1.
Statue of Freedom
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The Statue of Freedom—also known as Armed Freedom or simply Freedom—is a bronze statue designed by Thomas Crawford that, since 1863, has crowned the dome of the U. S. Capitol in Washington, D. C. Originally named Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace, official U. S. government publications now state that the statue is known as the Statue of Freedom. The statue depicts a figure wearing a military helmet and holding a sheathed sword in her right hand. Freedom is a bronze standing figure 19½ feet tall and weighing approximately 15,000 pounds. Her crest peaks at 288 feet above the east front plaza of the U. S. Capitol. She is an allegorical figure whose right hand holds the hilt of a sheathed sword while a laurel wreath of victory. Her chiton is secured by a brooch inscribed U. S. and is covered by a heavy. She faces east towards the entrance of the building and the rising Sun. She wears a helmet adorned with stars and an eagles head which is itself crowned by an umbrella-like crest of feathers. Although not actually called Columbia, she shares many of her iconic characteristics, Freedom stands atop a cast-iron globe encircled with one of the national mottoes, E pluribus unum. The lower part of the base is decorated with fasces and wreaths, ten bronze points tipped with platinum are attached to her headdress, shoulders, and shield for protection from lightning. A monumental statue for the top of the national Capitol appeared in architect Thomas U, walters original drawing for the new cast-iron dome, which was authorized in 1855. Walters drawing showed the outline of a representing the Goddess of Liberty, Crawford proposed instead an allegorical figure of Freedom Triumphant in War. Crawford was commissioned to design Freedom in 1854 and executed the model for the statue in his studio in Rome. Mississippian senator and U. S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was in charge of the Capitol construction, according to David Hackett Fischer in his book Liberty and Freedom, Crawford’s statue was… …very close to Jefferson Davis’s ideas in every way but one…. Above the crown he added a liberty cap, the old Roman symbol of an emancipated slave and it seemed a direct affront to a militant slaveholder, and Jefferson Davis exploded with rage. The northern sculptor and the southern slaveholder had already clashed over a liberty cap in the decoration of the Capitol. Davis sent his aide, Captain Montgomery Meigs, with orders to remove the cap, saying that its history renders it inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved
2.
Latvian War of Independence
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The war involved Latvia against the Russian SFSR and the Bolsheviks short-lived Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic. Germany and the Baltic nobility added another level of intrigue, initially being nominally allied to the Nationalist/Allied force, eventually tensions flared up after a German coup against the Latvian government, leading to open war. Following a cease-fire, the Germans developed a ploy, nominally dissolving into the West Russian Volunteer Army led by Gen. Pavel Bermont-Avalov, certain episodes of the Latvian Independence War were also part of the Polish-Soviet War, particularly the Battle of Daugavpils. 11 November, The German Empire and Allies of World War I sign the armistice, the British Empire recognizes de facto independence of Latvia. 17 November, The first legislative institution of Latvia, the Peoples Council, Jānis Čakste becomes the chairman of the People’s Council, while Kārlis Ulmanis becomes prime minister. 18 November, Republic of Latvia is proclaimed in Riga,28 November, The Regency Council of the United Baltic Duchy dissolved. 1 December, The Red Army invades Latvia,17 December, The government of the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic, headed by Pēteris Stučka, is formed in Russia. 5 January, The first armed unit of Latvia—the 1st Latvian Independent Battalion, the provisional government retreats from Jelgava to Liepāja. 31 January, Most of Latvia is under the control of the Red Army,18 February, Agreement is signed between Estonia and Latvia, starting formation of North Latvian Brigade led by Jorģis Zemitāns on Estonian territory. 3 March, United German and Latvian forces commence counterattack against the forces of Soviet Latvia,6 March, Oskars Kalpaks, commander of all Latvian forces subordinated to German headquarters, is killed by German friendly fire. He is replaced by Jānis Balodis,10 March, Saldus comes under Latvian control. 21 March, 1st Latvian Independent Battalion is reformed into the Latvian Independent Brigade,16 April, The puppet Latvian Government established by the Baltic nobility organizes a coup detat in Liepāja, the provisional national government of Latvia takes refuge aboard steamship Saratow. 16 May, The Estonian Army starts a major offensive against the Soviets in north Latvia,22 May, The Baltische Landeswehr captures Riga. 23 May, The Latvian Independent Brigade marches into Riga,3 June, The Baltische Landeswehr reaches Cēsis. 6 June, The Landeswehrs North Latvian campaign begins, commanded by Maj. Alfred Fletcher,23 June, The Estonian 3rd Division commanded by Gen. Ernst Põdder, including the 2nd Latvian Cēsis regiment of the North Latvian Brigade defeats the Landeswehr. 3 July, Estonia, Latvia and the pro-German Provisional Government of Latvia sign the Ceasefire of Strazdumuiža,6 July, The North Latvian Brigade enters Riga. 5 October, The German mission secretly leaves Riga for Jelgava,8 October, The West Russian Volunteer Army attacks Riga, taking the Pārdaugava district. 3 November, The Latvian Army, supported by Estonian armored trains,11 November, The Latvian Army, supported by Estonian armored trains and the Royal Navy, defeats the West Russian Volunteer Army in Riga
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Riga
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Riga is the capital and the largest city of Latvia. With 696,593 inhabitants, Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states, the city lies on the Gulf of Riga, at the mouth of the Daugava. Rigas territory covers 307.17 square kilometres and lies one and ten metres above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201 and is a former Hanseatic League member, Rigas historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture during 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden, Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, and the 2006 IIHF Mens World Ice Hockey Championships. It is home to the European Unions office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, Riga is served by Riga International Airport, the largest airport in the Baltic states. Riga is a member of Eurocities, the Union of the Baltic Cities, another theory could be that Riga was named after Riege, the German name for the River Rīdzene, a tributary of the Daugava. The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings Dvina-Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium. A sheltered natural harbour 15 km upriver from the mouth of the Daugava — the site of todays Riga — has been recorded, as Duna Urbs and it was settled by the Livs, an ancient Finnic tribe. Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages, Rigas inhabitants occupied themselves mainly with fishing, animal husbandry, and trading, later developing crafts. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158, along with German traders also arrived the monk Meinhard of Segeberg to convert the Livonian pagans to Christianity. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had already arrived in Latvia more than a century earlier, Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Ikšķile, upstream from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livs, however, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Ikšķile in 1196, in 1198, the Bishop Berthold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Berthold was killed soon afterwards and his forces defeated, pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201, he transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikšķile to Riga, the year 1201 also marked the first arrival of German merchants in Novgorod, via the Dvina. To defend territory and trade, Albert established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, open to nobles, in 1207, Albert started on fortification of the town. Emperor Philip invested Albert with Livonia as a fief and principality of the Holy Roman Empire, until then, it had been customary for crusaders to serve for a year and then return home
5.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
6.
Latvian language
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Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It was previously known in English as Lettish which remains the standard today in various forms in most other Germanic languages, there are about 1.3 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether,2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, of those,1.16 million or 56% use it as their primary language at home. The use of the Latvian language in areas of social life in Latvia is increasing. Latvian is a Baltic language and is most closely related to Lithuanian, in addition there is some disagreement whether Latgalian and New Curonian, which are mutually intelligible with Latvian, should be considered varieties or separate languages. Latvian first appeared in Western print in the century with the reproduction of the Lords Prayer in Latvian in Sebastian Münsters Cosmographia Universalis. Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family and it is one of two living Baltic languages with an official status. The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features believed to have present in the early stages of the Proto-Indo-European language. There is some evidence to suggest the existence of a Balto-Slavic language group after the break-up of Proto-Indo-European, there exist a number of Baltic words that are similar to Sanskrit or Latin and which lack counterparts in Slavic languages. Latvian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Albanian, Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages are grouped as satem languages, while the possession of many archaic features is undeniable, the exact manner by which the Baltic languages have developed from the Proto-Indo-European language is not clear. According to some speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from Western Baltic between 400 and 600. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800, with a period of being one language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th century or 15th century and this process of consolidation started in the 13th century after the Livonian Crusade and forced christianization. These tribes came under Livonian rule thus forming a political, economic. The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a made by Nikolaus Ramm. Until the 19th century, the Latvian language was influenced by the German language. In the middle of the 19th century the First Latvian National Awakening was started, led by “Young Latvians” who popularized the use of Latvian language, participants to this movement laid the foundations for standard Latvian and also popularized the Latvianization of loan words. However, in the 1880s, when Czar Alexander III came into power, during this period, some Latvian scholars even suggested adopting Cyrillic for use in Latvian
7.
Granite
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Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be white, pink, or gray in color. The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the structure of such a holocrystalline rock. By definition, granite is a rock with at least 20% quartz. The term granitic means granite-like and is applied to granite and a group of igneous rocks with similar textures and slight variations in composition. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a texture is known as a granite porphyry. Granitoid is a general, descriptive field term for lighter-colored, coarse-grained igneous rocks, petrographic examination is required for identification of specific types of granitoids. The extrusive igneous rock equivalent of granite is rhyolite, Granite is nearly always massive, hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use throughout human history, and more recently as a construction stone. The average density of granite is between 2.65 and 2.75 g/cm3, its compressive strength usually lies above 200 MPa, and its viscosity near STP is 3–6 •1019 Pa·s. The melting temperature of dry granite at ambient pressure is 1215–1260 °C, it is reduced in the presence of water. Granite has poor primary permeability, but strong secondary permeability, true granite according to modern petrologic convention contains both plagioclase and alkali feldspars. When a granitoid is devoid or nearly devoid of plagioclase, the rock is referred to as alkali feldspar granite, when a granitoid contains less than 10% orthoclase, it is called tonalite, pyroxene and amphibole are common in tonalite. A granite containing both muscovite and biotite micas is called a binary or two-mica granite, two-mica granites are typically high in potassium and low in plagioclase, and are usually S-type granites or A-type granites. A worldwide average of the composition of granite, by weight percent, based on 2485 analyses. Much of it was intruded during the Precambrian age, it is the most abundant basement rock that underlies the relatively thin veneer of the continents. Outcrops of granite tend to form tors and rounded massifs, granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite often occurs as small, less than 100 km² stock masses
8.
Travertine
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Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored and it is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, stalagmites, and it is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Travertine is a sedimentary rock, formed by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from solution in ground and surface waters. Similar deposits formed from water are known as tufa. The word travertine is derived from the Italian travertino, itself a derivation of the Latin tiburtinus ‘of Tibur’ and its namesake is also the origin of Tivoli, a district near Rome. Modern travertine is formed from geothermally heated supersaturated alkaline waters, with raised pCO2, on emergence, waters degas CO2 due to the lower atmospheric pCO2, resulting in an increase in pH. Since carbonate solubility decreases with increased pH, precipitation is induced, precipitation may be enhanced by factors leading to a reduction in pCO2, for example increased air-water interactions at waterfalls may be important, as may photosynthesis. Precipitation may also be enhanced by evaporation in some springs, both calcite and aragonite are found in hot spring travertines, aragonite is preferentially precipitated when temperatures are hot, while calcite dominates when temperatures are cooler. When pure and fine, travertine is white, but often it is brown to yellow due to impurities, travertine may precipitate out directly onto rock and other inert materials as in Pamukkale or Yellowstone for example. The latter has a historic value, because it was one of the quarries that Gian Lorenzo Bernini selected material from to build the famous Colonnade of St. Peters Square in Rome in 1656-1667. Michaelangelo also chose travertine as the material for the ribs of the dome of St Peters Basilica. Travertine derives its name from the town, known as Tibur in ancient Roman times. The ancient name for the stone was lapis tiburtinus, meaning tibur stone, detailed studies of the Tivoli and Guidonia travertine deposits revealed diurnal and annual rhythmic banding and laminae, which have potential use in geochronology. Cascades of natural lakes formed behind travertine dams can be seen in Pamukkale, Turkey, in Central Europes last post-glacial palaeoclimatic optimum, huge deposits of tufa formed from karst springs. On a smaller scale, these karst processes are still working, travertine has been an important building material since the Middle Ages. Travertine has formed sixteen huge, natural dams in a valley in Croatia known as Plitvice Lakes National Park, clinging to moss and rocks in the water, the travertine has built up over several millennia to form waterfalls up to 70 m in height. In the U. S. the most well-known place for travertine formation is Yellowstone National Park, Oklahoma has two parks dedicated to this natural wonder
9.
Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
10.
Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
11.
Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940
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In July 1989 the country stepped on the road of the restoration of its independence, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Latvias sovereignty was fully restored in 1991. On August 22,1996, the Latvian parliament adopted a declaration which stated that the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 was a military occupation, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Latvia declared its independence on November 18,1918. After a prolonged War of Independence, Latvia and Soviet Russia signed a treaty on August 11,1920. The independence of Latvia was diplomatically recognised by the Allied Supreme Council on January 26,1921, on September 22,1921 Latvia was admitted to membership in the League of Nations and remained a member until the formal dissolution of the League in 1946. On June 7,1939 German–Latvian Non-Aggression Pact was signed, on September 1,1939, the day World War II began, Latvia declared its neutrality. Article II defines forms of aggression, fourth — a naval blockade of coasts or ports of another State. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed August 23,1939 contained secret protocols to split up territories between Germany and the Soviet Union. According to these protocols, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia were within the Soviet sphere of interest, Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. France and Britain, which were obligated by treaty to protect Poland, following French-British indecision, Britain acted alone moving forward with a two-hour ultimatum at 9, 00am on September 3, which France was then forced to follow, issuing its own ultimatum. France subsequently requested Britain not bomb Germany, fearing retaliation against the French populace. It was determined to do nothing, so as to not provoke a transfer of German forces to the western front, chamberlain declared on September 12 There is no hurry as time is on our side. The abandonment of Poland was complete, Stalin then suggested a trade to Hitler to solve the Baltic problem. The Soviet Union now occupied just over half of all Polish territory, There were no impediments remaining to Stalin, in concert with Hitler, achieving his aims in the Baltics. On September 24,1939, warships of the Red Navy appeared off Latvias northern neighbour, Estonian ports, Soviet bombers began a patrol over Tallinn. USSR then violated the air space of all three Baltic states, flying massive intelligence gathering operations on September 25, Moscow demanded that Baltic countries allow the USSR to establish military bases and station troops on their soil for the duration of the European war. During talks in Moscow, on October 2,1939, Stalin told Vilhelms Munters, the Latvian foreign minister, I tell you frankly, as far as Germany is concerned we could occupy you. The Baltics took this threat seriously, the government of Estonia accepted the ultimatum signing the corresponding agreement on September 28. 1939, Latvia following on October 5,1939, and Lithuania shortly thereafter, at face value, this pact did not impinge upon Latvian sovereignty
12.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
13.
Vera Mukhina
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Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina was a prominent Soviet sculptor. Mukhina was born in Riga into a merchant family. 23/25, where a plaque has now been placed. She later moved to Moscow, where she studied at private art schools, including those of Konstantin Yuon. In 1915 and 1916, she served as assistant to Aleksandra Ekster at Alexander Tairovs Chamber Theater in Moscow, in 1918 she married Alexei Zamkov, a military surgeon. She taught at the school, Vkhutemas, in 1926–1927. Her studios work on monuments and architectural sculpture on state commissions continued through her death. She also experimented with glass, producing glass figural busts, from 1941 to 1952, Mukhina won the Stalin Prize five times, was named Peoples Artist of the USSR in 1943. Due to her efforts, the monument was not demolished to make way for a statue of Joseph Stalin, in 1953 she wrote A Sculptors Thoughts. Mukhina died in Moscow on 6 October 1953 and she is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery. In 2007, Mukhinas house and studio at 3a Prechistensky Lane were slated for demolition, Mukhinas most celebrated work by far is the giant monument Worker and Kolkhoz Woman which was the centerpiece of the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris. It was the worlds first welded sculpture, the 24-meter-tall, 75-ton monument was made of plate of stainless steel on a wooden frame, the plates connected by an innovative method of spot welding. One hand of each figure holds respectively a hammer and a sickle, in 1947 the sculpture, now on permanent display at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre, became the logo of the Russian Mosfilm studio. It was renovated and re-installed on a pedestal in 2009. Mukhina served as coordinator of other sculptors for this project, the work ended up becoming the 24-meter tall sculpture Known at the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. During the winter, given only a 3 month time span, Vera, the work was a piece of Socialist Realism, common in the Soviet Union at the time. Made of steel, the sculpture features both a man and a woman, each holding a hammer and a sickle, the sculpture was placed atop Boris Iofans Pavilion design. The Museum of Vera Mukhina dedicated to the sculptors adolescence and work was established in Feodosiya, Crimea, Ukraine in 1985
14.
Latvian Riflemen
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Latvian riflemen were originally a military formation of the Imperial Russian Army assembled starting 1915 in Latvia in order to defend Baltic territories against Germans in World War I. Initially the battalions were formed by volunteers, and from 1916 by conscription among the Latvian population, a total of about 40,000 troops were drafted into the Latvian Riflemen Division. Towards the end of the 19th century, Riga, the capital of Latvia, the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party was well organised and its leading elements were increasingly sympathetic to the Bolsheviks by the time of the 1905 Revolution. When punitive expeditions were mounted by the state following this, armed resistance groups - often affiliated to the LSDRP - were set up to conduct warfare against the Tsarist regime. Many of these fighters were subsequently recruited into the Latvian Rifles. At the outbreak of war Indriķis Lediņš, the Latvian chief of police in Vladivostok, had called for the establishment of Latvian Cavalry units, as Germany was advancing into Latvia, they argued, such units would be particularly effective. Latvians knew the area and had high morale because despite the policy of Russification, at Jelgava two battalions of the Latvian Home Guard had already held back the German advance guard. Following increasing German advances, the Russian Stavka approved the measure, on the same day Latvian deputies Jānis Goldmanis and Jānis Zālītis published a patriotic appeal Pulcējaties zem latvju karogiem in Riga. First volunteers started to apply on August 12 at Riga and it was planned to form two battalions but volunteers were so many that actually three battalions were formed. The first battalions consisted mainly from volunteers, especially refugees from Courland, later a number of Latvians from other Russian units joined or were transferred to the Latvian Rifles. From 1915 to 1917, the Latvian Riflemen fought in the Russian army against the Germans in positions along the Daugava river, in 1916 Latvian battalions were transformed to regiments as conscription started among the local population. Also many new units were formed. In total eight combat and one regiment were formed. In December 1916 and January 1917, the Latvian riflemen suffered heavy casualties in the month-long Christmas Battles, suffering heavy casualties, Latvian riflemen managed to break the German line of defence but the effort was wasted as the attack was not followed through. The Russian Army lost over 26,000 soldiers in the failed attack, the casualties included 9,000 Latvian riflemen, about a third of the total number at that time. The heavy casualties resulted in a strong resentment against the Russian generals and this resentment led to an increased support for the Bolsheviks, who were advocating an end to the war. Structure of the United Latvian Riflemen division, in May 1917 the Latvian Regiments transferred their loyalty to the Bolsheviks. They became known as Red Latvian Riflemen and actively participated in the Russian Civil War, the Riflemen took an active part in the suppression of anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Moscow and Yaroslavl in 1918
15.
1905 Russian Revolution
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The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire, some of which was directed at the government. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies and it led to Constitutional Reform including the establishment of the State Duma, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906. According to Sidney Harcave, author of The Russian Revolution of 1905, newly emancipated peasants earned too little, and were not allowed to sell or mortgage their allotted land. A nascent industrial working class resented the government for doing too little to them, banning strikes. Finally, the educated class fomented and spread radical ideas after a relaxing of discipline in universities allowed a new consciousness to grow among students, vladimir Lenin was a political theorist who also contributed his own ideology of how a revolution would be caused. In his book Imperialism he claimed that driven imperialism and the dependence on overseas markets would be a factor to revolution. This would cause a rivalry between the powers, leading to war. Taken individually, these issues might not have affected the course of Russian history, the government finally recognized these problems, albeit in a shortsighted and narrow-minded way. The minister of interior Plehve stated in 1903 that, after the problem, the most serious ones plaguing the country were those of the Jews, the schools. This setback aggravated social unrest during the five years preceding the revolution of 1905, every year, thousands of nobles in debt mortgaged their estates to the noble land bank or sold them to municipalities, merchants, or peasants. By the time of the revolution, the nobility had sold off one-third of its land and this plan was meant to prevent proletarianisation of the peasants. However, the peasants were not given land to provide for their needs. Their earnings were often so small that they could buy the food they needed nor keep up the payment of taxes. By the tenth year of Nicholas IIs reign, their total arrears in payments of taxes and dues was 118 million rubles, masses of hungry peasants roamed the countryside looking for work and sometimes walked hundreds of kilometres to find it. Desperate peasants proved capable of violence and these violent outbreaks caught the attention of the government, so it created many committees to investigate their causes. The committees concluded that no part of the countryside was prosperous, some parts, although cultivated acreage had increased in the last half century, the increase had not been proportionate to the growth of peasant populations, which had doubled. The investigations revealed many difficulties but could not find solution that were both sensible and acceptable to the government, nineteenth-century Russians saw cultures and religions in a clear hierarchy. Non-Russian cultures were tolerated in the empire but were not necessarily respected, European civilization was valued over Asian culture, and Christianity was on the whole considered more progressive and true than other religions
16.
West Russian Volunteer Army
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The West Russian Volunteer Army or Bermontians was an army in the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War of 1918–1920. The Western Russian Volunteer Army, unlike the pro-Entente Volunteer Army, was supported, the order to withdraw was given after the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919. However, only a portion of the Freikorps in the Baltic retired. To avoid casting blame on Germany and infuriating the Allies, he withdrew into the background and merged his troops with the Special Russian Corps, led by Cossack General Pavel Bermont-Avalov. The Army declared that it joined the forces of Aleksandr Kolchak and marched to attack Bolsheviks, in October 1919 the West Russian Volunteer Army attacked the newly independent states of Lithuania and Latvia, to which Germany had granted independence. It briefly occupied the west bank of the Daugava river in Riga, the Estonians sent two armoured trains to aid the Latvians while the Lithuanians were engaged in battles with the Bolsheviks and could only issue diplomatic protests. The Latvians also received assistance from the guns of a British Royal Navy battleship in Riga harbour, in November the Latvian army managed to drive the Bermont-Avalov forces into Lithuanian territory. Finally, the West Russian Volunteer Army suffered heavy defeats by the Lithuanians near Radviliškis, after the involvement of the Entente military mission, the remaining elements of the West Russian Volunteer Army withdrew from the Baltics into Germany. White Movement Freikorps in the Baltic United Baltic Duchy Estonian War of Independence Latvian War of Independence Lithuanian Wars of Independence Simas Sužiedėlis, meine Sendung in Finnland und im Baltikum. Erinnerungen von General Fürst Awaloff, Oberbefehlshaber der Deutsch-Russischen Westarmee im Baltikum, geschichte der Eiserne Division im Baltikum 1919, Berlin 1935. Darstellungen aus den Nachkriegskämpfen deutscher Truppen und Freikorps, Bd 2, januar bis Mai 1919, Berlin 1937, Bd 3, Die Kämpfe im Baltikum nach der zweiten Einnahme von Riga. Juni bis Dezember 1919, Berlin 1938, Die Baltische Landeswehr im Befreiungskampf gegen den Bolschewismus, Riga 1929. Eesti Vabadussõda 1918-1920, Tallinn, Mats,1997, kiewisz, Leon, Sprawy łotewskie w bałtyckiej polityce Niemiec 1914-1919, Poznań1970. Paluszyński, Tomasz, Walka o niepodległość Łotwy 1914-1920, Warszawa 1999, von den baltische Provinzen zu den baltischen Staaten. Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Republiken Estland und Lettland, Bd I, Bd II, Marburg 1971,1977
17.
Folk hero
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This presence in the popular consciousness is evidenced by its historical frequency in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore, and its modern trope status in literature, art and films. Although some folk heroes are historical figures, many are not. The lives of heroes are generally fictional, their characteristics. One major category of folk hero is the defender of the people against the oppression or corruption of the established power structure. Members of this category of folk hero often, but not necessarily, robbed dozens of banks, escaped from jail multiple times. Before being boiled in oil, he saved his infant son at the cost of his own life, jack Mary Ann – a folk hero from the Wrexham area of north Wales whose fictionalised exploits continue to circulate in local folklore. James Morrow Walsh - Canada, a mountie who turned Sitting Bull, burned as a heretic she became a martyr, folk hero, and eventually a saint. She is now one of the saints of France. Miyamoto Musashi – Japan, a swordsman, soldier, philosopher and author Miloš Obilić – Serbia. Redmond OHanlon – Irish, rapparee of the 17th century Pemulwuy - Australia, sarutobi Sasuke – Japan, incredibly acrobatic spy said to have been raised by monkeys and trained in the Ninja heartland of Iga and Koga provinces during the golden age of the Ninja. Preventing bloodshed between the First Nation peoples and the peoples of Canada. Cúchulainn - Ireland, folk legend and the pre-eminent hero of Ulaid in the Ulster Cycle Fionn mac Cumhaill - Ireland, warrior, primary figure in the Oisin cycle. Homer - Credited author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, el Santo - Real life Mexican wrestler, with heavy fictionalised adventures in movies and comic books Culture hero Seal, Graham
18.
Balts
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One of the features of Baltic languages is the number of conservative or archaic features retained. German medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen in the part of the 11th century CE was the first writer to use the term Baltic in its modern sense to mean the sea of that name. This is the first reference to the Baltic or Barbarian Sea, the Germanics, however, preferred some form of East Sea until after about 1600, when they began to use forms of Baltic Sea. Around 1840 the German nobles of the Governorate of Livonia devised the term Balts to mean themselves and they spoke an exclusive dialect, Baltic German. For all practical purposes that was the Baltic language until 1919, scandinavians begin settling in Western Baltic lands in Lithuania and Latvia during Vendel Age and with interruptions their presence in Baltic lands continued most of Viking Age. In 1845 Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann proposed a language group for Latvian and Lithuanian to be called Baltic. It found some credence among linguists but was not generally adopted until the creation of the Baltic states as part of the settlement of World War I in 1919, estonia and Finland, however, also became counted among the Baltic states in the geopolitical sense. Because the thousands of lakes and swamps in this area contributed to the Balts geographical isolation and it is possible that around 3, 500–2,500 B. C. there was massive migration of peoples representing the Corded Ware culture. They came from the southeast and spread all across Eastern and Central Europe and it is believed that Corded Ware culture peoples were Indo-European ancestors of many Europeans, including Balts. It is thought that those Indo-European newcomers were quite numerous and in the Eastern Baltic assimilated earlier indigenous cultures, over time the new people formed the Baltic peoples and they spread in the area from the Baltic sea in the west to the Volga in the east. This information is summarized and synthesized by Marija Gimbutas in The Balts to obtain a likely proto-Baltic homeland, a possible early reference to a Baltic people occurs in 98 CE, when Tacitus names a tribe living near the Baltic Sea as the Aesti and describes them as amber gatherers. However, it is not clear if the Aesti mentioned by Tacitus were, a Baltic people, or, the Aesti appear to have inhabited the Sambian peninsula (in or near the present Kaliningrad Oblast. Over time, the area of Baltic habitation shrank, due to assimilation by other groups, finally, according to Slavic chronicles of the time, they warred with Slavs, and perhaps, were defeated and assimilated some time in the 11th to 13th centuries. Balts became differentiated into Western and Eastern Balts in the late centuries BCE, the eastern Baltic region was inhabited by ancestors of the Western Balts, Brus/Prūsa, Sudovians/Jotvingians, Scalvians, Nadruvians, and Curonians. The Eastern Balts, including the hypothesised Dniepr Balts, were living in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine, many other Eastern and Southern Balts either assimilated with other Balts, or Slavs in the 4th–7th centuries and were gradually slavicized. Gradually Old Prussians became Germanized or some Lithuanized during period from the 15th to the 17th centuries, the cultures of the Lithuanians and Latgalians/Latvians survived and became the ancestors of the populations of the modern countries of Latvia and Lithuania. Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct Western Baltic languages and it is more distantly related to the surviving Eastern Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian. Compare the Prussian word seme, the Latvian zeme, the Lithuanian žemė, Old Prussian contained a few borrowings specifically from Gothic and even North Germanic
19.
Paganism
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Paganism is a term that derives from Latin word pagan, which means nonparticipant, one excluded from a more distinguished, professional group. The term was used in the 4th century, by early Christian community, the term competed with polytheism already in use in Judaism, by Philo in the 1st century. Pagans and paganism was a pejorative for the same polytheistic group, Paganism has broadly connoted religion of the peasantry, and for much of its history a derogatory term. Alternate terms in Christian texts for the group was hellene. In and after the Middle Ages, paganism was a pejorative that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, there has been much scholarly debate as to the origin of the term paganism, especially since no one before the 20th century self-identified as a pagan. In the 19th century, paganism was re-adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. Forms of these religions, influenced by various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe, exist today and are known as contemporary or modern paganism, while most pagan religions express a worldview that is pantheistic, polytheistic, or animistic, there are some monotheistic pagans. It is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised, the notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others, one of the antitheses that were central to the process of Christian self-definition, as such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense. The term pagan is from Late Latin paganus, revived during the Renaissance and it is related to pangere and ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *pag-. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church, elsewhere, Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan, and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace. However, this idea has multiple problems, first, the words usage as a reference to non-Christians pre-dates that period in history. Second, paganism within the Roman Empire centered on cities, the concept of an urban Christianity as opposed to a rural paganism would not have occurred to Romans during Early Christianity. Third, unlike words such as rusticitas, paganus had not yet acquired the meanings used to explain why it would have been applied to pagans. Paganus more likely acquired its meaning in Christian nomenclature via Roman military jargon, Early Christians adopted military motifs and saw themselves as Milites Christi. As early as the 5th century, paganos was metaphorically used to persons outside the bounds of the Christian community. In response, Augustine of Hippo wrote De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos, in it, he contrasted the fallen city of Man to the city of God of which all Christians were ultimately citizens. Hence, the invaders were not of the city or rural
20.
Gilding
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The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as gilt. Where metal is gilded, it was silver in the West, to make silver-gilt objects, but gilt-bronze is commonly used in China. Methods of gilding include hand application and glueing, chemical gilding, and electroplating, parcel-gilt objects are only gilded over part of their surfaces. This may mean that all of the inside, and none of the outside, of a chalice or similar vessel is gilded, herodotus mentions that the Egyptians gilded wood and metals, and many such objects have been excavated. Certain Ancient Greek statues of great prestige were chryselephantine, i. e. made of gold and ivory, extensive ornamental gilding was also used in the ceiling coffers of the Propylaea. But he adds that luxury advanced on them so rapidly that in very little time you see all, even private and poor people, gild the walls, vaults. Owing to the thickness of the gold leaf used in ancient gilding. Fire-gilding of metal goes back at least to the 4th century BC, in Europe, silver-gilt has always been more common than gilt-bronze, but in China the opposite has been the case. The ancient Chinese also developed the gilding of porcelain, which was taken up by the French. Modern gilding is applied to numerous and diverse surfaces and by various processes, mechanical gilding includes all the operations in which gold leaf is prepared, and the processes to mechanically attach the gold onto surfaces. The process is completed by cold burnishing, overlaying or folding or hammering on gold foil or gold leaf is the simplest and most ancient method, and is mentioned in Homers Odyssey and the Old Testament. The Ram in a Thicket of about 2600–2400 BCE from Ur uses this technique on wood, the next advances involved two simple processes. The first involves gold leaf, which is gold that is hammered or cut very thin sheets. If gilding on canvas or on wood, the surface was often first coated with gesso, gesso is a substance made of finely ground gypsum or chalk mixed with glue. Other gilding processes involved using the gold as pigment in paint, then the gold was applied in the same way as with any paint. Sometimes, after either gold-leafing or gold-painting, the artist would heat the piece enough to melt the gold slightly and these techniques remained the only alternatives for materials like wood, leather, and the vellum pages of illuminated manuscripts. Chemical gilding embraces those processes in which the gold is at some stage of chemical combination and these include, In this process the gold is obtained in a state of extremely fine division, and applied by mechanical means
21.
Constitution of Latvia
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The Constitution of Latvia is the fundamental law of the Republic of Latvia. Satversme is the oldest Eastern or Central European constitution still in force and it was adopted, as it states itself in the text, by the people of Latvia, in their freely elected Constitutional Assembly of Latvia on 15 February 1922 and came into force on 7 November 1922. It was heavily influenced by Germanys Weimar Constitution and the Swiss Federal Constitution, the constitution establishes the main bodies of government, it consists of 115 articles arranged in eight chapters. After the 1934 Latvian coup détat by Prime Minister of Latvia Kārlis Ulmanis, Satversme was suspended and this situation continued until June 17,1940, when Soviet Union occupied Latvia destroyed the existing regime and incorporated the Latvian SSR into the USSR on August 5. A new, Soviet-style constitution was then introduced, only articles 1,2,3 and 6 of Satversme were reintroduced at that time by the declaration and the constitution was fully reintroduced only by the first assembly of the 5th Saeima in 1993. In Latvian, satversme is officially used instead of constitution, while in everyday conversations konstitūcija is often used, the word was created by Atis Kronvalds, one of the leaders of the First Latvian National Awakening in the 19th century. The movement was trying to promote Latvian culture after centuries of Baltic German influence, Kronvalds and like-minded individuals created and introduced many new words and terms intended to be used over Germanic loanwords to modernize Latvian. The Constitution was drafted by the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia, which consisted of 150 members elected in April 1920 in general elections, the initial text was elaborated by a Constitutional committee and consisted of two parts. It was influenced by ideas of the Weimar Constitution and the Swiss Federal Constitution, the first regulated the states institutions, the second, citizens rights and obligations. The committee presented its work on 20 September 1921, on 20 June 1922 a law was passed that set the new constitution to come into force at 12 a. m. on 7 November 1922. In 1940 Latvian SSR was established by occupying Soviet Union forces, the legality of this parliament and its decisions is questioned–Soviets considered that the constitution was nullified by Ulmanis coup détat, so the Peoples Saeima never formally annulled it. After declaring accession to the USSR, the Peoples Saeima drafted a Constitution of LSSR on the basis of the 1936 Soviet Constitution and it was adopted a month after, on 25 August 1940. On 18 April 1978 the government of the LSSR adopted a new constitution modeled on the 1977 Soviet Constitution, on 4 May 1990 the Supreme Soviet of LSSR declared restoration of Latvias independence and adopted articles 1,2,3 and 6 of the constitution of 1922. Articles 1,2,3 and 6, which establish the basis of the states political system, were the first to be adopted after the restoration of independence. It is elected in general, equal and direct elections for a term of four years, the Constitution describes in general how the Saeima should work, noting that the Saeima should also establish rules of order to regulate its internal operations and order. Executive power is vested in the President and the Cabinet of ministers, there are two exceptions to this rule - the President can single-handedly decide to dissolve the Saeima and when a new government is formed it is up to him to choose a new Prime Minister. The cabinet is formed by the Prime Minister, under the constitution, the right to legislate has been granted to the Saeima. Laws are to be adopted by the Saeima and proclaimed by the President, the State Audit Office controls how the state financial resources are used
22.
Vidzeme
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Vidzeme is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. Literally meaning the Middle Land it is situated in north-central Latvia north of the Daugava River, sometimes in German it is also known as Livland- German form from Latin Livonia, though it comprises only a small part of Medieval Livonia and about half of Swedish Livonia. Vidzemes guberņa - Livland Governorate is also bigger than Vidzeme, since it corresponds roughly to Swedish Livonia, in ancient times the territory of Vidzeme was inhabited by Latgalians and Livs. The most notable Latgalian region in today’s Vidzeme was Tālava, after the Livonian War part of the Livonian Confederation on the right bank of the Daugava river and the Patrimony of Riga was ceded to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Duchy of Livonia. During the course of the Great Northern War Swedish Livonia was conquered by the Russian Empire, in place of Livonia the Russians created the Riga Governorate, but in 1796 the Riga Governorate was renamed the Governorate of Livonia. After the end of World War I it was split between the independent countries of Latvia and Estonia. Vidzeme Upland Vidzeme Tourism Portal Vidzeme University
23.
Latgale
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Latgale is one of the four historical and cultural regions of Latvia recognised in the Constitution of the Latvian Republic. It is the easternmost region north of the Daugava River, while most of Latvia is historically Lutheran, Latgale is historically predominantly Roman Catholic. The region has a population of ethnic Russians, especially in Daugavpils. Many of the Russians who lived in Latgale before the Soviet occupation are Old Believers, Rēzekne, often called the heart of Latgale, Krāslava, and Ludza are other large towns in the region, which also has a Belarusian minority. There is also a significant Polish minority, the region is one of the poorest in the European Union, and unlike in the rest of Latvia, a majority of voters was opposed to EU membership in the referendum on accession. Due to its history several different names are used for Latgale. Other names for the region include Lettigallia, Latgallia, and Latgola, the people are called latgalieši in Latvian – latgalīši in Latgalian, sometimes latgali – Latgalians, Latgallians, or Lettigalls in English, and are sometimes referred to as čangaļi. The term latgalieši dates only to the early 20th century, as of 201197,600 people in the region spoke Latgalian language, which is a standardised form of local varieties of High Latvian dialect. From 2004 on, the Latgalian language is the subject of the biggest sociolinguistic/ethnolinguistic poll in Europe, held by the Rēzekne Augstskola, originally the territory of what is now Latgale was populated by Eastern Baltic Latgalian tribe. During the 10th–12th centuries two principalities, Jersika and Atzele, existed on the territory of modern Latgale and Eastern Vidzeme, in addition Latgalians inhabited parts of modern Pskov Oblast in Russia and Vitsebsk Voblast in Belarus. Part of it was divided between the Bishopric and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, the became a vassal country. In 1239, after the death of King Visvaldis, the latter was incorporated into the territory of the Livonian Order, in 1242, after defeat in the Battle of the Ice, Eastern Latgale temporarily passed to the Novgorod Republic. In 1263 Livonian knights started to build the Volkenberg castle near to the Rāzna lake, in 1277 Grand duke Traidenis of Lithuania unsuccessfully besieged the newly built castle of Daugavpils. In 1481–1493 Grand Prince Ivan III of Russia temporarily occupied Latgale, during the Livonian War Latgale was annexed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which in 1569 was incorporated into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Ivan IV of Russia annexed Latgale in 1577, but renounced his claims to Livonia in Truce of Jam Zapolski, in 1621 most of the Duchy of Livonia was ceded to the Swedish Empire, but part of the Duchy including Latgale remained under Polish-Lithuanian control. This became known as the Inflanty Voivodeship, the creation of Polish Inflanty is the birth of the region we now know of as Latgale. During this period the Latgalian dialect was influenced by Polish and developed separately from the Latvian spoken in parts of Latvia. In 1772, Latgale was annexed by the Russian Empire, and in 1865, as part of Russias anti-Polish policies and this ban was lifted in 1904, and a period of Latgalian reawakening began
24.
Courland
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Courland or Kurzeme is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland as they were held by the same duke. Situated in western Latvia, Courland roughly corresponds to the former Latvian districts of Kuldīga, Liepāja, Saldus, Talsi, Tukums, when combined with Semigallia and Selonia, Courlands northeastern boundary is the river Daugava, which separates it from the regions of Latgale and Vidzeme. To the north, Courlands coast lies along the Gulf of Riga, on the west it is bordered by the Baltic Sea, and on the south by Lithuania. It lies between 55° 45′ and 57° 45′ North and 21° and 27° East, the area comprises 27,286 km², of which 262 km² is made up of lakes. The landscape generally has a low and undulating character, with flat, the interior features wooded dunes, covered with pine, spruce, birch, and oak, with swamps and lakes, and fertile patches between. Courlands elevation never rises more than 213 m above sea level, the Jelgava plain divides Courland into two parts, the western side, which is fertile and densely inhabited, except in the north, and the eastern side, less fertile and thinly inhabited. Nearly one hundred rivers drain Courland, but only three of these rivers – the Daugava, the Lielupe and the Venta – are navigable and they all flow northwestward and discharge into the Baltic Sea. Owing to its numerous lakes and marshes, Courland has a damp, often foggy, in ancient times the Curonians, a pagan tribe, inhabited Courland. The Brethren of the Sword, a German military order, subdued the Curonians, in 1237 the area passed into the rule of the Teutonic Knights owing to the amalgamation of this order with that of the Brethren of the Sword. The Livonian Confederation was a loosely organized confederation formed by the German-led Livonian Order and it existed from 1228 to the 1560s, when it was dismembered during the Livonian Wars. The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was a semi-independent duchy that existed from 1561 until 1795, encompassing the areas of Courland, although nominally a vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the dukes operated autonomously. In the 18th century Russia acquired great influence over the Duchy, in 1795, the last Duke, Peter von Biron, ceded the Duchy to the Russian Empire. The former Bishopric of Courland was directly incorporated into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the Piltyń County of the Wenden, after annexation by the Russian Empire, the territory of the former Duchy formed the Courland Governorate. From the time of the Northern Crusades in the early 13th century, in 1863, the Russian authorities issued laws to enable Latvians, who formed the bulk of the population, to acquire the farms which they held, and special banks were founded to help them. By this means, some occupants bought their farms, but the mass of the population remained landless. Agriculture was the occupation, with the principal crops being rye, barley, oats, wheat, flax. The large estates conducted agriculture with skill and scientific knowledge, excellent breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs were kept
25.
Reinforced concrete
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The reinforcement is usually, though not necessarily, steel reinforcing bars and is usually embedded passively in the concrete before the concrete sets. Reinforcing schemes are designed to resist tensile stresses in particular regions of the concrete that might cause unacceptable cracking and/or structural failure. Modern reinforced concrete can contain varied reinforcing materials made of steel, Reinforced concrete may also be permanently stressed, so as to improve the behaviour of the final structure under working loads. In the United States, the most common methods of doing this are known as pre-tensioning and post-tensioning, durability in the concrete environment, irrespective of corrosion or sustained stress for example. François Coignet was a French industrialist of the century, a pioneer in the development of structural. Coignet was the first to use iron-reinforced concrete as a technique for constructing building structures, in 1853 Coignet built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four story house at 72 rue Charles Michels in the suburbs of Paris. Coignets descriptions of reinforcing concrete suggests that he did not do it for means of adding strength to the concrete, in 1854, English builder William B. Wilkinson reinforced the concrete roof and floors in the two-storey house he was constructing. His positioning of the reinforcement demonstrated that, unlike his predecessors, in 1877, Monier was granted another patent for a more advanced technique of reinforcing concrete columns and girders with iron rods placed in a grid pattern. Though Monier undoubtedly knew reinforcing concrete would improve its inner cohesion, before 1877 the use of concrete construction, though dating back to the Roman Empire and reintroduced in the mid to late 1800s, was not yet a proven scientific technology. His work played a role in the evolution of concrete construction as a proven. Without Hyatts work, more dangerous trial and error methods would have largely depended on for the advancement in the technology. G. A. Wayss was a German civil engineer and a pioneer of the iron, in 1879 Wayss bought the German rights to Moniers patents and in 1884 started the first commercial use for reinforced concrete in his firm Wayss & Freytag. Up until the 1890s Wayss and his firm greatly contributed to the advancement of Moniers system of reinforcing, ernest L. Ransome was an English-born engineer and early innovator of the reinforced concrete techniques in the end of the 19th century. With the knowledge of reinforced concrete developed during the previous 50 years, ransomes key innovation was to twist the reinforcing steel bar improving bonding with the concrete. Gaining increasing fame from his concrete constructed buildings Ransome was able to build two of the first reinforced concrete bridges in North America, one of the first concrete buildings constructed in the United States, was a private home, designed by William Ward in 1871. The home was designed to be fireproof for his wife, one of the first skyscrapers made with reinforced concrete was the 16-storey Ingalls Building in Cincinnati, constructed in 1904. Many different types of structures and components of structures can be built using reinforced concrete including slabs, walls, beams, columns, foundations, frames, Reinforced concrete can be classified as precast or cast-in-place concrete. Designing and implementing the most efficient floor system is key to creating optimal building structures, small changes in the design of a floor system can have significant impact on material costs, construction schedule, ultimate strength, operating costs, occupancy levels and end use of a building
26.
Lead
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Lead is a chemical element with atomic number 82 and symbol Pb. When freshly cut, it is bluish-white, it tarnishes to a dull gray upon exposure to air and it is a soft, malleable, and heavy metal with a density exceeding that of most common materials. Lead has the second-highest atomic number of the stable elements. Lead is a relatively unreactive post-transition metal and its weak metallic character is illustrated by its amphoteric nature and tendency to form covalent bonds. Compounds of lead are found in the +2 oxidation state. Exceptions are mostly limited to organolead compounds, like the lighter members of the group, lead exhibits a tendency to bond to itself, it can form chains, rings, and polyhedral structures. Lead is easily extracted from its ores and was known to people in Western Asia. A principal ore of lead, galena, often bears silver, Lead production declined after the fall of Rome and did not reach comparable levels again until the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, global production of lead is about ten million tonnes annually, Lead has several properties that make it useful, high density, low melting point, ductility, and relative inertness to oxidation. In the late 19th century, lead was recognized as poisonous, Lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates in soft tissues and bones, damaging the nervous system and causing brain disorders and, in mammals, blood disorders. A lead atom has 82 electrons, arranged in a configuration of 4f145d106s26p2. The combined first and second ionization energies—the total energy required to remove the two 6p electrons—is close to that of tin, leads upper neighbor in group 14. This is unusual since ionization energies generally fall going down a group as an elements outer electrons become more distant from the nucleus, the similarity is caused by the lanthanide contraction—the decrease in element radii from lanthanum to lutetium, and the relatively small radii of the elements after hafnium. The contraction is due to shielding of the nucleus by the lanthanide 4f electrons. The combined first four ionization energies of lead exceed those of tin, for this reason lead, unlike tin, mostly forms compounds in which it has an oxidation state of +2, rather than +4. Relativistic effects, which become particularly prominent at the bottom of the periodic table, as a result, the 6s electrons of lead become reluctant to participate in bonding, a phenomenon called the inert pair effect. A related outcome is that the distance between nearest atoms in crystalline lead is unusually long, the lighter group 14 elements form stable or metastable allotropes having the tetrahedrally coordinated and covalently bonded diamond cubic structure. The energy levels of their outer s- and p-orbitals are close enough to allow mixing into four hybrid sp3 orbitals
27.
Bronze
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These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability. The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time, everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, the discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC. Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the process could be more easily controlled. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic, the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik. Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Africa, Susa and some ancient sites in China, Luristan, ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together, so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall. In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artefacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value, in Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes, are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources and these were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings. Pure iron is soft, and the process of beating and folding sponge iron to wrought iron removes from the metal carbon. Careful control of the alloying and tempering eventually allowed for wrought iron with properties comparable to modern steel, Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day. Among other advantages, it does not rust, the weaker wrought iron was found to be sufficiently strong for many uses. Archaeologists suspect that a disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. The population migrations around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean, limiting supplies, there are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin
28.
Rainis
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Rainis was the pseudonym of Jānis Pliekšāns, a Latvian poet, playwright, translator, and politician. Rainis works include the classic plays Uguns un nakts and Indulis un Ārija, and his works had a profound influence on the literary Latvian language, and the ethnic symbolism he employed in his major works has been central to Latvian nationalism. Rainis was born on Varslavāni farm, Dunava parish in Jēkabpils municipality and his father, Krišjānis Pliekšāns, was a tenant farmer. His mother was Dārta, née Grikovska, and he had two sisters, Līze and Dora, during his education at the Riga City Gymnasium he met and befriended Pēteris Stučka, Dora Pliekšānes future husband, who later become a prominent Latvian communist. Rainis studied law at the University of St. Petersburg, where he shared a room with Pēteris Stučka, while still a student, Rainis was already collecting folk songs, writing satirical and lyric poetry, and translating literature. Together with Stučka he edited a collection of epigrams and satire, Mazie dunduri, the two men, however, would later split because of the differences between socialist and communist ideologies. After completing his studies, he worked at the Vilnius regional courtrooms, Rainis wrote for Dienas Lapa, Tēvija and the Latvian Conversational Dictionary. From 1891 to 1895 Rainis was editor in chief of Dienas Lapa, the Dienas Lapa scene was mostly a group of young Latvian liberal and socialist intellectuals who came to be known as the New Current. After attending the congress of the Second International in 1893, Rainis began to emphasize socialist ideology and he is recognized as the father of Latvian socialism. It was during this period that he met Aspazija, another Latvian poet, because of their social criticism and calls for various reforms, the New Current was viewed as a seditious movement and was the subject of a Tsarist crackdown. In 1897 Rainis was arrested and deported first to Pskov, and it was during this period of internal exile that Rainis translated Faust and other works from classical literature. Here he also produced his first collection of poems, Tālas noskaņas zilā vakarā, Rainis was also socially active and politically prominent, being one of the national leaders of the Revolution of 1905 in Latvia and the New Current that foreshadowed it. With the failure of the Revolution, he emigrated to Switzerland together with his wife Aspazija, settling in Castagnola and his dramatic ballad Daugava contained the first explicit demand for Latvian sovereignty, Land, land, what is that land demanded in our song. Those lines were removed by the censor when the work was first published in Moscow, Zelta Zirgs was translated to English in 2012 by Vilis Inde. Rainis and Aspazija returned to Latvia on April 4,1920 and they had served as the spiritual leaders for the fight for Latvian independence. During this period he wrote, plays — Iļja Muromietis, Mīla stiprāka par nāvi, Rīgas ragana, poetry — Treji loki, Sudrabota gaisma, Mēness meitiņa, Zelta sietiņš, and others, memoirs — Kastaņjola. Rainis had the ambition of becoming Latvias president and became prominent in politics when this ambition was not fulfilled. During the 1920s, Rainis was among the candidates considered for a Nobel Prize in Literature and his journals from these years exhibit both his great longing for this international recognition, as well as his bitter disappointment at never receiving the award
29.
Aspazija
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Aspazija was the pen name of Elza Pliekšāne, a Latvian poet and playwright. Aspazija is the Latvian transliteration of Aspasia, Aspazija was born and raised in a wealthy peasant family near Jelgava in 1865, where she studied and was active in youth organizations. She left gymnasium during the last year of studies, and in 1886 married Wilhelm Max Valter, later she became interested in literature, mainly by German authors. Her first publication appeared in 1887 in the newspaper Dienas Lapa, in 1891 she divorced her husband and until 1893 worked as a private teacher in Jaunsvirlauka. In 1893 she settled in Riga and started to work as journalist, in 1894 her first plays Vaidelote and Zaudētās tiesības were staged in Riga. In those years she met Jānis Pliekšāns, an editor, poet, lawyer. Under his influence Aspazija joined the New Current, the couple married in 1897, when they moved to Panevėžys, Lithuania, after the crackdown of New Current. The same year she published her first collection of poetry, for his activities Rainis was imprisoned and later sentenced to five years in exile in Russia from 1897–1903, and Aspazija followed him. Together they translated into Latvian many works of Goethe, later they returned to Latvia and continued writing, while Rainis also participated in socialist politics. The 1905 Revolution began with protests in St. Petersburg in January, within days protests spread to Riga and many were killed on 13 January 1905. Aspazijas play Vaidelote opened in January and was interpreted as a call from the Imperialist Russia. The czar ordered a crack-down, and many revolutionaries were arrested and killed in 1905-6, therefore, Rainis and Aspazija fled to Switzerland and lived in exile in Castagnola from 1905 to 1920. When they returned to independent Latvia after World War I, Aspazija was active in the feminist movement and she also joined the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party and was elected to the constitutional assembly. After Rainis died in 1929 Aspazija lived very privately in Riga or in her house in Dubulti. She died in 5 November 1943 in Dubulti and was buried in the Rainis cemetery in Riga, aspazijas first works are realistic, but most of her work is neo-romantic. Some are a look to the past. For example, the play Vaidelote, written in 1894, takes place in the 14th century Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the plays Simple Rights and Unattained Goals provoked many discussions because of their protest against the patriarchal society. The play Silver Veil is considered to be her best work, in 1923 she wrote a play titled Aspazija
30.
Defensive wall
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A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements, beyond their defensive utility, many walls also had important symbolic functions – representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced. Existing ancient walls are almost always masonry structures, although brick, depending on the topography of the area surrounding the city or the settlement the wall is intended to protect, elements of the terrain may be incorporated in order to make the wall more effective. Walls may only be crossed by entering the city gate and are often supplemented with towers. Simpler defensive walls of earth or stone, thrown up around hillforts, ringworks, early castles, from very early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer is one of the worlds oldest known walled cities, before that, the city of Jericho in what is now the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC. The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 B. C. hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus floodplain, many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets. Mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks, babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world, especially as a result of the building program of Nebuchadnezzar, who expanded the walls and built the Ishtar Gate. Exceptions were few — notably, ancient Sparta and ancient Rome did not have walls for a long time, initially, these fortifications were simple constructions of wood and earth, which were later replaced by mixed constructions of stones piled on top of each other without mortar. In Central Europe, the Celts built large fortified settlements which the Romans called oppida, the fortifications were continuously expanded and improved. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, in classical era Greece, the city of Athens built a long set of parallel stone walls called the Long Walls that reached their guarded seaport at Piraeus. Large tempered earth walls were built in ancient China since the Shang Dynasty, although stone walls were built in China during the Warring States, mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until the Tang Dynasty. The large walls of Pingyao serve as one example, likewise, the famous walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing were established in the early 15th century by the Yongle Emperor. The Romans fortified their cities with massive, mortar-bound stone walls, the most famous of these are the largely extant Aurelian Walls of Rome and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, together with partial remains elsewhere. These are mostly city gates, like the Porta Nigra in Trier or Newport Arch in Lincoln, apart from these, the early Middle Ages also saw the creation of some towns built around castles. These cities were only protected by simple stone walls and more usually by a combination of both walls and ditches. From the 12th century AD hundreds of settlements of all sizes were founded all across Europe and these cities are easy to recognise due to their regular layout and large market spaces
31.
Diplomatic mission
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In practice, a diplomatic mission usually denotes the resident mission, namely the office of a countrys diplomatic representatives in the capital city of another country. As well as being a mission to the country in which it is situated. There are thus resident and non-resident embassies, a permanent diplomatic mission is typically known as an Embassy, and the head of the mission is known as an Ambassador, or High Commissioner. Therefore, the Embassy operates in the Chancery, European Union missions abroad are known as EU delegations. Some countries have more particular naming for their missions and staff, under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, Libyas missions used the name peoples bureau and the head of the mission was a secretary. Missions between Commonwealth countries are known as commissions and their heads are High Commissioners. This is because Ambassadors are exchanged between foreign countries, but since the beginning of the Commonwealth, member countries have maintained that they are not foreign to one another. An ambassador represents one head of state to another and a letters of credence are addressed by one head of state to another. Until India became a republic on 26 January 1950, all members of the Commonwealth had the head of state. In the past a diplomatic mission headed by an official was known as a legation. Since the ranks of envoy and minister resident are effectively obsolete, a consulate is similar to, but not the same as a diplomatic office, but with focus on dealing with individual persons and businesses, as defined by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A consulate or consulate general is generally a representative of the embassy in locales outside of the capital city. For instance, the United Kingdom has its Embassy of the United Kingdom in Washington, D. C. but also maintains seven consulates-general, the person in charge of a consulate or consulate-general is known as a consul or consul-general, respectively. Similar services may also be provided at the embassy in what is called a consular section. In cases of dispute, it is common for a country to recall its head of mission as a sign of its displeasure, a chargé daffaires ad interim also heads the mission during the interim between the end of one chief of missions term and the beginning of another. Contrary to popular belief, most diplomatic missions do not enjoy full extraterritorial status, rather, the premises of diplomatic missions usually remain under the jurisdiction of the host state while being afforded special privileges by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomats themselves still retain full diplomatic immunity, and the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country, international rules designate an attack on an embassy as an attack on the country it represents. The term extraterritoriality is often applied to missions, but normally only in this broader sense
32.
University of Latvia
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The University of Latvia is a state-run university located in Riga, Latvia. The university is ranked 701st–750th in the world, as well as 4th in the Baltic states after the University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology, and Vilnius University. The University of Latvia, named at that time Higher School of Latvia was founded on September 28,1919 on the basis of the former Riga Polytechnic, the first rector of the university was chemist Paul Walden. In 1923, this school received its now resumed name – the University of Latvia, in the period between 1919 and 1940, the University of Latvia was the greatest center of higher education, science and culture in Latvia. The former building of the Riga Polytechnic on Raiņa bulvāris 19 serves as the main building. In the pre-war years, it was possible to gain higher academic education not only at the University of Latvia, with Latvia regaining independence, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia reconfirmed the Constitution of the University of Latvia on September 18,1991. It stated that the Higher School is an establishment of academic education, science and culture which serves the needs of Latvia. The EuroFaculty, created by the CBSS to support reforms at the universities in Tartu, Riga, almost one third of them studied in business and economics related programs. The Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science was founded in 1959 as a research centre, now consisting of about 200 researchers, assistants, engineers. The university has a number of choirs, orchestras and dance groups
33.
Riga State Gymnasium No.1
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Riga State Gymnasium No.1, the oldest school in the Baltic states, offers secondary education in Riga, the capital of Latvia. The school traces its origins to school of Riga Cathedral, which was founded in 1211 and its name and language of instruction have changed several times during its history. Latvian became the language of instruction in 1919. Today, the gymnasium is known for its programs in the natural sciences, mathematics. Students wishing to enroll at the school take an admissions test in mathematics and its admissions rate, with as many as six candidates competing for each position, is one of the lowest in the country. Since 1997 the school enrolls 30 to 40 people in its International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme each year and it was the first school in the Baltic states to offer the IBO Diploma Programme. Each year a number of 12th grade students finish the DSD programme by taking an exam along with the school leaving exams. Passing the exam enables them to pursue their education in German speaking countries. Riga State Gymnasium No.1 is consistently ranked first among the schools in Latvia and its students average results on school leaving exams are the highest in the country. Riga State Gymnasium No.1 is also the best school in Latvia based on its students achievements at various domestic, many of the graduates continue their education at highly ranked universities abroad, particularly in the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria and the USA. The percentage of students is very high among the ones who graduate from the IBO Diploma Programme. List of the oldest schools in the world Riga State Gymnasium No.1 - Official site - Deutsches Sprachdiplom
34.
Confectionery
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Confectionery, also called sweets or candy, is sweet food. The term varies among English-speaking countries, in general, though, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories, bakers confections and sugar confections. Bakers confectionery, also called flour confections, includes principally sweet pastries, cakes, in the Middle East and Asia, flour-based confections are more dominant. Sugar confectionery includes sweets, candied nuts, chocolates, chewing gum and bubblegum, sweetmeats, pastillage, in some cases, chocolate confections are treated as a separate category, as are sugar-free versions of sugar confections. The words candy, sweets, and lollies are common words for the most common varieties of sugar confectionery, the confectionery industry also includes specialized training schools and extensive historical records. Traditional confectionery goes back to ancient times, and continued to be eaten through the Middle Ages into the modern era, generally, confections are low in micronutrients and protein but high in calories. They may be fat-free foods, although some confections, especially fried doughs, are high-fat foods, many confections are considered empty calories. Specially formulated chocolate has been manufactured in the past for use as a high-density food energy source. Confections are defined by the presence of sweeteners and these are usually sugars, but it is possible to buy sugar-free sweets, such as sugar-free peppermints. The most common sweetener for cooking is table sugar, which is chemically a disaccharide containing both glucose and fructose. Hydrolysis of sucrose gives a mixture called invert sugar, which is sweeter and is also a commercial ingredient. Finally confections, especially commercial ones, are sweetened by a variety of syrups obtained by hydrolysis of starch and these sweeteners include all types of corn syrup. Bakers confectionery includes sweet baked goods, especially those that are served for the dessert course, bakers confections are sweet foods that feature flour as a main ingredient and are baked. Major categories include cakes, sweet pastries, doughnuts, scones, Sugar confections include sweet, sugar-based foods, which are usually eaten as snack food. This includes sugar candies, chocolates, candied fruits and nuts, chewing gum, in the European Union, the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community scheme matches the UN classification, under code number 10.82. Ice cream and sorbet are classified with dairy products under ISIC1050, NACE10.52, different dialects of English use regional terms for sugar confections, In Britain, Ireland, and some Commonwealth countries, sweets or, more colloquially, sweeties. In Australia and New Zealand, lollies, chewy and Chuddy are Australian slang for chewing gum. In North America, candy, although this generally refers to a specific range of confectionery
35.
Laima (confectioner)
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Laima is the largest producer of confectionery in Latvia. It is named for Laima, the deity of fate in Latvian mythology. The company traces its origins to the 19th century, when the Theodor Riegert company was one of the largest confectioners in the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire, despite the loss of Russian markets, the company maintained its major market position domestically following Latvias independence in 1918. The current company name was adopted in 1925 after a merger with two brothers Eliyahu and Leonid Fromenchenko, in 1933, after the two Russian Jews sold the company, Eliyahu Fromchenko founded Elite in Israel at Ramat Gan. During both the 1930s and Soviet period in Latvia, Laima was the main chocolatier in Latvia, goegginger being the main producer of hard candies. After Latvia regained its independence in the 1990s, Laima amalgamated with both Uzvara and cookie, wafer, and cake manufacturer Staburadze to become a company under the Laima name. Ownership of Laima is controlled by Nordic Food, owned by local businessman Daumants Vītols, after introducing Laima shares to the Riga Stock Exchange in December 2006, the controlling owners decided to once again make the company private, taking it off the market on 13 July 2007. The parent company of Laima was acquired by Orkla Group in August 2014, the product in Laimas current range with the longest history is the chocolate candy Serenāde, the recipe for which has remained unchanged since 1937. In Riga, one of the major landmarks is the Laima Clock and this is a classic meeting place for people in Riga. Official website Images of Laima wrapper designs throughout the decades
36.
Hedge
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A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced shrubs and tree species, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges used to separate a road from adjoining fields or one field from another, often they serve as windbreaks to improve conditions for the adjacent crops. When clipped and maintained, hedges are also a form of topiary. The development of hedges over the centuries is preserved in their structure, the first hedges enclosed land for cereal crops during the Neolithic Age. The farms were of about 5 to 10 hectares, with fields about 0.1 hectares for hand cultivation, some hedges date from the Bronze and Iron Ages, 2000–4000 years ago, when traditional patterns of landscape became established. Others were built during the Medieval field rationalisations, more originated in the boom of the 18th and 19th centuries. In parts of Britain, early hedges were destroyed to make way for the manorial open-field system, many were replaced after the Enclosure Acts, then removed again during modern agricultural intensification, and now some are being replanted for wildlife. A hedge may consist of a species or several, typically mixed at random. In many newly planted British hedges, at least 60 per cent of the shrubs are hawthorn, blackthorn, the first two are particularly effective barriers to livestock. Other shrubs and trees used include holly, beech, oak, ash, and willow, of the hedgerows in the Normandy region of France, Martin Blumenson said, The hedgerow is a fence, half earth, half hedge. The wall at the base is a parapet that varies in thickness from one to four or more feet. Growing out of the wall is a hedge of hawthorn, brambles, vines, originally property demarcations, hedgerows protect crops and cattle from the ocean winds that sweep across the land. The hedgerows of Normandy became barriers that slowed the advance of Allied troops following the D-Day invasion of WWII, there are thought to be around 1.8 million hedgerow trees in Britain with perhaps 98% of these being in England and Wales. Hedgerow trees are both an important part of the English landscape and are valuable habitats for wildlife, many hedgerow trees are veteran trees and therefore of great wildlife interest. The most common species are oak and ash, though in the past elm would also have been common, around 20 million elm trees, most of them hedgerow trees, were felled or died through Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. Many other species are used, notably including beech and various nut, the age structure of British hedgerow trees is old because the number of new trees is not sufficient to replace the number of trees that are lost through age or disease. New trees can be established by planting but it is more successful to leave standard trees behind when laying hedges. Trees should be left at no closer than 10 metres apart, the distance allows the young trees to develop full crowns without competing or producing too much shade
37.
Thuja
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Thuja is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae. There are five species in the genus, two native to North America and three native to eastern Asia, the genus is monophyletic and sister to Thujopsis. They are commonly known as arborvitaes, thujas or cedars, species Thuja koraiensis Nakai - Korean thuja - Jilin, Korea Thuja occidentalis L. - Eastern arborvitae, northern whitecedar - E Canada, E United States Thuja plicata Donn ex D. Serm, cupressus nootkatensis D. Don Glyptostrobus pensilis K. Koch Libocedrus plumosa Sarg. Platycladus orientalis Franco Podocarpus javanicus Merr, widdringtonia nodiflora Powrie and many more Thujas are evergreen trees growing from 10 to 200 feet tall, with stringy-textured reddish-brown bark. The shoots are flat, with side shoots only in a single plane, the leaves are scale-like 1–10 mm long, except young seedlings in their first year, which have needle-like leaves. The scale leaves are arranged in alternating decussate pairs in four rows along the twigs, the male cones are small, inconspicuous, and are located at the tips of the twigs. The five species in the genus Thuja are small to large trees with flattened branchlets. The leaves are arranged in flattened fan shaped groupings with resin-glands, the mature leaves are different from younger leaves, with those on larger branchlets having sharp, erect, free apices. The leaves on flattened lateral branchlets are crowded into appressed groups and scale-like, with the exception of T. plicata, the lateral leaves are shorter than the facial leaves. The solitary flowers are produced terminally, pollen cones with 2-6 pairs of 2-4 pollen sacked sporophylls. Seed cones ellipsoid, typically 9-14mm long, they mature and open the first year, the thin woody cone scales number from 4-6 pairs and are persistent and overlapping, with an oblong shape, they are also basifixed. The central 2-3 pairs of scales are fertile. The seed cones produce 1 to 3 seeds per scale, the seeds are lenticular in shape, a hybrid between T. standishi and T. plicata has been named as the cultivar Thuja Green Giant. Another very distinct and only distantly related species, formerly treated as Thuja orientalis, is now treated in a genus of its own, Thuja is also known in the Miocene beds of the Dakotas. Thuja species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Autumnal Moth, The Engrailed, the foliage is also readily eaten by deer, and where deer population density is high, can adversely affect the growth of young trees and the establishment of seedlings. They are widely grown as trees, and extensively used for hedges. A number of cultivars are grown and used in landscapes, homeowners will sometimes plant them as privacy trees
38.
Prime Minister of Latvia
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The Prime Minister of Latvia is the most powerful member of the Government of Latvia, and presides over the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers. The Prime Minister is nominated by the President of Latvia, the tables below display all Latvian Prime Ministers from both the first period of Latvian independence and since the country regained its independence. From 1990 to 6 July 1993, the office was known as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, a direct translation of the official Latvian term is Minister-President. Although the equivalent is used in some European languages, it is not used conventionally in English, some sources may list Stučka and Niedra as prime ministers for periods when their governments controlled most of Latvia. 2 On 15 May 1934, prime minister Ulmanis dissolved parliament and banned all political parties,3 Puppet leader appointed by Soviet authorities. Not recognized as such by the Latvian government, from 4 May 1990 after adopting the Declaration of the Restoration of Independence of the Republic. Political Party, LTF LC Independent TB/LNNK TP JL LZP LPP/LC V Lists of office-holders Official list from the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers
39.
Atis Kronvalds
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Atis Kronvalds or Kronvaldu Atis was a Latvian writer, linguist and pedagogue, as well as a prominent member of the Young Latvia movement. Kronvalds was born to a family, but was raised by priests of Durbe. After studies in Liepāja he became a private teacher, in 1860 he started to study medicine at the University of Berlin, however, he left after half a year when he ran out of money. He returned to Latvia, where he resumed work as a teacher in Durbe. After returning to Latvia, Kronvalds joined the Latvian nationalist movement Young Latvians and became an advocate of Latvian rights, language. In 1865 he moved to Tartu to study pedagogy at the University of Tartu, in 1868 he became a teacher at the teacher seminary there. He participated in the activities of local Latvian society, notably. He also wrote works of educational theory and several articles on education, in 1872 he wrote Nationale Bestrebungen, the manifesto of the Young Latvians. In 1873 Kronvalds moved to Vecpiebalga, where he worked as a teacher in a local school and he is one of the most famous Latvian authors of all time
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