1.
Oryol Oblast
–
Oryol Oblast is a federal subject of Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Oryol and it is located in the southwestern part of the Central Federal District, in the Central Russian Upland. Kaluga and Tula Oblasts border it to the north, Bryansk Oblast is located to the west, Kursk Oblast—to the south, from north to south, it extends for more than 150 kilometers, and from west to east—for over 200 kilometers. In terms of area, at 24,700 square kilometers it is one of the smallest federal subjects, the average January temperature is −8 °C and the average July temperature is +18 °C. Rainfall averages 490 to 590 mm, and snow cover averages 126 days, there are 4,800 square kilometers of black earth soils in the oblast, which amounts to three-quarters of the world chernozem reserves. In the 12th century, chronicles mention Mtsensk, known as Novosil then, then modern Orlovschina was part of the Chernigov Principality. After the death of Mikhail of Chernigov Novosil Principality was formed on these territories, by the end of the 15th century it had disintegrated into four separate principalities, along with all the other fragments of the Chernigov principality became a part of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the 16th century, the town of Oryol was founded, restored destroyed in the 13th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the territory of modern Oryol was the borderland of the Tsardom of Russia, as the reduction of the threat posed by the Tatars, agricultural activity of the area had intensified. It was created in 1937 out of three oblasts, Kursk Oblast, Western Oblast, and Voronezh Oblast. It also included present Bryansk Oblast between 1937-1944, since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament. The Charter of Oryol Oblast is the law of the region. The Oryol Oblast Council of Peoples Deputies is the provinces standing legislative body, the Legislative Assembly exercises its authority by passing laws, resolutions, and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it. Head of Administration of the Orel region in 1993-2009 was Yegor Stroyev, tunings led the region for more than 20 years. The main industries in Oryol Oblast are the food and light industries, engineering and metalworking, the engineering and metalworking industries manufacture production equipment for various industries, forklift trucks, construction and agricultural equipment, and machinery for municipal services. Numerous companies in the instrument-making and electronics sectors maintain high scientific and technical potential with the latest high-end technologies, first digital telephone exchange was introduced in the oblast in 1998. Most of the agricultural land is used for plant cultivation. Grain growing is very important, with wheat and rye being the main crops
2.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
–
The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
3.
Moscow
–
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
4.
Russia
–
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
5.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
6.
Soviet Air Forces
–
The Soviet Air Forces was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces, the Air Forces were formed from components of the Imperial Russian Air Service in 1917, and faced their greatest test during World War II. The groups were involved in the Korean War, and dissolved along with the Soviet Union itself in 1991–92. Former Soviet Air Forces assets were divided into several air forces of former Soviet republics. March of the Pilots was its anthem, the All-Russia Collegium for Direction of the Air Forces of the Old Army was formed on 20 December 1917. This was a Bolshevik aerial headquarters initially led by Konstantin Akashev and it became the Directorate of the USSR Air Forces on 28 March 1924, and then the Directorate of the Workers-Peasants Red Army Air Forces on 1 January 1925. Gradually its influence on aircraft design became greater, from its earliest days, the force mimicked ground forces organization especially in the 1930s, by which time it was made up of air armies, aviation corps, aviation divisions, and aviation regiments. At first, the I-16 proved superior to any Luftwaffe fighters, however, the Soviets refused to supply the plane in adequate numbers, and their aerial victories were soon squandered because of their limited use. Later, Bf-109s delivered to Francos Spanish Nationalist air forces secured air superiority for the Nationalists, on 19 November 1939, VVS headquarters was again titled the Main Directorate of the Red Army Air Forces under the WPRA HQ. Between 1933 and 1938, the Soviet government planned and funded missions to break numerous world aviation records, not only did aviation records and achievements become demonstrations of the USSRs technological progress, they also served as legitimization of the socialist system. With each new success, Soviet press trumpeted victories for socialism, furthermore, Soviet media idolized record-breaking pilots, exalting them not only as role models for Soviet society, but also as symbols of progress towards the socialist-utopian future. The early 1930s saw a shift in focus away from collectivist propaganda. In the case of aviation, the government began glorifying people who utilized aviation technology instead of glorifying the technology itself. Pilots such as Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baydukov, Alexander Belyakov, in May 1937, Stalin charged pilots Chkalov, Baydukov, and Belyakov with the mission to navigate the first transpolar flight in history. On 20 June 1937, the aviators landed their ANT-25 in Vancouver, a month later, Stalin ordered the departure of a second crew to push the boundaries of modern aviation technology even further. The public reaction to the flights was euphoric. The media called the pilots Bolshevik knights of culture and progress, Soviet citizens celebrated Aviation Day on 18 August with as much zeal as they celebrated the October Revolution anniversary. Literature including poems, short stories, and novels emerged celebrating the feats of the aviator-celebrities, feature films like Victory, Tales of Heroic Aviators, and Valery Chkalov reinforced the positive hero imagery, celebrating the aviators individuality within the context of a socialist government
7.
Polkovnik
–
This article is about the OF-5 rank Polkovnik in mostly Slavophone countries. For the equivalent rank in Anglophone armed forces see Colonel, in Austria, Polkovnik is a military rank in Slavic countries mostly which corresponds to a colonel in English-speaking states, and oberst in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countries. The term originates from an ancient Slavic word for a group of soldiers, however, in Cossack Hetmanate and Slobozhanshchyna, polkovnyk was an administrative rank similar to a governor. Usually this word is translated as colonel, however the transliteration is also in common usage, Polkovnik began as a commander of a distinct group of troops, arranged for battle. The rank of polkovnik was also used in the Estonian army until 1924, the rank was legalized by Table of Ranks that placed it in the 6th grade as the second-top field officer, right under the brigadier. A promotion to the rank of polkovnik gave a privilege of hereditary nobility, the Red Army reintroduced the polkovnik rank in 1935, together with a number of other former Russian ranks, and it has been used in many ex-USSR countries, including Russia, to the present day. The Rank insignia to Polkovnik is as follows, Ranks and rank insignia of the Russian armed forces until 1917 Ranks and rank insignia of the Red Army 1935–1940, 1940–1943 Ranks and rank insignia of the Soviet Army 1943–1955, and. By the end of the 17th century, the title of the assignment became a de facto rank as such and started to denote the commanding officer of the entire regiment. During the rule of Sanacja in the period between World War I and World War II, a number of officers were promoted to the rank. During the Invasion of Poland in 1939, the Polish divisions were commanded by officers of many grades, in fact 22 divisions out of 42 were commanded by colonels in 1939. The pułkownicy also commanded units of all sizes, from divisions down to mere battalions, in the 18th century, a polkovnyk was a leader of a palanka, a territorial unit of the Zaporozhian Host. The military council elected a palanka polkovnyk to serve for a term of one year and he represented the Kosh Otaman in the palanka and had significant powers, including the right to condemn Cossacks to the death penalty. At the time of liquidation of the Zaporozhian Host by the Russian government in 1775, as symbol of office a polkovnyk wore a pernach in his belt. In the Registered Cossack Army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th centuries, a polkovnyk commanded a regiment, after the reform of the Cossack army by hetman Mykhailo Doroshenko in the 1620s there were six Cossack regiments, each comprising one thousand Cossacks. Polkovnyks were elected by the Cossack Council subject to the approval of the Polish government, a polkovnyk obtained a salary for his service, and enjoyed considerable privileges. After the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted the Ordination of 1638, during Khmelnytsky Uprising and in the Cossack Hetmanate, a polkovnyk headed a territorial administrative unit, the regiment. In modern Ukraine, the rank of polkovnyk resembles the similar rank of the former Soviet Army. Історія України в особах, термінах, назвах і поняттях. -Луцьк, Вежа,2000
8.
Colonel
–
Colonel is a senior military officer rank below the general officer ranks. However, in small military forces, such as those of Iceland or the Vatican. It is also used in police forces and paramilitary organizations. Historically, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of a regiment in an army, the rank of colonel is typically above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The rank above colonel is typically called brigadier, brigade general or brigadier general, equivalent naval ranks may be called captain or ship-of-the-line captain. In the Commonwealth air force rank system, the equivalent rank is group captain, the word colonel derives from the same root as the word column and means of a column, and, by implication, commander of a column. The word colonel is therefore linked to the column in a similar way that brigadier is linked to brigade. By the end of the medieval period, a group of companies was referred to as a column of an army. Since the word is believed to derive from sixteenth-century Italian, it was presumably first used by Italian city states in that century. The first use of colonel as a rank in an army was in the French National Legions created by King Francis I by his decree of 1534. Building on the reforms of Louis XIIs decree of 1509. Each colonel commanded a legion with a strength of six thousand men. With the shift from primarily mercenary to primarily national armies in the course of the seventeenth century, the Spanish equivalent rank of coronel was used by the Spanish tercios in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, nicknamed the Great Captain, divided his armies in coronelías or colonelcies, however, the Spanish word probably derives from a different origin, in that it appears to designate an officer of the crown, rather than an officer of the column. This makes the Spanish word coronel probably cognate with the English word coroner and this regiment, or governance, was to some extent embodied in a contract and set of written rules, also referred to as the colonels regiment or standing regulation. By extension, the group of companies subject to a colonels regiment came to be referred to as his regiment as well, the position, however, was primarily contractual and it became progressively more of a functionless sinecure. By the late 19th century, colonel was a military rank though still held typically by an officer in command of a regiment or equivalent unit. As European military influence expanded throughout the world, the rank of colonel became adopted by every nation
9.
Hero of the Soviet Union
–
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The award was established on May 5,1934, by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, earlier heroes were retroactively eligible for these items. A hero could be awarded the title again for a subsequent heroic feat with an additional Gold Star medal, an additional Order of Lenin was not given until 1973. The practice of awarding the title multiple times was abolished by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1988 during perestroika,44 foreign citizens were awarded the title. The title was given posthumously, though often without the actual Gold Star medal given. The title could be revoked only by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the total number of people who were awarded this title is 12,755. The great majority of them received it during World War II, sixty-five people were awarded the title for actions related to the Soviet-Afghan War, which lasted from 1979 until 1989. Valentina Grizodubova, a pilot, was the first woman to become a Hero of the Soviet Union for her international womens record for a straight-line distance flight. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet partisan, was the first woman to become a Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II, in addition,101 people received the award twice. A second award entitled the recipient to have a bronze bust of his or her likeness with an inscription erected in his or her hometown. Two famous Soviet fighter pilots, Aleksandr Pokryshkin and Ivan Kozhedub were three times Heroes of the Soviet Union. A third award entitled the recipient to have his/her bronze bust erected on a pedestal in Moscow, near the Palace of the Soviets. The only individuals to receive the four times were Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The original statute of the Hero of the Soviet Union, however, did not provide for a fourth title, both Zhukov and Brezhnev received their fourth titles under controversial circumstances contrary to the statute, which remained largely unchanged until the award was abolished in 1991. Zhukov was awarded a time for his large accomplishments on the occasion of his 60th birthday on December 1,1956. There is some speculation that Zhukovs fourth Hero medal was for his participation in the arrest of Beria in 1953, brezhnevs four awards further eroded the prestige of the award because they were birthday gifts, on the occasions of his 60th, 70th, 72nd and 75th birthdays. Such practices halted in 1988 due to a decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by the 1970s, the award had been somewhat devalued. Important political and military persons had been awarded on the occasions of their anniversaries rather than for any immediate heroic activity, all Soviet cosmonauts, starting from Yuri Gagarin, as well as foreign citizens who participated in Soviet cosmic program as cosmonauts, received Hero award for each flight
10.
Order of Honour (Russia)
–
Its statute was amended by decree №19 of January 6,1999 and more lately by decree №1099 of January 7,2010 which defined its present status. The Russian Federation Order provides continuity from the Soviet Unions identically named Order, the Soviet Order of Honor was denoted by a gray yellow edged ribbon. The obverse bears a white enamelled central medallion bordered by a laurel wreath. On the otherwise plain reverse, two rivets and the serial number at the bottom. The individuals below are recipients of the Order of Honour. A
Soviet Union
Soviet Air Force
