1.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
2.
Ryazan
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Ryazan is a city and the administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River 196 kilometers southeast of Moscow. It is argued that the Ryazan kremlin was founded in 800, by Slavic settlers, initially it was built of wood, gradually replaced by masonry. The oldest preserved part of the dates back to the 12th century. However, the first written mention of the city, under the name of Pereslavl, at that time, the city was part of the independent Principality of Ryazan, which had existed since 1078 and which was centered on the old city of Ryazan. The first ruler of Ryazan was supposedly Yaroslav Sviatoslavich, Prince of Ryazan, by the end of the 12th century, the capital of Duchy was burnt several times by the armies of Suzdal. Ryazan was the first Russian city to be sacked by the Mongol horde of Batu Khan, on December 21,1237, it was thoroughly devastated and never fully recovered. As result of the sack, the seat of the principality was moved about 55 kilometers to the town of Pereslavl-Ryazansky, the site of the old capital now carries the name of Staraya Ryazan, close to Spassk-Ryazansky. Late in the 13th century, the Princes of Ryazan moved their capital to Pereslavl, the principality was finally incorporated into that of Moscow in 1521. Immediately after World War II, rapid development of the city began, Ryazan became a major industrial, scientific, and military center of the European part of Russia. Massive factories were constructed in the city, occupying the urban areas. Leading areas of industry are heavy and non-ferrous metallurgy, oil refining and machine-tool industry, mechanical engineering, more than half of the plants produce for export. Several positioned MANPADS protect the urban sky, besides the Airborne School, Ryazan hosts the Automobile School and Institute of Communications, a regiment of railway troops, airbase strategic bombers, and a training center in Diaghilev. Ryazan developed particularly rapidly while Nadezhda Nikolaevna Chumakova served as Chair of the Council of Peoples Deputies of Ryazan and Ryazan mayor, under Chumakova, the citys population increased more than seven times, from 72 to 520 thousand people. Chumakova oversaw the construction of social and cultural amenities, more than 20 urban areas, landscaping became a fundamental strategy for the development of the city at that time. Ryazan repeatedly won recognition among the cities of the Soviet Union for its landscaping, during her 26 years in office, Nadezhda Chumakova often accepted awards of the Red Banner of the USSR on behalf of Ryazan. In September 1999, Ryazan became one of the involved in the Russian apartment bombings episode. In the Political system of Ryazan, the legislature, a city council is the Ryazan City Duma, kind of the lower house of the municipality - Youth Parliament, preparing draft legislative initiatives. Executive power in the city of Ryazan carried by the administration headed by the city manager, control over the activities of the authorities is administered by the Public Chamber of the city of Ryazan, work with youth involved in the headquarters of youth activists
3.
Moscow State University
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Lomonosov Moscow State University is a coeducational and public research university located in Moscow, Russia. It was founded on January 25,1755 by Mikhail Lomonosov, MSU was renamed after Lomonosov in 1940 and was then known as Lomonosov University. It also claims to house the tallest educational building in the world and it is rated among the universities with the best reputation in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy, ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov promoted the idea of a university in Moscow, and Russian Empress Elizabeth decreed its establishment on January 251755. The first lectures were given on April 26th, russians still celebrate January 25th as Students Day. Saint Petersburg State University and Moscow State University engage in rivalry over the title of Russias oldest university. The present Moscow State University originally occupied the Principal Medicine Store on Red Square from 1755 to 1787, in the 18th century, the University had three departments, philosophy, medicine, and law. A preparatory college was affiliated with the University until its abolition in 1812, in 1779, Mikhail Kheraskov founded a boarding school for noblemen which in 1830 became a gymnasium for the Russian nobility. The university press, run by Nikolay Novikov in the 1780s, published the most popular newspaper in Imperial Russia, in 1804, medical education split into clinical, surgical, and obstetrics faculties. During 1884–1897, the Department of Medicine -- supported by donations. The campus, and medical education in general, were separated from the University in 1918, as of 2015, Devichye Pole was operated by the independent I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University and by various other state and private institutions. The roots of student unrest in the University reach deep into the nineteenth century, in 1905, a social-democratic organization emerged at the University and called for the overthrow of the Czarist government and the establishment of a republic in Russia. The imperial government repeatedly threatened to close the University, after the October Revolution of 1917, the institution began to admit the children of the proletariat and peasantry. In 1919, the University abolished fees for tuition and established a facility to help working-class children prepare for entrance examinations. During the implementation of Joseph Stalins First Five-Year Plan, prisoners from the Gulag were forced to construct parts of the newly expanded University, after 1991, nine new faculties were established. The following year, the University gained a status, it is funded directly from the state budget. On March 19,2008, Russias most powerful supercomputer to date and its peak performance of 60 TFLOPS makes it the fastest supercomputer in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Since 1953, most of the faculties have been situated on Sparrow Hills, the main building was designed by architect Lev Vladimirovich Rudnev
4.
Butyrka
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Butyrka prison is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. It was the transit prison in Tsarist Imperial Russia. During Soviet times, it held political prisoners. Currently, Butyrka remains the largest of Moscow remand prisons, overcrowding continues to be a problem. The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century, the current building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate on the site of a prison-fortress which had been built by the architect Matvei Kazakov during the reign of Catherine the Great. The towers of the old fortress once housed the rebellious Streltsy during the reign of Peter I, members of Narodnaya Volya were also prisoners of the Butyrka in 1883, as were the participants in the Morozov Strike of 1885. The Butyrka prison was known for its brutal regime, the prison administration resorted to violence anytime the inmates tried to protest. Its famous inmates include the revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Russian revolutionary Nikolay Bauman. During the February Revolution, the workers of Moscow freed all the prisoners from the Butyrka. After the October Revolution, Butyrka remained a place of internment for political prisoners, during the Great Purge, about twenty thousand inmates at a time were imprisoned in Butyrka. Thousands of political prisoners were shot after investigations, later, prominent political prisoners included the writers Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Yevgenia Ginzburg. Varlam Shalamov notes, in one of his tales, that the Butyrka is extremely hot in summer, Eduard Limonov, in his drama Death in the Police Van, emphatically agrees. He says that, with the collapse of the Soviet regime, overcrowding has become a real issue, most of these people are politically unreliable subjects from the Caucasus. Moreover, inmates are brought to the tribunal in overcrowded police vans, Butyrka has its own slang, the wardens are called manti, the inmates patzani, to take drugs is smazatsia, i. e. to oil oneself. The word khuy is used profusely, on a lighter note, television has been allowed since 1995. Fabijan Abrantovich, a well-known Catholic priest and a pro-independence activist from Belarus, anna Abrikosova, a nun of the Dominican Order and prominent figure in the Russian Catholic Church. Andrei Amalrik, Russian historian and famed dissident during the 1960s, author of Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984. Władysław Anders, Polish general and prime minister, isaak Babel, writer, killed in 1940
5.
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
6.
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
7.
Neoclassicism
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The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th, 20th, European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c.1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Baroque and Rococo styles. Each neo-classicism selects some models among the range of classics that are available to it. They ignored both Archaic Greek art and the works of Late Antiquity, the Rococo art of ancient Palmyra came as a revelation, through engravings in Woods The Ruins of Palmyra. While the movement is described as the opposed counterpart of Romanticism. The case of the main champion of late Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrates this especially well. The revival can be traced to the establishment of formal archaeology, the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann were important in shaping this movement in both architecture and the visual arts. With the advent of the Grand Tour, a fad of collecting antiquities began that laid the foundations of many great collections spreading a Neoclassical revival throughout Europe, Neoclassicism in each art implies a particular canon of a classical model. In English, the term Neoclassicism is used primarily of the arts, the similar movement in English literature. This, which had been dominant for decades, was beginning to decline by the time Neoclassicism in the visual arts became fashionable. Though terms differ, the situation in French literature was similar, in music, the period saw the rise of classical music, and Neoclassicism is used of 20th-century developments. Ingress coronation portrait of Napoleon even borrowed from Late Antique consular diptychs and their Carolingian revival, much Neoclassical painting is more classicizing in subject matter than in anything else. A fierce, but often very badly informed, dispute raged for decades over the merits of Greek and Roman art, with Winckelmann. The work of artists, who could not easily be described as insipid, combined aspects of Romanticism with a generally Neoclassical style. Unlike Carstens unrealized schemes, the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi were numerous and profitable and his main subject matter was the buildings and ruins of Rome, and he was more stimulated by the ancient than the modern. Neoclassicism in painting gained a new sense of direction with the success of Jacques-Louis Davids Oath of the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785. Despite its evocation of republican virtues, this was a commission by the royal government, David managed to combine an idealist style with drama and forcefulness. David rapidly became the leader of French art, and after the French Revolution became a politician with control of government patronage in art
8.
Catherine the Great
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Catherine II of Russia, also known as Catherine the Great, was a Russian monarch. She was the female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. She came to following a coup détat when her husband. Russia was revitalised under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever, in both her accession to power and in rule of her empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherines former lover, king Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, in the east, Russia started to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America. Catherine reformed the administration of Russian guberniyas, and many new cities, an admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the continued to depend on serfdom. This was one of the reasons behind several rebellions, including the large-scale Pugachevs Rebellion of cossacks. The period of Catherine the Greats rule, the Catherinian Era, is considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the Empress and she enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot. Catherine was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, she was nicknamed Figchen. Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt, two of her first cousins became Kings of Sweden, Gustav III and Charles XIII. In accordance with the then prevailing in the ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess. She once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm, I see nothing of interest in it, although Catherine was born a princess, her family had very little money. Catherines rise to power was supported by her mothers relatives who were both wealthy nobles and royal relations. Catherine first met Peter III at the age of 10, based on her writings, she found Peter detestable upon meeting him. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age, Peter also still played with toy soldiers
9.
Kremlin Senate
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The Kremlin Senate is a building within the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia. Initially constructed from 1776 to 1787, it housed the Moscow branch of the Governing Senate. Currently, it houses the Russian presidential administration and is a secured and restricted area closed to the public. At present, only the southern corner façade, opposite the Tsar Cannon can be viewed, the Kremlin Senate is located in the northern part of the Kremlin grounds, between the Kremlin Arsenal and Kremlin Presidium. It is shaped like a triangle with each side approximately 100 metres in length. The building has three floors and is painted in the yellow color as many other administrative buildings within the Moscow Kremlin. The triangular structure has a courtyard, and is divided by hallways into a central pentahedral portion. In the middle of the main façade is an arched passage fashioned like an arch leading to the inner yard. Inside is Rotunda Hall, once called The Pantheon of Russia and its green dome, carrying the state flag as seen from the Red Square, would later become a Soviet propaganda icon. However, originally it carried a statue of St. George, the exterior styling of the building is an unusual mix of Doric and Ionic order columns. Inside the building, the large “Catherine Hall” is designed as a parade room and this is a circular hall, with a 24.7 meter diameter under extensive bas-relief ornamentation depicting Catherine as the Greek goddess Minerva. The Governing Senate was a created by Tsar Peter the Great in 1711. It had six departments, four of which were in St Petersburg, empress Catherine the Great had been a frequent guest in Moscow at the time when the city, neglected by past monarchs, did not have enough state offices. The site once housed the Trubetskoy family palace and at least three churches, in 1779 Blank was demoted, and Kazakov took the lead. He envisaged Governing Senate as a “Temple of Law”, and designed the structure in a Neoclassical style characterized by symmetry, the building was completed in 1787, with interior work continuing to 1790. According to Ivan Kondratiev, Catherine was so impressed by the building that she gave Kazakov her gloves, saying Ill pay your bills later and she indeed repaid Kazakov with diamonds, promotion and a pension. The building later served as a model for other official buildings in other Russian cities in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Later, in line with reforms of Catherines successors, the building lost its national functions and became the seat of Moscow Regional Court
