Budapest
Budapest is the capital and the most populous city of Hungary, the tenth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits. The city had an estimated population of 1,752,704 in 2016 distributed over a land area of about 525 square kilometres. Budapest is both a city and county, forms the centre of the Budapest metropolitan area, which has an area of 7,626 square kilometres and a population of 3,303,786, comprising 33 percent of the population of Hungary; the history of Budapest began when an early Celtic settlement transformed into the Roman town of Aquincum, the capital of Lower Pannonia. The Hungarians arrived in the territory in the late 9th century; the area was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241. Buda, the settlements on the west bank of the river, became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture by the 15th century; the Battle of Mohács in 1526 was followed by nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule. After the reconquest of Buda in 1686, the region entered a new age of prosperity.
Pest-Buda became a global city with the unification of Buda, Óbuda, Pest on 17 November 1873, with the name'Budapest' given to the new capital. Budapest became the co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a great power that dissolved in 1918, following World War I; the city was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Battle of Budapest in 1945, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Budapest is an Alpha − global city with strengths in commerce, media, fashion, technology and entertainment, it is Hungary's financial centre and the highest ranked Central and Eastern European city on Innovation Cities Top 100 index, as well ranked as the second fastest-developing urban economy in Europe. Budapest is the headquarters of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, the European Police College and the first foreign office of the China Investment Promotion Agency. Over 40 colleges and universities are located in Budapest, including the Eötvös Loránd University, the Semmelweis University and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
Opened in 1896, the city's subway system, the Budapest Metro, serves 1.27 million, while the Budapest Tram Network serves 1.08 million passengers daily. Budapest is cited as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, ranked as "the world's second best city" by Condé Nast Traveler, "Europe's 7th most idyllic place to live" by Forbes. Among Budapest's important museums and cultural institutions is the Museum of Fine Arts. Further famous cultural institutions are the Hungarian National Museum, House of Terror, Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Hungarian State Opera House and National Széchényi Library; the central area of the city along the Danube River is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has many notable monuments, including the Hungarian Parliament, Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion, Gresham Palace, Széchenyi Chain Bridge, Matthias Church and the Liberty Statue. Other famous landmarks include Andrássy Avenue, St. Stephen's Basilica, Heroes' Square, the Great Market Hall, the Nyugati Railway Station built by the Eiffel Company of Paris in 1877 and the second-oldest metro line in the world, the Millennium Underground Railway.
The city has around 80 geothermal springs, the largest thermal water cave system, second largest synagogue, third largest Parliament building in the world. Budapest attracts 4.4 million international tourists per year, making it a popular destination in Europe. The separate towns of Buda, Óbuda, Pest were in 1873 unified and given the new name Budapest. Before this, the towns together had sometimes been referred to colloquially as "Pest-Buda". Pest has been sometimes used colloquially as a shortened name for Budapest. All varieties of English pronounce the -s- as in the English word pest; the -u in Buda- is pronounced either /u/ like food or /ju/ like cue. In Hungarian, the -s- is pronounced /ʃ/ as in wash; the origins of the names "Buda" and "Pest" are obscure. The first name comes from: Buda was the name of the first constable of the fortress built on the Castle Hill in the 11th century or a derivative of Bod or Bud, a personal name of Turkic origin, meaning'twig'. or a Slavic personal name, the short form of Budimír, Budivoj.
Linguistically, however, a German origin through the Slavic derivative вода is not possible, there is no certainty that a Turkic word comes from the word buta ~ buda'branch, twig'. According to a legend recorded in chronicles from the Middle Ages, "Buda" comes from the name of its founder, brother of Hunnic ruler Attila. There are several theories about Pest. One states that the name derives from Roman times, since there was a local fortress called by Ptolemaios "Pession". Another has it that Pest originates in the Slavic word for пещера, or peštera. A third cites pešt, referencing a cave where fires burned or a limekiln; the first settlement on the territory of Budapest was built by Celts before 1 AD. It was occupied by the Romans; the Roman settlement – Aquincum – became the main city of Pannonia Inferior in 106 AD. At first it was a military settlement, the city rose around it, making it the focal point of the city's commercial life. Today this area corresponds to the Óbuda district within Budapest.
The Romans constructed roads, amphitheaters and houses with heated floors in this fortified military camp. The Roman city of Aquincum is the best-conserved of the Roman sites in Hungary; the archaeological site was turned into a museum with open-air sections. The Magyar tribes led by Árpád, forc
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army shortened to Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established after the 1917 October Revolution; the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Beginning in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; the Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. During operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of casualties the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war and captured the Nazi German capital, Berlin. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, and, to create a people's militia and to fuse it with the army."
At the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. 23% of the male population of the Russian Empire were mobilized. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters, 1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners. He estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. While the Imperial Russian Army was being taken apart, "it became apparent that the rag-tag Red Guard units and elements of the imperial army who had gone over the side of the Bolsheviks were quite inadequate to the task of defending the new government against external foes." Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918. They envisioned a body "formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes." All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible. Its role being the defense "of the Soviet authority, the creation of a basis for the transformation of the standing army into a force deriving its strength from a nation in arms, furthermore, the creation of a basis for the support of the coming Socialist Revolution in Europe."
Enlistment was conditional upon "guarantees being given by a military or civil committee functioning within the territory of the Soviet Power, or by party or trade union committees or, in extreme cases, by two persons belonging to one of the above organizations." In the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a "collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary." Because the Red Army was composed of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations and assistance with farm work. Some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army. If they were turned away they would prepare care-packages. In some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army; the Council of People's Commissars appointed itself the supreme head of the Red Army, delegating command and administration of the army to the Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Special All-Russian College within this commissariat. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy.
Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Steinberg were specified as people's commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars. At a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked: "We have no army; the demoralized soldiers are fleeing, panic-stricken, as soon as they see a German helmet appear on the horizon, abandoning their artillery and all war material to the triumphantly advancing enemy. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies. We have no power to stay the enemy; the Russian Civil War occurred in three periods: October 1917 – November 1918: From the Bolshevik Revolution to the First World War Armistice, developed from the Bolshevik government's nationalization of traditional Cossack lands in November 1917. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledin's Volunteer Army in the River Don region; the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics.
The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, in which twelve foreign countries supported anti-Bolshevik militias. A series of engagements resulted, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. January 1919 – November 1919: Initially the White armies advanced: from the south, under General Anton Denikin; the Whites defeated the Red Army on each front. Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked: the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchak's army in June, the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-Nove
Carpathian Military District
The Carpathian Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces during the Cold War and subsequently of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the early Post-Soviet period. It was established on 3 May 1946 on the base of the 1st Ukrainian Front, 4th Ukrainian Front, Lviv Military District, it became part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 1991 and was disbanded by being redesignated the Western Operational Command in January 1998. Two districts were formed in what was to become the district's territory in 1944 and 1945. During May 1944 in the freed territory of the West Ukraine the Lvov Military District was formed, headed by the former deputy commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. On 9 July 1945 the Carpathian Military District was ordered created from the headquarters of the 4th Ukrainian Front in Chernovtsy. Under the command of former front commander Army General Andrey Yeryomenko, it was responsible for troops on the territory of Stanislav, Chernovtsy, Vinnitsa and Kamenets-Podolsk Oblasts, excluding Berezdovsky, Shepetovsky and Slavutsky Districts.
The district's troops were from the 4th Ukrainian Front, but included units transferred from the Lvov and Kiev Military Districts. By the fall of 1945, the district included the 27th and 38th Armies, transferred from the Southern and Central Groups of Forces, respectively; the 35th Guards, 33rd, 37th Rifle Corps were directly subordinated to the district headquarters when 27th Army disbanded around this time. On 8 September the 133rd Rifle Corps at Stanislav was disbanded with its two divisions; the 31st Tank Division was directly subordinated to the district at Proskurov. By a decree of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union on 3 May 1946, the Lvov and Carpathian Military Districts were merged as the Carpathian Military District with headquarters at Lvov; the District's territory included 10 regions of the Ukrainian SSR – Vinnytsia, Zhitomir, Stanislav, Rovno, Kamenets-Podolsk and Chernovtsy. The 52nd Army began reorganizing on the district's territory as the 8th Mechanized Army; the newly created district included the 13th and 38th Armies, with air support provided by the 14th Air Army.
The 13th and 38th Armies totalled five rifle corps headquarters and seventeen divisions between them. In 1947, the 50th, 280th, 395th Rifle, 18th Tank, the 23rd and 25th Mechanized Divisions were disbanded; the 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps was in the Lvov Military District in September 1945. It became part of the 38th Army in the Carpathian Military District, but disbanded by 1957. Troops of the district, including 57th Air Army, took part in'Operation Danube,' the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia; the District became subordinate to the Western Strategic Direction in the late 1970s/early 80s. The 8th Tank, 13th, 38th Armies were stationed in the District for most of its existence; the 14th Air Army and 2nd Army of the Soviet Air Defence Forces were located there. Scott and Scott reported the HQ address in 1979 as Lviv-8, Vulytsa Vatutina, Bud 12. In September 1990, the 66th Artillery Corps was formed in Novye Belokorovichi, Zhitomir Oblast, from parts of the disbanded HQ 50th Rocket Army.
It took under control 81st Artillery Divisions. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk appointed Lieutenant General Petro Ivanovich Shulyak, former commander of the 13th Army, as commander of the district on April 7, 1994, in Presidential Ukaz N 143/94. Former Soviet and Western sources agree on an end-1980s figure of three tank divisions and nine or ten motor rifle divisions in the District. In its last years under Ukrainian control the District saw a large reduction in the number of troops within it as Ukraine reduced the 780,000 troops it had inherited from the Soviet Union to comply with the treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe; the District's forces at the end of the 1980s included: 8th Tank Army - Redesignated 8th Army Corps 1 December 199323rd Tank Division, 1990 converted into a military equipment storage unit 30th Guards Tank Division 13th Red Banner Army 51st Guards Motor Rifle Division 97th Guards Motor Rifle Division 161st Motor Rifle Division 38th Army 17th Guards Motor Rifle Division 70th Guards Motor Rifle Division.
Redesignated 857th Weapons and Equipment Storage Base January 1991. 128th Guards Motor Rifle Division District Troops26th Artillery Division Included 897th Guards Gun Artillery Kiev Red Banner order of Bogdan Khmelnytsky Regiment, now the 11th Artillery Brigade 81st Artillery Division 24th Motor Rifle Division 66th Guards Training Motor Rifle Division 128th Guards Tank Training Regiment, 145th, 193rd, 195th Guards Motor Rifle Training Regiments 117th Guards Tank Training Division 242nd, 254th, 286th Tank Training Regiments, 320th Guards Motor Rifle Training Regiment. Division became the 119th Guards District Training Centre. 242nd Tank Training Regiment became the 95th Airmobile Brigade. 8th Special Forces Brigade GRU (formed Izyaslav, Khmelnitskiy Oblast, Carpathian Military District, Decembe
Hungary
Hungary is a country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometres in the Carpathian Basin, it borders Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Austria to the northwest, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest, Slovenia to the west. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a medium-sized member state of the European Union; the official language is Hungarian, the most spoken Uralic language in the world, among the few non-Indo-European languages to be spoken in Europe. Hungary's capital and largest city is Budapest; the territory of modern Hungary was for centuries inhabited by a succession of peoples, including Celts, Germanic tribes, West Slavs and the Avars. The foundations of the Hungarian state were established in the late ninth century CE by the Hungarian grand prince Árpád following the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, his great-grandson Stephen I ascended the throne in 1000, converting his realm to a Christian kingdom. By the 12th century, Hungary became a regional power, reaching its cultural and political height in the 15th century.
Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. It came under Habsburg rule at the turn of the 18th century, joined Austria to form the Austro–Hungarian Empire, a major European power; the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed after World War I, the subsequent Treaty of Trianon established Hungary's current borders, resulting in the loss of 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, 32% of ethnic Hungarians. Following the tumultuous interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a socialist republic spanning four decades; the country gained widespread international attention as a result of its 1956 revolution and the seminal opening of its previously-restricted border with Austria in 1989, which accelerated the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became a democratic parliamentary republic.
Hungary is an OECD high-income economy and has the world's 58th largest economy by PPP. It ranks 45th on the Human Development Index, owing in large part to its social security system, universal health care, tuition-free secondary education. Hungary's rich cultural history includes significant contributions to the arts, literature, sports and technology, it is the 13th most popular tourist destination in Europe, attracting 15.8 million international tourists in 2017, owing to attractions such as the largest thermal water cave system in the world, second largest thermal lake, the largest lake in Central Europe and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. Hungary's cultural and academic prominence classify it as a middle power in global affairs. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and has been part of the Schengen Area since 2007, it is a member of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe, the Visegrád Group.
The "H" in the name of Hungary is most due to early founded historical associations with the Huns, who had settled Hungary prior to the Avars. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Byzantine Greek Oungroi. According to an explanation,the Greek name was borrowed from Old Bulgarian ągrinŭ, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the collective name for the tribes who joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars; the Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of ország. The word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri; the first element magy is from Proto-Ugric *mäńć-'man, person' found in the name of the Mansi people. The second element eri,'man, lineage', survives in Hungarian férj'husband', is cognate with Mari erge'son', Finnish archaic yrkä'young man'; the Roman Empire conquered the territory west of the Danube between 35 and 9 BC. From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century, Pannonia was part of the Roman Empire, located within part of Hungary's territory.
Around AD 41–54, a 500-strong cavalry unit created the settlement of Aquincum and a Roman legion of 6,000 men was stationed here by AD 89. A civil city grew in the neighbourhood of the military settlement and in AD 106 Aquincum became the focal point of the commercial life of this area and the capital city of the province of Pannonia Inferior; this area now corresponds to the Óbuda district of Budapest, with the Roman ruins now forming part of the modern Aquincum museum. Came the Huns, a Central Asian tribe who built a powerful empire. After Hunnish rule, the Germanic Ostrogoths and Gepids, the Avar Khaganate, had a presence in the Carpathian Basin. In the 9th century, East Francia, the First Bulgarian Empire and Great Moravia ruled the territory of the Carpathian Basin; the freshly unified Hungarians led by Árpád, settled in the Carpathian Basin starting in 895. According to linguistic evidence, they originated from an ancient Uralic-speaking population that inhabited the forested area between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains.
As a federation of united tribes, Hungary was established in 895, some 50 years after the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun in 843, before the unification of the Anglo-Saxon king
Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, popularly known as Klim Voroshilov, was a prominent Soviet military officer and politician during the Stalin era. He was one of the original five Marshals of the Soviet Union, along with Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Alexander Yegorov, three senior commanders, Vasily Blyukher, Semyon Budyonny, Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnyeye, Bakhmut uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire, into a railway worker's family of Russian ethnicity. According to the Soviet Major General Petro Grigorenko, Voroshilov himself alluded to the heritage of his birth-country, to the previous family name of Voroshilo. Voroshilov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Voroshilov became a member of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars and Commissar for Internal Affairs along with Vasiliy Averin, he was well known for aiding Joseph Stalin in the Revolutionary Military Council, having become associated with Stalin during the Red Army's 1918 defense of Tsaritsyn.
Voroshilov was active as a commander of the Southern Front during the Russian Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War while with the 1st Cavalry Army. As Political Commissar serving co-equally with Stalin, Voroshilov was responsible for the morale of the 1st Cavalry Army, composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia. Voroshilov headed the Petrograd Police during 1917 and 1918. Voroshilov served as a member of the Central Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. In 1925, after the death of Mikhail Frunze, Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, a post he held until 1934, his main accomplishment in this period was to move key Soviet war industries east of the Urals, so that the Soviet Union could strategically retreat, while keeping its manufacturing capability intact. Frunze's political position adhered to that of the Troika, but Stalin preferred to have a close, personal ally in charge. Frunze was urged by a group of Stalin's hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer, despite previous doctors recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunze's own unwillingness.
He died on the operating table of a massive overdose of an anaesthetic. Voroshilov became a full member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960. Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935, he played a central role in Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s, denouncing many of his own military colleagues and subordinates when asked to do so by Stalin. He wrote personal letters to exiled former Soviet officers and diplomats such as commissar Mikhail Ostrovsky, asking them to return voluntarily to the Soviet Union and falsely reassuring them that they would not face retribution from authorities. Voroshilov signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership after Molotov and Kaganovich. During World War II, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee. Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940 but, due to poor Soviet planning and Voroshilov's incompetence as a general, the Red Army suffered about 185,000 casualties.
When the leadership gathered at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo, Stalin shouted at Voroshilov for the losses. Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of roast suckling pig on the table. Nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland, he was replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko. Voroshilov was made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters. Voroshilov argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, but he signed the order for their execution in the Katyn massacre of 1940. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction, controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded the Leningrad Front. Working alongside military commander Andrei Zhdanov as German advances threatened to cut off Leningrad, he displayed considerable personal bravery in defiance of heavy shelling at Ivanovskoye.
However, the style of counterattack he launched had long since been abandoned by strategists and drew contempt from his military colleagues. Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead. In an embarrassing incident at the 1943 Tehran Conference, during a ceremony to receive the "Sword of Stalingrad" from Winston Churchill, he took the sword from Stalin but allowed the sword to fall from its scabbard onto his toes in the presence of the Big
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the southeast, Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, it has a predominantly temperate-continental climate. With a total area of 238,397 square kilometres, Romania is the 12th largest country and the 7th most populous member state of the European Union, having 20 million inhabitants, its capital and largest city is Bucharest, other major urban areas include Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Constanța, Brașov. The River Danube, Europe's second-longest river, rises in Germany's Black Forest and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romania's Danube Delta; the Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest, include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m. Modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.
The new state named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. Following World War I, when Romania fought on the side of the Allied powers, Bessarabia, Transylvania as well as parts of Banat, Crișana, Maramureș became part of the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania. Following the war, under the occupation of the Red Army's forces, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards a market economy; the sovereign state of Romania is a developing country and ranks 52nd in the Human Development Index.
It has the world's 47th largest economy by nominal GDP and an annual economic growth rate of 7%, the highest in the EU at the time. Following rapid economic growth in the early 2000s, Romania has an economy predominantly based on services, is a producer and net exporter of machines and electric energy, featuring companies like Automobile Dacia and OMV Petrom, it has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, part of NATO since 2004, part of the European Union since 2007. An overwhelming majority of the population identifies themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are native speakers of Romanian, a Romance language. Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning "citizen of Rome"; the first known use of the appellation was attested to in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania and Wallachia. The oldest known surviving document written in Romanian, a 1521 letter known as the "Letter of Neacșu from Câmpulung", is notable for including the first documented occurrence of the country's name: Wallachia is mentioned as Țeara Rumânească.
Two spelling forms: român and rumân were used interchangeably until sociolinguistic developments in the late 17th century led to semantic differentiation of the two forms: rumân came to mean "bondsman", while român retained the original ethnolinguistic meaning. After the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a revolutionary leader of the early 19th century, used the term Rumânia to refer to the principality of Wallachia."The use of the name Romania to refer to the common homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been in use since 11 December 1861. In English, the name of the country was spelt Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975. Romania is the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. A handful of other languages have switched to "o" like English, but most languages continue to prefer forms with u, e.g. French Roumanie and Swedish Rumänien, Spanish Rumania, Polish Rumunia, Russian Румыния, Japanese ルーマニア.
1859–1862: United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia 1862–1866: Romanian United Principalities or Romania 1866–1881: Romania or Principality of Romania 1881–1947: Kingdom of Romania or Romania 1947–1965: Romanian People's Republic or Romania 1965–December, 1989: Socialist Republic of Romania or Romania December, 1989–present: Romania Human remains found in Peștera cu Oase, radiocarbon dated as being from circa 40,000 years ago, represent the oldest known Homo sapiens in Europe. Neolithic techniques and agriculture spread after the arrival of a mixed group of people from Thessaly in the 6th millenium BC. Excavations near a salt spring at Lunca yielded the earliest evidence for salt exploitation in Europe; the first permanent settlements appeared in the Neolithic. Some of them developed into "proto-cities"; the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture—the best known archaeological culture of Old Europe—flourished in Muntenia, southeastern Transylvania and northeastern Moldavia in the 3rd m
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin, or the Kremlin, is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River to the south, Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square to the east, the Alexander Garden to the west. It is the best known of the kremlins and includes five palaces, four cathedrals, the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. In addition, within this complex is the Grand Kremlin Palace, the Tsar's Moscow residence; the complex now serves as the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation and as a museum with 2,746,405 visitors in 2017. The name "Kremlin" means "fortress inside a city", is also used metonymically to refer to the government of the Russian Federation in a similar sense to how "White House" refers to the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it referred to the government of the Soviet Union and its highest members. The term "Kremlinology" refers to the study of Russian politics; the site had been continuously inhabited by Finno-Ugric peoples since the 2nd century BC.
The Slavs occupied the south-western portion of Borovitsky Hill as early as the 11th century, as evidenced by a metropolitan seal from the 1090s, unearthed by Soviet archaeologists in the area. The Vyatichi built a fortified structure on the hill where the Neglinnaya River flowed into the Moskva River. Up to the 14th century, the site was known as the'grad of Moscow'; the word "Kremlin" was first recorded in 1331. The grad was extended by Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy in 1156, destroyed by the Mongols in 1237 and rebuilt in oak in 1339. Dmitri Donskoi replaced the oak walls with a strong citadel of white limestone in 1366–1368 on the basic foundations of the current walls. Dmitri's son Vasily I resumed construction of cloisters in the Kremlin; the newly built Cathedral of the Annunciation was painted by Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev, Prokhor in 1406. The Chudov Monastery was founded by Metropolitan Alexis. Grand Prince Ivan III organised the reconstruction of the Kremlin, inviting a number of skilled architects from Renaissance Italy, including Petrus Antonius Solarius, who designed the new Kremlin wall and its towers, Marcus Ruffus who designed the new palace for the prince.
It was during his reign that three extant cathedrals of the Kremlin, the Deposition Church, the Palace of Facets were constructed. The highest building of the city and Muscovite Russia was the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, built in 1505–08 and augmented to its present height in 1600; the Kremlin walls as they now appear were built between 1485 and 1495. Spasskie gates of the wall still bear a dedication in Latin praising Petrus Antonius Solarius for the design. After construction of the new kremlin walls and churches was complete, the monarch decreed that no structures should be built in the immediate vicinity of the citadel; the Kremlin was separated from the walled merchant town by a 30-meter-wide moat, over which Saint Basil's Cathedral was constructed during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The same tsar renovated some of his grandfather's palaces, added a new palace and cathedral for his sons, endowed the Trinity metochion inside the Kremlin; the metochion was administrated by the Trinity Monastery and contained the graceful tower church of St. Sergius, described by foreigners as one of the finest in the country.
During the Time of Troubles, the Kremlin was held by the Polish forces for two years, between 21 September 1610 and 26 October 1612. The Kremlin's liberation by the volunteer army of prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin paved the way for the election of Mikhail Romanov as the new tsar. During his reign and that of his son Alexis and grandson Feodor, the eleven-domed Upper Saviour Cathedral, Armorial Gate, Terem Palace, Amusement Palace and the palace of Patriarch Nikon were built. Following the death of Alexis's son and the Moscow Uprising of 1682, Tsar Peter escaped with much difficulty from the Kremlin and as a result developed a dislike for it. Three decades Peter abandoned the residence of his forefathers for his new capital, Saint Petersburg. Although still used for coronation ceremonies, the Kremlin was abandoned and neglected until 1773, when Catherine the Great engaged Vasili Bazhenov to build her new residence there. Bazhenov produced a bombastic Neoclassical design on a heroic scale, which involved the demolition of several churches and palaces, as well as a portion of the Kremlin wall.
After the preparations were over, construction was delayed due to lack of funds. Several years the architect Matvey Kazakov supervised the reconstruction of the dismantled sections of the wall and of some structures of the Chudov Monastery, built the spacious and luxurious Offices of the Senate, since adapted for use as the principal workplace of the President of Russia. During the Imperial period, from the early 18th and until the late 19th century, the Kremlin walls were traditionally painted white, in accordance with fashion. French forces occupied the Kremlin from 2 September to 11 October 1812, following the French invasion of Russia; when Napoleon retreated from Moscow, he ordered the whole Kremlin to be blown up. The Kremlin Arsenal, several portions of the Kremlin Wall and several wall towers were destroyed by explosions and the Faceted Chamber and other churches were damaged by fire. Explosions continued for
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