1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Subdivisions of Russia
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Russia is divided into several types and levels of subdivisions. Since March 18,2014, the Russian Federation consisted of eighty-five federal subjects that are constituent members of the Federation, however, two of these federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol—are internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. All federal subjects are of equal rights in the sense that they have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council. They do, however, differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy, there are 6 types of federal subjects—22 republics,9 krais,46 oblasts,3 federal cities,1 autonomous oblast, and 4 autonomous okrugs. According to the Treaty, the Republic of Crimea is accepted as a subject with the status of a republic while the City of Sevastopol has received federal city status. Neither the Republic of Crimea nor the city of Sevastopol are politically recognized as parts of Russia by most countries and this was interpreted by the governments of the federal subjects as a sign that the matters of the administrative-territorial divisions became solely the responsibility of the federal subjects. As a result, the modern structures of the federal subjects vary significantly from one federal subject to another. Autonomous okrugs, while being under the jurisdiction of federal subject, are still constitutionally recognized as federal subjects on their own right. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is an exception in that it is not administratively subordinated to any federal subject of Russia. Okrugs are usually former autonomous okrugs that lost their federal subject status due to a merger with another federal subject. According to the law, the units of the division are as follows, Municipal district. In practice, municipal districts are formed within the boundaries of existing administrative districts. In practice, urban okrugs are usually formed within the boundaries of existing cities of federal subject significance, intra-urban territory of a federal city, a part of a federal citys territory. In Moscow, these are called municipal formations, in St. Petersburg—municipal okrugs, towns, in Sevastopol, they are known as municipal okrugs and a town. Territories not included as a part of municipal formations are known as inter-settlement territories and this municipal formation type would typically be established within the borders of existing city districts. In June 2014, Chelyabinsky Urban Okrug became the first urban okrug to implement intra-urban divisions, all of the federal subjects are grouped into nine federal districts, each administered by an envoy appointed by the President of Russia. For economic and statistical purposes the federal subjects are grouped into twelve economic regions, economic regions and their parts sharing common economic trends are in turn grouped into economic zones and macrozones. In order for the Armed Forces to provide an efficient management of units, their training, and other operational activities
3.
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
4.
Federal subjects of Russia
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Since March 18,2014, the Russian Federation constitutionally consists of 85 federal subjects, although the two most recently added subjects are internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Three Russian cities of importance have a status of both city and separate federal subject which comprises other cities and towns within federal city keeping old structure of postal address. In 1993, there were 89 federal subjects listed, by 2008, the number of federal subjects had been decreased to 83 because of several mergers. In 2014, Sevastopol and the Republic of Crimea became the 84th and 85th federal subjects of Russia, every federal subject has its own head, a parliament, and a constitutional court. Federal subjects have their own constitution and legislation, subjects have equal rights in relations with federal government bodies. The federal subjects have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council and they do, however, differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy. Composition of post-Soviet Russia was formed during the history of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic within the USSR, the Federation Treaty was included in the text of the 1978 Constitution of the Russian SFSR. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the system became de jure closer to other modern federal states with a republican form of government in the world. There are several groupings of Russian regions, Federal subjects should not be confused with the eight Federal districts which are not subdivisions of Russia, are much larger and each encompass many federal subjects. Federal districts were created by Executive Order of the President of Russia specially for presidential envoys, an official government translation of the Constitution of Russia in Article 5 states,1. Another translation of the Constitution of Russia gives for article 65, each federal subject belongs to one of the following types, b. ^ According to Article 13 of the Charter of Leningrad Oblast, however, St. Petersburg is not officially named to be the administrative center of the oblast. ^ According to Article 24 of the Charter of Moscow Oblast, however, Moscow is not officially named to be the administrative center of the oblast. ^ Not recognized internationally as a part of Russia, the merging process was finished on March 1,2008. No new mergers have been planned since March 2008, Федерального конституционного закона №7-ФКЗ от30 декабря2008 г. Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования, Опубликован, Российская газета, №237,25 декабря1993 г
5.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
6.
Russian Census (2010)
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The Russian Census of 2010 is the first census of the Russian Federation population since 2002 and the second after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Preparations for the census began in 2007 and it took place between October 14 and October 25, the census was originally scheduled for October 2010, but was moved to 2013 allegedly for financial reasons, although it was also speculated that political motives were influential in the decision. However, in late 2009 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the Government of Russia allocated 10.5 billion rubles in order to conduct the census as originally scheduled, Results showed the population to stand at 142.9 million. Since the previous 2002 census, population has decreased by 2.3 million, according to the 2010 census, urban population is 105.3 million, rural population is 37.5 million. The urbanisation rate is currently 73. 7%, the median age is 38 years. The ethnic composition is dominated by Russians, demographics of Russia Russian Census 2010 final results Results of 2010 All-Russia population census Official website of the 2010 Census
7.
Time in Russia
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There are eleven time zones in Russia, which currently observe times ranging from UTC+02,00 to UTC+12,00. Daylight saving time is not used in Russia, since 4 December 2016, the time zones are as follows, Daylight saving time in Russia was originally introduced on 30 June 1917 by a decree of the Russian Provisional Government. However, it was abandoned by a Decree of the Soviet government five months later, Daylight saving time was re-introduced in the USSR on 1 April 1981, by a decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The usage of daylight saving time continued after the Soviet collapse but ended in 2011, on 27 March 2011, clocks were advanced as usual, but they did not go back on 30 October 2011, effectively making Moscow Time UTC+4 permanently. In the Russian Empire, most of the observed solar time. During the late 19th century, Moscow Mean Time was introduced on 1 January 1880,2,30,17 corresponds to 37. 6166667°, the longitude of Moscow. Other parts of Russia kept solar time for several years. At this time, Russia had the Julian calendar with 12 or 13 days less date compared to Western Europe, so it is possible to say the Moscow actually had GMT-285,29,43, GMT-309,29,43 and GMT-309,28,41. Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar on Thursday,14 February 1918, after the Soviet Union was created, Moscow Time became UTC+2 and the various other time zones were introduced throughout Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union, for example Irkutsk Time GMT+7. Between 1917-1922 the time was ordered, with daylight savings time some of those years. On 21 June 1930, the Soviet Union advanced all clocks by one hour, Moscow Time was now GMT+3 and Irkutsk Time GMT+8. On 1 April 1981, daylight saving time was re-introduced, clocks were moved one hour forward on 1 April, on 1 April 1981,00,00,00, Oymyakonsky District changed its time zone from MSK+6 to MSK+8. The change occurred during DST effectively changing the offset from UTC+9 to UTC+12, on 1 April 1982,00,00,00, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug changed its time zone from MSK+10 to MSK+9, thus eliminating Anadyr Time. The change occurred during DST effectively changing the offset from UTC+14 to UTC+13, on 27 March 1988,02,00,00, Saratov and Volgograd oblasts changed its time zone from MSK+1 to MSK. The change occurred during DST effectively changing the offset from UTC+5 to UTC+4, on 23 May 1993,00,00,00, Novosibirsk Oblast changed its time zone from MSK+4 to MSK+3. The change occurred during DST effectively changing the offset from UTC+8 to UTC+7, on 28 May 1995,00,00,00, Altai Krai and Altai Republic changed its time zone from MSK+4 to MSK+3. On 30 March 1997,02,00,00, Sakhalin Oblast changed its time zone from MSK+8 to MSK+7, on 1 May 2002,03,00,00, Tomsk Oblast changed its time zone from MSK+4 to MSK+3. On 1 January 2004,00,00,00, New Siberian Islands, Tomponsky District, the following time zone changes occurred on 28 March 2010, which, in particular, led to abolition of two of the eleven time zones
8.
Wikimedia Commons
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Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, the repository contains over 38 million media files. In July 2013, the number of edits on Commons reached 100,000,000, the project was proposed by Erik Möller in March 2004 and launched on September 7,2004. The expression educational is to be according to its broad meaning of providing knowledge. Wikimedia Commons itself does not allow fair use or uploads under non-free licenses, for this reason, Wikimedia Commons always hosts freely licensed media and deletes copyright violations. The default language for Commons is English, but registered users can customize their interface to use any other user interface translations. Many content pages, in particular policy pages and portals, have also translated into various languages. Files on Wikimedia Commons are categorized using MediaWikis category system, in addition, they are often collected on individual topical gallery pages. While the project was proposed to also contain free text files. In 2012, BuzzFeed described Wikimedia Commons as littered with dicks, in 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for hosting sexualized images of children known as lolicon. Wales responded to the backlash from the Commons community by voluntarily relinquishing some site privileges, over time, additional functionality has been developed to interface Wikimedia Commons with the other Wikimedia projects. Specialized uploading tools and scripts such as Commonist have been created to simplify the process of uploading large numbers of files. In order to free content photos uploaded to Flickr, users can participate in a defunct collaborative external review process. The site has three mechanisms for recognizing quality works, one is known as Featured pictures, where works are nominated and other community members vote to accept or reject the nomination. This process began in November 2004, another process known as Quality images began in June 2006, and has a simpler nomination process comparable to Featured pictures. Quality images only accepts works created by Wikimedia users, whereas Featured pictures additionally accepts nominations of works by third parties such as NASA, the three mentioned processes select a slight part from the total number of files. However, Commons collects files of all quality levels, from the most professional level across simple documental, files with specific defects can be tagged for improvement and warning or even proposed for deletion but there exists no process of systematic rating of all files. The site held its inaugural Picture of the Year competition, for 2006, all images that were made a Featured picture during 2006 were eligible, and voted on by eligible Wikimedia users during two rounds of voting
9.
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
10.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
11.
Crown (headgear)
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In art, the crown may be shown being offered to those on Earth by angels. In religious art, a crown of stars is used similarly to a halo, crowns worn by rulers often contain jewels. A crown is often an emblem of the monarchy, a monarchs government, the word itself is used, particularly in Commonwealth countries, as an abstract name for the monarchy itself, as distinct from the individual who inhabits it. A specific type of crown is employed in heraldry under strict rules, costume headgear imitating a monarchs crown is also called a crown. Such costume crowns may be worn by actors portraying a monarch, people at parties, or ritual monarchs such as the king of a Carnival krewe. The nuptial crown, sometimes called a coronal, worn by a bride, in the present day, it is most common in Eastern Orthodox cultures. The Eastern Orthodox marriage service has a section called the crowning, wherein the bride and groom are crowned as king, in Greek weddings, the crowns are diadems usually made of white flowers, synthetic or real, often adorned with silver or mother of pearl. They are placed on the heads of the newlyweds and are held together by a ribbon of white silk and they are then kept by the couple as a reminder of their special day. In Slavic weddings, the crowns are made of ornate metal, designed to resemble an imperial crown. A parish usually owns one set to use for all the couples that are married there since these are more expensive than Greek-style crowns. This was common in Catholic countries in the past, a Crown of thorns according to the Bible, was placed on the head of Jesus before his crucifixion and has become a common symbol of martyrdom. According to Roman Catholic tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary was crowned as Queen of Heaven after her assumption into heaven and she is often depicted wearing a crown, and statues of her in churches and shrines are ceremonially crowned during May. The Crown of Immortality is also common in historical symbolism, dancers of certain traditional Thai dances often wear crowns on their head. These are inspired in the worn by deities and by kings. Three distinct categories of crowns exist in those monarchies that use crowns or state regalia, coronation, worn by monarchs when being crowned. State, worn by monarchs on other state occasions, consort crowns, worn by queens consort, signifying rank granted as a constitutional courtesy protocol. In Classical antiquity, the crown that was awarded to people other than rulers, such as triumphal military generals or athletes, was actually a wreath or chaplet. Numerous crowns of various forms were used in antiquity, such as the Hedjet, Deshret, the Pschent double crown and it was referred to as the chaplet studded with sunbeams” by Lucian, about 180 AD
12.
Estonian language
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Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 outside Estonia. It belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family, Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages, along with Finnish, Karelian, and other nearby languages. The Uralic languages do not belong to the Indo-European languages, Estonian is distantly related to Hungarian and to the Sami languages. Estonian has been influenced by Swedish, German, and Russian, furthermore, the apocope of word-final sounds is extensive and has contributed to a shift from a purely agglutinative to a fusional language. The basic word order is subject–verb–object, modern standard Estonian has evolved on the basis of the dialects of Northern Estonia. The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words, the earliest extant samples of connected Estonian are the so-called Kullamaa prayers dating from 1524 and 1528. In 1525 the first book published in the Estonian language was printed, the book was a Lutheran manuscript, which never reached the reader and was destroyed immediately after publication. The first extant Estonian book is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S. Wanradt and J. Koell dating to 1535, an Estonian grammar book to be used by priests was printed in German in 1637. The New Testament was translated into southern Estonian in 1686, the two languages were united based on northern Estonian by Anton thor Helle. Writings in Estonian became more significant in the 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period, the birth of native Estonian literature was in 1810 to 1820 when the patriotic and philosophical poems by Kristjan Jaak Peterson were published. His birthday on March 14 is celebrated in Estonia as the Mother Tongue Day, a fragment from Petersons poem Kuu expresses the claim reestablishing the birthright of the Estonian language, Kas siis selle maa keel Laulutuules ei või Taevani tõustes üles Igavikku omale otsida. In English, Can the language of this land In the wind of incantation Rising up to the heavens Not seek for eternity. Kristjan Jaak Peterson From 1525 to 191714,503 titles were published in Estonian, in modern times Jaan Kross and Jaan Kaplinski remain as two of Estonias best known and most translated writers. Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, after the Estonian War of Independence in 1919, the Estonian language became the state language of the newly independent country. In 1945,97. 3% of Estonia considered itself ethnic Estonian, when Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in World War II, the status of the Estonian language changed to the first of two official languages. As with Latvia many immigrants entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement, in the second half of the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism intensified, resulting in widespread knowledge of Russian throughout the country. The Russian language was termed as ‘the language of friendship of nations’ and was taught to Estonian children, although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in schools was compulsory, in practice learning the language was often considered unnecessary
13.
Administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg
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The federal city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, is divided into eighteen districts, which are in turn subdivided into municipal okrugs, municipal towns, and municipal settlements. Закон №411-68 от25 июля2005 г, «О территориальном устройстве Санкт-Петербурга», в ред. Закона №685-130 от26 декабря2014 г, «О внесении изменений в Закон Санкт-Петербурга О территориальном устройстве Санкт-Петербурга и Закон Санкт-Петербурга О рассмотрении предложений о присвоении наименований географическим объектам». Вступил в силу через10 дней после дня официального опубликования, за исключением отдельных положений, Опубликован, Новое в законодательстве Санкт-Петербурга, №22,4 августа2005 г
14.
Kronshtadtsky District
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Kronshtadtsky District is a district of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 43,005, kronshtadtsky District comprises the municipal town of Kronshtadt. Закон №411-68 от25 июля2005 г, «О территориальном устройстве Санкт-Петербурга», в ред. Закона №685-130 от26 декабря2014 г, «О внесении изменений в Закон Санкт-Петербурга О территориальном устройстве Санкт-Петербурга и Закон Санкт-Петербурга О рассмотрении предложений о присвоении наименований географическим объектам». Вступил в силу через10 дней после дня официального опубликования, за исключением отдельных положений, Опубликован, Новое в законодательстве Санкт-Петербурга, №22,4 августа2005 г
15.
Kotlin Island
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Kotlin is a Russian island, located near the head of the Gulf of Finland,32 kilometres west of Saint Petersburg in the Baltic Sea. Kotlin separates the Neva Bay from the rest of the gulf, the fortified town of Kronstadt is located on the island. The island serves as a gateway to Saint Petersburg and as such has been the site of military engagements. The town of Kronstadt was founded by Peter the Great, who took the island of Kotlin from the Swedes in 1703, Kotlin was the site of the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921 which resulted in over 11,000 casualties. In general outline, the forms a elongated triangle,12.1 km in length by about 1.6 km in breadth, with its base towards St Petersburg. The eastern or broad end is occupied by the town of Kronstadt, started in 1980, but delayed by political upheaval in the 1990s, the dam project was completed in 2010 and officially commissioned in 2011. The smaller ship also sank as a result of the collision after sustaining hull damage, the fuel slick covered 11 km2 of Kronstadt harbor. By that afternoon, divers had plugged the hole to prevent further leakage, google Earth view of Kotlin Island This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
16.
Gulf of Finland
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The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it, other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn. The eastern parts of the Gulf of Finland belong to Russia, as the seaway to Saint Petersburg, the Gulf of Finland has been and continues to be of considerable strategic importance to Russia. Some of the problems affecting the Baltic Sea are at their most pronounced in the shallow gulf. The area of the gulf is 30,000 km2, the length is 400 km and the width varies from 70 km near the entrance to 130 km on the meridian of Moshchny Island, in the Neva Bay, it decreases to 12 km. The gulf is shallow with the depth decreasing from the entrance to the gulf to the continent. The sharpest change occurs near Narva-Jõesuu, which is why this place is called Narva wall, the average depth is 38 m with the maximum of 100 m. The depth of the Neva Bay is less than 6 metres, therefore, a channel was dug at the bottom for safe navigation. Because of the influx of fresh water from rivers, especially from the Neva River. The average water temperature is close to 0 °C in winter, in summer, it is 15–17 °C at the surface, the gulf is usually frozen from late November to late April, the freezing starts in the east and gradually proceeds to the west. Complete freezing is usually reached by late January, and it not occur in mild winters. There are frequent strong winds causing waves, surges of water. The northern coast of the gulf is high and winding, with abundant small bays and skerries only a few large bays, the coast is mostly sloping, there are abundant sandy dunes, with occasional pine trees. The southern shores are smooth and shallow, but along the entire coast runs the Baltic Klint with the height up to 55 m, in the east, the gulf ends with Neva Bay and on the west merges with the Baltic Sea. The gulf contains numerous banks, skerries and islands, starting from 1700, nineteen artificial islands with fortresses were built in the gulf by Russia. Their purpose was defense from attacks from water and their construction was urged by the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 and those include Fort Alexander, Krasnaya Gorka, Ino, Totleben, Kronshlot and others. The largest rivers flowing into the gulf are Neva, Narva, keila, Pirita, Jägala, Kunda, Luga, Sista and Kovashi flow into the gulf from the south. From the north flow Sestra River, Porvoo, Vantaa and several small rivers
17.
Russian Census (2002)
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Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, carried out on October 9 through October 16,2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics, the census data were collected as of midnight October 9,2002. The census was intended to collect statistical information about the resident population of Russian Federation. All detailed census tables are for the resident population, a sample of the participants were also asked more detailed questions about their economic and housing situation. Also, the census also counted two more groups of people, Russian citizens currently living abroad for more one year in connection with the employment with the federal government. Persons permanently residing abroad, but temporarily present in Russia, Foreign citizens present in Russia as employees of foreign diplomatic missions or international organizations, and members of their household, were excluded from the census altogether. The Census recorded the resident population of 145,166,731 persons and that included urban population of 106,429,000 and rural population of 38,738,000. The non-resident populations included, Russian citizens living abroad in connection with the government service,107,288. Census participants were asked what country they were citizens of,142,442,000 respondents reported being Russian citizens, among them,44,000 also had citizenship of another country. Among Russias resident population,1,025,413 foreign citizens and 429,881 stateless persons were counted,1,269,023 persons did not report their citizenship. Among the questions asked were Are you competent in the Russian language, and What other languages are you competent in. As the census manual explained, competence meant either the ability to speak, read and write a language, the questions did not distinguish native and non-native speakers, nor did they try to measure the degree of language competence. For small children, presumably, the answer was based on the language spoken by the parents. 142.6 million of the responders claimed competence in Russian, other widely reported languages are listed in the table below. 1.42 million responders did not provide language information, for a more detailed list, see List of languages of Russia. Demographics of Russia Russian Empire Census Soviet Census Official census home page Population of Chechnya, was the Census correct
18.
Kronstadt rebellion
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The Kronstadt rebellion was a major unsuccessful uprising against the Bolsheviks in March 1921, during the later years of the Russian Civil War. The rebellion was crushed by the Red Army after a 12-day military campaign, after years of economic crises caused by World War I and the Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik economy started to collapse. It is estimated that the output of mines and factories in 1921 was 20 percent of the pre-World War I level. Production of cotton, for example, had fallen to 5 percent and iron to 2 percent of the level, and this coincided with droughts in 1920 and 1921. Discontent grew among the Russian populace, particularly the peasantry, who felt disadvantaged by Communist grain requisitioning and they resisted by refusing to till their land. In February 1921, more than 100 peasant uprisings took place, the workers in Petrograd were also involved in a series of strikes, caused by the reduction of bread rations by one third over a ten-day period. On February 26, delegates from the Kronstadt naval base visited Petrograd to investigate the situation, immediate new elections to the Soviets, the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers, freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant associations, the organisation, at the latest on 10 March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District. The liberation of all prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class. The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons, the abolition of all political sections in the armed forces, no political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In place of the section, various cultural groups should be set up. The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up towns and countryside. The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs, the abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups, the abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be nominated, taking account the views of the workers. The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil and we request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution. We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution and we demand the institution of mobile workers control groups. We demand that handicraft production be authorised, provided it does not utilise wage labour, on March 1, a general meeting of the garrison was held, attended also by Mikhail Kalinin and Commissar of the Soviet Baltic Fleet Nikolai Kuzmin, who made speeches for the Government
19.
Admiralty Board (Russian Empire)
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The responsibilities of the Admiralty Board had been changing throughout its history. It supervised the construction of ships, ports, harbors. The Admiralty Board was also in charge of naval armaments and equipment, the first president of the Admiralty Board was Count Fyodor Apraksin. In 1777 the Admiralty Board founded the Russian Hydrographic Service, implementing a plan that marked the beginning of systematic drawing of nautical charts, in 1802, the Admiralty Board became a part of the Ministry of the Navy. Along with the Admiralty Board, there was also the Admiralty Department in 1805–1827 with the responsibilities of the Chief Office of the Ministry, in 1827, the Admiralty Board was turned into the Admiralty Council, which would exist until the October Revolution of 1917. In new Russia the historic Admiralty Board has been reborn as the Maritime Board having broad functions to coordinate Russias maritime future
20.
Baltic Fleet
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The Baltic Fleet is the Russian Federation Navys presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia, the Fleet gained the Twice Red Banner appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of the Order of the Red Banner. It is headquartered in Kaliningrad, with its base in Baltiysk and another base at Kronshtadt. Established 18 May 1703, under Czar Peter the Great, the Fleet is the oldest Russian Navy formation, the first commander was a recruited Dutch admiral, Cornelius Cruys, who in 1723 was succeeded by Count Fyodor Apraksin. In 1703, the base of the fleet was established in Kronshtadt. One of the fleets first actions was the taking of Shlisselburg, in 1701 Peter the Great established a special school, the School of Mathematics and Navigation, situated in the Sukharev Tower in Moscow. The Fleets base was moved to St. Petersburg and in 1752 it was renamed the Naval Cadet Corps, today it is the St. Petersburg Naval Institute – Peter the Great Naval Corps. The Baltic Fleet began to receive new vessels in 1703, the first vessel, the 24-gun three-masted frigate Shtandart, is considered to flagship of the fleet and an example of a newly popular design of warship, the frigate. By 1724, the fleet boasted 141 sail warships and hundreds of oar-propelled ships, during the Great Northern War, the Baltic Fleet assisted in taking Viborg, Tallinn, Riga, the West Estonian archipelago, Helsinki, and Turku. The first claimed victories of the new Imperial Russian Navy were the Gangut in 1714 and, arguably, from 1715, the English Royal Navy intervened in the Baltic Sea on behalf of the German principality of Hanover, and more or less in a tacit alliance with Russia. During the concluding stages of the war, the Russian fleet would land troops along the Swedish coast to devastate coastal settlements. However, after the death of King Charles XII, the Royal Navy would rather protect Swedish interests after a rapprochement between the Kingdom of Sweden and King George I, a Russian attempt to reach the Swedish capital of Stockholm was checked at the Battle of Stäket in 1719. During the Seven Years War, the Russian Baltic Sea fleet was active on the Pomeranian coast of northern Germany and Prussia, helping the infantry to take Memel in 1757, the Oresund was blockaded in order to prevent the British Navy from entering the Baltic sea. During the Russo-Swedish War the fleet, commanded by Samuel Greig, checked the Swedes at Hogland, the Russian defeat in this battle effectively ended the war. In the Crimean War, the fleet – although stymied in its operations by the absence of steamships – prevented the British and French Allies from occupying Hangö, Sveaborg, and Saint Petersburg. Despite being greatly outnumbered by the technologically superior Allies, it was the Russian Fleet that introduced into naval warfare such novelties as torpedo mines, other outstanding inventors who served in the Baltic Fleet were Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Stepan Makarov, Alexei Krylov, and Alexander Mozhaiski. As early as 1861, the first armor-clad ships were built for the Baltic Fleet, in 1863, during the American Civil War, most of the Fleets ocean-going ships, including the flagship Alexander Nevsky were sent to New York City. At the same time ten Uragan-class monitors based on an American-designed Passaic monitor were launched, here it was the policy of the Czar and his government to show support for the Northern Union Army in the United States during their Civil War, observing and exchanging naval tactics and cooperation
21.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
22.
Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
23.
John of Kronstadt
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Saint John of Kronstadt was a Russian Orthodox Christian presbyter and a member of the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Wonder-Working Father John Sergiev is another of the great elders and he also reawakened the Russian Orthodox Church to the Apostolic tradition of receiving Holy Communion at every Divine Liturgy. This is why he is most commonly portrayed holding a Communion chalice and he was born as Ivan Ilyich Sergiyev on 19 October 1829 at Sura, near the White Sea, in Russia. From 1855 he worked as a priest in Saint Andrews Cathedral, Kronstadt, here he committed himself to charity, especially to those who were remote from the Church, and travelled extensively throughout the Russian empire. He was a member of the conservative Union of the Russian People, Father John became well known, and people from all over Russia came to him every day in thousands. Even the dying Tsar Alexander III, in 1894, summoned him to Livadia Palace so he could be given communion by St. John, in 1909 Nicholas II wrote an order to establish commemoration of St. John in the Church. Following it the Holy Synod issued an edict to commemorate St, Father John annually at the day of his death. He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1964, archbishop John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco played an active role in preparation of St. Johns canonization. His life and work are commemorated on the feast days of 20 December and October 19, many churches around the world and Ioannovsky Convent, the second largest monastic community in St Petersburg are dedicated to St. John of Kronstadt. Aus dem Tagebuch, Übers. v. S. H. Kurio, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-935217-33-0. By E. E. Goulaeff My Life in Christ at archive. org Sorrow and Joy, A Homily on the Day of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God at pravoslavie. ru Figes, a Peoples Tragedy, The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. «Из родословной семьи Сергиевых, Иоанн Ильич Сергиев и его семья», Наш храм,2002, №2, walter Laqueur, Der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch. Der militante Nationalismus der russischen Rechten, München 1995, S. 76–83, alla Selawry, Johannes von Kronstadt, Starez Rußlands, Dornach, Pforte,1989, ISBN 978-3-85636-064-1 Karl Christian Felmy, Predigt im orthodoxen Russland. Untersuchungen zu Inhalt und Eigenart der russischen Predigt in der 2, jahrhunderts, Göttingen 1972, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, ISBN 3-525-56428-7 Aksenov, R. „Pasi ovzy Moja“. Utschenie o pastyrstwe swjatogo Ioanna Kronschtadtskogo, W pomoschtsch pastyrju, Klin 2002, Ioanna Kronschtadtskago o wospitatelnom snatschenii slowa Boschija, St. Petersburg 1909. Opisanie schisni i dejatelnosti otza Ioanna Kronschtadtskago, St. Petersburg 1910, La teologia eucaristica di Ioann di Kronstadt, trans. by E. Cosentino, in, La Grande Vigilia, ed. A. Mainardi, Spiritualità orientale, Bose 1998, 225-242. Po sotschinenijam swjatogo prawednogo Ioanna Kronschtadtskogo, Sergiew Posad 2007, ISBN 978-5-9900983-1-2, Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People, Studies of the Harriman Institute, The Penn State Series in Lived Religious Experience, University Park 22003, ISBN 0-271-01976-X. Knechten, H. M. Licht in der Finsternis – Johannes von Kronstadt, Studien zur russischen Spiritualität VII, Kamen 2010, ornatski, I. N. Schitie i trudy prisnopamjatnogo protoiereja prawednika o
24.
Pyotr Kapitsa
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Besides Russian, the Kapitsa family also spoke Romanian. Kapitsas studies were interrupted by the First World War, in which he served as a driver for two years on the Polish front. He graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918 and he subsequently studied in Britain, working for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and founding the influential Kapitza club. He was the first director of the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge, in the 1920s he originated techniques for creating ultrastrong magnetic fields by injecting high current for brief periods into specially constructed air-core electromagnets. In 1928 he discovered the linear dependence of resistivity on magnetic field for various metals in very strong magnetic fields, in 1934 Kapitsa returned to Russia to visit parents but was not allowed by Stalins government to travel back to Great Britain. In 1934 he developed new and original apparatus for making significant quantities of liquid helium, Kapitsa formed the Institute for Physical Problems, in part using equipment which the Soviet government bought from the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge. In Russia, Kapitsa began a series of experiments to study liquid helium, in 1939 he developed a new method for liquefaction of air with a low-pressure cycle using a special high-efficiency expansion turbine. He invented high power microwave generators and discovered a new kind of high pressure plasma discharge with electron temperatures over 1,000. Amazingly, Stalin backed Kapitsa, telling Beria he had to cooperate with the scientists, Kapitsa refused to meet Beria, If you want to speak to me, then come to the Institute. Kapitsa refused to work with Beria even when Beria gave him a hunting rifle, Stalin offered to meet Kapitsa, but this never happened. Immediately after the war, a group of prominent Soviet scientists lobbied the government to create a new technical university, Kapitsa taught there for many years. From 1957, he was also a member of the presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and he shared the prize with Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, who won for discovering the cosmic microwave background. Kapitsa resistance is the resistance at the interface between liquid helium and a solid. The Kapitsa–Dirac effect is a mechanical effect consisting of the diffraction of electrons by a standing wave of light. In fluid dynamics, the Kapitza number is a dimensionless number characterizing the flow of films of fluid down an incline. Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseevna Krylova, daughter of applied mathematician A. N and they had two sons, Sergey and Andrey. Sergey Kapitsa was a physicist and demographer and he was also the host of the popular and long-running Russian scientific TV show, Evident, but Incredible. He was credited with the discovery and naming of Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica, a minor planet 3437 Kapitsa, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after him
25.
Nobel Prize in Physics
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The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who conferred the most outstanding contributions for mankind in the field of physics. The first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to German/Dutch physicist Wilhelm Röntgen in recognition of the services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and widely regarded as the most prestigious award that a scientist can receive in physics and it is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobels death. Through 2016, a total of 203 individuals have been awarded the prize, only two women have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, Marie Curie in 1903, and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last one was written a year before he died and was signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until April 26,1897 that it was approved by the Storting. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, The Royal Swedish Academy of sciences were to award the Prize in Physics. A maximum of three Nobel laureates and two different works may be selected for the Nobel Prize in Physics, compared with other Nobel Prizes, the nomination and selection process for the prize in Physics is long and rigorous. This is a key reason why it has grown in importance over the years to become the most important prize in Physics, the Nobel laureates are selected by the Nobel Committee for Physics, a Nobel Committee that consists of five members elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In the first stage begins in September, around 3,000 people – selected university professors, Nobel Laureates in Physics and Chemistry. The completed nomination forms arrive at the Nobel Committee no later than 31 January of the following year and these nominees are scrutinized and discussed by experts who narrow it to approximately fifteen names. The committee submits a report with recommendations on the candidates into the Academy. The Academy then makes the selection of the Laureates in Physics through a majority vote. The names of the nominees are never announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the prize. Nomination records are sealed for fifty years, while posthumous nominations are not permitted, awards can be made if the individual died in the months between the decision of the prize committee and the ceremony in December
26.
Neva Bay
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The Neva Bay, also known as the Gulf of Kronstadt, is the easternmost part of the Gulf of Finland between Kotlin Island and the Neva River estuary where Saint Petersburg city centre is located. It has an area of 329 km2. The entire bay has been separated from the Gulf of Finland by the 25 km long Saint Petersburg Dam, the area of water separated by the dam is 380 km2. The entire coastline is designated part of St. Petersburg rather than of Leningrad Oblast, the Saint Petersburg Dam separates the bay from the Baltic Sea
27.
Patron saint
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Catholics believe that patron saints, having already transcended to the metaphysical, are able to intercede effectively for the needs of their special charges. Historically, a practice has also occurred in many Islamic lands. With regard to the omnipresence of this belief, the late Martin Lings wrote. Traditionally, it has been understood that the saint of a particular place prays for that places wellbeing and for the health. Saints often become the patrons of places where they were born or had been active, professions sometimes have a patron saint owing to that individual being involved somewhat with it, although some of the connections were tenuous. Lacking such a saint, an occupation would have a patron whose acts or miracles in some way recall the profession and it is, however, generally discouraged in some Protestant branches such as Calvinism, where the practice is considered a form of idolatry. In Islam, the veneration or commemoration and recognition of saints is found in many branches of traditional Sunnism
28.
Russian Navy
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The Russian Navy is the naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. The regular Russian Navy was established by Peter the Great in October 1696, ascribed to Peter I is the oft quoted statement, A ruler that has but an army has one hand, but he who has a navy has both. The symbols of the Russian Navy, the St. Andrews ensign, neither Janes Fighting Ships nor the International Institute for Strategic Studies list any standard ship prefixes for the vessels of the Russian Navy. For official U. S. Navy photographs, they are referred to as RFS—Russian Federation Ship. However, the Russian Navy itself does not use this convention, a rearmament program approved in 2007 placed the development of the navy on an equal footing with the strategic nuclear forces for the first time in Soviet and Russian history. This program, covering the period until 2015, expected to see the replacement of 45 percent of the inventory of the Russian Navy, out of 4.9 trillion rubles allocated for military rearmament,25 percent will go into building new ships. Another setback is attributed to Russias domestic shipbuilding industry which is reported to have been in decline as to their capabilities of constructing contemporary hardware efficiently, some analysts even say that because of this Russias naval capabilities have been facing a slow but certain irreversible collapse. The origins of the Russian navy may be traced to the period between the 4th and the 6th century, the first Slavic flotillas consisted of small sailing ships and rowboats, which had been seaworthy and able to navigate in riverbeds. During the 9th through 12th centuries, there were flotillas in the Kievan Rus consisting of hundreds of vessels with one, riverine vessels in 9th century Kievan Rus guarded trade routes to Constantinople. The citizens of Novgorod are known to have conducted military campaigns in the Baltic Sea —although contemporary Scandinavian sources state that the fleet was from Karelia or Estonia, ladya was a typical boat used by the army of Novgorod. There were also smaller sailboats and rowboats, such as ushkuys for sailing in rivers, lakes and skerries, kochis, during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Cossacks conducted military campaigns against the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire, using sailboats and rowboats. The Don Cossacks called them strugs and these boats were capable of transporting up to 80 men. The Cossack flotillas numbered 80 to 100 boats, the centralized Russian state had been fighting for its own access to the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and Sea of Azov since the 17th Century. By the end of century, the Russians had accumulated some valuable experience in using riverboats together with land forces. Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, the construction of the first three-masted ship to be entirely within Russia was finished in 1636. She was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein with a European design, in 1668, they built a 26-gun ship, the Oryol, a yacht, a boat with a mast and bowsprit, and a few rowboats. Unquestionably the most celebrated Russian explorer was Semyon Dezhnev, who, in 1648, rounding the Chukotsk Peninsula, Dezhnev passed through the Bering Sea and sailed into the Pacific Ocean. The regular Russian Navy was created at the initiative of Peter the Great, during the Second Azov campaign of 1696 against the Ottoman Empire, the Russians employed for the first time 2 warships,4 fireships,23 galleys and 1300 strugs, built on the Voronezh River
29.
Peter the Great
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Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a larger empire that became a major European power. He led a revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized. Peters reforms made an impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. From an early age, Peters education was put in the hands of tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peters elder half-brother and this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne, Peters other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent and this arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis daughters from his first marriage, in the subsequent conflict some of Peters relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence. The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies, to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat, a large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Ivan and Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name and he engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peters mother sought to force him to adopt a conventional approach. The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun, by the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name, still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina and it was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign
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Imperial Russian Army
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The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of more than 900,000 regular soldiers, the last living veteran of the Russian Imperial Army was the Ukrainian supercentenarian Mikhail Krichevsky, who died in 2008. Russian tsars before Peter maintained professional hereditary musketeer corps, known as streltsy and these were originally raised by Tsar Ivan IV, originally an effective force, they had become highly unreliable and undisciplined. In times of war the forces were augmented by peasants. There were different kinds of regiments, such as regulars, dragoons, in 1631, the Russians created two regular regiments in Moscow. During the Russo-Polish War of 1632–1634, six regular regiments, one reiter regiment. Initially, they recruited children of the boyars and streltsy, volunteers, Cossacks. After the war with Poland, all of the regiments were disbanded, during another Russo-Polish War, they were created again and became a principal force of the Russian army. Often, regular and dragoon regiments were manned with datochniye lyudi for lifelong military service, reiters were manned with small or landless gentry and boyars children and were paid with money for their service. More than a half of the officers were representatives from the gentry. In times of peace, some of the regiments were usually disbanded, in 1681, there were 33 regular regiments and 25 dragoon and reiter regiments. In the late 17th century, regiments of the new type represented more than a half of the Russian Army, Conscription in Russia was introduced by Peter I of Russia in December 1699, though reports say Peters father also used it. Conscription of peasants and townspeople was based on system, per settlement. Initially it was based on the number of households, later it was based on the population numbers, the term of service in the 18th century was for life. In 1793 it was reduced to 25 years, in 1834, it was reduced to 20 years plus five years in the reserve, and in 1855 to 12 years plus three years in the reserve. The history of the Russian army in this era was linked to the name of Russian General Alexander Suvorov, considered one of a few great generals in history who never lost a battle. From 1777 to 1783 Suvorov served in the Crimea and in the Caucasus, becoming a lieutenant-general in 1780, from 1787 to 1791 he again fought the Turks during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 and won many victories. Suvorovs leadership also played a key role in a Russian victory over the Poles during the Kościuszko Uprising, furthermore, many lower-level officers were poorly trained and had difficulty getting their men to perform the sometimes complex manoeuvres required in a battle
31.
Swedish Empire
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The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Swedens territorial control of much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries, a time when Sweden was one of the great European powers. The beginning of the Empire is usually taken as the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, who ascended the throne in 1611, in Swedish history, the period is referred to as stormaktstiden, literally meaning the Great Power era. The interests of the high nobility contrasted with the uniformity policy, in territories acquired during the periods of de facto noble rule, serfdom was not abolished, and there was also a trend to set up respective estates in Sweden proper. The Great Reduction of 1680 put an end to efforts of the nobility. However, in the course of this war as well as in the subsequent Scanian War, Sweden was able to maintain her empire only with support of her closest ally. Charles XI of Sweden consolidated the empire and ensured a period of peace, before Russia, Saxony and Denmark started an attack on his successor. Sweden emerged as a great European power under Axel Oxenstierna and King Gustavus Adolphus, during the Thirty Years War, Sweden managed to conquer approximately half of the member states of the Holy Roman Empire. After France had intervened on the side as Sweden, the fortunes would shift again. As the war continued, it turned more and more grim, although exact population estimates do not exist, historians estimate that as many as one-third of the people in the Holy Roman Empire may have died as a result of the war. At the same time, Sweden joined the other important northern European nations in founding overseas colonies, New Sweden was founded in the valley of the Delaware River in 1638, and Sweden later laid claim to a number of Caribbean islands. A string of Swedish forts and trading posts was constructed along the coast of West Africa as well, at the conclusion of the Thirty Years War, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 granted Sweden territories as war reparations. Sweden demanded Silesia, Pomerania pay a sum of 200,000 Riksdaler out of the lands they would receive, or 2) surrender a fourth of the property itself. Against this, the over-taxed lower estates protested, and the Diet had to be suspended, the king intervened, not to quell the commons, as the senate insisted, but to compel the nobility to give way. He proposed a committee to investigate the matter before the meeting of the next Riksdag. Charles X Gustav had done his best to recover from the extravagance of Christina. However, his own desire for military glory may have caused problems for his country, in three days, he persuaded the Swedish estates of the potential of his attack on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, when he left Stockholm for Warsaw on July 10,1654, the Polish-Swedish War expanded into a general European war. He achieved passage over the Belts and emerged triumphant, only to die of sheer exhaustion, immediately after his death, a regency was appointed to govern Sweden during the minority of his only son and successor, Charles XI of Sweden, who was four years old
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Great Northern War
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The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway. George I of Great Britain and of Brunswick-Lüneburg joined the coalition in 1714 for and for Hanover in 1717, Charles XII led the Swedish army. Swedish allies included Holstein-Gottorp, several Polish magnates under Stanisław I Leszczyński, the Ottoman Empire temporarily hosted Charles XII of Sweden and intervened against Peter I. The treaty also secured the extradition and execution of Johann Reinhold Patkul, the Ottoman Empire defeated the Russian-Moldavian army in the Pruth River Campaign, but that peace treaty was in the end without great consequence to Russias position. After Poltava, the anti-Swedish coalition revived and subsequently Hanover and Prussia joined it, the remaining Swedish forces in plague-stricken areas south and east of the Baltic Sea were evicted, with the last city, Riga, falling in 1710. The coalition members partitioned most of the Swedish dominions among themselves, Sweden proper was invaded from the west by Denmark–Norway and from the east by Russia, which had occupied Finland by 1714. Sweden defeated the Danish invaders at the Battle of Helsingborg, Charles XII opened up a Norwegian front, but was killed in Fredriksten in 1718. The war ended with Swedens defeat, leaving Russia as the new dominant power in the Baltic region, by these treaties Sweden ceded her exemption from the Sound Dues, and lost the Baltic provinces and the southern part of Swedish Pomerania. The peace treaties also ended her alliance with Holstein-Gottorp, Hanover gained Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg-Prussia incorporated the Oder estuary, Russia secured the Baltic Provinces, and Denmark strengthened her position in Schleswig-Holstein. In Sweden, the monarchy had come to an end with the death of Charles XII. Between the years of 1560 and 1658, Sweden created a Baltic empire centred on the Gulf of Finland and comprising the provinces of Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia. During the Thirty Years War Sweden gained tracts in Germany as well, including Western Pomerania, Wismar, the Duchy of Bremen, during the same period Sweden conquered Danish and Norwegian provinces north of the Sound. However, the Swedish state ultimately proved unable to support and maintain its army in a prolonged war. The cost of the proved to be much higher than the occupied countries could fund, and Swedens coffers. The foreign interventions in Russia during the Time of Troubles resulted in Swedish gains in the Treaty of Stolbovo, the treaty deprived Russia of direct access to the Baltic Sea. In the late 1690s, the adventurer Johann Patkul managed to ally Russia with Denmark and Saxony by the secret Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye, Charles XII of Sweden succeeded Charles XI of Sweden in 1697, aged 14. From his predecessor, he took over the Swedish Empire as an absolute monarch, Charles XI had tried to keep the empire out of wars, and concentrated on inner reforms such as reduction and allotment, which had strengthened the monarchs status and the empires military abilities
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Alexander Danilovich Menshikov
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A highly appreciated associate and friend of Tsar Peter the Great, he was the de facto ruler of Russia for two years. Menshikov was born on 16 November 1673 in Moscow and it has been disputed by his enemies whether his father was a stablehand or worked on a barge, it is more likely that he was of petty noble stock. As the story goes, he was making a living on the streets of Moscow as a vendor of stuffed buns known as pirozhki at the age of twenty. His fine appearance and witty character caught the attention of Franz Lefort, Peters first favorite, on the death of Lefort in 1699, Menshikov succeeded him as Peters prime favorite and confidant. He took a part in the Azov campaigns against the Ottoman Empire. During the tsars first foreign tour in the year, Menshikov worked by his side in the dockyard of Amsterdam. Around 1706 he had a conflict with Andrew Vinius, Vinius lost all of his land, Menshikov understood perfectly the principles on which Peters reforms were conducted and was the right hand of the tsar in all his gigantic undertakings. But he abused his position, and his corrupt practices frequently brought him to the verge of ruin. Every time the tsar returned to Russia he received fresh accusations of plunder against his Serene Highness, Peters first serious outburst of indignation was due to the princes looting in Poland. On his return to Russia in 1712, Peter discovered that Menshikov had turned an eye to wholesale corruption in his own governor-generalship. Peter warned him for the last time to change his ways, yet, in 1713, he was implicated in the Solovey process, in the course of which it was demonstrated that he had defrauded the government of 100,000 roubles. He only owed his life on occasion to a sudden illness. On his recovery Peters fondness for his friend overcame his sense of justice, in 1714 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In the last year of Peters reign new allegations of fraud by Menshikov came to light and it was chiefly through the efforts of Menshikov and his colleague Tolstoi that, on the death of Peter, in 1725, Catherine was raised to the throne. Menshikov was committed to the Petrine system, and he recognised that, if that system were to continue, Catherine was, at particular time. Her name was a watchword for the progressive faction, the placing of her on the throne meant a final victory over ancient prejudices, a vindication of the new ideas of progress, and not least security for Menshikov and his ill-gotten fortune. During Catherines short reign, Menshikov was practically the absolute ruler of Russia and he promoted himself to the unprecedented rank of Generalissimus, and was the only Russian to bear a ducal title. Upon finishing the construction of the Menshikov Palace on the Neva Embankment in St Petersburg, pushkin in one of his poems alluded to Menshikov as half-tsar
34.
Crimean War
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The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, the French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. While the churches eventually worked out their differences and came to an agreement, Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas issued an ultimatum that the Orthodox subjects of the Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise that Nicholas agreed to, when the Ottomans demanded changes, Nicholas refused and prepared for war. Having obtained promises of support from France and Britain, the Ottomans declared war on Russia in October 1853. The war started in the Balkans, when Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities, until then under Ottoman suzerainty and now part of modern Romania, led by Omar Pasha, the Ottomans fought a strong defensive campaign and stopped the advance at Silistra. A separate action on the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia led to a siege. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, France and Britain rushed forces to Gallipoli and they then moved north to Varna in June, arriving just in time for the Russians to abandon Silistra. Aside from a skirmish at Köstence, there was little for the allies to do. Karl Marx quipped that there they are, the French doing nothing, after extended preparations, the forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and fought their way to a point south of Sevastopol after a series of successful battles. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, a second counterattack, ordered personally by Nicholas, was defeated by Omar Pasha. The front settled into a siege and led to conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller actions were carried out in the Baltic, the Caucasus, Sevastopol fell after eleven months, and neutral countries began to join the Allied cause. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion from the west if the war continued and this was welcomed by France and Britain, as their subjects were beginning to turn against their governments as the war dragged on. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, Russia was forbidden from hosting warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent, Christians there were granted a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways
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Eduard Totleben
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Eduard Ivanovich Totleben was a Baltic German military engineer and Imperial Russian Army general. He was in charge of fortification and sapping work during a number of important Russian military campaigns, Totleben was born at Mitau in Courland. His parents were of German descent, belonging to the merchant class, and he himself was intended for commerce and he entered the school of engineers at Saint Petersburg, now Military engineering-technical university. Totleben joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1836 and he saw active service as captain of engineers in the campaigns against Imam Shamil in the Caucasus, beginning in 1848 for two years. At the outbreak of war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1853, he took part in the siege of Silistria, Sevastopol, while strongly fortified toward the sea, was almost unprotected on the land side. Totleben, though still a field officer, became the animating genius of the defense. On his advice the fleet was sunk, in order to block the mouth of the harbour, the construction of earthworks and redoubts was carried out in extreme haste and much of the artillery from the warships was transferred to them. He never commanded an army in the open field, nor was he the creator of a great permanent system of defence like Vauban. In the course of the siege he had risen from the rank of lieutenant-colonel to that of lieutenant-general, when he recovered he was employed in strengthening the fortifications at the mouth of the Dnieper, and also those of Kronstadt. In 1864, he suggested further improvements of the Brest Fortress that were implemented between then and 1868, in 1856 he visited England, where his merits were honoured. In 1860, Totleben was appointed assistant to Grand Duke Nicholas and he was given no command when another war against the Ottoman Empire began in 1877. It was not until after the early reverses before Plevna that the hero of Sevastopol was called to the front, Totleben saw that it would be necessary to draw engineering works around Osman Pasha and cut him off from communication with the other Turkish commanders. Totleben then undertook the siege of the Bulgarian fortresses, after the conclusion of the preliminaries of peace, he was placed in command of the whole Russian army. After the war Totleben was assigned to be Governor General of Bessarabia and he also became a hereditary Count. In 1880, Totleben held the post of Governor General of Vilna, the village of Totleben in Pordim municipality, Pleven Province, is named after Eduard Totleben, in honour of his decisive role in the Siege of Plevna of 1877. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Todleben. Novorossiia leaders and Odessa Ukraine mayors
36.
Artillery battery
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The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Historically the term referred to a cluster of cannon in action as a group. Such batteries could be a mixture of cannon, howitzer, or mortar types, a siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place. The term also came to be used for a group of cannon in a fixed fortification and they were usually organised with between six and 12 ordnance pieces, often including cannon and howitzers. By the late 19th century battery had become standard mostly replacing company or troop, in the 20th century the term was generally used for the company level sub-unit of an artillery branch including field, air-defence, anti-tank and position. 20th-century firing batteries have been equipped with mortars, guns, howitzers, rockets, during the Napoleonic Wars some armies started grouping their batteries into larger administrative and field units. Groups of batteries combined for field combat employment called Grand Batteries by Napoleon, administratively batteries were usually grouped in battalions, regiments or squadrons and these developed into tactical organisations. These were further grouped into regiments, simply group or brigades, to further concentrate fire of individual batteries, from World War I they were grouped into artillery divisions in a few armies. Coastal artillery sometimes had completely different organizational terms based on shore defence sector areas, the rank of a battery commander has also varied, but is usually a lieutenant, captain, or major. The number of guns, howitzers, mortars or launchers in a battery has also varied. In the 19th century four to 12 guns was usual as the number to maneuver into the gun line. By late 19th century the artillery battery was divided into a gun line. The gun line consisted of six guns and 12 ammunition mules, during the American Civil War, artillery batteries often consisted of six field pieces for the Union Army and four for the Confederate States Army, although this varied. Batteries were divided into sections of two guns apiece, each section normally under the command of a lieutenant, the full battery was typically commanded by a captain. Often, particularly as the war progressed, individual batteries were grouped into battalions under a major or colonel of artillery, in the 20th century it varied between four and 12 for field artillery, or even two pieces for very heavy pieces. Other types of such as anti-tank or anti-aircraft have sometimes been larger. Some batteries have been dual-equipped with two different types of gun or mortar, and taking whichever was more appropriate when they deployed for operations, from the late 19th century field artillery batteries started to become more complex organisations. Fixed artillery refers to guns or howitzers on mounts that were anchored in one spot, or on carriages intended to be moved only for the purposes of aiming
37.
Krupp
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The Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their production of steel, artillery, ammunition, and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and it was important to weapons development and production in both world wars. One of the most powerful dynasties in European history, for 400 years Krupp flourished as the premier weapons manufacturer for Germany. From the Thirty Years War until the end of the Second World War, they produced everything from battleships, U-boats, tanks, howitzers, guns, utilities, the dynasty began in 1587 when a trader named Arndt Krupp moved to Essen and joined the merchants guild. He then began buying vacated real estate from families who fled the city due to the Black Death, over the next three centuries his descendants began producing small guns during the Thirty Years War and over time gradually acquired fulling mills, coal mines, and an iron forge. During the Napoleonic Wars, Friedrich Krupp founded the Gusstahlfabrik and began producing smelted steel in 1816, the foundations were laid for the steel Empire that would come to dominate the world for nearly a century under his son Alfred. Krupp became the manufacturer for the Kingdom of Prussia in 1859. Krupp was also a company that paved the way for workers rights. Widows and orphans were guaranteed pay if their husbands and/or fathers were killed, the company also produced the steel that built the railroads of America, capped the Chrysler Building in 1929, and was the first to travel to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. During the Third Reich, Krupp supported Adolf Hitler and the use of forced labour, after the war Krupp was rebuilt from scratch and again became one of the wealthiest companies in Europe. However a recession in 1967 caused the company severe profit loss, in 1999 the Krupp firm merged with Thyssen AG to form ThyssenKrupp AG, a large industrial conglomerate. Friedrich Krupp launched the familys metal-based activities, building a steel foundry in Essen in 1810. His son Alfred, known as the Cannon King or as Alfred the Great, invested heavily in new technology to become a significant manufacturer of steel rollers and he also invested in fluidized hotbed technologies and acquired many mines in Germany and France. Unusual for the era, he provided social services for his workers, including subsidized housing and health, the company began to make steel cannons in the 1840s—especially for the Russian, Turkish, and Prussian armies. When Alfred started with the firm, it had five employees, at his death twenty thousand people worked for Krupp—making it the worlds largest industrial company and the largest private company in the German empire. Krupps had a Great Krupp Building with an exhibition of guns at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, in the 20th century the company was headed by Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, who assumed the surname of Krupp when he married the Krupp heiress, Bertha Krupp. After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, the Krupp works became the center for German rearmament. In 1943, by an order from Hitler, the company reverted to a sole-proprietorship, with Gustav
38.
Turret
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In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification. As their military use faded, turrets were used for decorative purposes, a turret can have a circular top with crenellations as seen in the picture at right, a pointed roof, or other kind of apex. The size of a turret is therefore limited by technology, since it puts additional stresses on the structure of the building and it would traditionally be supported by a corbel. Bartizan, an overhanging, wall-mounted turret found particularly on French and they returned to prominence in the 19th century with their popularity in Scottish baronial style
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Enceinte
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Enceinte is a French term denoting the main defensive enclosure of a fortification. For a castle this is the defensive line of wall towers. For a settlement it would be the town wall with its associated gatehouses and towers. However, the outworks or defensive wall close to the enceinte were not considered as forming part of it, in early 20th-century fortification, the enceinte was usually simply the innermost continuous line of fortifications. In architecture, generally, an enceinte is the close or precinct of a cathedral, abbey, castle, the enceinte may be laid out as a freestanding structure or combined with buildings adjoining the outer walls. The enceinte not only provided protection for the areas behind it. The outline of the enceinte, with its towers and domestic buildings. The ground plan of an enceinte is affected by the terrain, from the 12th century onwards an additional enclosure called a zwinger was often built in front of the enceinte of many European castles. This afforded an additional layer of defence as it formed a killing ground in front of the defensive wall. During the Baroque era it was not uncommon for these enclosures to be turned into gardens as for example in Dresden). Enceinte is the adjective pregnant in the French language, friar, Stephen, The Sutton Companion to Castles, Stroud, Sutton Publishing, p.105, ISBN 978-0-7509-3994-2 Piper, Otto, Burgenkunde. Bauwesen und Geschichte der Burgen, in Piperer, R. et al
40.
Franco-Russian Alliance
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The Franco-Russian Alliance, or Russo-French Rapprochement, was an alliance formed by the agreements of 1891–93, it lasted until 1917. The development of ties between the two countries created the economic prerequisites for the Russo-French Alliance. The history of the dates to the beginning of the 1870s, to the contradictions engendered by the Franco-Prussian War. The Russian government had supported France during the war scare of 1875, in 1877, during the new Franco-German war scare, Russia maintained friendly relations with France. However, after the Berlin Congress of 1878, French diplomacy, in aiming at a rapprochement with Great Britain and Germany, france’s alienation from Russia and her policy of colonial seizures lasted until 1885, when the Franco-German contradictions became heightened after the French defeat in Annan. Early in 1887, new complications arose in Franco-German relations, France appealed to the Russian government for aid. In concluding the so-called Reinsurance Treaty with Germany in 1887, Russia insisted on maintaining for France the same conditions that Germany had stipulated for its ally, at the end of the 1880s, Russo-German economic discrepancies grew stronger. The Russo-French political rapprochement contributed to the influx of French capital into Russia, at the end of the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s, Russia received a number of large loans from France. During a visit by a French squadron to Kronstadt in July 1891, France was interested significantly more than Russia in a military alliance and endeavored to supplement the 1891 agreement with military obligations. By an exchange of letters between December 15,1893, and December 23,1893, both announced their ratification of the military convention. This formalized the Russo-French military-political alliance and it was a response to the formation of an aggressive military bloc headed by Germany. In Europe, two opposing hostile imperialist blocs had formed, relying on Russian support, France intensified its colonial policy. After the Fashoda Incident of 1898 with Great Britain, it endeavored even more to strengthen the alliance with Russia, the alliance with France also facilitated the tsarist government’s expansion into Manchuria in the 1890s. During the preparatory period and the first years of the existence of the Russo-French Alliance, the role was played by Russia. By constantly receiving new loans from France, Russian tsarism gradually fell into dependence on French imperialism. Prior to World War I, the cooperation of the staffs of both countries assumed closer forms. In 1912 a Russo-French naval convention was signed, Russia and France entered the war united by the treaty of alliance. This had a significant effect on the course and outcome of the war and this led to the defeat at the battle of the Marne, to the collapse of the Schlieffen Plan, and finally to the defeat of Germany
41.
February Revolution
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The February Revolution, known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution was the first of two Russian revolutions in 1917. The revolution centered on Petrograd, then the Russian capital, arguably beginning on 8 March, Revolutionary activity was largely confined to the capital and its vicinity, and lasted about eight days. It involved mass demonstrations and armed clashes with police and gendarmes, on 12 March mutinous Russian Army forces sided with the revolutionaries. Three days later the result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, Russian Council of Ministers was replaced by a Russian Provisional Government under Prince Georgy Lvov. The revolution appeared to break out spontaneously, without any leadership or formal planning. Russia had been suffering from a number of economic and social problems, bread rioters primarily women in bread lines, and industrial strikers were joined on the streets by disaffected soldiers from the citys garrison. As more and more troops deserted, and with loyal troops away at the Front, in all, over 1,300 people were killed in the protests of February 1917. A number of factors contributed to the downfall of the Imperial government in the spring of 1917, different historians apply different weights to different factors, liberal historians emphasise the turmoil created by the war, whereas Marxists emphasise the inevitability of change. Rabinowitch summarizes the main long-term and short-term causes, The February 1917 revolution, despite its occurrence at the height of World War I, the roots of the February Revolution date much further back. As historian Richard Pipes writes, the incompatibility of capitalism and autocracy struck all who gave thought to the matter. The first major event of the Russian Revolution was the February Revolution, dissatisfaction of proletarians was compounded by food shortages and military failures. Widespread strikes, riots and the mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin ensued. These conditions caused much agitation among the working and professional classes. This tension erupted into revolt with the 1905 Revolution, and again under the strain of war in 1917. The revolution was provoked by Russian military failures during the First World War, the economic challenges faced due to fighting a total war also contributed. In August 1914, all supported and virtually all political deputies voted in favour of the war. The exceptions included the Bolshevik Party and specifically Vladimir Lenin who argued it was not a war fighting. The declaration of war was followed by a revival of nationalism across Russian society, nearly six million casualties—dead, wounded and missing—had been accrued by January 1917
42.
Russian cruiser Oleg
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Oleg was the 4th and final Bogatyr-class protected cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy. Oleg was laid down at the Admiralty Shipyards at St. Petersburg on 6 July 1902, launched on 14 August 1903, with the Russo-Japanese War already in progress, she was seconded to the Russian Second Pacific Squadron. The squadron engaged Japanese Admiral Togo Heihachiro’s Combined Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima on 15 May 1905, after returning to the Russian Baltic Fleet, Oleg was refit and her torpedo nets removed. She was available for service again from 17 October 1908. At the start of World War I, Oleg was part of the Russian 1st Cruiser Brigade in the Baltic Sea, on 26 August 1914, together with sister ship Bogatyr, she covered minelaying operations in the Baltic, as well as laying mines herself. Mines laid by Oleg are credited with sinking the German light cruiser SMS Augsburg off Bornholm, on 2 July 1915, Oleg participated in the Battle of Åland Islands during which she assisted in driving the German light cruiser SMS Albatross onto the beach. In June 1916, the Russian Baltic Fleet launched an offensive against German convoys off the Swedish cost. During the October Revolution of 1917, the crew of Oleg quickly declared support for the Bolshevik cause, Oleg sailed to Kronstadt in what became known as the Ice Voyage. In November 1918, Oleg and Bogatyr participated in the invasion of Estonia by the Red Army. Oleg was torpedoed and sunk on the night of 17 June 1919 by Royal Navy speedboat CMB-4 commanded by Captain Augustus Agar in an attack on the Red Navy facilities at Kronstadt. Parts of the ship were salvaged in 1919 and 1933, Armoured Cruiser vs. Armoured Cruiser, Ulsan 14 August 1904. Robert Gardiner, ed. Conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860–1905, Conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships, 1906–1922. From Ruirik to Ruirik, Russias Armoured Cruisers, media related to Cruiser Oleg at Wikimedia Commons
43.
Torpedo
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Historically, it was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive or fish torpedo, colloquially called a fish. The term torpedo was originally employed for a variety of devices, from about 1900, torpedo has been used strictly to designate an underwater self-propelled weapon. Todays torpedoes can be divided into lightweight and heavyweight classes, and into straight-running, autonomous homers and they can be launched from a variety of platforms. The word torpedo comes from the name of a genus of rays in the order Torpediniformes. In naval usage, the American Robert Fulton introduced the name to refer to a gunpowder charge used by his French submarine Nautilus to demonstrate that it could sink warships. The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was successfully developed. In 1275, Hasan al-Rammah described. an egg which moves itself, in modern language, a torpedo is an underwater self-propelled explosive, —but historically, the term also applied to primitive naval mines. These were used on an ad hoc basis during the modern period up to the late 19th century. An early submarine, the Turtle, attempted to lay a bomb with a fuse on the hull of HMS Eagle during the American Revolutionary War. In the early 1800s, the American inventor Robert Fulton, while in France and he coined the term torpedo in reference to the explosive charges he outfitted his submarine Nautilus. However, both the French and the Dutch governments were uninterested in the submarine, Fulton then concentrated on developing the torpedo independent of a submarine deployment. However, the British government refused to purchase the invention, stating they did not wish to introduce into naval warfare a system that would give advantage to weaker maritime nations. Fulton carried out a demonstration for the US government on 20 July 1807. Further development languished as Fulton focused on his steam-boat matters, during the War of 1812, torpedoes were employed in attempts to destroy British vessels and protect American harbors. In fact a submarine deployed torpedo was used in an attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New Londons harbor. Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any boat in this cruel and unheard-of warfare. Torpedoes were used by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War in 1855 against British warships in the Gulf of Finland and they used an early form of chemical detonator. During the American Civil War, the torpedo was used for what is today called a contact mine
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Kronstadt". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 927–928.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
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