1.
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
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
4.
Kyrgyzstan
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Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a country in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and its capital and largest city is Bishkek. Kyrgyzstans recorded history spans over 2,000 years, encompassing a variety of cultures and empires, ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the countrys 5.7 million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz is closely related to other Turkic languages, although Russian remains widely spoken and is the official language, the majority of the population are non-denominational Muslims. In addition to its Turkic origins, Kyrgyz culture bears elements of Persian, Mongolian and Russian influence. Kyrgyz is believed to have derived from the Turkic word for forty, in reference to the forty clans of Manas. Literally, Kyrgyz means We are forty, at the time, in the early 9th century AD, the Uyghurs dominated much of Central Asia, Mongolia, and parts of Russia and China. King, Scythians were early settlers in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz state reached its greatest expansion after defeating the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 A. D. From the 10th century the Kyrgyz migrated as far as the Tian Shan range, in the twelfth century the Kyrgyz dominion had shrunk to the Altay Range and Sayan Mountains as a result of the Mongol expansion. With the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, the Kyrgyz peacefully became a part of the Mongol Empire in 1207. The descent of the Kyrgyz from the autochthonous Siberian population is confirmed on the hand by the recent genetic studies. Issyk Kul Lake was a stopover on the Silk Road, a route for traders, merchants. Kyrgyz tribes were overrun in the 17th century by the Mongols, in the century by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. In the late century, the majority part of what is today Kyrgyzstan was ceded to Russia through two treaties between China and Russia. The territory, then known in Russian as Kirghizia, was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1876. The Russian takeover was met with numerous revolts against Tsarist authority, in addition, the suppression of the 1916 rebellion against Russian rule in Central Asia caused many Kyrgyz later to migrate to China. Soviet power was established in the region in 1919. On 5 December 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a republic of the Soviet Union
5.
Bishkek
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Bishkek, formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and largest city of the Kyrgyz Republic. Bishkek is also the center of the Chuy Region. The province surrounds the city, although the city itself is not part of the province, but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan. According to post-Soviet research, the name is thought to derive from a Kyrgyz word for a used to make fermented mares milk. The city was founded in 1825 as the Khokand fortress of Pishpek in order to control local caravan routes, on 4 September 1860, the fortress was destroyed by Russian forces led by colonel Zimmermann, with the approval of the Kyrgyz. In 1868 a Russian settlement was founded on the spot, under its original name. It lay within the General Governorship of Russian Turkestan and its Semirechye Oblast, in 1925, the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was created in Russian Turkestan, promoting Pishpek to its capital. In 1926, the city was given the name Frunze, after the Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze, in 1936, the city of Frunze became the capital of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, during the final stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Kyrgyz parliament changed the name to Bishkek. Bishkek is situated at an altitude of about 800 meters, just off the northern fringe of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range and these mountains rise to a height of 4,855 meters and provide a spectacular backdrop to the city. North of the city, a fertile and gently undulating steppe extends far north into neighboring Kazakhstan, the Chui River drains most of the area. Bishkek is connected to the Turkestan-Siberia Railway by a spur line, Bishkek is a city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards. Mostly outside the city center, there are thousands of smaller privately built houses. It is laid out on a pattern, with most streets flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels that water the innumerable trees that provide shade in the hot summers. Originally a caravan rest stop on one of the branches of the Silk Road through the Tian Shan range, in the last years of Kokhand rule, the fortress was led by Atabek, the Datka. In 1860, the fort was conquered and razed by the forces of Colonel Zimmermann when Tsarist Russia annexed the area. Colonel Zimmermann rebuilt the town over the fort and put field Poruchik Titov as head of a new Russian garrison. The site was redeveloped from 1877 onward by the Russian government, in June 1990, a state of emergency was declared following severe ethnic riots in southern Kyrgyzstan that threatened to spread to the capital
6.
Alexey Venediktov
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Alexei Alexeyevich Venediktov is a Russian journalist, editor-in-chief, host and co-owner of the Echo of Moscow radio station, as well as the president of Echo TV Russia. His father Alexei Nikolaevich Venediktov was a submarine officer killed in a storm shortly before Alexeis birth. His mother Eleonora Abramovna Dykhovichnaya was a doctor of Jewish origin, in 1983 she along with Alexeis sister emigrated to America. One of her cousins was a film director Ivan Dykhovichny, a popular musician Andrey Makarevich also happens to be Alexeis distant relative. Venediktov graduated from the division of Moscow State Pedagogical University in 1978. After graduation, he worked as a postman for some time, since 1990 he has been working for Echo of Moscow. He started as an observer and reporter, then headed the news division. Since 1998 he has working as the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow. Since 2002 Venedictov has been serving as the president of Echo TV Russia. In 2006 he co-hosted a short-living TV show In the Light Circle with Svetlana Sorokina at the Domashny TV channel. It was shut down in just two weeks, supposedly for its harsh critics of the Judiciary of Russia, although the producer Alexander Rodnyansky denied it had anything to do with politics. On February,2012 Venediktov resigned from the board of directors in protest against the Gazprom-Media announcement to change the board and he later said that it was Vladimir Putin who personally saved him and his station from closer by Mikhail Lesin. According to Venediktov, this happened at least twice during the Dmitry Medvedevs presidency, but in 2015 the Russian State Duma passed a new law forbidding foreign citizens to own more than 20% of all shares in a national media company. In order to bypass it, a Russian-based company named Echo of Moscow Holding Company was registered, as of 2016, it owns 13. 10% of total shares, while the American company controls 19. 92% of shares. Venediktov described his views as conservative and himself — as a reactionary, with Ronald Reagan. He is a member of the Public Board of the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Civic Chamber of Moscow since 2016
7.
General Director
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It is commonly used in many countries worldwide, but often with different meanings. In most Australian states, the director-general is the most senior civil servant in any government department, in Victoria and the Australian Government, the equivalent position is the secretary of the department. A director general in the government is typically not the most senior civil servant in a department. Directors general typically report to a senior civil servant, such as an assistant deputy minister or associate deputy minister. Deputy ministers are the highest level bureaucrat within the Canadian civil service at the federal, provincial and territorial levels, deputy Ministers are not politicians but professional bureaucrats. Outside the federal, provincial and territorial civil services, some public sector such as school boards in Quebec use the title the director general. In the European Commission and the Council of the European Union and this is roughly equivalent to a British permanent secretary. In France, the similar word président-directeur général means the highest person in a company, from 2001 the two charges may be disjointed. The directeur général délégué has a similar to a chief operating officer. French ministries are divided in general directorates, sometimes named central directorates or simply directorates, headed respectively by a directeur général, a directeur central, or a directeur. In Germany, Generaldirektor may be used for the CEO of a large and established concern, corporation, company or enterprise, the title is, however, unofficial and by now largely out of use. Officially a GmbH has a Geschäftsführer and an Aktiengesellschaft a board of directors with a chairman. The term is used by German Institute Taipei, Germanys informal representative mission to the Republic of China. In India, there is a Director General of Police and Director General of Income Tax in each state, Indian Coast Guard is headed by Director General of Indian Coast Guard. In Italian provinces and greatest communes direttore generale is an administrative officer nominated by president of province or by mayor. The title of direttore generale is also given to the executive of an azienda sanitaria. The word Director-General was used in the Philippines as a Highest Rank Law Enforcer which means the head of law enforcement agency, the position exists for all Commonwealth of Independent States legal forms except for sole proprietorships. The general director is the executive body of a company
8.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
9.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
10.
Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
11.
Victor Shenderovich
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Victor Anatolievich Shenderovich is a popular Russian satirist, writer, scriptwriter and radio host. In 1980, Shenderovich graduated from the Moscow State Art and Cultural University and he is best known as a scriptwriter of popular political puppet show Kukly which was aired on NTV1994 to 2002. He hosted satirical author program Total on NTV1997 to 2001, later, Shenderovich ran a weekly program Processed Cheese on the Echo of Moscow radio station. The texts of this editions were later collected in his book Better two heads than one. Duumvirate times chronicle, implying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, nowadays Shenderovich is a columnist of The New Times, a liberal Russian weekly. He is known as a critic of Vladimir Putins rule. Shenderovich is among the 10 first signatories of the online anti-Putin manifesto Putin must go published in March 2010, in April 2010, Shenderovich was involved in a sex scandal with a woman claimed to have acted as a Kremlin honey pot to discredit opposition figures. The video, suspecting to be kompromat, was released two days before his daughters wedding. On 26 December 2010, Shenderovich played a role in organising a Moscow for Everyone rally in the capital of Russia. In 2005, Shenderovich ran for a seat in a December 4 by-election to the State Duma, the winner took 38% of votes and Shenderovich took 17%. Before the election, Shenderovich protested the widely illegal and immoral practices of Govorukhin in court, in 2006, he published the book Nedodumets in which he summarised his experience as a Duma candidate. Victor Shenderovich at the Internet Movie Database His Official Site His blog His publications in on-line journal Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal Liberal Duma Candidate Says Pressured By Kremlin Officials
12.
Yulia Latynina
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Yulia Leonidovna Latynina is a Russian writer and journalist. She is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta and the most popular host at the Echo of Moscow radio station, Yulia Latynina has authored more than twenty books, including fantasy and crime fiction. Yulia Latynina was born in Moscow on 16 June 1966 and her father is poet Leonid Latynin and her mother is literary critic Alla Latynina. Yulia Latynina studied philology at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute from 1983 to 1988, in 1993, she defended her PhD at the Gorky Institute of World Literature. Latynina worked for periodicals Segodnya, Izvestia, Expert, Sovershenno Secretno, Ezhednevny Zhurnal and she also worked for television channels NTV, ORT, TVS and REN TV. Currently, she is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta and a host of the show Access Code at radio station Echo of Moscow, Latynina was a member of the Committee 2008. In 2007, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera named her best foreign journalist in a ceremony dedicated to Maria Grazia Cutuli. In 2008, Yulia Latynina received the Freedom Defenders Award from the United States Department of State, Yulia Latynina is known for her sharp and polemic statements. She argues that universal suffrage is bad for poor countries and she also criticizes western liberalism and human rights organizations which she thinks prevent winning the War on Terror. Yulia Latynina is generally regarded as an opponent of Russian political establishment, but has also scolded supporters of Igor Sutyagin, lawyer Boris Kuznetsov, who represented Sutyagin, hinted that the Russian Federal Security Service benefited from her columns, which she vigorously denied. List of Russian-language novelists Biography at the official website A Superpower in What, Yulia Latynina at the Cato Institute Yulia Latynina at The Moscow Times Yulia Latynina at Novaya Gazeta Yulia Latynina at Echo of Moscow Yulia Latynina at Lib. ru Yulia Latynina at Goodreads
13.
Sergey Parkhomenko
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Sergey Borisovich Parkhomenko is a Russian publisher, journalist and political commentator. Sergey Parkhomenko was born in Moscow in 1964 and graduated from the Department of Journalism of the Moscow State University, in early 1990s, he worked as a political reporter and columnist in Russian dailies such as Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Segodnia. In 1996, Parkhomenko founded Russia’s first news magazine Itogi, which was published in cooperation with Newsweek, Parkhomenko was the chief editor of the magazine until 2001, when the new owner fired the magazine’s entire team. Parkhomenko then launched a new magazine, Yezhenedelnyi zhournal, and was its editor-in-chief until 2003. From 2004 to 2009, Parkhomenko successively headed several publishing houses, from October 2009 till the end of 2011, he headed the Vokrug sveta publishing house, where he was the chief editor of Russia’s oldest travel magazine by the same name. Since 2003, Sergey Parkhomenko hosts the talk show Sut’ Sobytiy. Sergey Parkhomenko is known as an author or participant of civic initiatives. In 1994 he was one of the founders of the Moscow Journalists’ Charter, in 2004 he became a member of Committee 2008 which tried to find a “democratic alternative” facing the upcoming presidential elections of 2008. During Russia’s civic protest movement in 2011-2013, Sergey Parkhomenko was one of the figures of the movement. In the fall of 2012 he was elected a member of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council, Parkhomenko was instrumental in organizing mass rallies in Moscow in Winter 2011 – Spring 2012. In the spring of 2012, he co-founded the League of Voters and this activity resulted in March 2013 in Constitutional Court of Russia hearing where the Court ruled that Russian voters should be allowed to appeal election results directly. S. Parkhomenko is also one of the initiators of the project Last Address and this project implies installing a small memorial plaque on the wall of the last house of a person subjected to political persecution in the Soviet years. In 2014 Parkhomenko was a member of the Congress Ukraine - Russia, A Dialogue, in May 2014 S. Parkhomenko was elected a member of the Russian PEN Center, the Russian branch of the PEN International. Since autumn 2016 года - a Public Policy Fellow in Kennan Institute,1993 - the medal Defender of the freedom in Russia. 2007 - France’s “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”, for publishing activity,2011 - Russian Government award in the area of print media. The award was ordered by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Parkhomenko,2013 – Golden pen of Russia, a journalistic award for the year 2013, for popularizing Dissernet in press and in Internet. 2014 – the prize Politprosvet for the project Dissernet, prize was awarded to all co-founders of the project in two nominations, a special honorary nomination For honor and dignity, and the nomination Peoples vote. 2015 - the winner of «The Moscow Times Awards» for 2015 in the nomination Personal Social Responsibility for the project Last Address, wife — Varvara Gornostaeva, Chief Editor of the Corpus publishing house 3 sons, Lev, Peter, Matvey 2012 — the film “Term”
14.
Yevgenia Albats
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Yevgenia Markovna Albats is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host. As of 2011, she works as an editor of The New Times magazine. She holds a position in the leadership of the Russian Jewish Congress, Albats father, Mark Yefremovich Albats, was a member of a GRU military reconnaissance team during World War II, residing in German-occupied Ukraine. In 1943 he was wounded and discharged from the Army, afterward he worked as an engineer at a scientific institution, designing radiolocation systems for the Soviet Army. Albats mother, Yelena Izmaylovskaya, was an actress and a radio news host, Albats elder sister, Tatyana Komarova, is a television host/anchor. Yevgenia Albats graduated from the Department of Journalism of Moscow State University in 1980, One of her classmates and friends was Anna Politkovskaya, who would become an investigative journalist and was assassinated in 2006. Albats started her work as a science observer writing about astrophysics and particle physics for the Izvestia newspapers Sunday supplement. From 1986 to 1992, she worked for the Moscow News, in 1996 to 2006, she worked for Izvestia and Novaya Gazeta. She received the Golden Pen Award from the Russian Union of Journalists for exposing poor conditions in maternity wards in 1989, Albats was fired from Izvestia in 1997 after she had completed a major article exposing alleged illegal activities by the FSB. She was restored to her position by a decision on 15 March 1997. In 2007, Albats became a deputy editor of The New Times magazine. On 16 January 2009 she replaced Irena Lisnevskaya as the Chief Editor of the magazine, from 1993 to 2000, she was a member of the Clemency Commission at the Executive Office of the President of the Russian Federation. Albats was a Fellow at Harvard Universitys Nieman Foundation for Journalism in 1993, in 2004 Albats was awarded a PhD in political science from Harvard University. She works at the radio station Echo of Moscow and writes for the Moscow Times, in 1992 Albats was appointed a member of a governmental commission to examine KGB involvement in Soviet coup attempt of 1991. As a member of commission she interviewed KGB officers. Albats described her findings in The State Within a State, The KGB and Its Hold on Russia – Past, Present, KGB chairman Vadim Bakatin gave Albats the number of KGB officers as 180,000 in a post-1991 interview. Albats described the KGB as a political force rather than a security organization. She wrote that KGB directors Lavrenty Beria, Yuri Andropov and Vladimir Kryuchkov manipulated Communist Party leaders and she asserted that FSB, the successor of KGB, became a totalitarian party
15.
Vladimir Ryzhkov
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He is a candidate of historical sciences and a professor of the Higher School of Economics. Anchorman of a number of Echo of Moscow radio programs, Vladimir Ryzhkov was a deputy head of administration of Altai Krai in 1991-1993 and represented the city of Barnaul in the State Duma in 1993-2007. Since 2006 Vladimir Ryzhkov is a co-chair of registered political party Republican Party of Russia – Peoples Freedom Party and he was one of members of The Other Russia coalition and a participant of Dissenters Marches and other meetings. Active speaker during 2011–2012 Russian protest rallies, Ryzhkov was first elected in 1993 and later headed a group of deputies from Russias Choice, the main pro-Kremlin party under Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In 1997, he was elected Deputy President of the State Duma, on 19 September 1998, Ryzhkov was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation on social issues, but turned down the offer only days later. In the general elections of 1999, he ran as an independent, after Vladimir Putins election in 2000, Ryzhkov was dismissed from the coalition. In 2003 general election, Vladimir Ryzhkov successfully ran as an independent and he cofounded the Democratic Alternative association with another independent deputy Mikhail Zadornov in 2004. In 2005, Ryzhkov became head of the Republican Party of Russia, because of a recent law requiring all candidates be nominated by political parties, Ryzhkov could not run as an independent. Since 2006, Ryzhkov has been affiliated with the Other Russia opposition coalition, Vladimir Ryzhkov represented the city of Barnaul in the Siberian Altai Region in the Russian State Duma in 1993-2007. He was first elected in 1993 and worked in a group of deputies from Vibor Rossii, in 1997, he was elected first Deputy President of the State Duma, becoming the youngest Speaker in its history. In the general election of 1999, he was elected as an independent deputy, after Vladimir Putins election in 2000, Ryzhkov soon became one of the leading opposition figures. In the 2003 general elections, Vladimir Ryzhkov successfully ran as an independent deputy, in 2005, he became head of the Republican Party of Russia which in 2007 was refused registration for the parliament elections later this year. Because of a recent law requiring all candidates be nominated by political parties and he is the author of the books Fourth Republic and The Granted Democracy and the co-coordinator of the international public committee Russia in the United Europe. Yevgeny Primakovs Cabinet Официальный сайт Рыжкова Владимира Александровича Official site Рыжков, Владимир Александрович Russian State Duma official site
16.
Maria Gaidar
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Maria Yegorovna Gaidar is a former Russian political activist who is since the summer of 2015 an Ukrainian politician. In Russia she is the founder of the Youth movement DA, from 2009 till 2011 Gaidar was a deputy governor in Kirov Oblast in Russia. From 17 July 2015 till 10 May 2016 she was a vice-governor of Odessa Oblast in Ukraine, in the October 2015 Odessa regional election Gaidar was elected into the Odessa Oblast parliament. On 4 August 2015 Gaidar received Ukrainian citizenship, maria Gaidar was born to a prominent political and literary family of Russian and Jewish descent. She is the daughter of former Russian Prime Minister, Yegor Gaidar, through Arkady Gaidar, she is a descendant of Russian aristocratic Salkova family. Through the Salkova family, she is a descendant of Mikhail Lermontov and she is step-daughter of the daughter of writer Arkady Strugatsky. Marias parents divorced in 1985, three years after she was born, Gaidar stayed with her mother, Irina Smirnova. In 1991 the family moved to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where lived for five years. In 1996 she returned to Moscow, in 2000 she entered and in 2005 graduated summa cum laude from the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation. Gaidar is fluent in English, German, Spanish and her native Russian, in 2011, she was admitted to Harvard University for a Mid-Career Masters in Public Administration, where she studied for 8 months. In 2014 she graduated from Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Gaidar was one of the leaders of The Other Russia organization and Union of Right Forces party. Commenting on her arrests, she said that Politics is becoming more dangerous, I think this is a message people want to put across - if you come to such an event, then you are risking your life. During the 2008 Russian presidential election, Gaidar produced numerous video materials in which Vladimir Putin was depicted as the anti-Christ leading the world to a nuclear apocalypse. In February 2009, Gaidar became an advisor to the new governor of Kirov Oblast, Nikita Belykh and she had previously stated that Nikita Belykh had sold his soul to the devil when he accepted the post as governor from president Dmitry Medvedev. In June 2011, Gaidar announced that she would resign as adviser due to her admission to Harvard University, in December 2012, she became an adviser to Moscow Vice-Major for Social Problems Leonid Pechatnikov. In November 2013, she left the Government of Moscow to work for the charity Sotsialny Zapros created by her, in 2015, she threatened to renounce her Russian citizenship, planning to become an Israeli citizen under the Law of Return and to move to Israel. However, she said that she wished to retain her Russian citizenship. On 17 July 2015, Gaidar accepted an offer from Mikheil Saakashvili and her practical work has been as a fixer combating fraud and ensuring that vital social functions run smoothly
17.
Yevgeny Yasin
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Yevgeny Grigoryevich Yasin is a prominent Russian economist. He was the Russian Minister for the Economy between 1994 and 1997 and he is currently an academic supervisor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He is a contributor to Ekho Moskvy radio. Evgeniy Yasin was born on May 7,1934, in 1957 he graduated from the Odessa Institute of Civil Construction, and in 1963 from the Lomonosov Moscow State University Faculty of Economics. In 1968 he defended his thesis for the degree of the Candidate of Science, in 1976 - Doctor of Economics, and since 1979 - Professor. From 1958 -1960 Evgeniy Yasin was an engineer at the Design Institute Number 3 of the Committee of Civil Engineering, Ukrainian SSR. After graduating from MSU, from 1964 -1973 he worked at the Research Institute of the Central Department of Statistics as head of department, from 1973 -1989 he headed a laboratory at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics, USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1978 Evgeniy Yasin led a Department on Economic Reform in the State Commission of the USSR Council of Ministers and he was one of the key authors of a number of programmes of the transition to a market economy, including the well-known programme ‘500 days. In November 1991 he created the Expert Institute as part of this organization, from January 1992 Evgeniy Yasin worked as Director of the RSPP and at the same time was Authorized Representative of the Russian Government in the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation. In 1993 he was appointed Head of a group under the Chairman of the Government of the RF. In April 1994 he became Head of the Analytical Center under the President of the RF, in November 1994 Evgeniy Yasin was appointed head of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, and in April 1997 - Minister of the Russian Federation. From October 1998 to present - Academic Supervisor of the University - Higher School of Economics, since 2000 - President of the ‘Liberalnaya Missiya Foundation. Its board members include his daughter Irina Yasina, Igor Klyamkin, Alexander Arkhangelsky, Jochen Wermuth, Dmitry Zimin, Georgy Satarov, Lilia Shevtsova et al
18.
Sophie Shevardnadze
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Sopho Sophie Shevardnadze is a correspondent for the television network RT, currently based in Moscow, Russia. She was born in Georgia, Soviet Union, but the family moved to France when she was 10 and she learnt ballet and piano and got a diploma from the Conservatoire de Paris. She graduated with a degree from Boston University in 2001. After graduation in 2005, she worked as a producer for ABC-TV, after hearing about the upcoming launch of RT, she moved to Moscow and has been a presenter with the network since the launch. She hosts interviews with politicians, diplomats and news personalities in her show and she speaks Georgian, Russian, English, French and Italian. She was also a dancer on the Russian version of Dancing with the Stars 2010, also known as a socialite, she often attends high-fashion events in Europe and Russia
19.
Boris Akunin
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Boris Akunin is the pen name of Grigol Chkhartishvili, a Russian writer of Georgian and Jewish origin. He is best known as writer of detective and historical fiction and he is also an essayist and literary translator. Grigory Chkhartishvili has also written under pen names Anatoly Brusnikin, Anna Borisova, Chkhartishvili was born in Zestaponi to a Georgian father and a Jewish mother and since 1958 has lived in Moscow. Influenced by Japanese Kabuki theatre, he joined the branch of the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moscow State University as an expert on Japan. He worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature and he has also contributed literary criticism and translations from Japanese, American and English literature under his own name. He is left handed, and has known to smoke a pipe. Akunins specialty is historical mysteries set in Imperial Russia and it was only after the first books of the Fandorin series were published to critical acclaim that the identity of B. And has been translated into many languages, Akunin is a Japanese word that translates loosely to villain. In his novel The Diamond Chariot, the author redefines an akunin as one who creates his own rules, Akunin has been critical of Vladimir Putins domestic and foreign policies, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014. In 2012, Putin attributed Akunins critical attitudes to his Georgian background, in the year of 2000, Akunin was nominated for the Smirnoff-Booker Prize. In September 2000, Akunin was named Russian Writer of the Year and won the Antibooker prize in 2000 for his Erast Fandorin novel Coronation, in 2003, the British Crime Writers Association placed Akunins novel The Winter Queen on the short list for the Dagger Award in Fiction. In 2004, he was a member of the jury at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival, four Fandorin novels, The Winter Queen, The Turkish Gambit, The State Counsellor, and The Decorator, were made into big-budget Russian movies. An English remake of The Winter Queen was in production and it was set to start filming in 2007, but the leading actress, Milla Jovovich, became pregnant, and the production process was delayed to unknown date. Additionally, Pelagia and the White Bulldog was made into a TV mini-series in 2009, each historical mystery novel is assigned its own subgenre of detective fiction, The Winter Queen, original title Azazel / Азазель. The 20-year-old Fandorin begins his career by accidentally stumbling over a plot for world domination, the Turkish Gambit / Турецкий гамбит. Fandorin takes part in the Russo-Turkish War and the Siege of Plevna as he is trying to uncover a Turkish spy, murder on the Leviathan, original title Leviathan / Левиафан. Fandorin investigates a murder while traveling on a steamship headed from England to India and this is the third novel in the series, but the second released in English. The Death of Achilles / Смерть Ахиллеса, upon returning from diplomatic service in Japan, Fandorin tackles the mysterious death of Mikhail Skobelev in a Moscow hotel
20.
Dmitrii Bykov
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Dmitry Lvovich Bykov is a Russian writer, poet and journalist. He is also known as biographer of Boris Pasternak, Bulat Okudzhava, being one of the most prolific modern Russian writers, in recent years he has gained additional recognition for his biography of Boris Pasternak, published in 2005. The biography earned Bykov the 2006 National Bestseller and Great Book awards and he later wrote biographies of Maxim Gorky and Bulat Okudzhava. Bykov graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of the Moscow State University, as a journalist and critic, Bykov has been writing for the magazine Ogoniok since 1993. He has also hosted a show on the radio station Echo of Moscow. Earlier, he was one of the hosts of an influential TV show Vremechko, in 2008 a documentary called Virginity was released in which Bykov was a co-writer. In 2009, Bykov was named assistant editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Profile and he is also the editor-in-chief of the monthly literature-focused magazine What to read. Together with actor Mikhail Yefremov, he created project Citizen Poet, Yefremov reads poems, written by Bykov, which are usually satirical comments on the contemporary Russian society, politics and culture. Each poems parodies the style of a poet of the past, e. g. Pushkin, Nekrasov. It was originally broadcast on Dozhd TV channel, but the project was closed because the poems were too critical towards Russian government, currently, the show is hosted in audio format by Echo of Moscow radio station. Bulat Okudzhava The Debauchery of Work Chronicles of Immediate War In Place of Life In a Void Thinking the World And Practically Everybody The Calendar, speaking of Essential Things The Calendar 2. Debating the Undebatable The Secret Russian Calendar, most important dates The Short Course of Soviet Literature
21.
Eduard Limonov
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Eduard Limonov is a Russian writer, poet, publicist, and political dissident. He is the founder and former leader of the banned National Bolshevik Party, formerly an opponent of Vladimir Putin, Limonov was one of the leaders of The Other Russia political bloc. However, following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, he has emerged as a supporter of Putin. Limonov was born in former Soviet Union, in Dzerzhinsk, industrial town in the Gorky Oblast, Limonovs father—then in the military service – was in a state security career and his mother was a homemaker. In the early years of his family moved to Kharkiv in the Ukrainian SSR. By Limonovs own account, he began writing bad poetry at the age of thirteen and soon after became involved in theft. Limonov adopted his nom de plume for use in literary circles during this time, Limonov has been married four times. In 1966, together with his first wife, Anna Moiseevna Rubinstein, he first came to Moscow, earning money sewing trousers, Limonov moved to Moscow again in 1967, marrying a fellow poet, Yelena Shchapova, in a Russian Orthodox ceremony in 1973. During the Moscow period Limonov was involved in the Konkret poets group, having achieved a degree of success in this manner by the mid-1970s, he and his wife emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1974. The exact circumstances of Limonovs departure are unclear and have been described differently, reportedly, KGB secret police gave him a choice either to become a snitch, or leave the country. Although neither he nor Shchapova were Jewish, the Soviet Union issued him a false Israeli visa to do so, Limonov settled in New York City, where he and Shchapova soon divorced. Limonov worked for a Russian-language newspaper as a proofreader and occasionally interviewed recent Soviet emigrants, like Eddie, the immigrant protagonist of Limonovs first novel Its Me, Eddie, Limonov was drawn to punk subculture and radical politics. Limonovs New York acquaintances included Studio 54s Steve Rubell and a Trotskyist group, as protagonist Eddie finds out as a consequence, the latter is a victim of the FBI. Limonov was himself harassed by the FBI, as he later retold it in France, the FBI also interrogated dozens of his acquaintances, once asking a friend about Lermontov in Paris. The first chapter of Its Me, Eddie, was published by an Israeli Russian-language journal, finished by 1977, it was consistently rejected by publishers in the United States and only brought out a few years after becoming an instant success in France in 1980. In interviews, Limonov says this was because the book was not written with anti-Soviet tones, in New York, Limonov also discovered another side of the American Dream. After being a celebrated dissident, he lived a life due to his low revenues. He then found a job as a butler for a millionaire in the Upper East Side and this period of his life led him to write autobiographical texts, including His Butlers Story
22.
Alexey Navalny
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Alexei Anatolievich Navalny is a Russian lawyer, political and financial activist, and politician. Since 2009, he has gained prominence in Russia, and in the Russian and international media, as a critic of corruption and of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has organized large-scale demonstrations promoting democracy and attacking political corruption, Putin, in 2012, The Wall Street Journal described him as the man Vladimir Putin fears most. A self-described nationalist democrat, Navalny is a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member, in September 2013, he ran in the Moscow mayoral election, supported by the RPR-PARNAS party. He came in second, with 27% of the vote, losing to incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Navalny came to prominence via his blog, hosted on the website LiveJournal, which remains his primary method of communicating with the public. He created Russian Anti-corruption Foundation in 2011, Navalny has been arrested numerous times by Russian authorities, most seriously in 2012, when federal authorities accused him of three instances of embezzlement and fraud, all of which he denied. In July 2013, he was convicted of embezzlement and was sentenced to five years in a corrective labor colony, the cases are widely believed to be fabricated in retaliation for his political activity. The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Navalny as a political prisoner, Navalny was released from prison a day after sentencing. The prison fine was suspended in October 2013.5 years, Alexei Navalny is of Russian and Ukrainian descent. His father Anatoliy Navalny is from Zalissia, a village in Ivankiv Raion, Kiev Oblast, Navalny grew up in Obninsk about 100 km southwest of Moscow, but spent his childhood summers with his grandmother in Ukraine. Navalny graduated from the Peoples Friendship University of Russia in 1998 with a law degree and he then studied securities and exchanges at the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation. In 2008, Navalny spent around 300,000 rubles on stocks of five oil and gas companies, Rosneft, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, as such, he began to aim at making the financial properties of these companies transparent. This is required by law, but there are allegations that some of the top managers of companies are involved in thefts and are obscuring transparency. Other activities deal with wrongdoings by Russian police, such as Sergei Magnitskys case, improper usage of states budget funds, quality of state services, in November 2010, Navalny published confidential documents about Transnefts auditing. According to Navalnys blog, about four billion dollars were stolen by Transnefts leaders during the construction of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, the project takes advantage of existing procurement regulation that requires all government requests for tender to be posted online. Information about winning bids must be posted online as well, in May 2011, Navalny launched RosYama, a project that allowed individuals to report potholes and track government responses to complaints. In August 2011, Navalny publicized papers related to a real estate deal between Hungarian and Russian governments
23.
Valeriya Novodvorskaya
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Valeriya Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya was a liberal Russian politician, Soviet dissident. She was the founder and the chairwoman of the Democratic Union party, Novodvorskaya was born in 1950 to a Jewish engineer Ilya Borisovich Burshtyn and a pediatrician Nina Feodorovna Novodvorskaya who came from a noble Russian family. Her parents divorced in 1967, Ilya Borisovich later emigrated to America, the leaflets included her poetry, Thank you, the Communist Party for our bitterness and despair, for our shameful silence, thank you the Party. Novodvorskaya was only 19 at this time and she was arrested and imprisoned at Soviet psychiatric hospital and, like many other Soviet dissidents, diagnosed with sluggish schizophrenia. In the early 1990s, psychiatrists of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia proved that the claim of her illness was bogus. She described her experience in psikhushka in her book Beyond Despair and she was not elected in either election, and never held public office. Novodvorskaya self-identified primarily as a liberal politician and she also sometimes called herself and her allies successors to the Russian White movement tradition. According to her, it was Russian governmental policies in Chechnya that turned Basayev into a terrorist, in response, Alexey Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of the radio station, pulled the recording and transcripts of the program from the Ekho Moskvy website. Venediktov asserted this to be his own decision and confirmed that Novodvorskaya was banned from the station until the end of 2008, opponents accused Novodvorskaya of her anti-Russian, anti-Soviet and openly pro-American positions, of expressing Russophobic views. All materials were checked for «propaganda of civil war», «of inferiority of people based on their ethnicity» and «incitement to hatred». Some of the scandalous quotes include, «I cannot imagine how can anyone love a Russian for his laziness, for his lying, for his poverty, for his spinelessness, but maybe thats not all his characteristics». They are kept by a close stool — and rightly so, personally Im fed up with human rights». From the article We Wont Give Our Rights to the Left. in Novy Vzglyad, №46, August 28,1993 «Manic depression — so thats what they call «the Russian miracle», thats why we are so good at war. Unhealthy aggression of a maniac masterfully aimed at aliens by our own rulers that turns into a slavish prostration after the return from war, some centuries ago our ancestors burned down Moscow so that our enemy wouldnt get it. Today we have all means to make so that our enemy wont get Russia, being dead is better than being red». From the article A Landscape Instead of a Battle, Novy Vzglyad, a Thriller that includes all the articles from Novy Vzglad, the case details, fragments of speech given by her lawyer Henri Reznik in 1996 and her last word in court. The case lasted for two years and was apparently closed, throughout her life, Novodvorskaya remained a celibate virgin. When asked about it, she stated that she was not interested in sex and she added that she had never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all
24.
Roskomnadzor
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This Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications was re-established in May 2008. Resolution number 419, On Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and its an authorized federal executive body for the protection of human subjects of personal data. It is also the body administering Russian Internet censorship filters, on April 5,2013, it was confirmed by a spokesperson for Roskomnadzor that Wikipedia had been blacklisted over the article Cannabis smoking on Russian Wikipedia. On March 31,2013 the New York Times reported that Russia was beginning Selectively Blocking Internet. In 2014, during the Crimea Crisis, Roskomnadzor has blocked a number of websites criticising Russian policy in Ukraine, including blog of Alexei Navalny, Kasparov. ru and Grani. ru. Also, on June 22,2016 Amazon Web Services was entirely blocked for a couple of hours because of a poker app, in October 2014 GitHub was blocked for a short time. On December 2 GitHub was blocked again for same satiric notes, describing methods of suicide and it was unblocked on December 4, and GitHub had set up a special page dedicated to Roskomnadzor-related issues. All content was and remains available for non-Russian networks, on August 18,2015, an article in Russian Wikipedia about charas was blacklisted by Roskomnadzor as containing propaganda of narcotics. The article was rewritten from scratch using UN materials and textbooks. As Wikipedia uses HTTPS protocol to encrypt traffic, effectively all the site with all versions of Wikipedia was blocked in Russia from the night on August 25. In September 2016, adult websites Pornhub and YouPorn were blocked by Roskomnadzor as containing adult pornographic content, the watchdog says that they are not in the market and the demography is not a commodity. Censorship in Russia Information privacy Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Official website Official website
25.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
26.
War crimes
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A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. The concept of war crimes emerged at the turn of the century when the body of customary international law applicable to warfare between sovereign states was codified. Moreover, trials in national courts during this period further helped clarify the law, following the end of World War II, major developments in the law occurred. Numerous trials of Axis war criminals established the Nuremberg principles, such as notion that war crimes constituted crimes defined by international law, additionally, the Geneva Conventions in 1949 defined new war crimes and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over such crimes. The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire in 1474 was the first international war crimes trial, and also of command responsibility. He was convicted and beheaded for crimes that he as a knight was deemed to have a duty to prevent, although he had argued that he was only following orders. In 1654 a Major Connaught was tried at Chester Assizes and hanged for his part in the massacre of villagers in the church at the village of Boughton, twelve villagers were smoked out, stripped naked and had their throats cut. He was hanged at the scene of the crime having been convicted of striking a blow to the head of John Fowler with an axe. The Geneva Conventions are four related treaties adopted and continuously expanded from 1864 to 1949 that represent a legal basis, accordingly, states retain different codes and values with regard to wartime conduct. Some signatories have routinely violated the Geneva Conventions in a way which either uses the ambiguities of law or political maneuvering to sidestep the laws formalities and principles. Three conventions were revised and expanded with the one added in 1949, First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded. Second Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick, third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Protocol II relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts. Protocol III relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem, a small number of German military personnel of the First World War were tried in 1921 by the German Supreme Court for alleged war crimes. The modern concept of war crime was further developed under the auspices of the Nuremberg Trials based on the definition in the London Charter that was published on August 8,1945. Along with war crimes the charter also defined crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, on July 1,2002, the International Criminal Court, a treaty-based court located in The Hague, came into being for the prosecution of war crimes committed on or after that date. Several nations, most notably the United States, China, Russia, the United States still participates as an observer. Article 12 of the Rome Statute provides jurisdiction over the citizens of non-contracting states in the event that they are accused of committing crimes in the territory of one of the state parties
27.
Abakan
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Abakan is the capital city of the Republic of Khakassia, Russia, located in the central part of Minusinsk Depression, at the confluence of the Yenisei and Abakan Rivers. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 165, 214—a slight increase over 165,197 recorded during the 2002 Census, abakansky ostrog, also known as Abakansk, was built at the mouth of the Abakan River in 1675. In the 1780s, the selo of Ust-Abakanskoye was established in this area and it was granted town status and given its current name on April 30,1931. In 1940, Russian construction workers found ancient ruins during the construction of a highway between Abakan and Askiz, the identity of the high-ranking personage who lived luxuriously in Chinese style, far outside of the borders of the Han Empire, has remained a matter for discussion ever since. While this opinion has remained popular, other views have been expressed as well, more recently, for example, it was claimed by A. A. Kovalyov as the residence of Lu Fang, a Han throne pretender from the Guangwu era, in the late 18th and during the 19th century, Lithuanian participants in the 1794, 1830–1831, and 1863 rebellions against Russian rule were exiled to Abakan. A group of camps was established where prisoners were forced to work in the coal mines, after Stalins death, Lithuanian exiles from the nearby settlements moved in. Abakan is the capital of the republic, the city has a river port, industry enterprises, Katanov State University of Khakasia, and three theatres. Furthermore, it has a center that produces footwear, foodstuffs. Abakan was a terminal of the major Abakan-Taishet Railway, now it is an important railway junction. The city is served by the Abakan International Airport, the 100th Air Assault Brigade of the Russian Airborne Troops was based in the city until ca. Abakans sites of interest include Holy Transfiguration Cathedral, Good Angel of Peace sculpture, park of topiary art, bandy is the one of the most popular sports in the city. Sayany-Khakassia was playing in the top-tier Super League in the 2012–13 season but was relegated for the 2013–14 season, Russian Government Cup was played here in 1988 and in 2012. Abakan has a humid continental /cold semi-arid climate. Temperature differences between seasons are extreme, which is typical for Siberia, precipitation is concentrated in the summer and is less common because of rain shadow from nearby mountains
28.
Barnaul
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Barnaul is a city and the administrative center of Altai Krai, Russia, located at the confluence of the Barnaulka River and the Ob River in the West Siberian Plain. At the end of 2015, the city had a population above 700,000 people, the population of the Barnaul metropolitan area is estimated to be more than 1.14 million. Barnaul is located in the forest steppe zone of the West Siberian Plain, on the bank of the Ob River, at the confluence of Barnaulka. Barnaul is the closest major city to the Altai Mountains to the south, the border with Kazakhstan is 345 km to the south-west. It is 3580 km from Moscow, the city is also situated relatively close to the border with Mongolia and China. The area around the city has been inhabited by humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans. They settled here to take advantage of the confluence of the rivers, used for transportation, in the late BC millennia, the locality was a centre of activity for Scythian and various Turkic peoples. The city of Barnaul was founded in 1730, and granted the status of a city in 1771. Chosen for its proximity to the mineral-rich Altai Mountains and its location on a major river and they wanted to develop the copper in the mountains, and soon found substantial deposits of silver as well. In 1747, the Demidovs factories were taken over by the Crown, Barnaul became the center of silver production of the entire Russian Empire. In 1914, Barnaul was the site of the largest draft riot in Russia during World War I, there were more than 100 casualties from the fighting. Street fighting also took place between White Russians and Reds during the Russian Revolution of 1918, Maria Stepanovna was born and lived as a child in this city. She later became the mother of American actresses Natalie Wood and Lana Wood and her father Stepan was killed in the 1918 street fighting between the Whites and Reds following the Revolution. Afterward her mother took Maria and her siblings as refugees to Harbin, Maria married a Russian there, and they had a daughter Olga together. Maria eventually immigrated with Olga to the United States, where she married another Russian immigrant, from Vladivostok and it is estimated that over half of the light ammunition used by the Soviet Union in World War II was produced in Barnaul. Barnaul is the center of the krai. As a municipal division, the city of krai significance of Barnaul is incorporated as Barnaul Urban Okrug, temperatures can vary in the extreme, from below −45 °C in the winter to above +35 °C in the summer. The average precipitation in the area is 433 millimeters per year, Barnaul is an important industrial center of Western Siberia
29.
Chelyabinsk
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During Pugachevs Rebellion, the fortress withstood a siege by the rebel forces in 1774, but was eventually captured for several months in 1775. In 1782, as a part of Ufa Viceroyalty that was reformed into Orenburg Governorate, Chelyabinsk became a seat of a its own uyezd and finally was granted town status. Until the late 19th century, Chelyabinsk was a provincial town. In 1892, the Samara-Zlatoust Railway was completed which connected it with Moscow, also in 1892, construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Chelyabinsk started and in 1896 the city was linked to Ekaterinburg. Chelyabinsk became the hub for relocation to Siberia, for fifteen years more than fifteen million people - a tenth of Russia - passed through Chelyabinsk. Some of them remained in Chelyabinsk, which contributed to its rapid growth, soon Chelyabinsk started turning into a major trade center, its population reached 20,000 inhabitants by 1897,45,000 by 1913, and 70,000 by 1917. For rapid growth at the turn of the 20th century, similar to American cities, during the first Five-Year Plans of the 1930s, Chelyabinsk experienced rapid industrial growth. Several establishments, including the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time, during World War II, Joseph Stalin decided to move a large part of Soviet factory production to places out of the way of the advancing German armies in late 1941. This brought new industries and thousands of workers to Chelyabinsk, facilities for the production of T-34 tanks and Katyusha rocket launchers existed in Chelyabinsk. During World War II, it produced 18,000 tanks, in the press of the time Chelyabinsk was informally called Tankograd or Tank City. Kirov Factory no.185 moved here from Leningrad to produce heavy tanks, fragments fell in and around Chelyabinsk. Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said 1,100 people had called for medical assistance following the incident, one woman suffered a broken spine. Kolesnikov also said about 600 square meters of a roof at a factory had collapsed. The size has been estimated at 17 meters diameter with a mass of 10,000 or 11,000 metric tons, the power of the explosion was about 500 kilotons of TNT, which is 20–30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima. Luckily, thanks to the altitude of the explosion the city managed to avoid large casualties. Chelyabinsk is the center of the oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the City of Chelyabinsk—an administrative unit with the equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the City of Chelyabinsk is incorporated as Chelyabinsky Urban Okrug, in June 2014, Chelyabinsks seven city districts were granted municipal status
30.
Chicago, Illinois
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
31.
Ekaterinburg
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At the 2010 Census, it had a population of 1,349,772. Yekaterinburg is the industrial and cultural centre of the Ural Federal District. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was named Sverdlovsk after the Communist party leader Yakov Sverdlov, Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin founded Yekaterinburg in 1723 and named it after the wife of Tsar Peter the Great, Yekaterina, who later became empress regnant Catherine I. The official date of the foundation is November 18,1723. It was granted town status in 1796, the city was one of Russias first industrial cities, prompted at the start of the eighteenth century by decrees from the Tsar requiring the development in Yekaterinburg of metal-working businesses. The city was built, with use of iron, to a regular square plan with iron works. These were surrounded by fortified walls, so that Yekaterinburg was at the time both a manufacturing centre and a fortress at the frontier between Europe and Asia. It therefore found itself at the heart of Russias strategy for development of the entire Ural region. With the growth in trade and the administrative importance, the ironworks became less critical. Small manufacturing and trading businesses proliferated, following the October Revolution, the family of deposed Tsar Nicholas II were sent to internal exile in Yekaterinburg where they were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House in the city. Other members of the Romanov family were killed at Alapayevsk later the same day, on July 16,1918, the Czechoslovak legions were closing on Yekaterinburg. The Bolsheviks executed the deposed imperial family, believing that the Czechoslovaks were on a mission to rescue them, the Legions arrived less than a week later and captured the city. In 1977, the Ipatiev House was demolished by order of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin later became the first President of Russia and represented the people at the funeral of the former Tsar in 1998. On August 24,2007, the BBC reported that Russian archaeologists had found the remains of two children of Russias last Tsar, the discoveries in 2007 are thought to be those of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria. Archaeologist Sergei Pogorelov said bullets found at the site indicate the children had been shot. He told Russian television the newly unearthed bones belonged to two people, a young male aged roughly 10–13 and a young woman about 18–23. The Tsars remains were given a funeral in July 1998. During the 1930s, Yekaterinburg was one of several developed by the Soviet government as a centre of heavy industry
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Izhevsk
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Izhevsk is the capital city of the Udmurt Republic, Russia, located along the Izh River in the Western Urals. Its population is 629,455, up from 627,734 recorded in the 2010 Census, making it the nineteenth largest city in Russia, from 1984 to 1987, the city was called Ustinov. The city is a hub of industry, commerce, politics, culture. It is famous for its defense, engineering, and metallurgy industries, Izhevsk has the titles of the Armory Capital of Russia and the City of Labor Glory. The pioneer settlements on the territory where modern Izhevsk now stands were founded by Udmurts in the 5th century, there were two fortified settlements situated on the banks of the Karlutka River. Later, this joined the Khanate of Kazan. In 1552, Russians conquered the Khanate and, in 1582, Ivan the Terrible conferred the lands by the Karlutka and Izh Rivers on Bagish Yaushev, the quit-rent had been imposed on the Udmurt population ever since. The Yaushevs owned the land till the times of Peter the Great, on September 15,1757, Count Pyotr Shuvalov, owner of seven factories in the Urals, bought land in the Kama Region and got permission from Empress Elizabeth to build three ironworks there. In those days, ironworks were powered with steam, and wood was the heat energy source. For that reason it was decided to build one of the plants on the land near the Izh River. It was planned that iron bands and anchors would be made of delivered cast iron here, another ironworks was built on the Votka River. This date is considered to be Izhevsks foundation date, the construction was going at a slow pace. The serfs were discontent with being separated from their villages, with arduous duties, as a consequence, rebellions were often excited. The plants went to his son Andrey, in accordance with the ukase of Catherine the Great dated November 15,1763, all Shuvalovs ironworks including one in Izhevsky Zavod lapsed to the Crown for debts. Since that time, it was under the authority of the Collegium of Mining, the ironworks on the Izh and Votka Rivers were called Kama Plants. In 1763, construction of the dam and ironworks was completed, as a result of the dam construction, one of the biggest reservoirs in Europe was formed. Near the ironworks, the settlement was built and this settlement was named Izhevsky Zavod, meaning the plant on the Izh in Russian. First time, the ironworks made palm-wide iron bands from three to six meters long and these bands were supplied to Moscow for the Kremlin renewal
33.
Irkutsk
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Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, and one of the largest cities in Siberia. In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovyo near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading, in 1661, Yakov Pokhabov built an ostrog or small fort nearby. The ostrog gained official town rights from the government in 1686, the first road connection between Moscow and Irkutsk, the Siberian Road, was built in 1760, and benefited the town economy. Many new products, often imported from China via Kyakhta, became available in Irkutsk for the first time, including gold, diamonds, fur, wood, silk. In 1821, as part of the Speransky reforms, Siberia was administratively divided at the Yenisei River, in the early 19th century, many Russian artists, officers, and nobles were sent into exile in Siberia for their part in the Decembrist revolt against Tsar Nicholas I. By the end of the 19th century, there was one exiled man for every two locals, people of varying backgrounds, from members of the Decembrist uprising to Bolsheviks, had been in Irkutsk for many years and had greatly influenced the culture and development of the city. As a result, Irkutsk eventually became a cultural and educational center in Eastern Siberia. Three-quarters of the city was destroyed, including approximately 4,000 houses, however, the city quickly rebounded, with electricity arriving in 1896, the first theater being built in 1897 and a major train station opened in 1898. The first train arrived in Irkutsk on August 16 of that year, by 1900, the city had earned the nickname of The Paris of Siberia. During the Russian Civil War, which broke out after the October Revolution, Irkutsk became the site of many furious, in 1920, Aleksandr Kolchak, the once-feared commander of the largest contingent of anti-Bolshevik forces, was executed in Irkutsk, which effectively destroyed the anti-Bolshevik resistance. Irkutsk was the center of the short-lived East Siberian Oblast. The city subsequently became the center of Irkutsk Oblast after East Siberian Oblast was divided into Chita Oblast. During the Communist years, the industrialization of Irkutsk and Siberia in general was heavily encouraged, the large Irkutsk Reservoir was built on the Angara River between 1950 and 1959 in order to facilitate industrial development. The Epiphany Cathedral, the palace, a school of medicine, a museum, a military hospital. The Aleksandr Kolchak monument, designed by Vyacheslav Klykov, was unveiled in 2004, on July 27,2004, the Irkutsk Synagogue was gutted by a conflagration. In December 2016,62 people in Irkutsk died in a mass methanol poisoning, the city proper lies on the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei,72 kilometers below its outflow from Lake Baikal and on the bank opposite the suburb of Glaskovsk. The river, 580-meter wide, is crossed by the Irkutsk Hydroelectric Dam, the Irkut River, from which the town takes its name, is a smaller river that joins the Angara directly opposite the city. The main portion of the city is separated from several landmarks—the monastery, the fort and the port, as well as its suburbs—by another tributary, the Ida River
34.
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
35.
Krasnoyarsk
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Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk and Omsk, Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russias largest producers of aluminum. The city is notable for its landscapes, author Anton Chekhov judged Krasnoyarsk to be the most beautiful city in Siberia. The total area of the city, including suburbs and the river, is 348 square kilometers, the Yenisei River flows from west to east through the city. Due to the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric dam 32 kilometers upstream, the Yenisei never freezes in winter and never exceeds +14 °C in summer through the city, near the city center, its elevation is 136 meters above sea level. There are several islands in the river, the largest of which are Tatyshev and Otdyha Isles, to the south and west, Krasnoyarsk is surrounded by forested mountains averaging 410 meters in height above river level. The most prominent of them are Nikolayevskaya Sopka, Karaulnaya Gora, and Chornaya Sopka, the major rivers in and near Krasnoyarsk are the Yenisei, Mana, Bazaikha, and Kacha Rivers, the latter flowing throughout the historical center of the city. Due to the nature of the terrain, a few lakes exist in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk. The forests close to the city are mostly pine and birch, further afield, along with Kansk to the east, it represented the southern limit of Russian expansion in the Yenisei basin during the seventeenth century. In the letter to Tsar Michael I the Cossacks reported, the fort was named Krasny Yar after the Yarin name of the place it was built, Kyzyl Char, which was translated as Krasny Yar. An intensive growth of Krasnoyarsk began with the arrival of the Siberian Route in 1735 to 1741 which connected the towns of Achinsk and Kansk with Krasnoyarsk. In 1749, a meteorite with a mass of about 700 kilograms was found 230 km south of Krasnoyarsk and it was excavated by Peter Simon Pallas in 1772 and transported to Krasnoyarsk and subsequently to St. Petersburg. The Krasnoyarsk meteorite is important because it was the first pallasite ever studied, the name Krasnoyarsk was given in 1822 when the village of Krasny Yar was granted town status and became the administrative center of Yeniseysk Governorate. In the 19th century, Krasnoyarsk was the center of the Siberian Cossack movement, by the end of the 19th century, Krasnoyarsk had several manufacturing facilities and railroad workshops and an engine-house. Growth continued with the discovery of gold and the arrival of a railroad in 1895, in the Russian Empire, Krasnoyarsk was one of the places to which political exiles were banished. For example, eight Decembrists were deported from St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk after the failure of the revolt, in 1934, Krasnoyarsk Krai, was formed, with Krasnoyarsk as its administrative center. During Stalinist times, Krasnoyarsk was a center of the gulag system. The most important labor camp was the Kraslag or Krasnoyarsky ITL with the two located in Kansk and Reshyoty
36.
Makhachkala
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Makhachkala is the capital city of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. It is located on the shore of the Caspian Sea and is home to the Makhachkala Grand Mosque. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 572,076, the city has an ethnic plurality, with the Avars and Laks as the largest groups. Founded as a fortress of the Russian Empire in 1844 and given city status thirteen years later, makhachkalas historic predecessor was the town of Tarki, now a nearby suburb, whose history goes back to the 15th century and possibly much earlier. The modern city of Makhachkala was founded in 1844 as a fortress, the original Russian name of the city was Petrovskoye —after the Russian Tsar Peter the Great who visited the region in 1722 during his Persian Campaign. However, among the locals it was known as Anzhi-Qala, The Pearl Fortress, after gaining city status, the Petrovskoye fortress was renamed Petrovsk-Port in 1857, sometimes simply Petrovsk. In 1894, a line linked the city to Vladikavkaz and Baku, yet a report from 1904 detailed the spread of malaria. In January 1919, during the Russian Civil War, the British No.221 Squadron Royal Air Force based themselves at Petrovsk, in March they were joined by No.266 Squadron and both squadrons were involved in bombing operations against Bolshevik forces in Astrakhan and elsewhere. In August 1919 both squadrons were withdrawn from Petrovsk, the city was invaded by the Red Army in Spring 1920. On the same day, it became capital of the newly formed Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the city incurred major damage during an earthquake on 14 May 1970. The area was used as a Soviet-era naval testing station, leaving behind a curious sea fort off nearby Kaspiysk.42. 896598°N47. 681274°E /42.896598,47. But even a short visit revealed acute problems, including dirty streets, dilapidated buildings, inadequate utilities, hectic construction, lack of planning, as a municipal division, the City of Makhachkala is incorporated as Makhachkala Urban Okrug. For the purposes of administration, the city is divided into three city districts, from west to east, Kirovsky, Sovetsky and Leninsky, in May 2015, these three city districts were granted municipal status. The coat of arms and flag of Makhachkala were adopted on 15 December 2006, the coat of arms shows the citys historic fortress in silver on a red field, with flames coming from either tower and a solar symbol above. It is supported by an eagle on each side, a crown on top. In proportions of 2,3, the displays the main shield of the citys coat of arms. Makhachkala is close to areas of fighting and therefore it and the region has a heavy security service presence. On 25 November 2011, a protest took place in Makhachkala attended by up to 3,000 people demanding an end to illegal activities perpetrated by the security services
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Nizhnevartovsk
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Nizhnevartovsk is a city in Russia, Khanty-Mansia, that serves as administrative center of Nizhnevartovsk district. It is located 30 km away from the Tomsk Oblast border along the bank of the Ob River beside Samotlor oil field. Since the 1960s – an age of exploration of West Siberias oil fields – the small settlement began to grow rapidly. It was founded in 1909, its development into a city was boosted in the 1960s by the discovery of the Samotlor Oil Field. Town status was granted to it on March 9,1972, Nizhnevartovsk is situated in the Sredneobskaya Lowland of West Siberian Plain, in the middle course of the Ob River on its northern bank. Under the Köppen climate classification, using the 0 °C isotherm, winters are cold and humid, and prevailing wind patterns that blow from the South. The daily mean temperature in January, the citys coldest month, is −18.2 °C, summers are typically warm and humid, but short, with a daily mean temperature of 25.8 °C in July. The city receives 400–620 millimetres of precipitation annually, mostly throughout the summer months. Average winter snowfall is 70–80 centimetres, this varies considerably from year to year, Nizhnevartovsk is the center of the West Siberian oil-producing region and one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Within the framework of administrative divisions, Nizhnevartovsk serves as the center of Nizhnevartovsky District. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the city of okrug significance of Nizhnevartovsk—an administrative unit with the equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of okrug significance of Nizhnevartovsk is incorporated as Nizhnevartovsk Urban Okrug, the cify of Nizhnevartovsk features prominently in the opening of Tom Clancys novel Red Storm Rising, a novel which details a hypothetical war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In the novel, Nizhnevartovsk is depicted as a significant center for petroleum in the Soviet Union, serving as a well, as a result, he is driven to form a conspiracy with his allies in the MVD and lead a terrorist attack on the compound. The men sabotage the compound, killing themselves with an explosion, the ensuing fire engulfs the facility, causing a serious setback for the underperforming Soviet petroleum industry. As a result, an economic crisis occurs due to a looming energy crisis from oil shortages. The Politburo decides that it will be unable to purchase grain from the West without oil revenue, in order to prevent American intervention, the Soviets attempt to break up NATO by invading and occupying Western Europe. This fails to have the effect of deterring the United States. Дума Ханты-Мансийского автономного округа — Югры, Закон №43-оз от7 июля2004 г
38.
Nizhny Novgorod
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Nizhny Novgorod, colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is a city in the administrative center of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and Volga Federal District in Russia. From 1932 to 1990, it was known as Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, the city is an important economic, transportation, scientific, educational and cultural center in Russia and the vast Volga-Vyatka economic region, and is the main center of river tourism in Russia. In the historical part of the city there are a number of universities, theaters, museums. Nizhny Novgorod is located about 400 km east of Moscow, where the Oka empties into the Volga, the city was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri II of Vladimir. In 1612 Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky organized an army for the liberation of Moscow from the Poles, in 1817 Nizhny Novgorod became a great trade center of the Russian Empire. In 1896 at a fair, an All-Russia Exhibition was organized, during the Soviet period, the city turned into an important industrial center. In particular, the Gorky Automobile Plant was constructed in this period, then the city was given the nickname Russian Detroit. During the World War II Gorky became the biggest provider of equipment to the front. Due to this, the Luftwaffe constantly bombed the city from the air, the majority of the German bombs fell in the area of the Gorky Automobile Plant. Although almost all the sites of plant were completely destroyed. After the war, Gorky became a city and remained one until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. At that time the city was renamed Nizhny Novgorod once again, in 1985 the metro was opened. In 2016 Vladimir Putin opened the new 70th Anniversary of Victory Plant which is part of the Almaz-Antey Air, the Kremlin – the main center of the city – contains the main government agencies of the city and the Volga Federal District. Originally the name was just Novgorod, but to distinguish it from the other, older and well-known Novgorod to the west and this land was named lower because it is situated downstream, especially from the point of view of other Russian cities such as Moscow, Vladimir and Murom. Later it was transformed into the name of the city that literally means Lower Newtown. Later a major stronghold for border protection, Nizhny Novgorod fortress took advantage of a moat formed by the two rivers. With the agreement of the Mongol Khan, Nizhny Novgorod was incorporated into the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality in 1264, after 86 years its importance further increased when the seat of the powerful Suzdal Principality was moved here from Gorodets in 1350. Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich sought to make his capital a rival worthy of Moscow, he built a stone citadel, the earliest extant manuscript of the Russian Primary Chronicle, the Laurentian Codex, was written for him by the local monk Laurentius in 1377
39.
Orenburg
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Orenburg is the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia, lies on the River Ural,1,478 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Its geographical location is in the boundary of Europe and Asia, Orenburg is also very close to the border with Kazakhstan. The city is in the basin of the current of the River Ural. The highest point of the city is 154.4 meters, several historians have tried to explain the origins of the citys name. It was traditionally accepted that the word means a fortress on the River Or. In all probability, the word combination orenburg was proposed by I. K, kirillov, who was the founder of the city. In 1734, in accordance with his project, a package of documents was worked out. This was the point for Orenburg as a fortress city near the place where the Or. On 7 June 1734, A Privilege for Orenburg was ordered by Empress Anna Ivanovna, while a construction site of the main fortress changed many times, the very name Orenburg has not changed since its founding in 1743. Between 1938 and 1957, the city was referred to as Chkalov, named after the famous Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov, although he was not born in and never lived in Orenburg, and never visited Orenburg. In 1954, Chkalovs 5-meter bronze sculpture was erected on the occasion of his 50th birth anniversary, Orenburg is unofficially called the Asian capital of Russia. In 1734, the Russian Empire began expanding its control and influence in Asia starting from the construction of the city called Orenburg on its eastern border. For this purpose, a settlement was founded here in 1735 - at the place where the Or, the initial site was chosen for settlement during the expedition of I. K. Kirilov, who initiated developmental activities in the region and he argued that the city was necessary. for opening up transit routes to Bukhara, Badakhshan, Bulk, and to India, making it possible to receive wealth from there — gold, lapis lazuli, and garnet. After his death, a new administrator of the Orenburg expedition and he did not considered this place to be convenient for construction of the city, because it was constantly flooded by the spring high waters. This encouraged to launch in 1739 preparations for building a new town with the old name downstream the river Ural on the mountain Krasnaya, the old settlement was named the Orsk fortress. On 6 August 1741, the new town was founded, however, its construction did not start. The location on the mountain Krasnaya — treeless, rocky and remote from the river — was also inappropriate for building the town, a new administrator of the Orenburg expedition, Ivan Neplyuyev, was appointed
40.
Omsk
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Omsk is a city and the administrative center of Omsk Oblast, Russia, located in southwestern Siberia 2,236 kilometers from Moscow. With a population of 1,154,116, it is Russias second-largest city east of the Ural Mountains after Novosibirsk, during the Imperial era, Omsk was the seat of the Governor General of Western Siberia, and later of the Governor General of the Steppes. For a brief period during the Russian Civil War in 1918–1920, it served as the capital of the anti-Bolshevik Russian State, Omsk is the administrative center of the Siberian Cossack Host. It also serves as the see of the bishop of Omsk and Tara, Omsk stretches along the banks of the north-flowing Irtysh at its confluence with the smaller Om River. The city has an elevation of 87 meters above sea level at its highest point. Omsk is an important railroad hub, and is the point for the northern and southern branches of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The city also serves as a hub for the regional highway network. River-port facilities handle both passengers and freight, giving the city access to navigating the extensive waterways of the Irtysh and Ob River. The waterways connect Omsk with the coal and mineral-mining towns further up the river in Kazakhstan, as well as with the oil, natural gas and lumber operations of northern Siberia. Omsk is served by the Tsentralny Airport, which access to domestic and international destinations, making the city an important aviation hub for Siberia. In 1768 Om fortress was relocated, the original Tobolsk and the restored Tara gates, along with the original German Lutheran Church and several public buildings are left from that time. Omsk was granted town status in 1782, but as the frontier receded and its military importance diminished, the town fell into lethargy. For that time Omsk became a center of the Siberian exile. From 1850 to 1854 Fyodor Dostoyevsky served his sentence in an Omsk katorga prison and he related his impressions of the city in a 1854 letter to his brother Mikhail, Omsk is a hateful hole. There is hardly a tree here, in summer—heat and winds that bring sandstorms, in winter—snowstorms. I have scarcely seen anything of the country round, the place is dirty, almost exclusively inhabited by military, and dissolute to the last degree. If I hadn’t discovered some human beings here, I should have gone utterly to the dogs, development of the city was catalyzed with the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the 1890s that affected significance of Omsk as a logistic hub. Many trade companies established stores and offices in Omsk defining the character of the city center, british, Dutch, and German consulates were established roughly at the same time in order to represent their commercial interests
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Penza
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Penza is a city and the administrative center of Penza Oblast, Russia, located on the Sura River,625 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Until 1663, Penza was a stockade with only a small settlement. The initial construction consisted of a wooden Kremlin, a village, and quarters for the nobility, small tradesmen, in 1774, the insurgent army led by Yemelyan Pugachev occupied Penza after the citizens of the city welcomed the rebellious Cossacks. The first stone houses started to appear after 1801, and by 1809 Penzas population had grown to more than 13,000 people, in 1918, Vladimir Lenin sent a telegram to communists in the Penza area, complaining about the insurrection of five kulak districts. He urged the public hanging of 100 landlords, richmen, bloodsuckers, grain seizure and this telegram has been used in several historical works on the period and on Lenin. During the Russian Civil War, the Czechoslovak Legions launched an uprising in Penza. During the Soviet period, the city developed as an industrial center. The Ural mainframe was made here between 1959 and 1964, Penza is the administrative center of the oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Penza—an administrative unit with a equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Penza is incorporated as Penza Urban Okrug, Penza is a major railway junction and lies on the M5 highway linking Moscow and Chelyabinsk. Local public transport buses, trolleybuses and marshrutkas. Currently, the city of Penza is seen as a center for higher education. It has six universities,13 colleges and 77 public schools, besides this, Penza is home to three theatres, four museums, and three art galleries including The Museum of One Painting named after G. V. Myasnikov. A heat wave in the months of June, July, and August 2010, Penza first hosted the Russian Sidecarcross Grand Prix in 2009, and did so again in 2010, on August 15. The city football team FC Zenit Penza was established in 1918, Penza has also a professional rugby union club, Imperia-Dynamo Penza, from Russias Professional Rugby League. A minor planet,3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city, Закон №774-ЗПО от9 марта2005 г. «Об административно-территориальном устройстве Пензенской области», в ред, Закона №2484-ЗПО от28 ноября2013 г. «О внесении изменений в статью15 Закона Пензенской области Об административно-территориальном устройстве Пензенской области», Вступил в силу через десять дней после дня официального опубликования
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Perm
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Perm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. According to the 2010 Census, Perms population is 991,162, as of the 2010 Census, the city was the thirteenth most populous in Russia. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov, the name Perm is of Finno-Ugric etymology, likely of Uralic origin. Komi is a member of the Permic group of Finno-Ugric languages, in Finnish and Vepsian perämaa means far-away land, similarly, in Hungarian perem means edge or verge. The geologic period of the Permian takes its name from the toponym, the city is located on the bank of the Kama River upon hilly terrain. The Kama is the tributary of the Volga River and one of the deepest and most picturesque rivers of Russia. This river is the waterway which grants the Ural Mountains access to the White Sea, Baltic Sea, Sea of Azov, Black Sea, the Kama divides the city into two parts, the central part and the right bank part. The city stretches for 70 kilometers along the Kama and 40 kilometers across it, the city street grid parallels the Kama River, traveling generally east-west, while other main streets run perpendicularly to those following the river. The grid pattern accommodates the hills of the city where it crosses them, another distinguishing feature of the citys relief is the large quantity of small rivers and brooks. The largest of them are the Mulyanka, the Yegoshikha, the Motovilikha, Perm has a continental climate with warm summers and long, cold winters. Perm is located in the old Perman area, which was inhabited by Finno-Ugric peoples. Perm was first mentioned as the village of Yagoshikha in 1647, however, vasily Tatishchev, appointed by the Tsar as a chief manager of Ural factories, founded Perm together with another major center of the Ural region, Yekaterinburg. In 1870, a theater was opened in the city. In 1916, Perm State University—a major educational institution in modern Russia—was opened, after the outbreak of the Russian Civil War, Perm became a prime target for both sides because of its military munitions factories. On December 25,1918, the Siberian White Army under Anatoly Pepelyayev, on July 1,1919, the city was retaken by the Red Army. In the 1930s, Perm grew as an industrial city with aviation, shipbuilding. During the Great Patriotic War, Perm was a center of artillery production in the Soviet Union. During the cold war, Perm became a closed city, the city is a major administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultural center
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Rostov-na-Donu
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Rostov-on-Don is a port city and the administrative center of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the part of the East European Plain on the Don River,32 kilometers from the Sea of Azov. The southwestern suburbs of the city abut the Don River delta, from ancient times, the area around the mouth of the Don River has held cultural and commercial importance. Ancient indigenous inhabitants included the Scythian, Sarmat, and Savromat tribes and it was the site of Tanais, an ancient Greek colony, Fort Tana, under the Genoese and Fort Azak in the time of the Ottoman Empire. In 1749, a house was established on the Temernik River, a tributary of the Don, by edict of Empress Elizabeth. It was co-located with a named for Dimitry of Rostov. Azov, a closer to the Sea of Azov on the Don. In 1756, the Russian commercial and trading company of Constantinople was founded at the settlement on the high bank of the Don. In 1796, the settlement was chartered and in 1797, it became the seat of Rostovsky Uyezd within Novorossiysk Governorate, in 1806, it was officially renamed Rostov-on-Don. During the 19th century, due to its connections with Russias interior, Rostov developed into a major trade center. A railway connection with Kharkiv was completed in 1870, with further links following in 1871 to Voronezh, concurrent with improvements in communications, heavy industry developed. Coal from the Donets Basin and iron ore from Krivoy Rog supported the establishment of a foundry in 1846. In 1859, the production of pumps and steam boilers began, the harbor was one of the largest trade hubs in southern Russia, especially for the export of wheat, timber, and iron ore. In 1779, Rostov-on-Don became associated with a settlement of Armenian refugees from the Crimea at Nakhichevan-on-Don, the two settlements were separated by a field of wheat. In 1928, the two towns were merged, the former town border lies beneath the Teatralnaya Square of central Rostov-on-Don. By 1928, following the incorporation of the neighboring city of Nakhichevan-on-Don. In the early 20th century, epidemics of cholera during the months were not uncommon. During the Russian Civil War, the Whites and the Reds contested Rostov-on-Don, by 1928, the regional government had moved from the old Cossack capital of Novocherkassk to Rostov-on-Don
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Samara, Russia
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Samara, known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev, is the sixth largest city in Russia and the administrative center of Samara Oblast. It is situated in the part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga. The Volga acts as the western boundary, across the river are the Zhiguli Mountains. The northern boundary is formed by the Sokolyi Hills and by the steppes in the south, the land within the city boundaries covers 46,597 hectares. The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast contains a population of three million. Formerly a closed city, Samara is now a large and important social, political, economic, industrial and it has a continental climate characterised by hot summers and cold winters. Samaras riverfront is considered one of the recreation places both for local citizens and tourists. After the Soviet novelist Vasily Aksyonov visited Samara, he remarked, I am not sure where in the West one can find such a long, ahmad ibn Fadlan visited the area that is now Samara around the year 921 AD while on his journey up the Volga. The Volga port of Samara appears on Italian maps of the 14th century, before 1586, the Samara Bend was a pirate nest. Lookouts would spot a boat and quickly cross to the other side of the peninsula where the pirates would organize an attack. Officially, Samara started with a built in 1586 at the confluence of the Volga. This fortress was a frontier post protecting the then easternmost boundaries of Russia from forays of nomads, a local customs office was established in 1600. As more and more pulled into Samaras port, the town turned into a center for diplomatic and economic links between Russia and the East. Samara also opened its gates to peasant war rebels headed by Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachyov, welcoming them with traditional bread, the town was visited by Peter the Great and later Tsars. In 1780, Samara was turned into a town of Simbirsk Governorate overseen by the local Governor-General, and Uyezd and Zemstvo Courts of Justice. On January 1,1851, Samara became the center of Samara Governorate with a population of 20,000. This gave a stimulus to the development of the economic, political and cultural life of the community, in 1877, during the Russian-Turkish War, a mission from the Samara city government Duma led by Pyotr V. The quick growth of Samaras economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was determined by the scope of the bread trade and flour milling business
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Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
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Saratov
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Saratov is a city and the administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River located upstream of Volgograd. The name Saratov may be derived from the Turkic words Saryk Atov, another version of the name origin is Sary Tau, meaning yellow mountain in the Tatar language. Uvek, a city of the Golden Horde, stood near the site of the city of Saratov from the mid-13th century until its destruction by Tamerlane in 1395. While the exact date of the foundation of modern Saratov is unknown,1590, during the reign of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who constructed several settlements along the Volga River in order to secure the southeastern boundary of his state. Town status was granted to it in 1708, by the 1800s, Saratov had grown to become an important shipping port on the Volga. The Ryazan-Ural Railroad reached Saratov in 1870, in 1896, the line crossed the Volga and continued its eastward expansion. During World War II, Saratov was a station on the North-South Volzhskaya Rokada, the city of Saratov played an important role in the history of the Volga Germans. Until 1941, the town of Pokrovsk, located just across the Volga from Saratov, the ethnic German population of the region numbered 800,000 in the early 20th century, with some people whose families had been there for generations. The Volga German community came to include industrialists, scientists, musicians and architects, others were expelled to western Europe after World War II ended in 1945. Beginning in the 1980s, a portion of the surviving members of the ethnic Germans emigrated from the Soviet Union to Germany. Reminders of the prominent place of Germans in the city remain. The building was converted into the childrens cinema Pioneer during the Soviet period, a new cathedral was built in 2000 elsewhere in the city, the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Saratov. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the city of oblast significance of Saratov—an administrative unit with the equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Saratov is incorporated as Saratov Urban Okrug, Saratov has moderately continental climate with warm and dry summers and an abundance of sunny days. The warmest month is July with daily temperature near +23 °C. Summers are hot and dry in Saratov, daytime temperatures of +30 °C or higher are commonplace, up to +40.9 °C during a heat wave in 2010. Snow and ice are dominant during the winter season, days well above freezing and nights below −25 °C both occur in the winter. Saratov Oblast is highly industrialized, due in part to the richness in natural and industrial resources of the area, the oblast is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centers in Russia
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Bishkek
