres, the unofficial Tatarstan motto is, Bez Buldırabız. As of the 2010 Census the population of Tatarstan was 3,786,488, the state has strong ties with its eastern neighbor the Republic of Bashkortostan. Tatarstan derives from the name of the ethnic group—the Tatars—and the Persian suffix -stan, another version of the Russian name is Тата́рия, which was official along with Tatar ASSR during the Soviet rule. The republic is located in the center of the East European Plain and it lies between the Volga River and the Kama River, and extends east to the Ural mountains. Borders, internal, Kirov Oblast, Udmurt Republic, Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg Oblast, Samara Oblast, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Chuvash Republic, bugulma-Belebey Upland Volga Upland Vyatskie Uvaly Major natural resources of Tatarstan include oil, natural gas, gypsum, and more. It is estimated that the Republic has over one billion tons of oil deposits, Islam was introduced by missionaries from Baghdad around the time of ibn Fadlans journey in 922. Volga Bulgaria finally fell to the armies of the Mongol prince Batu Khan in the late 1230s The inhabitants, mixing with the Golden Hordes Kipchak-speaking people, another theory postulates that there were no ethnic changes in that period, and Bulgars simply switched to the Kipchak-based Tatar language. In the 1430s, the region became independent as the base of the Khanate of Kazan. The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by the troops of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the 1550s, a large number of Tatars were killed and forcibly converted to Christianity and were culturally Russified. Cathedrals were built in Kazan, by 1593 all mosques in the area were destroyed, the Russian government forbade the construction of mosques, a prohibition that was not lifted until the 18th century by Catherine the Great. The first mosque to be rebuilt under Catherines auspices was constructed in 1766-1770, in the 19th century Tatarstan became a center of Jadidism, an Islamic movement that preached tolerance of other religions. Under the influence of local Jadidist theologians, the Tatars were renowned for their relations with other peoples of the Russian Empire. However, after the October Revolution religion was largely outlawed and all theologians were repressed, during the Civil War of 1918–1920 Tatar nationalists attempted to establish an independent republic. They were, however, put down by the Bolsheviks and the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established on May 27,1920, the boundaries of the republic did not include a majority of the Volga Tatars. The Tatar Union of the Godless were persecuted in Stalins 1928 purges, there was a famine in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921 to 1922 as a result of war communist policy. The famine deaths of 2 million Tatars in Tatar ASSR and in Volga-Ural region in 1921-1922 was catastrophic as half of Volga Tatar population in USSR died and this famine is also known as terror-famine and famine-genocide in Tatarstan
26.
Federal districts of Russia
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The federal districts are groupings of the federal subjects of Russia. Plenipotentiary Representatives are appointed by the President and are employees of the Presidential Administration, source, President Vladimir Putin established seven federal districts in May 2000. On January 19,2010 the new North Caucasian Federal District split from the Southern Federal District, on March 2014, after the Russian military intervention in and annexation of Crimea, the Crimean Federal District was established. The legality of this annexation is disputed by most states as well as NATO, on July 28,2016 the Crimean Federal District was abolished and merged into the Southern Federal District in order to improve the governance
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Kizhi Pogost
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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 Karelia, Russia, the pogost is the area inside a fence which includes two large wooden churches and a bell-tower. The pogost is famous for its beauty and longevity, despite that it is exclusively of wood. In 1990, it was included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites, 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 log of Scots Pine about 30 cm in diameter and 3 to 5 meters long. The Kizhi Pogost was built using a single nail. Many thousands of logs were brought for construction from the mainland, the Church of the Transfiguration is the most remarkable part of the pogost. It is not heated and is, therefore, called a summer church and its altar was laid June 6,1714, as inscribed on the cross located inside the church. This church was built on the site of the old one which was burnt by lightning. A legend tells that the builder used one axe for the whole construction. The church has 22 domes and with a height of 37 meters is one of the tallest wooden buildings of the Russian North. It is considered that the 18-dome church on the shore of Lake Onega - built in 1708. According to the Russian carpentry traditions of that time, the Transfiguration Church was built of only with no nails. 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 has a shape and 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 design in the 1950s
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Moscow Kremlin
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It is the best known of the kremlins and includes five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. Also within this complex is the Grand Kremlin Palace, the complex serves as the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation. It had previously used to refer to the government of the Soviet Union. Kremlinology refers to the study of Soviet and Russian politics, the site has been continuously inhabited by Finno-Ugric peoples since the 2nd century BC. Vyatichi built a structure on the hill where the Neglinnaya River flowed into the Moskva River. Up to the 14th century, the site was known as the grad of Moscow, the word Kremlin was first recorded in 1331. The grad was greatly extended by Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy in 1156, destroyed by the Mongols in 1237, dmitri Donskoi replaced the oak walls with a strong citadel of white limestone in 1366–1368 on the basic foundations of the current walls, this fortification withstood a siege by Khan Tokhtamysh. Dmitris son Vasily I resumed construction of churches and cloisters in the Kremlin, the newly built Annunciation Cathedral was painted by Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev, and Prokhor in 1406. The Chudov Monastery was founded by Dmitris tutor, Metropolitan Alexis, while his widow, Eudoxia and it was during his reign that three extant cathedrals of the Kremlin, the Deposition Church, and the Palace of Facets were constructed. The highest building of the city and Muscovite Russia was the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, built in 1505–08, the Kremlin walls as they now appear were built between 1485 and 1495. Spasskie gates of the wall bear a dedication in Latin praising Petrus Antonius Solarius for the design. After construction of the new walls and churches was complete. The Kremlin was separated from the merchant town by a 30-meter-wide moat. The same tsar also renovated some of his grandfathers palaces, added a new palace and cathedral for his sons, and endowed the Trinity metochion inside the Kremlin. The metochion was administrated by the Trinity Monastery and boasted the graceful tower church of St. Sergius, during the Time of Troubles, the Kremlin was held by the Polish forces for two years, between 21 September 1610 and 26 October 1612. The Kremlins liberation by the army of prince Dmitry Pozharsky. During his reign and that of his son Alexis, the eleven-domed Upper Saviour Cathedral, Armorial Gate, Terem Palace, Amusement Palace, following the death of Alexis, the Kremlin witnessed the Moscow Uprising of 1682, from which czar Peter barely escaped. As a result, both of them disliked the Kremlin, three decades later, Peter abandoned the residence of his forefathers for his new capital, Saint Petersburg
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Central Federal District
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The Central Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. The word Central has a political and historical meaning, being the core of the Russian state and its predecessor, geographically, the district is situated in the extreme west of present-day Russia, although it can be considered as the central region of European Russia. The district covers an area of 650,200 square kilometers, the Presidential Envoy to the Central Federal District is Alexander Beglov
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Kolomenskoye
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Kolomenskoye is a former royal estate situated several kilometers to the southeast of the city center of Moscow, Russia, on the ancient road leading to the town of Kolomna. The 390 hectare scenic area overlooks the banks of the Moskva River. It became a part of Moscow in the 1960s, Kolomenskoye village was first mentioned in the testament of Ivan Kalita. As time went by, the village was developed as a country estate of grand princes of Muscovy. The earliest existing structure is the exceptional Ascension church, built in stone to commemorate the long-awaited birth of an heir to the throne. Being the first stone church of tent-like variety, the uncanonical White Column marked a break from the Byzantine tradition. Photo German page on Kolomenskoye Kolomenskoye Museum Reserve Many rare photos
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Red Square
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Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. It separates the Kremlin, the royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia. Red Square is often considered the central square of Moscow since Moscows major streets, the name Red Square neither originates from the pigment of the surrounding bricks nor from the link between the colour red and communism. Rather, the name came about because the Russian word красная, several ancient Russian towns, such as Suzdal, Yelets, and Pereslavl-Zalessky, have their main square named Krasnaya ploshchad. The rich history of Red Square is reflected in paintings by Vasily Surikov, Konstantin Yuon. The square was meant to serve as Moscows main marketplace and it was also the site of various public ceremonies and proclamations, and occasionally a coronation for Russias Tsars would take place. The square has been built up since that point and has been used for official ceremonies by all Russian governments since it was established. The relevant decrees were issued in 1493 and 1495 and they called for the demolition of all buildings within 110 sazhens of the wall. Three square gates existed on this side of the wall, which in the 17th century, were known as, the last two are directly opposite Red Square, while the Konstantino-Elenensky gate was located behind Saint Basils Cathedral. In the early 19th century, the Arch of Konstantino-Elenensky gate was paved with bricks, from this gate, wooden and stone bridges stretched across the moat. Books were sold on this bridge and stone platforms were built nearby for guns – raskats, the Tsar Cannon was located on the platform of the Lobnoye mesto. The square was called Veliky Torg or simply Torg, then Troitskaya by the name of the small Troitskaya Church, after that, the square held the name Pozhar, which means burnt. It was not until 1661–62, when it was first mentioned by its contemporary Krasnaya – Red name, Red Square was the landing stage and trade centre for Moscow. Ivan the Great decreed that trade should only be conducted from person to person, but in time, after a fire in 1547, Ivan the Terrible reorganised the lines of wooden shops on the Eastern side into market lines. The streets Ilyinka and Varvarka were divided into the Upper lines, Middle lines and Bottom lines, after a few years, the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin, commonly known as Saint Basils Cathedral, was built on the moat under the rule of Ivan IV. This was the first building which gave the square its present-day characteristic silhouette, in 1595, the wooden market lines were replaced with stone. By that time, a platform for the proclamation of the tsars edicts. Red Square was considered a sacred place, during the expulsion of Poles from Moscow in 1612, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky entered the Kremlin through the square
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Novodevichy Convent
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Novodevichy Convent, also known as Bogoroditse-Smolensky Monastery, is probably the best-known cloister of Moscow. Its name, sometimes translated as the New Maidens Monastery, was devised to differ from an ancient maidens convent within the Moscow Kremlin, unlike other Moscow cloisters, it has remained virtually intact since the 17th century. In 2004, it was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Convent is situated in the south-western part of the historic town of Moscow. The Convent territory is enclosed within walls and surrounded by a park, the park is limited by the urban fabric of the city on the north and east sides. On the west side, it is limited by the Moscow River, the buildings are surrounded by a high masonry wall with 12 towers. The entrances are from the north and the south, the layout of the convent territory is an irregular rectangle stretching from the west to east. The oldest structure in the convent is the six-pillared five-domed Smolensky Cathedral and it is situated in the centre of the axes between the two entrance gates. Most scholars agree that the cathedral was rebuilt in the 1550s or 1560s and it was formerly ringed by four smaller chapels, in an arrangement reminiscent of the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin. Its frescos are among the finest in Moscow, the cathedral may be a focal point of the convent, but there are many other churches. Most date from the 1680s, when the convent was renovated at the behest of the regent Sofia Alexeyevna. The blood-red walls and crown-towers, two lofty over-the-gates churches, a refectory, and residential quarters were all designed in the Muscovite Baroque style, in the old cathedral, a new bowl for holy water and gilded carved iconostasis were installed in 1685. Its four tiers contain 16th-century icons endowed by Boris Godunov, the fifth tier displays icons by leading 17th-century painters, Simeon Ushakov and Fyodor Zubov. An arresting slender belltower, also commissioned by tsarevna Sofia, was built in six tiers to a height of 72 metres and this light octagonal column seems to unite all major elements of the ensemble into one harmonious whole. Vasili III, the Grand Prince of Moscow, founded the Novodevichy Convent in 1524 in commemoration of his conquest of Smolensk in 1514, the structure began as a fortress at a curve of the Moskva River three versts to the south-west of the Moscow Kremlin. It became an important part of the defensive belt of Moscow. Upon its founding, the Novodevichy Convent was granted 3,000 rubles, vasilis son, tsar Ivan the Terrible, would later grant a number of other villages to the convent. In 1610–1611 a Polish unit under the command of Aleksander Gosiewski captured the Novodevichy Convent, once Russian forces had retaken the convent, tsar Michael Fyodorovich supplied it with permanent guards. By the end of the 17th century, the Novodevichy Convent possessed 36 villages in 27 uyezds of Russia, in 1744, it owned 14,489 peasants
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Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius
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The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the leading to Yaroslavl. The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples. In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of buildings, such as refectory, kitchen. This charter was a model for Sergius numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries. St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars, at the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408, St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo, the relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes, traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here. In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit and this graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration, in the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius disciples were interred. It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559, the cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakovs masterpiece, interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs, as the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cut over and a village sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. A shell-hole in the gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IVs abortive siege in 1618. By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies and these include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design
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Yaroslavl
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Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and it is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities northeast of Moscow that have played an important role in Russian history. The city lies in the portion of Yaroslavl Oblast. The nearest large towns are Tutayev, Gavrilov-Yam, and Nerekhta, the historic center of Yaroslavl lies to the north of the mouth of the Kotorosl River on the right bank of the larger Volga River. The citys entire urban area covers around 205 square kilometers and includes a number of south of the Kotorosl. With over 600,000 residents, Yaroslavl is, by population and it is a large transport node, and a great number of important national and regional roads, railways, and waterways pass through the city. In fact many of the roads that connect Yaroslavl to Moscow, typical for this region, the area in and around Yaroslavl is rich in mixed and coniferous forests. In addition to these, there are large areas of swampland. Yaroslavl and its area have a typical temperate continental climate, in comparison to central. This makes for a climate with more snowy, colder, but dry winters and typically temperate, the winter weather in Yaroslavl begins in about November and usually goes on for five months, into spring. The coldest month of the year is typically January, with a temperature of −12.0 °C. However, at time it is not uncommon for temperatures to drop below −20 °C. In some cases, temperatures of −35 to −40 °C can be experienced, on the other hand, Yaroslavl can also experience positive temperatures during this time of the year. Typically the Volga freezes over during the winter, snow cover is usually 35–50-centimeter thick, but can in some cases be up to 70 centimeters in depth. The springtime months are best characterized by a lack of precipitation. From the end of March into April, there is often a thaw and it is not uncommon for temperatures in April to reach +20 °C. Summers in Yaroslavl are typically wet with heavy rainstorms. The summer often reaches its hottest point during the months of June/July, with a daily temperature of +23.3 °C
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Volcanoes of Kamchatka
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The volcanoes of Kamchatka are a large group of volcanoes situated on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Kamchatka River and the central side valley are flanked by large volcanic belts containing around 160 volcanoes,29 of them still active. Somewhat more accessible are the three volcanoes visible from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Koryaksky, Avachinsky, and Kozelsky, in the center of Kamchatka is Eurasias world-famous Geyser Valley which was partly destroyed by a massive mudslide in June 2007. Owing to the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, deep-focus seismic events and tsunamis are fairly common, a pair of megathrust earthquakes occurred off the coast on October 16,1737, and on November 4,1952, in the magnitude of ~9.3 and 8.2 respectively. A chain of shallow earthquakes were recorded as recently as April 2006
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Lake Baikal
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Lake Baikal is a rift lake in Russia, located in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast. Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world, with 23,615.39 km3 of fresh water, it contains more water than the North American Great Lakes combined. With a maximum depth of 1,642 m, Baikal is the worlds deepest lake and it is considered among the worlds clearest lakes and is considered the worlds oldest lake — at 25 million years. It is the seventh-largest lake in the world by surface area, like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km2. Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, the lake was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The region to the east of Lake Baikal is referred to as Transbaikalia, Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, created by the Baikal Rift Zone, where the Earths crust is slowly pulling apart. At 636 km long and 79 km wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any lake in Asia, at 31,722 km2. The bottom of the lake is 1,186.5 m below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–11 km below the surface, the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active—it widens about 2 cm per year, the fault zone is also seismically active, hot springs occur in the area and notable earthquakes happen every few years. The lake is divided into three basins, North, Central, and South, with depths about 900 m,1,600 m, fault-controlled accommodation zones rising to depths about 300 m separate the basins. The North and Central basins are separated by Academician Ridge, while the area around the Selenga Delta, the lake drains into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei. Notable landforms include Cape Ryty on Baikals northwest coast, Baikals age is estimated at 25 million years, making it the most ancient lake in geological history. It is unique among large, high-latitude lakes, as its sediments have not been scoured by overriding continental ice sheets. Russian, U. S. and Japanese cooperative studies of deep-drilling core sediments in the 1990s provide a record of climatic variation over the past 6.7 million years. Longer and deeper sediment cores are expected in the near future, Lake Baikal is the only confined freshwater lake in which direct and indirect evidence of gas hydrates exists. The lake is surrounded by mountains. The Baikal Mountains on the shore and the taiga are technically protected as a national park. It contains 27 islands, the largest, Olkhon, is 72 km long and is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world, the lake is fed by as many as 330 inflowing rivers
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Southern Federal District
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The Southern Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. Its territory lies mostly on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the Southern Federal District was originally called the North Caucasian Federal District when it was founded in May 2000, but was renamed soon after for political reasons. On January 19,2010, the Southern Federal District was split in two, with its southern territories forming a new North Caucasian Federal District. On July 28,2016 Crimean Federal District was abolished and merged into Southern Federal District in order to improve the governance, Crimean Federal District was established on March 21,2014 after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The federal district includes both the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, both recognized as part of Ukraine by most of the international community. Ukraine considers the area, along with the areas of Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic and its population was 13,854,334 according to the 2010 Census, living in an area of 420,900 square kilometers. Southern Federal District News and events of Russian South
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Western Caucasus
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The Western Caucasus is a western region of the Caucasus in Southern Russia, extending from the Black Sea to Mount Elbrus. The Western Caucasus includes a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the western edge of the Caucasus Mountains. As stated by the UNESCO specialists, it is the large mountain area in Europe that has not experienced significant human impact. Its habitats are varied for such a small area, ranging from lowlands to glaciers. The site is situated 50 km to the north from the Russian resort of Sochi, about a third of its high mountain species of plants are recognized as endemic. The area also includes the Sochi National Park, the Western Caucasus is also the place of origin and of reintroduction of the Caucasian Wisent. The last wild wisent in the world was killed by poachers here in 1927, wisents partly interbred with American bison were reintroduced several decades later. Their descendants will be released into the wild in the Biosphere Reserve, a pair of leopards were brought to the Sochi park in 2012 from the Lisbon Zoo in Portugal. In July 2013, the pair had a litter, the first Persian Leopard cubs known to be born in Russia in 50 years, the cubs will be released into the wild after learning survival skills from their parents, according to Natalia Dronova, the WWF-Russia species coordinator. Caucasus mixed forests Алтухов Михаил Данилович, Литвинская Светлана Анатольевна, Охрана растительного мира на Северо-Западном Кавказе. ISBN 5-244-00432-8 UNESCO World Heritage Site, Western Caucasus Western Caucasus at Natural Heritage Protection Fund Russian page about the Western Caucasus Caucasian Reserve Website
Media related to Bolghar at Wikimedia Commons
