1.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
2.
Wikimedia Commons
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Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, the repository contains over 38 million media files. In July 2013, the number of edits on Commons reached 100,000,000, the project was proposed by Erik Möller in March 2004 and launched on September 7,2004. The expression educational is to be according to its broad meaning of providing knowledge. Wikimedia Commons itself does not allow fair use or uploads under non-free licenses, for this reason, Wikimedia Commons always hosts freely licensed media and deletes copyright violations. The default language for Commons is English, but registered users can customize their interface to use any other user interface translations. Many content pages, in particular policy pages and portals, have also translated into various languages. Files on Wikimedia Commons are categorized using MediaWikis category system, in addition, they are often collected on individual topical gallery pages. While the project was proposed to also contain free text files. In 2012, BuzzFeed described Wikimedia Commons as littered with dicks, in 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for hosting sexualized images of children known as lolicon. Wales responded to the backlash from the Commons community by voluntarily relinquishing some site privileges, over time, additional functionality has been developed to interface Wikimedia Commons with the other Wikimedia projects. Specialized uploading tools and scripts such as Commonist have been created to simplify the process of uploading large numbers of files. In order to free content photos uploaded to Flickr, users can participate in a defunct collaborative external review process. The site has three mechanisms for recognizing quality works, one is known as Featured pictures, where works are nominated and other community members vote to accept or reject the nomination. This process began in November 2004, another process known as Quality images began in June 2006, and has a simpler nomination process comparable to Featured pictures. Quality images only accepts works created by Wikimedia users, whereas Featured pictures additionally accepts nominations of works by third parties such as NASA, the three mentioned processes select a slight part from the total number of files. However, Commons collects files of all quality levels, from the most professional level across simple documental, files with specific defects can be tagged for improvement and warning or even proposed for deletion but there exists no process of systematic rating of all files. The site held its inaugural Picture of the Year competition, for 2006, all images that were made a Featured picture during 2006 were eligible, and voted on by eligible Wikimedia users during two rounds of voting
3.
Pea
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The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum. Pea pods are botanically fruit, since they contain seeds and developed from the ovary of a flower, the name is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea, the cowpea, and the seeds from several species of Lathyrus. P. sativum is a plant, with a life cycle of one year. It is a crop grown in many parts of the world. The average pea weighs between 0.1 and 0.36 grams. The immature peas are used as a vegetable, fresh, frozen or canned and these are the basis of pease porridge and pea soup, staples of medieval cuisine, in Europe, consuming fresh immature green peas was an innovation of Early Modern cuisine. The wild pea is restricted to the Mediterranean basin and the Near East, the earliest archaeological finds of peas date from the late neolithic era of current Greece, Syria, Turkey and Jordan. In Egypt, early date from ca. 4800–4400 BC in the Nile delta area, and from ca, the pea was also present in Georgia in the 5th millennium BC. Farther east, the finds are younger, peas were present in Afghanistan ca.2000 BC, in Harappa, Pakistan, and in northwest India in 2250–1750 BC. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, this pulse crop appears in the Ganges Basin, a pea is a most commonly green, occasionally golden yellow, or infrequently purple pod-shaped vegetable, widely grown as a cool season vegetable crop. The seeds may be planted as soon as the temperature reaches 10 °C. They do not thrive in the heat of warmer temperate and lowland tropical climates. Many cultivars reach maturity about 60 days after planting, peas have both low-growing and vining cultivars. The vining cultivars grow thin tendrils from leaves that coil around any available support, a traditional approach to supporting climbing peas is to thrust branches pruned from trees or other woody plants upright into the soil, providing a lattice for the peas to climb. Branches used in fashion are sometimes called pea brush. Metal fences, twine, or netting supported by a frame are used for the same purpose, in dense plantings, peas give each other some measure of mutual support. In early times, peas were grown mostly for their dry seeds, from plants growing wild in the Mediterranean basin, constant selection since the Neolithic dawn of agriculture improved their yield
4.
Vladimir, Russia
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Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River,200 kilometers to the east of Moscow. It is served by a railway and the M7 motorway, Vladimir was one of the medieval capitals of Russia, with significant buildings surviving from the 12th century. Two of its Russian Orthodox cathedrals, a monastery, and associated buildings have been designated as among the White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal, in the past, the city was also known as Vladimir-on-Klyazma and Vladimir-Zalessky, to distinguish it from another Vladimir in Volhynia. Traditionally, the date of Vladimir has been acknowledged as 1108. This view attributes the founding of the city, and its name, to Vladimir Monomakh and it is named there as Volodymyr. On the 17th centuries maps, it was identified as Wolodimer, being established long after the city of Volodymyr in Volhynia, initially it was named Vladimir-on-Klyazma. In 1958, the 850th anniversary of the city foundation was celebrated, in the 1990s, a new opinion developed that the city is older than this. The neighboring town of Suzdal, for instance, was mentioned in 1024 and its 12th-century inhabitants alluded to Vladimir as a young town and treated its rulers with arrogance. In the words of a chronicle, they said that the people of Vladimir were their kholops. In the seniority conflicts of the 12th and early 13th centuries, Vladimir was repeatedly described as a young town compared to Suzdal, nevertheless, the Charter of Vladimir, the basic law of the city passed in 2005, explicitly mentions 990 as the date of the citys foundation. The citys most historically significant events occurred after the turn of the 12th century, under Dolgorukys son, Andrey Bogolyubsky, the city became the center of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality. It had a Golden Age, which lasted until the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1237, during this time, Vladimir enjoyed immense growth and prosperity. Andrey oversaw the building of the citys Golden Gates and the Dormition Cathedral, in 1164, Andrey attempted to establish a new metropolitanate in Vladimir, separate from that of Kiev. He was rebuffed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, scores of Russian, German, and Georgian masons worked on Vladimirs white stone cathedrals, monastery, towers, and palaces. Unlike any other buildings, their exterior was elaborately carved with high relief stone sculptures. Only three of these edifices stand today, the Dormition Cathedral, the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius, and they are included among the White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During Andreys reign, a palace in Bogolyubovo was built, as well as the world-famous Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. Andrey was assassinated at his palace at Bogolyubovo in 1175, Vladimir was besieged by the Mongol-Tatars of the Golden Horde under Batu Khan
5.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
6.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
7.
Nizhny Novgorod
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Nizhny Novgorod, colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is a city in the administrative center of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and Volga Federal District in Russia. From 1932 to 1990, it was known as Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, the city is an important economic, transportation, scientific, educational and cultural center in Russia and the vast Volga-Vyatka economic region, and is the main center of river tourism in Russia. In the historical part of the city there are a number of universities, theaters, museums. Nizhny Novgorod is located about 400 km east of Moscow, where the Oka empties into the Volga, the city was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri II of Vladimir. In 1612 Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky organized an army for the liberation of Moscow from the Poles, in 1817 Nizhny Novgorod became a great trade center of the Russian Empire. In 1896 at a fair, an All-Russia Exhibition was organized, during the Soviet period, the city turned into an important industrial center. In particular, the Gorky Automobile Plant was constructed in this period, then the city was given the nickname Russian Detroit. During the World War II Gorky became the biggest provider of equipment to the front. Due to this, the Luftwaffe constantly bombed the city from the air, the majority of the German bombs fell in the area of the Gorky Automobile Plant. Although almost all the sites of plant were completely destroyed. After the war, Gorky became a city and remained one until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. At that time the city was renamed Nizhny Novgorod once again, in 1985 the metro was opened. In 2016 Vladimir Putin opened the new 70th Anniversary of Victory Plant which is part of the Almaz-Antey Air, the Kremlin – the main center of the city – contains the main government agencies of the city and the Volga Federal District. Originally the name was just Novgorod, but to distinguish it from the other, older and well-known Novgorod to the west and this land was named lower because it is situated downstream, especially from the point of view of other Russian cities such as Moscow, Vladimir and Murom. Later it was transformed into the name of the city that literally means Lower Newtown. Later a major stronghold for border protection, Nizhny Novgorod fortress took advantage of a moat formed by the two rivers. With the agreement of the Mongol Khan, Nizhny Novgorod was incorporated into the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality in 1264, after 86 years its importance further increased when the seat of the powerful Suzdal Principality was moved here from Gorodets in 1350. Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich sought to make his capital a rival worthy of Moscow, he built a stone citadel, the earliest extant manuscript of the Russian Primary Chronicle, the Laurentian Codex, was written for him by the local monk Laurentius in 1377
8.
Soviet Census (1989)
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The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants. In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States, although it was well behind China and India. In 1989, about half of the Soviet Unions total population lived in the Russian SFSR, almost two-thirds of the population was urban, leaving the rural population with some 34. 3%. In this way, its gradual increase continued, as shown by the represented by 47. 9%,56. 3% and 62. 3% of 1959,1970 and 1979 respectively. The previous postwar censuses, conducted in 1959,1970 and 1979, had enumerated 208,826,650,241,720,134, and 262,436,227 inhabitants respectively. In 1990, the Soviet Union was more populated than both the United States and Canada together, having some 40 million more inhabitants than the U. S. alone. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the next census was possibly planned for 1999. Research Guide to Russian and Soviet Censuses, Ithaca, Cornell University Press,1986, dewdney, Population change in the Soviet Union, 1979-1989, Geography, Vol.75, Pt.3, No. Subjects of Russia, on the www. statoids. com website
9.
Belfry (architecture)
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The belfry is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached to a city hall or other civic building. A belfry encloses the bell chamber, the room in which the bells are housed, the openings may be left uncovered but are commonly filled with louvers to prevent rain and snow from entering. There may be a room below the bell chamber to house the ringers. In larger towns, watchmen in these towers were also on the lookout for fires, todays Dutch belfort combines the term bell with the term stronghold. Bats in the belfry Belfries of Belgium and France
10.
Vyacheslav Tikhonov
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Vyacheslav Vasilyevich Tikhonov was a Soviet and Russian actor whose best known role was as Soviet spy, Stierlitz in the television series Seventeen Moments of Spring. He was a recipient of state awards, including the titles of Peoples Artist of the USSR. He was born in Pavlovsky Posad near Moscow and his mother was a kindergarten teacher and his father an engineer in the local textile factory. Vyacheslav dreamed of acting but his parents envisioned a different career, after employment as a metal worker, he began acting career in 1945. By entering, not without difficulty, the Actors’ Faculty of VGIK, after graduating VGIK with honours in 1950, he began his acting career on stage of Theatre Studio of Film Actor, where he worked for six years. In 1948 he married Nonna Mordyukova, an actress at the time. The marriage was dissolved in 1963, later Tikhonov married a second time to Tamara Ivanovna Tikhonova and had one child with her, Anna Tikhonova in 1969. He died on 4 December 2009 in Moscow, Russia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed his condolences to Tikhonovs family. Tikhonov made his debut in 1948. For the next few years, he appeared in relatively low-profile films, one of his notable roles there was the bear in the Erast Garin production of Evgeny Shvartss fairy-tale An Ordinary Miracle. In Yevgeny Tashkovs Zhazhda, based on events, Tikhonov, in the first of his spy roles. In Dve Zhizni Tikhonov plays the less fortunate of two men who meet in France, 40-odd years after fighting on opposite sides of the 1917 Revolution. Rostotskys Dozhivyom do Ponedelnika, in which a history teacher plans to defend a student at a disciplinary meeting, in 1979 Rostotsky made a documentary about his friend, called Profession, film actor. Tikhonov also played Prince Andrei Bolkonski in the Oscar-winning adaptation of Leo Tolstoys War, but Tikhonov reportedly got the role only at the suggestion of the Minister of Culture when Innokenty Smoktunovsky opted for Kozintsevs Hamlet and Oleg Strizhenov was also unavailable. S. and Britain. The film enjoyed enormous popularity among Russian viewers of several generations, prior to that, however, it had faced the risk of remaining unknown, Mikhail Suslov had opposed the film to go on general release. He had claimed that the film was not showing the feat of the Soviet people in the war, fortunately, the decision to release the would-be classic film was supported by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov. Although several of Semyonovs Stierlitz novels were adapted for the screen, Tikhonov did not return, the role won him the title Peoples Artist of the USSR, one of a number of awards. In 1976, rejoined Bondarchuk in an adaptation of Sholokhovs They Fought for Their Country and it suited Tikhonov by concentrating on character rather than histrionics and won him another state prize in the year that he finally joined the Communist Party
11.
Khanate of Kazan
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The Khanate of Kazan was a medieval Bulgarian-Tatar Turkic state that occupied the territory of former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. Its khans were the descendants of Tugh Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia and it was one of the successor states of the Golden Horde, and it came to an end when it was conquered by the Tsardom of Russia. The territory of the khanate comprised the Muslim Bolgar-populated lands of the Bolğar, Cükätäw, Kazan, the Volga, Kama and Vyatka were the main rivers of the khanate, as well as the major trade ways. The majority of the population were Kazan Tatars and their self-identity was not restricted to Tatars, many identified themselves simply as Muslims or as the people of Kazan. The local feudal nobility consisted of ethnic Bolgars, but the court, according to the Ginghizide tradition, the local Turkic tribes were also called Tatars by the steppe nobility and, later, by the Russian elite. Part of the higher nobility hailed from the Golden Horde and it included members of four leading noble families, Arghin, Barin, Qipchaq, and Shirin. Peoples subject to the khan included the Chuvash, Mari, Mordva, Tatar-Mishar, Udmurt, the Permians and some of the Komi tribes were also incorporated into the Khanate. The Mishars had arrived during the period of the Golden Horde and gradually assimilated the resident Finnic Mordvins and their territory was governed by former steppe Tatars. Some Mishar duchies were never controlled from Kazan and instead gravitated towards the Qasim Khanate or Muscovite Russia, most of the khanate territory was covered by forests, and only the southern part adjoined the steppe. Later, Nogais were transplanted and replaced with Kalmyks, more recently, this area was settled by Tatars, Chuvash and Russians, who erected defensive walls to guard the southern border. Since the khanate was established, Tatar Cossack troops defended the khanate from the Nogais, Russian sources indicate that at least five languages were used in the Kazan khanate. The first and foremost was the Tatar language, including the Middle dialect of the Kazan Tatars and its written form was the favoured language of the state. The Chuvash language was a descendant of the Bolgar language, spoken by the pagan Chuvash people, the Bolgar language also strongly influenced the Middle dialect of Tatar language. The other three were probably the Mari language, the Mordvin languages and the Bashkir language, likewise developed from the Bolgar, the former territories of Volga Bulgaria may have regained a degree of independence within the disintegrating Golden Horde by the turn of the 15th century. The principality was self-governed and maintained a dynasty of Bolgar rulers and it has been suggested that the transfer of power from the local Bolgar dynasty to Muhammad was finalized by his son Maxmud in 1445. Throughout its history, the khanate was prone to civil turmoil, the khans were replaced 19 times in 115 years. There were a total of fifteen reigning khans, some ascending the throne multiple times, the Khan was often elected from the Gengizides by vernacular nobility and even by the citizens themselves
12.
Mongol invasion of Rus'
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As part of the Mongol invasion of Europe, the Mongol Empire invaded Kievan Rus in the 13th century, destroying numerous cities, including Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow, Vladimir, and Kiev. The campaign was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka River in May 1223, a full-scale invasion of Rus by Batu Khan followed, from 1237 to 1240. The invasion was ended by the Mongol succession process upon the death of Ögedei Khan, all Rus principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became part of the Golden Horde empire, some of which lasted until 1480. As it was undergoing fragmentation, Kievan Rus faced the unexpected eruption of a foreign foe coming from the mysterious regions of the Far East. For our sins, writes the Rus chronicler of the time, no one knew their origin or whence they came, or what religion they practiced. That is known only to God, and perhaps to wise men learned in books, the princes of Rus first heard of the coming Mongol warriors from the nomadic Cumans. In response to call, Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav Romanovich the Old joined forces and set out eastward to meet the foe. In the Secret History of the Mongols, the reference to this early battle is, Then he sent Dorbei the Fierce off against the city of Merv. He sent Subetei the Brave off to war in the North where he defeated eleven kingdoms and tribes, crossing the Volga and Ural Rivers, finally going to war with Kiev. The vast Mongol hordes of around 35,000 mounted archers, commanded by Batu Khan and Subutai, crossed the Volga River and it took them a year to extinguish the resistance of the Volga Bulgarians, the Cumans-Kipchaks, and the Alani. In November 1237, Batu Khan sent his envoys to the court of Yuri II of Vladimir, a month later, the hordes besieged Ryazan. After six days of battle, the city was totally annihilated. Alarmed by the news, Yuri II sent his sons to detain the invaders, having burnt down Kolomna and Moscow, the horde laid siege to Vladimir on February 4,1238. Three days later, the capital of Vladimir-Suzdal was taken and burnt to the ground, the royal family perished in the fire, while the grand prince retreated northward. Crossing the Volga, he mustered a new army, which was annihilated by the Mongols in the Battle of the Sit River on March 4. Chinese siege engines were used by the Mongols under Tului to raze the walls of Russian cities, the most difficult to take was the small town of Kozelsk, whose boy-prince Vasily, son of Titus, and inhabitants resisted the Mongols for seven weeks, killing 4,000. As the story goes, at the news of the Mongol approach, the town of Kitezh with all its inhabitants was submerged into a lake. The only major cities to escape destruction were Novgorod and Pskov, the Mongols were advancing on Novgorod but unexpectedly turned back at the site mentioned as Ignach Cross, of which the exact location is not known
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