1.
Eastern Slavic naming customs
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They are also featured in the non-Slavic Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan as a result of the expansion of Russia and the result of Russification. As with most cultures, a person has a name chosen by the parents. First names in East Slavic languages mostly originate from two sources, Orthodox church tradition and native pre-Christian Slavic lexicons, all first names are single, non-doubled. Doubled first names are a very rare foreign-influenced instance, most doubled first names are spelled with the dash. Being highly synthetic, Eastern Slavic languages treat personal names as grammatical nouns and this auxiliary stem may be identical to the word stem of the full name while most names have it derived unproductively. Most commonly, Russian philologists distinguish the forms of given names, The short name, historically also half-name, is the most simple. Some names, such as Zhanna, Mark, etc. do not possess short forms, in the latter case, one form is usually more informal than the other. Diminutive forms are produced from the name by means of various suffixes. Unlike the full name, a diminutive name carries a particular emotional attitude, depending on the nature of this attitude, nameforms can be subdivided in three broad groups, affectionate, familiar and slang. Typically formed by suffixes -еньк-, -оньк-, -ечк-, -ушк and it is often used to address children or intimate friends. Within a more official context, this form may be combined with honorific plural to address a female colleague. Colloquial diminutives are derived from short names by means of -к- suffix, expressing a highly familiar attitude, it may be considered rude or even pejorative outside of friendly context. Slang forms mostly exist for male names, being produced though suffixes -ян, -он and these suffixes give off the sense of male brotherhood once expressed by patronymic-only form of address in Soviet Union. Originating in criminal communities, these came into wide usage in Russia in the 1990s. During the days of revolutionary enthusiasm, as part of the campaign to rid Russia of bourgeois culture, there was a drive to invent new, as a result, a large number of Soviet children were given unusual or atypical names. The patronymic name is based on the first name of the father and is written in all legal, if used with the first name, the patronymic always follows it. The patronymic is formed by a combination of the fathers name, the suffix -ович is used for son, suffix -овна - for daughter. For example, if the name was Иван, then the patronymic will be Иванович for a son
2.
Yuri Andropov
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Later in 1982, he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a position he held until his death fifteen months later. Andropov was born in Nagutskaya, Stavropol Region, Russian Empire, Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College and graduated in 1936. Both of his parents died early, leaving Yuri an orphan at the age of thirteen, as a teenager he worked as a loader, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for the Volga steamship line. At 16, Yuri Andropov, then a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, was a worker in the town of Mozdok in the North Ossetian ASSR, during World War II, Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work, between 1946 and 1951, he studied at the university of Petrozavodsk. In 1947, he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, in 1951 Andropov was transferred, by the decision of the CPSU Central Committee, to its staff. He was appointed an inspector and then the head of a subdepartment of the Committee, in July 1954 he was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Hungary and held this position during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Andropov played a key role in crushing the Hungarian uprising and he convinced a reluctant Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary. He is known as ‘The Butcher of Budapest’ for his ruthless suppression of the Hungarian uprising, the Hungarian leaders were arrested and Imre Nagy and others executed. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple. In 1957 Andropov returned to Moscow from Budapest in order to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers Parties in Socialist Countries, in 1961, he was elected full member of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962. He gained additional powers in 1973, when he was promoted to member of the Politburo. During the Prague Spring events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Andropov was the proponent of the extreme measures. The KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to NATO aggression or to a coup, however his message was destroyed because it contradicted the conspiracy theory fabricated by Andropov. Andropov ordered a number of measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS. After the assassination attempt against Brezhnev in January 1969, Andropov led the interrogation of the captured gunman, Ilyin was pronounced insane and sent to Kazan Psychiatric Hospital. On 3 July 1967, he made a proposal to establish for dealing with the opposition the KGBs Fifth Directorate. At the end of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents including Andrei Sakharov, the proposal by Andropov to use psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented
3.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, Privolnoye, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party
4.
Andrei Gromyko
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Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet communist politician during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1988. In the 1940s Western pundits called him Mr. Nyet or Grim Grom, Gromykos political career started in 1939 with his employment at the Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In 1943 Gromyko became the Soviet ambassador to the United States, upon his return to the Soviet Union he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952, Gromyko played a direct role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in his role as the Soviet Foreign Minister. Gromyko helped negotiate arms limitations treaties such as the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, under Leonid Brezhnevs leadership Gromyko helped build the policy of détente between the US and the USSR. He supported Mikhail Gorbachevs candidacy for General Secretary in 1985, Gromyko lost his office as foreign minister when Gorbachev became General Secretary, and was instead appointed to the largely ceremonial office of head of state. Gromyko retired from life in 1988 and died the following year in Moscow. Gromyko was born to a poor semi-peasant, semi-worker family in the Belarusian village of Staryya Gramyki, Gromykos father, Andrei Matveyevich, worked as a seasonal worker in a local factory. Andrei Matveyevich was not an educated man, having only attended four years of school. He had fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Gromykos mother, Olga Yevgenyevna, came from a poor peasant family in the neighbouring city of Zhelezniki. She attended school only for a period of time as. Gromyko grew up near the town of Vetka where most of the inhabitants were devoted Old Believers in the Russian Orthodox Church. Gromykos own village was also religious, but Gromyko started doubting the supernatural at a very early age. His first dialog on the subject was with his grandmother Marfa, then you will understand all this much better. According to Gromyko, Other adults said basically the same thing when talking about religion, Gromykos neighbour at the time, Mikhail Sjeljutov, was a freethinker and introduced Gromyko to new non-religious ideas and told Gromyko that scientists were beginning to doubt the existence of God. From the age of nine, after the Bolshevik revolution, Gromyko started reading atheist propaganda in flyers, at the age of thirteen Gromyko became a member of the Komsomol and held anti-religious speeches in the village with his friends as well as promoting Communist values. The news that Germany had attacked the Russian Empire in August 1914 came without warning to the local population and this was the first time, as Gromyko notes, that he felt love for his country
5.
Yeniseysk Governorate
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Yeniseysk Governorate was a governorate of the Russian Empire and later of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The Governorate was established on January 26,1822 when the territory of Siberia was divided into two general, West Siberian and East Siberian. Yeniseysk Governorate, with the center of Krasnoyarsk, became a part of East Siberian Governorate General. As of its foundation, the governorate included five okrugs, Achinsky, Kansky, Krasnoyarsk, Minusinsky, on April 17,1914, Uryankhay Krai was added to Yeniseysk Governorate. This krai existed until August 14,1921, when it was incorporated as the Tuvan Peoples Republic independent of Russia, apart from Mongolia, however, no other country recognized its independence. On November 14,1923, parts of the governorates Minusinsky and Achinsky Uyezds were merged with one volost of Kuznetsky Uyezd of Tomsk Governorate to form new Khakassky Uyezd, on March 19,1924, Siberian Revolutionary Committee approved the enlargement of the governorates uyezds. On June 23,1924, new Turukhansky Uyezd was formed in the governorate and its Yuzhnaya Volost was formed on the part of the territory of Antsiferovskaya Volost of Yeniseysky Uyezd. After that, Yeniseysky Uyezd itself was abolished and its territory split between Kansky and Krasnoyarsky Uyezds. At the same time, Daurskaya Volost of Achinsky Uyezd was transferred to Krasnoyarsky Uyezd, also in 1924, parts of Znamenskaya and Tashtypskaya Volosts of Minusinsky Uyezd were transferred to Khakassky Uyezd. The former territory became a part of Charkovskaya Enlarged Volost, while the latter was merged into Tashtypskaya Enlarged Volost, Административно-территориальное деление Сибири, Западной Сибири, Новосибирской области
6.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
7.
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
8.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
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The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
9.
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
10.
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
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Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves at Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenins Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930, in 1925–1927 burials in the ground were stopped, funerals were now conducted as burials of cremated ash in the Kremlin wall itself. Burials in the ground only resumed with Mikhail Kalinins funeral in 1946, the practice of burying dignitaries at Red Square ended with the funeral of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985. The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was designated a landmark in 1974. The moat was lined with a fortress wall, and spanned by three bridges connecting the Kremlin to the posad. From 1776–1787 Matvey Kazakov built the Kremlin Senate that today provides a backdrop for the present-day Necropolis, throughout the 18th century the unused, neglected fortifications deteriorated and were not properly repaired until the 1801 coronation of Alexander I. In one season the moat with bridges and adjacent buildings was replaced with a span of paved square. More reconstruction followed in the 19th century, the stretch of Kremlin wall south from Senate Tower was badly damaged in 1812 by the explosion at the Kremlin Arsenal set off by the retreating French troops. Eventually, the structures of the towers were deemed sound enough to be left in place. Peters bastions were razed, The Kremlin wall facing Red Square was rebuilt shallower than before, in July 1917, hundreds of soldiers of the Russian Northern Front were arrested for mutiny and desertion and locked up in Daugavpils fortress. Later,869 Dvinsk inmates were transported to Moscow, here, the jailed soldiers launched a hunger strike, public support to them threatened to develop in citywide riot. On September 22,593 inmates were released, the rest were left behind bars until the October Revolution, the released soldiers, collectively called Dvintsy, stayed in the city as a cohesive unit, based in Zamoskvorechye District and openly hostile to the ruling Provisional Government. Immediately after the October Revolution in Saint Petersburg, Dvintsy became the force of the Bolsheviks in Moscow. Late at night of October 27–28 a detachment of two hundred men marching north to Tverskaya Street confronted the loyalist forces near the State Historical Museum on the Red Square. In the fighting 70 of the Dvintsy, including their company commander Sapunov, were killed at the barricades, on the following day the loyalists, led by Colonel Konstantin Ryabtsev, succeeded in taking over the Kremlin. They gunned down the surrendered Red soldiers at the Kremlin Arsenal wall, more were killed as the Bolsheviks stormed the Kremlin, finally taking control on the night of November 2–3. Voices reached us across the place, and the sound of picks. Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall, climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and workers were digging in the light of huge fires
11.
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
12.
Ukrainian people
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Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is by total population the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term Ukrainians to all its citizens, also among historical names of the people of Ukraine Rusyns, Cossacks, etc. can be found. According to some definitions, a descriptive name for the inhabitants of Ukraine is Ukrainian or Ukrainian people. Belarusians and Russians are considered among the bloodline of Ukrainians, while Rusyns are another closely related group, the ethnonym Ukrainians became widely accepted only in the 20th century after their territory obtained distinctive statehood in 1917. People of these territories were usually called Rus or Rusyns, the Ukrainian language appeared in the 14th – 16th centuries, but at that time, it was mostly known as Ruthenian, like its brothers. In the 16th – 17th centuries, with the establishment of the Zaporizhian Sich, however, the ethnonym Ukrainians and the linguonym Ukrainian were used only occasionally, and the people of Ukraine usually continued to call themselves and their language Ruthenian. This official name did not spread widely among the peasantry constituted the majority of the population. Ukrainian peasants still referred to their country as Ukraine and to themselves, in areas outside the control of the Russian/Soviet state until the mid-20th century, Ukrainians were known by their pre-existing names for much longer. The modern name derives from Ukrayina, a name first documented in 1187. Several scientific theories attempt to explain the etymology of the term, according to some new alternative Ukrainian historians such as Hryhoriy Pivtorak, Vitaly Sklyarenko and other scholars, translate the term u-kraine as in-land, home-land or our-country. The name in this context derives from the word u-kraina in the sense of domestic region, in the last few centuries the population of Ukraine experienced periods of Polonization and Russification, but preserved a common culture and a sense of common identity. Most ethnic Ukrainians live in Ukraine, where make up over three-quarters of the population. The inhabitants of the Kuban, for example, have vacillated among three identities, Ukrainian, Russian, and Cossack, approximately 800,000 people of Ukrainian ancestry live in the Russian Far East in an area known historically as Green Ukraine. According to some assumptions, an estimated number of almost 2.1 million people of Ukrainian origin live in North America. Large numbers of Ukrainians live in Brazil, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Poland, Argentina, Belarus, Portugal, there are also Ukrainian diasporas in the UK, Australia, Germany, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Ireland, Sweden and the former Yugoslavia. Today, large ethnic Ukrainian minorities reside in Russia, Canada, Ukrainians have one of the largest diasporas in the world. The East Slavs emerged from the undifferentiated early Slavs with the Slavic migrations in the 6th and 7th centuries CE, the East Slavs were united in the Kievan Rus during the 9th to 13th centuries. East Slavic tribes cited as proto-Ukrainian include the Volhynians, Derevlianians, Polianians, and Siverianians and the less significant Ulychians, Tivertsians, the Gothic historian Jordanes and 6th-century Byzantine authors named two groups that lived in the south-east of Europe, Sclavins and Antes
13.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
14.
Leader of the Soviet Union
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In the ideology of Vladimir Lenin the head of the Soviet state was a collegiate body of the vanguard party. Being the head of the communist party, the office of the General Secretary was the highest in the Soviet Union until 1990, the President of the Soviet Union, an office created in March 1990, replaced the General Secretary as the highest Soviet political office. This vote weakened the Party and its hegemony over the Soviet Union, after the failed August Coup the Vice President was replaced by an elected member of the State Council of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin was voted the Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR on 30 December 1922 by the Congress of Soviets. His health, at the age of 53, declined from effects of two bullet wounds, later aggravated by three strokes which culminated with his death in 1924, irrespective of his health status in his final days, Lenin was already losing much of his power to Stalin. By the end of the decade, Rykov merely rubber stamped the decisions predetermined by Stalin, Stalins early policies pushed for rapid industrialisation, nationalisation of private industry and the collectivisation of private plots created under Lenins New Economic Policy. As leader of the Politburo, Stalin consolidated near-absolute power by 1938 after the Great Purge, Nazi German troops invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, but were repulsed by the Soviets in December. On Stalins orders, the USSR launched a counter-attack on Nazi Germany, Stalin died in March 1953, his death triggered a power struggle in which Nikita Khrushchev after several years emerged victorious against Georgy Malenkov. Khrushchev denounced Stalin on two occasions, in 1956 and 1962 and his policy of de-Stalinisation earned him many enemies within the party, especially from old Stalinist appointees. Many saw this approach as destructive and destabilising, a group known as Anti-Party Group tried, but failed, to oust Khrushchev from office in 1957. As Khrushchev grew older, his behavior became worse, usually making decisions without discussing or confirming them with the Politburo. In 1965, on the orders of the Politburo, Mikoyan was forced to retire, the USSR in the post-Khrushchev 1960s was governed by a collective leadership. The Era of Stagnation, a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev, was a period marked by low socio-economic efficiency in the country. Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev in his post as General Secretary in 1982 and he was 68 years old at the time. In 1983 Andropov was hospitalised, and rarely met up at work to chair the politburo meetings due to his declining health, following Andropovs death 15 months after his appointment, an even older leader,72 year old Konstantin Chernenko was elected to the General Secretariat. His rule lasted for more than a year until his death 13 months later on 10 March 1985. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the General Secretariat by the Politburo on 11 March 1985 and he was 54 years old at the time. He also opened up the management of and decision-making within the Soviet Union and these twin policies were known as perestroika and glasnost respectively
15.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
16.
Novosyolovsky District
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Novosyolovsky District is an administrative and municipal district, one of the forty-three in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. The area of the district is 3,881 square kilometers and its administrative center is the rural locality of Novosyolovo. The population of Novosyolovo accounts for 42. 3% of the total population. The Yenisey River flows through the district, the district was founded on April 4,1924. As of 2013, the Head of the district and the Chairman of the District Council is Andrey V. Volodin, Закон №10-4765 от10 июня2010 г. «О перечне административно-территориальных единиц и территориальных единиц Красноярского края», в ред, Закона №7-3007 от16 декабря2014 г. Вступил в силу1 июля2010 г, Опубликован, Ведомости высших органов государственной власти Красноярского края, №33,5 июля2010 г. Закон №13-3001 от18 февраля2005 г, «Об установлении границ и наделении соответствующим статусом муниципального образования Новосёловский район и находящихся в его границах иных муниципальных образований», в ред. Закона №7-2414 от18 ноября2008 г, Вступил в силу через десять дней после официального опубликования. Опубликован, Ведомости высших органов государственной власти Красноярского края, №9,4 марта2005 г
17.
Krasnoyarsk Krai
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Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia, with its administrative center in the city of Krasnoyarsk—the third-largest city in Siberia. Krasnoyarsk Krai is the largest krai in the Russian Federation, the second largest federal subject, and the third largest subnational governing body by area in the world. It borders the Sakha Republic, Irkutsk, the Tuva Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, and Kemerovo, Tomsk, and Tyumen Oblasts, and the Kara Sea and Laptev Sea of the Arctic Ocean in the north. The krai is located in the basin of the Arctic Ocean, the main rivers of the krai are the Yenisei, and its tributaries, the Kan, the Angara, the Podkamennaya Tunguska, and the Nizhnyaya Tunguska. There are also several lakes in the krai. The largest lakes include Beloye, Belyo, Glubokoye, Itat, Khantayskoye, Labas, Lama, Pyasina, Taymyr, the rivers and lakes are rich with fish. The climate is continental with large temperature variations during the year. For the central and southern regions where most of the population lives, long winters and short. The territory of Krasnoyarsk Krai experiences conditions of three belts, Arctic, Subarctic, and moderate. In the north there are less than 40 days with temperature above 10 °C, the average temperature in January is −36 °C in the north and −18 °C in the south. The average temperature in July is +10 °C in the north, the annual precipitation is 316 millimeters. Snow covers the regions of the krai from early November until late March. The peaks of the Sayan Mountains higher than 2, 400–2,600 m, permafrost is widespread, especially in the north. The highest point of the krai is Grandiozny Peak in the East Sayan Mountains at an elevation of 2,922 meters, according to archaeologists, the territory of Siberia was settled around 40,000 BCE. The grave-mounds and monuments of the Scythian culture in Krasnoyarsk Krai belong to the 7th century BCE and are ones of the oldest in Eurasia, a princes grave, the Kurgan Arshan, discovered in 2001, is also located in the krai. Russian settlement of the began in the 17th century. After the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway the Russian colonization of the strongly increased. During both the Tsarist and the Bolsheviks regimes the territory of Krasnoyarsk Krai was used as a place of exile of political enemies, the first leaders of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were exiled to what is now the krai in 1897–1900 and 1903, respectively
18.
Copper extraction
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Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtaining copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of chemical, physical, methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, local environmental regulations, and other factors. As in all mining operations, the ore must usually be beneficiated, the processing techniques depend on the nature of the ore. If the ore is primarily sulfide copper minerals, the ore is crushed and it is then concentrated using mineral flotation. The concentrate is then sold to distant smelters, although some large mines have smelters located nearby. Such colocation of mines and smelters was more typical in the 19th and early 20th centuries, finally, the final refining process is electrolysis. For economic and environmental reasons, many of the byproducts of extraction are reclaimed, sulfur dioxide gas, for example, is captured and turned into sulfuric acid — which can then used in the extraction process or sold for such purposes as fertiliser manufacture. Oxidised copper ores can be treated by hydrometallurgical extraction, the earliest evidence of cold-hammering of native copper comes from the excavation at Çaÿonü Tepesi in eastern Anatolia. Among the various items considered to be votive or amulets there was one that looked like a fishhook, pločnik archaeological site in southeastern Europe contains the oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 5,000 BCE. The find in June 2010 extends for additional 500 years the record of copper smelting from Rudna Glava. Copper smelting technology gave rise to the Copper Age and then the Bronze Age, in some cases, tailings have been retreated to recover lost value as the technology for recovering copper has improved. The average grade of copper ores in the 21st century is below 0. 6% copper, a key objective in the metallurgical treatment of any ore is the separation of ore minerals from gangue minerals within the rock. These particles are separated to remove gangue, thereafter followed by a process of physical liberation of the ore minerals from the rock. The process of liberation of copper ores depends upon whether they are oxide or sulfide ores, subsequent steps depend on the nature of the ore containing the copper and what will be extracted. For oxide ores, a hydrometallurgical liberation process is normally undertaken, for sulfide ores, both secondary and primary, froth flotation is used to physically separate ore from gangue. For special native copper bearing ore bodies or sections of ore bodies rich in native copper. The modern froth flotation process was invented the early 1900s in Australia by C. V Potter. All primary sulfide ores of copper sulfides, and most concentrates of secondary copper sulfides, are subjected to smelting
19.
Gold mining
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Gold mining is the resource extraction of gold by mining. As of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes, the second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, followed by Russia with 250 tonnes. It is impossible to know the date that humans first began to mine gold. The graves of the necropolis were built between 4700 and 4200 BC, indicating that gold mining could be at least 7000 years old. A group of German and Georgian archaeologists claims the Sakdrisi site in southern Georgia, dating to the 3rd or 4th millennium BC, bronze age gold objects are plentiful, especially in Ireland and Spain, and there are several well known possible sources. Romans used hydraulic mining methods, such as hushing and ground sluicing on a scale to extract gold from extensive alluvial deposits. Mining was under the control of the state but the mines may have been leased to civilian contractors some time later, Gold was a prime motivation for the campaign in Dacia when the Romans invaded Transylvania in what is now modern Romania in the second century AD. The legions were led by the emperor Trajan, and their exploits are shown on Trajans Column in Rome, under the Eastern Roman Empire Emperor Justinians rule, gold was mined in the Balkans, Anatolia, Armenia, Egypt, and Nubia. In the area of the Kolar Gold Fields in Bangarpet Taluk, Kolar District of Karnataka state, India, gold was first mined prior to the 2nd and 3rd century AD by digging small pits. The Champion reef at the Kolar gold fields was mined to a depth of 50 metres during the Gupta period in the fifth century AD, during the Chola period in the 9th and 10th century AD, the scale of the operation grew. The metal continued to be mined by the eleventh century kings of South India, the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1560, and later by Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore state and it is estimated that the total gold production in Karnataka to date is 1000 tons. The mining of the Slovak deposit primarily around Kremnica was the largest of the Medieval period in Europe, the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa. The Carlin Trend of Nevada, U. S. was discovered in 1961, as of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes/year. The second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, despite the decreasing gold content of ores, the production is increasing. This can be achieved with industrial installations, and new process, placer mining is the technique by which gold that has accumulated in a placer deposit is extracted. Placer deposits are composed of loose material that makes tunneling difficult. Gold panning is mostly a manual technique of separating gold from other materials, wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. The pan is submerged in water and shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel, as gold is much denser than rock, it quickly settles to the bottom of the pan
20.
Komsomol
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The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although it was officially independent and referred to as the helper. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918, during the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Young Communist League, or RKSM. During 1922, with the unification of the USSR, it was reformed into an all-union agency and it was the final stage of three youth organizations with members up to age 28, graduated at 14 from the Young Pioneers, and at nine from the Little Octobrists. Before the February Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks did not display any interest in establishing or maintaining a youth division, after the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922 ended, the Soviet government under Lenin introduced a semi-capitalist economic policy to stabilize Russia’s floundering economy. This reform, the New Economic Policy, introduced a new policy of moderation and discipline. Lenin himself stressed the importance of education of young Soviet citizens in building a new society. The first Komsomol Congress met in 1918 under the patronage of the Bolshevik Party, Party intervention in 1922-1923 proved marginally successful in recruiting members by presenting the ideal Komsomolets as a foil to the bourgeois NEPman. However, the party was not very successful overall in recruiting Russian youth during the NEP period and this came about because of conflict and disillusionment among Soviet youth who romanticised the spontaneity and destruction characteristic of War Communism and the Civil War period. They saw it as their duty, and the duty of the Communist Party itself, however, the NEP had the opposite effect, after it started, many aspects of bourgeois social behavior began to reemerge. The contrast between the Good Communist extolled by the Party and the bourgeois capitalism fostered by NEP confused many young people, as a result, there was a major slump in interest and membership in the Party-oriented Komsomol. In March 1926, Komsomol membership reached a NEP-period peak of 1,750,000 members, only when Stalin came to power and abandoned the NEP in the first Five Year Plan did membership increase drastically. The youngest people eligible for Komsomol membership were fourteen years old, the upper age-limit for ordinary personnel was twenty-eight, but Komsomol functionaries could be older. Younger children joined the allied Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, while membership was nominally voluntary, those who failed to join had no access to officially sponsored holidays and found it very difficult to pursue higher education. The Komsomol also served as a pool of labor and political activism. Active members received privileges and preferences in promotion, for example, Yuri Andropov, CPSU General Secretary in succession to Leonid Brezhnev, achieved political importance through work with the Komsomol organization of Karelia in 1940-1944. At its largest, during the 1970s, the Komsomol had tens of millions of members, the government, unions and the Komsomol jointly introduced Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity for Youth. At the same time, many Komsomol managers joined and directed the Russian Regional, folklore quickly coined a motto, The Komsomol is a school of Capitalism, hinting at Vladimir Lenins Trade unions are a school of Communism
21.
Soviet Border Troops
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Accordingly, they were known as NKVD Border Troops and KGB Border Troops. Unlike border guards of many countries, Soviet Border Troops also included the maritime borderguarding units. They became the Border Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation on December 30,1993, in 1934, under the NKVD, Border Troops were immediately subordinated to the GUPVO. In 1939 they were reorganized into the GUPV, NKVD Border Troops consisted of infantry, cavalry, reconnaissance, naval and airforce units. Since the 1920s, the part of Soviet Border Troops uniform was the medium-green colored parts of headwear. The color is present on a maritime Border Troops ensign. After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Border Troops assisted the pacification of the newly acquired Soviet territory adjoining the state border, the mass execution of Romanian civilians known as the Fântâna Albă massacre happened at this time. Border Troops units on the western USSR frontier saw particularly fierce combat in the first weeks of the German invasion of the USSR and they bore the brunt of the initial German assault, and due to this, suffered high casualty rates. Border Troop servicemen were among the defenders of the Brest Fortress, Border troops from other parts of the Soviet border were also involved in the fighting of the war. Notably, the 105th, 157th, and 333rd Border Troops regiments took part in the Battle for Berlin in 1945. During and after the war,150 border guards were awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union and over 13,000 of them were decorated with different orders, in wartime the Border Troops would become a frontline combat service. The Border Troops also saw combat in 1969 in border clashes with Chinese soldiers on islands in the Ussuri River, after the formation of the KGB, Soviet Border Troops became subordinated to this agency and remained so until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As such, the Troops were concentrating on the tasks of preventing espionage infiltrations, the most notable in that system was the trace-control strip - a primitive labour-demanding method making surface crossing virtually impossible. The Border Troops consisted of conscripts drafted by the system as for the Soviet Army. Officers were trained in specialized academies, both conscripts and officer candidates for Border Troops were carefully selected and checked by the KGB. This made service in the troops privileged, article 28 defined the basic duties of the Border Troops. The Border Troops strength was estimated in 1989 to be in the range of 230,000 men, the Border Troops Directorate administered approximately nine border districts, which covered the nearly 63,000 kilometers of the state border. Border district boundaries were distinct from civil or military district boundaries, the nine border districts were subdivided into detachments, covering specific sections of the border, border command posts, passport control points, and border outposts
22.
Krasnoyarsk
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Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk and Omsk, Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russias largest producers of aluminum. The city is notable for its landscapes, author Anton Chekhov judged Krasnoyarsk to be the most beautiful city in Siberia. The total area of the city, including suburbs and the river, is 348 square kilometers, the Yenisei River flows from west to east through the city. Due to the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric dam 32 kilometers upstream, the Yenisei never freezes in winter and never exceeds +14 °C in summer through the city, near the city center, its elevation is 136 meters above sea level. There are several islands in the river, the largest of which are Tatyshev and Otdyha Isles, to the south and west, Krasnoyarsk is surrounded by forested mountains averaging 410 meters in height above river level. The most prominent of them are Nikolayevskaya Sopka, Karaulnaya Gora, and Chornaya Sopka, the major rivers in and near Krasnoyarsk are the Yenisei, Mana, Bazaikha, and Kacha Rivers, the latter flowing throughout the historical center of the city. Due to the nature of the terrain, a few lakes exist in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk. The forests close to the city are mostly pine and birch, further afield, along with Kansk to the east, it represented the southern limit of Russian expansion in the Yenisei basin during the seventeenth century. In the letter to Tsar Michael I the Cossacks reported, the fort was named Krasny Yar after the Yarin name of the place it was built, Kyzyl Char, which was translated as Krasny Yar. An intensive growth of Krasnoyarsk began with the arrival of the Siberian Route in 1735 to 1741 which connected the towns of Achinsk and Kansk with Krasnoyarsk. In 1749, a meteorite with a mass of about 700 kilograms was found 230 km south of Krasnoyarsk and it was excavated by Peter Simon Pallas in 1772 and transported to Krasnoyarsk and subsequently to St. Petersburg. The Krasnoyarsk meteorite is important because it was the first pallasite ever studied, the name Krasnoyarsk was given in 1822 when the village of Krasny Yar was granted town status and became the administrative center of Yeniseysk Governorate. In the 19th century, Krasnoyarsk was the center of the Siberian Cossack movement, by the end of the 19th century, Krasnoyarsk had several manufacturing facilities and railroad workshops and an engine-house. Growth continued with the discovery of gold and the arrival of a railroad in 1895, in the Russian Empire, Krasnoyarsk was one of the places to which political exiles were banished. For example, eight Decembrists were deported from St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk after the failure of the revolt, in 1934, Krasnoyarsk Krai, was formed, with Krasnoyarsk as its administrative center. During Stalinist times, Krasnoyarsk was a center of the gulag system. The most important labor camp was the Kraslag or Krasnoyarsky ITL with the two located in Kansk and Reshyoty
23.
Propaganda in the Soviet Union
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Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, propaganda was omnipresent and vigorously enforced, with truths repressed, falsehoods in every field were incessantly rubbed in print, at endless meetings, in school, in mass demonstrations, on the radio. The main Soviet censorship body, Glavlit, was employed not only to eliminate any undesirable printed materials, in the Stalin Era, deviation from the dictates of official propaganda was punished by execution and labor camps. In the post-Stalin era, these measures were replaced by punitive psychiatry, prison, denial of work. Today a man only talks freely to his wife – at night, with the pulled over his head. According to historian Peter Kenez, the Russian socialists have contributed nothing to the discussion of the techniques of mass persuasion. The Bolsheviks never looked for and did not find devilishly clever methods to influence peoples minds and this lack of interest, says Kenez, followed from their notion of propaganda. They thought of propaganda as part of education, an important goal of Communist propaganda was to create a new man. The idea that the upbringing of children was the concern of their parents was explicitly rejected, one schooling theorist stated, We must make the young into a generation of Communists. Children, like soft wax, are very malleable and they should be moulded into good Communists and we must rescue children from the harmful influence of the family. From the earliest days of their lives, they must find themselves under the beneficent influence of Communist schools. To oblige the mother to give her child to the Soviet state – that is our task and those born after the Revolution were explicitly told that they were to build a utopia of brotherhood and justice, and to not be like their parents, but completely Red. Lenins corners, political shrines for the display of propaganda about the founder of the Soviet state have been established in all schools. Schools conducted marches, songs and pledges of allegiance to Soviet leadership, one of purposes was to instill in children the idea that they are involved in the World revolution, which is more important than any family ties. Pavlik Morozov, who betrayed his father to the secret police NKVD, was promoted as a positive example. Teachers in economic and social sciences were responsible for inculcating unshakable Marxist-Leninist views. Children of socially alien elements were often the target of abuse or expelled, early in the regime, many teachers were drawn into Communist plans for schooling because of a passion for literacy and numeracy, which the Communists were attempting to spread. Young Pioneers, the group, was an important factor in the indoctrination of children
24.
Agitprop
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In the Western world, agitprop often has a negative connotation. The department was later renamed Ideological Department, typically Russian agitprop explained of the policies of the Communist Party and persuaded the general public to share its values and goals. In other contexts, propaganda could mean dissemination of any kind of beneficial knowledge, after the October Revolution of 1917, an agitprop train toured the country, with artists and actors performing simple plays and broadcasting propaganda. It had a press on board the train to allow posters to be reproduced. It gave rise to agitprop theatre, a highly politicized left-wing theatre that originated in 1920s Europe and spread to the United States, Russian agitprop theater was noted for its cardboard characters of perfect virtue and complete evil, and its coarse ridicule. Gradually the term came to describe any kind of highly politicized art. The provisional government, born out of the March Revolution against the tsarist regime and this created free newspapers that survived on their own revenue. This ability to orchestrate strikes was especially helpful in the newspaper printing factories because a strike would mean a loss in revenue. The capability of strikes allowed the Bolsheviks to shut down any newspaper they wanted, lenin took control of the socialist newspaper Pravda, making it an outlet to spread Bolshevik agitprop, articles, and other media. Oral-agitation networks, The Bolshevik leadership understood that to build a lasting regime, the oral-agitation networks established a presence in the isolated rural areas of Russia, expanding Communist power. Agitational trains and ships, To expand the reach of the oral-agitation networks, the trains and ships carried agitators armed with leaflets, posters and other various forms of agitprop. The agitational trains expanded the reach of agitators into Eastern Europe, the peasant society of Russia in 1917 was largely illiterate making it difficult to reach them through printed agitprop. Lenin created the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment to spearhead the war on illiteracy, instructors were trained in 1919, and sent to the countryside to create more instructors and expand the operation into a network of illiteracy centers. New textbooks were created, containing Bolshevik ideology to indoctrinate the newly literate members of Soviet society, the Birth of the Propaganda State, Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929. Propaganda, The Formation of Mens Attitudes, Propaganda Technique in World War I. The World Was Going Our Way, The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, for the Presidents Eyes Only, Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush. The Search for Al Qaeda, Its Leadership, Ideology, clark, Charles E. Uprooting Otherness, The Literacy Campaign in Nep-Era Russia. The dictionary definition of agitprop at Wiktionary Media related to Propaganda of the Soviet Union at Wikimedia Commons
25.
Fyodor Kulakov
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Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov was a Soviet-Russian statesman during the Cold War. Kulakov served as Stavropol First Secretary from 1960 until 1964, immediately following Nikita Khrushchevs ouster, Kulakov was elected to several important seats in the 1960s. In 1971 he was elected to the Political Bureau and he became a leading figure of Soviet leadership, and impressed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to such an extent that commentators believed that Kulakov would become Brezhnevs successor. This did not happen since Kulakov died in 1978, four years before Brezhnev, Kulakov was born in 1918 to a peasant family in Penza Oblast. Like his parents, Kulakov studied and graduated as an agronomist, in 1938 Kulakov started work in a sugar combine, and attended an Agricultural Institute, from which he graduated in 1941. In 1940 he became a member of the All-Union Communist Party, Kulakov was later appointed to the position of Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Regional Party Committee of the Penza Oblast. In Penza, Kulakov became a companion of future Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. In 1960 he was appointed to First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Party Committee, during his tenure as Stavropol First Secretary he appointed Mikhail Gorbachev to the provincial level of the party apparatus—a promotion which would prove to be crucial. In 1964 he left his office in Stavropol to pursue national politics, throughout his tenure in Moscow, Kulakov remained a loyal client of Mikhail Suslov. In 1964 Kulakov was brought to Moscow to become the Head of the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee, eleven months later, Kulakov was appointed to the post of Central Committee Secretary for Agriculture. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1964, and to a seat in the Secretariat in September 1965, Gorbachev would often consult with Kulakov, as their closeness helped Gorbachev establish friendly relations with KGB chairman Yuri Andropov. At the 24th Party Congress Kulakov became a Political Bureau member without serving a term as candidate member and it is believed that Kulakov greatly impressed Leonid Brezhnev due to his achievements in agriculture and politics. Kulakov was one of four who had a seat in both the Secretariat and Politburo, the others were Brezhnev, Suslov, and Andrei Kirilenko, in his later years, Kulakov had become one of Kirilenkos counterweights in the Central Committee. While Brezhnev never had an heir apparent, Kulakov was seen as a likely successor due to his age. His most notable competitors, Kirilenko and Suslov, were older than Brezhnev, despite this widespread belief, in the prestige order voted by the Supreme Soviet in 1975, Kulakov was ranked seventh. It has been presumed that Kulakov had shifted his allegiance from Chernenkos faction to that of Kirilenko, another incident was that Kulakov had argued with Gorbachev before his death. The most commonly assumed cause of Kulakovs death is natural causes, during Brezhnevs later term, according to some, Brezhnev was living in fear of Yuri Andropov. Anonymous sources state that Andropov may have had been involved in the deaths of Kulakov in 1978, according to Fyodor Morgun, a politician of Soviet and Ukrainian descent, Kulakov seemed worried just days before his death
26.
Distance education
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Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school. Traditionally this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post, courses that are conducted are either hybrid, blended or 100% whole instruction. Massive open online courses, offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other technologies, are recent developments in distance education. A number of terms are used roughly synonymously with distance education. The element of student feedback was an innovation of Pitmans system. This scheme was made possible by the introduction of postage rates across England in 1840. This early beginning proved extremely successful, and the Phonographic Correspondence Society was founded three years later to establish these courses on a formal basis. The Society paved the way for the formation of Sir Isaac Pitman Colleges across the country. The first correspondence school in the United States was the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, the University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees, establishing its External Programme in 1828. The issue soon boiled down to which institutions had degree-granting powers, as Sheldon Rothblatt states, thus arose in nearly archetypal form the famous English distinction between teaching and examining, here embodied in separate institutions. Enrollment increased steadily during the late 19th century, and its example was copied elsewhere. In 1892 he also encouraged the concept of correspondence courses to further promote education. Enrollment in the largest private school based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1888 to provide training for immigrant coal miners aiming to become state mine inspectors or foremen, it enrolled 2500 new students in 1894, by 1906 total enrollments reached 900,000. The growth was due to sending out complete textbooks instead of single lessons, and the use of 1200 aggressive in-person salesmen. There was a stark contrast in pedagogy, The regular technical school or college aims to educate a man broadly, our aim and we, on the contrary, are aiming to make our courses fit the particular needs of the student who takes them. Education was a priority in the Progressive Era, as American high schools. For men who were older or were too busy with family responsibilities, night schools were opened, outside the big cities, private correspondence schools offered a flexible, narrowly focused solution
27.
Teacher
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A teacher is a person who helps others to acquire knowledge, competences or values. Informally the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone, in some countries, teaching young people of school age may be carried out in an informal setting, such as within the family, rather than in a formal setting such as a school or college. Some other professions may involve a significant amount of teaching, in most countries, formal teaching is usually carried out by paid professional teachers. This article focuses on those who are employed, as their role, to teach others in a formal education context. A teachers role may vary among cultures, Teachers may provide instruction in literacy and numeracy, craftsmanship or vocational training, the arts, religion, civics, community roles, or life skills. Formal teaching tasks include preparing lessons according to agreed curricula, giving lessons, a teachers professional duties may extend beyond formal teaching. In some education systems, teachers may have responsibility for student discipline, Teaching is a highly complex activity. This is in part because teaching is a practice, that takes place in a specific context. Factors that influence what is expected of teachers include history and tradition, social views about the purpose of education, so the competences required by a teacher are affected by the different ways in which the role is understood around the world. Broadly, there seem to be four models, the teacher as manager of instruction, the teacher as caring person, the teacher as expert learner, some evidence-based international discussions have tried to reach such a common understanding. Scholarly consensus is emerging that what is required of teachers can be grouped under three headings, knowledge craft skills and dispositions and it has been found that teachers who showed enthusiasm towards the course materials and students can create a positive learning experience. These teachers do not teach by rote but attempt to find new invigoration for the materials on a daily basis. One of the challenges facing teachers is that they may have covered a curriculum until they begin to feel bored with the subject. Students who had enthusiastic teachers tend to rate them higher than teachers who didnt show much enthusiasm for the course materials, Teachers that exhibit enthusiasm can lead to students who are more likely to be engaged, interested, energetic, and curious about learning the subject matter. Recent research has found a correlation between teacher enthusiasm and students intrinsic motivation to learn and vitality in the classroom, students who experienced a very enthusiastic teacher were more likely to read lecture material outside of the classroom. There are various mechanisms by which teacher enthusiasm may facilitate higher levels of intrinsic motivation, teacher enthusiasm may contribute to a classroom atmosphere of energy and enthusiasm which feeds student interest and excitement in learning the subject matter. Enthusiastic teachers may also lead to becoming more self-determined in their own learning process. The concept of mere exposure indicates that the teachers enthusiasm may contribute to the expectations about intrinsic motivation in the context of learning
28.
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
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Moldavia, officially the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known to as Soviet Moldavia, was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union existed from 1940 to 1991. The republic was formed on August 2,1940 from parts of Bessarabia, a region annexed from Romania on June 28 of that year, and parts of the MASSR, an autonomous republic within the Ukrainian SSR. After the Declaration of Sovereignty on June 23,1990 and until 23 May 1991 it was known as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. From 23 May 1991 until the declaration of independence on 27 August 1991, geographically, the Moldavian SSR was bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. On August 24,1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression treaty, the secret protocol placed the Romanian province of Bessarabia in the Soviet sphere of influence. On June 26, four days after France sued for an armistice with the Third Reich, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was thereafter created following the entrance of Soviet troops on June 28,1940. 90% of the territory of MSSR was on the bank of the river Dniester. As such, the strategically important Black Sea coast and Danube frontage were given to the Ukrainian SSR, considered more reliable than the Moldavian SSR, by the end of World War II the Soviet Union had reconquered all of the lost territories, reestablishing Soviet authority there. On June 22,1941, during the first day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union,10 people were killed in Răzeni by Soviet authorities, a memorial was opened in 2009. The Soviet authorities targeted several socio-economic groups due to their situation, political views. They were deported to or resettled in Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, according to a report by the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania, no less than 86,604 people were arrested and deported in 1940-1941 alone. Modern Russian historians put forward a number of 90,000 for the same period. NKVD/MGB also struck at anti-Soviet groups, which were most active in 1944-1952, a de-kulakisation campaign was directed towards the rich Moldavian peasant families, which were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia as well. Religious persecutions during the Soviet occupation targeted numerous priests, after the Soviet occupation, the religious life underwent a persecution similar to the one in Russia between the two World Wars. Other deportation campaigns were directed towards the ethnic Germans and religious minorities, collectivisation was implemented between 1949 and 1950, although earlier attempts were made since 1946. According to Charles King, there is evidence that it was caused by the Soviets and directed towards the largest ethnic group living in the countryside. The main cause was the Soviet requisitioning of large amounts of products, but it was also aggravated by war, the draught of 1946. With the regime of Nikita Khrushchev replacing that of Joseph Stalin, in the 1970s and 1980s Moldavia received substantial investment from the budget of the USSR to develop industrial, scientific facilities, as well as housing
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Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration, during Brezhnevs rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic, Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye into a Russian workers family in 1906. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became an engineer in the iron and steel industry. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became a member of the CPSU. He was drafted into military service during World War II. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. However, in December 1981 he decided not to intervene in Poland, instead allowing the countrys government to impose martial law. After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Brezhnev had fostered a cult of personality, although not nearly to the degree as Stalin. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would lead the USSR from 1985 to 1991, denounced his legacy, in spite of this, opinion polls in Russia show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamianske in Ukraine, to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife and his parents used to live in Brezhnevo before moving to Kamenskoe. Brezhnevs ethnicity was specified as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a technical education, at first in land management where he started as a land surveyor and then in metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became an engineer in the iron. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth organisation, the Komsomol, in 1923, in 1935 and 1936, Brezhnev served his compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in a tank factory. Later in 1936, he director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum. In 1936, he was transferred to the center of Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk. As a survivor of Stalins Great Purge of 1937–39, he was able to quickly as the purges created numerous openings in the senior and middle ranks of the Party
30.
Nikita Khrushchev
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Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, Khrushchevs party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Khrushchev was born in the village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar, with the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalins purges, and approved thousands of arrests, in 1938, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalins close advisers, in the power struggle triggered by Stalins death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the Secret Speech, denouncing Stalins purges and his domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchevs rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, flaws in Khrushchevs policies eroded his popularity and emboldened potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed the premier in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the fate of previous losers of Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970, Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease. Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russias Kursk Oblast and his parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin, and had a daughter two years Nikitas junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, Kalinovka was a peasant village, Khrushchevs teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age and he was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenkos tutelage in Kalinovkas state school. She urged Nikita to seek education, but family finances did not permit this. In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka, fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after
Quotations related to Konstantin Chernenko at Wikiquote
Jean Doré
Peter Ueberroth
