Red Ruthenia
Red Ruthenia, Red Rus is a historic term used since the Middle Ages for southeastern Poland and Western Ukraine. First mentioned in a 1321 Polish chronicle, Red Ruthenia was the portion of Rus incorporated into Poland by Casimir the Great during the 14th century. From the 14th century, after the disintegration of Rus, Red Ruthenia was contested by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Ruthenia. After the Galicia–Volhynia Wars, for about 400 years most of Red Ruthenia became part of Poland as the Ruthenian Voivodeship, there are at least three theories concerning the origins of the name Red Ruthenia. A popular belief that it was derived from the associations of particular colours with cardinal points of the compass. This originated with mythology of the pre-Christian god Svetovid, who had four faces, his face was white, the southern black, eastern green. According to a theory, many place names in Red Ruthenia start in cherv-. These include the so-called Cherven Cities, the first known inhabitants of Red Ruthenia were Lendians, with Boykos and Lemkos on its perimeters.
Later Walddeutsche, Jews and Poles made up part of the population, according to Marcin Bielski, although Bolesław I Chrobry settled Germans in the region to defend the borders against Hungary and Kievan Rus the settlers became farmers. Maciej Stryjkowski described German peasants near Rzeszów, Przemyśl, Casimir the Great settled German citizens on the borders of Lesser Poland and Red Ruthenia to join the acquired territory with the rest of his kingdom. In determining the population of late medieval Poland and Polish migration to Red Ruthenia, Spiš, during the second half of the 14th century, the Vlachs arrived from the southeastern Carpathians and quickly overspread southern Red Ruthenia. Although during the 15th century the Ruthenians gained a foothold, it was not until the 16th century that the Wallachian population in the Bieszczady Mountains, from the 14th to the 16th centuries Red Ruthenia underwent rapid urbanization, resulting in over 200 new towns built on the German model. During the Middle Ages, the region was part of the Ruthenian Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia and it came under Polish control in 1340, when Casimir the Great acquired it.
During his reign from 1333 to 1370, Casimir the Great founded several cities, the name Ruś Czerwona has been used for the territory extending to the Dniester, centring on Przemyśl. Since the reign of Władysław Jagiełło the Przemyśl Voivodeship was called the Ruthenian Voivodeship, the voivodeship consisted of five regions, Lwów, Halicz, Przemyśl, and Chełm. The town of Halych gave its name to Galicia, in October 1372, Władysław Opolczyk was deposed as count palatine. Although he retained most of his castles and goods in Hungary, as compensation, Opolczyk was made governor of Hungarian Galicia. In this new position, he contributed to the development of the territories entrusted to him
Tsardom of Russia
From 1551 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 per year. After a military victory over Sweden and Poland, he implemented substantial reforms and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721. While the oldest endonyms of the Grand Duchy of Moscow used in its documents were Rus and the Russian land, in the 1480s Russian state scribes Ivan Cherny and Mikhail Medovartsev mention Russia under the name Росиа, Medovartsev mentions the sceptre of Russian lordship. In England of the 16th century, it was both as Russia and Muscovy. In Northern Europe and at the court of the Holy Roman Empire, muscovites refute this, saying that their country was originally called Russia. When they are asked what nation they are, they respond Russac, which means Russians, and when they are asked what place they are from, by the 16th century, the Russian ruler had emerged as a powerful, autocratic figure, a Tsar. By assuming that title, the sovereign of Moscow tried to emphasize that he was a ruler or emperor on par with the Byzantine emperor or the Mongol khan.
At first, the Byzantine term autokrator expressed only the meaning of an independent ruler. Ivan IV was crowned Tsar and thus was recognized, at least by the Russian Orthodox Church and that concept was to resonate in the self-image of Russians in future centuries. The development of the Tsars autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV, Ivan strengthened the position of the Tsar to an exceptional degree, demonstrating the risks of unrestrained power in the hands of a mentally unstable individual. Although apparently intelligent and energetic, Ivan suffered from breakdowns of paranoia and depression, Ivan IV became Grand Prince of Moscow in 1533 at the age of three. The Shuysky and Belsky factions of the boyars competed for control of the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547, reflecting Moscows new imperial claims, Ivans coronation as Tsar was a ritual modeled after those of the Byzantine emperors. With the continuing assistance of a group of boyars, Ivan began his reign with a series of useful reforms, in the 1550s, he declared a new law code, revamped the military, and reorganized local government.
These reforms undoubtedly were intended to strengthen the state in the face of continuous warfare, the key documents prepared by the so-called Select Council of advisors and promulgated during this period are as follows. Muscovy remained a fairly unknown society in Western Europe until Baron Sigismund von Herberstein published his Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii in 1549 and this provided a broad view of what had been a rarely visited and poorly reported state. In the 1630s, the Russian Tsardom was visited by Adam Olearius, whose lively, further information about Russia was circulated by English and Dutch merchants. One of them, Richard Chancellor, sailed to the White Sea in 1553, upon his return to England, the Muscovy Company was formed by himself, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and several London merchants. Ivan the Terrible used these merchants to exchange letters with Elizabeth I, despite the domestic turmoil of the 1530s and 1540s, Russia continued to wage wars and to expand
Grand Duchy of Moscow
The Grand Duchy of Moscow, or Grand Principality of Moscow, was a late medieval Rus principality centered on Moscow and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia. The state originated with Daniel I, who inherited Moscow in 1283, eclipsing and it annexed the Novgorod Republic in 1478 and the Grand Duchy of Tver in 1485. After the Mongol invasion of Rus, Muscovy was a vassal to the Mongol ruled Golden Horde until 1480. By his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, he established Muscovy as the state of the Roman Empire. Ivans successor Vasili III enjoyed success, gaining Smolensk from Lithuania in 1512. Vasilis son Ivan IV was an infant at his fathers death in 1533 and he was crowned in 1547, assuming the title of tsar together with the proclamation of Tsardom of Russia. As with many states the country had no particular official name. The Duke of Moscow or the Sovereign of Moscow were common short titles, in rivalry with other duchies Moscow dukes designated themselves as the Grand Dukes, claiming a higher position in the hierarchy of Russian dukes.
During the territorial growth and acquisitions, the title became rather lengthy. Since the 14th century various Moscow dukes added of all Rus to their titles, after the title of Russian metropolitans, Dmitry Shemyaka was the first Moscow duke who minted coins with the title the Sovereign of all Rus. Under the Polish-Lithuanian influence the country began to be called Muscovy in Western Europe, the first appearances of the term were in an Italian document of 1500. Initially Moscovia was the Latinized name of the city of Moscow itself, not of the state, it acquired its meaning and has been used alongside of the older name. The term Muscovy persisted in the West until the beginning of the 18th century and is used in historical contexts. When the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus in the 13th century, the first ruler of the principality of Moscow, Daniel I, was the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. He started to expand his principality by seizing Kolomna and securing the bequest of Pereslavl-Zalessky to his family, daniels son Yuriy controlled the entire basin of the Moskva River and expanded westward by conquering Mozhaisk.
He forged an alliance with the overlord of the Rus principalities, Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, the Khan allowed Yuriy to claim the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir-Suzdal, a position which allowed him to interfere in the affairs of the Novgorod Republic to the north-west. Yuriys successor, Ivan I, managed to retain the title of Grand Duke by cooperating closely with the Mongols and by collecting tribute and taxes from other Rus principalities on their behalf. This relationship enabled Ivan to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Moscows chief rival, the city of Tver
Medieval Latin
Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors, medieval Latin should not be confused with Ecclesiastical Latin. There is no consensus on the exact boundary where Late Latin ends. Medieval Latin had a vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. Greek provided much of the vocabulary of Christianity. The various Germanic languages spoken by the Germanic tribes, who invaded southern Europe, were major sources of new words. Germanic leaders became the rulers of parts of the Roman Empire that they conquered, other more ordinary words were replaced by coinages from Vulgar Latin or Germanic sources because the classical words had fallen into disuse. Latin was spread to such as Ireland and Germany. Works written in the lands, where Latin was a language with no relation to the local vernacular, influenced the vocabulary. English words like abstract, communicate, probable, the high point of the development of medieval Latin as a literary language came with the Carolingian renaissance, a rebirth of learning kindled under the patronage of Charlemagne, king of the Franks.
On the other hand, strictly speaking there was no form of medieval Latin. Every Latin author in the period spoke Latin as a second language, with varying degrees of fluency, and syntax, grammar. For instance, rather than following the classical Latin practice of placing the verb at the end. Unlike classical Latin, where esse was the auxiliary verb, medieval Latin writers might use habere as an auxiliary, similar to constructions in Germanic. The accusative and infinitive construction in classical Latin was often replaced by a clause introduced by quod or quia. This is almost identical, for example, to the use of que in similar constructions in French. In every age from the late 8th century onwards, there were learned writers who were familiar enough with classical syntax to be aware that these forms and usages were wrong, however the use of quod to introduce subordinate clauses was especially pervasive and is found at all levels. That resulted in two features of Medieval Latin compared with Classical Latin.
First, many attempted to show off their knowledge of Classical Latin by using rare or archaic constructions
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the state of Kievan Rus. Researchers know relatively little about the Eastern Slavs prior to approximately 859 AD, zealous Christian missions burned and destroyed all evidences of history of the people before that. The Eastern Slavs of these early times apparently lacked a written language, the few known facts come from archaeological digs, foreign travellers accounts of the Rus land, and linguistic comparative analyses of Slavic languages. Very few native Rus documents dating before the 11th century have survived, the earliest major manuscript with information on Rus history, the Primary Chronicle, dates from the late 11th and early 12th centuries. There is no consensus among scholars as to the urheimat of the Slavs, in the first millennium AD, Slavic settlers are likely to have been in contact with other ethnic groups who moved across the East European Plain during the Migration Period. Between the first and ninth centuries, the Sarmatians, Alans, Bulgars, although some of them could have subjugated the regions Slavs, these foreign tribes left little trace in the Slavic lands.
The Early Middle Ages saw Slavic expansion as an agriculturist and beekeeper, fisher, herder, by the 8th century, the Slavs were the dominant ethnic group on the East European Plain. By 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, the East Slavs practiced slash-and-burn agricultural methods which took advantage of the extensive forests in which they settled. This method of agriculture involved clearing tracts of forest with fire, cultivating it, the East Slavs flooded Eastern Europe in two streams. Another group of East Slavs moved from Pomerania to the northeast, the same Slavic population settled the present-day Tver Oblast and the region of Beloozero. Having reached the lands of the Merya near Rostov, they linked up with the Dnieper group of Slavic migrants. Roughly in the period, the Ilmen Slavs and Krivichs were dominated by the Varangians of the Rus Khaganate. The earliest tribal centres of the East Slavs included Novgorod, Polotsk, archaeology indicates that they appeared at the turn of the tenth century, soon after the Slavs and Finns of Novgorod had rebelled against the Norsemen and forced them to withdraw to Scandinavia.
The reign of Oleg of Novgorod in the tenth century witnessed the return of the Varangians to Novgorod. From this base, the mixed Varangian-Slavic population launched several expeditions against Constantinople, at first the ruling elite was primarily Norse, but it was rapidly Slavicized by the mid-century. Sviatoslav I of Kiev was the first Rus ruler with a Slavonic name, the disintegration, or parcelling of the polity of Kievan Rus in the 11th century resulted in considerable population shifts and a political and economic regrouping. This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http, //lcweb2. loc. gov/frd/cs/
Pskov
Pskov is a city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, located about 20 kilometers east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Pskov is one of the oldest cities in Russia, the name of the city, originally spelled Pleskov, may be loosely translated as of purling waters. Its earliest mention comes in 903, which records that Igor of Kiev married a local lady, Pskovians sometimes take this year as the citys foundation date, and in 2003 a great jubilee took place to celebrate Pskovs 1, 100th anniversary. The first prince of Pskov was Vladimir the Greats youngest son Sudislav, once imprisoned by his brother Yaroslav, he was not released until the latters death several decades later. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the town adhered politically to the Novgorod Republic, in 1241, it was taken by the Teutonic Knights, but Alexander Nevsky recaptured it several months during a legendary campaign dramatized in Sergei Eisensteins 1938 movie Alexander Nevsky. Having fortified the town, Daumantas routed the Teutonic Knights at Rakvere and his remains and sword are preserved in the local kremlin, and the core of the citadel, erected by him, still bears the name of Dovmonts town.
By the 14th century, the town functioned as the capital of a de facto sovereign republic and its most powerful force was the merchants who brought the town into the Hanseatic League. Pskovs independence was recognized by Novgorod in 1348. Several years later, the veche promulgated a law code, which was one of the sources of the all-Russian law code issued in 1497. For Russia, the Pskov Republic was a bridge towards Europe, for Europe, the importance of the city made it the subject of numerous sieges throughout its history. The Pskov Krom withstood twenty-six sieges in the 15th century alone, at one point, five stone walls ringed it, making the city practically impregnable. A local school of icon-painting flourished, and the masons were considered the best in Russia. Many peculiar features of Russian architecture were first introduced in Pskov, finally, in 1510, the city fell to Muscovite forces. The deportation of families to Moscow is a subject of Rimsky-Korsakovs opera Pskovityanka. As the second largest city of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, most famously, it withstood a prolonged siege by a 50, 000-strong Polish army during the final stage of the Livonian War.
The king of Poland Stephen Báthory undertook some thirty-one attacks to storm the city, even after one of the city walls was broken, the Pskovians managed to fill the gap and repel the attack. Its amazing how the city reminds me of Paris, wrote one of the Frenchmen present at Báthorys siege, as a consequence, the citys importance and well-being declined dramatically, although it has served as a seat of separate Pskov Governorate since 1777. During World War I, Pskov became the center of much activity behind the lines, Pskov was occupied by the Estonian army between 25 May 1919 and 28 August 1919 during the Estonian War of Independence when Bułak-Bałachowicz became the military administrator of Pskov
Veliky Novgorod
It is situated on the M10 federal highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city lies along the Volkhov River just downstream from its outflow from Lake Ilmen, UNESCO recognized Novgorod as a World Heritage Site in 1992. At its peak during the 14th century, the city was the capital of the Novgorod Republic, the Charter of Veliky Novgorod recognizes 859 as the year when the city was first mentioned. Archaeological dating is fairly easy and accurate to within 15–25 years, as the streets were paved with wood, and most of the houses made of wood, allowing tree ring dating. The Varangian name of the city Holmgård/Holmgard is mentioned in Norse Sagas as existing at a yet earlier stage, Holmgård referred only to the stronghold southeast of the present-day city, Rurikovo Gorodische. First mention of this Nordic or Germanic etymology to the name of the city of Novgorod occurs in the 10th-century policy manual De Administrando Imperio by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, in 882, Ruriks successor, Oleg of Novgorod, conquered Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus.
Novgorods size as well as its political and cultural influence made it the second most important city in Kievan Rus, according to a custom, the elder son and heir of the ruling Kievan monarch was sent to rule Novgorod even as a minor. When the ruling monarch had no son, Novgorod was governed by posadniks, such as the legendary Gostomysl, Konstantin. Of all their princes, Novgorodians most cherished the memory of Yaroslav the Wise and his son, sponsored construction of the great St. Sophia Cathedral, more accurately translated as the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which stands to this day. In Norse sagas the city is mentioned as the capital of Gardariki, four Viking kings—Olaf I of Norway, Olaf II of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harald Hardrada—sought refuge in Novgorod from enemies at home. No more than a few decades after the 1030 death and subsequent canonization of Olaf II of Norway, the town of Visby in Gotland functioned as the leading trading center in the Baltic before the Hansa League.
At Novgorod in 1080, Visby merchants established a trading post which they named Gutagard, later, in the first half of the 13th century, merchants from northern Germany established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as Peterhof. At about the time, in 1229, German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges. In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, the year is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. One of the most important local figures in Novgorod was the posadnik, or mayor, the tysyatsky, or thousandman, originally the head of the town militia but a commercial and judicial official, was elected by the Veche. Another important local official was the Archbishop of Novgorod who shared power with the boyars, archbishops were elected by the Veche or by the drawing of lots, and after their election, were sent to the metropolitan for consecration. While a basic outline of the officials and the Veche can be drawn up. The boyars and the archbishop ruled the city together, although where one officials power ended, throughout the Middle Ages, the city thrived culturally
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, Kiev is an important industrial, scientific and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many industries, higher education institutions. The city has an infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport. The citys name is said to derive from the name of Kyi, during its history, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, passed through several stages of great prominence and relative obscurity. The city probably existed as a centre as early as the 5th century. A Slavic settlement on the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople, Kiev was a tributary of the Khazars, until seized by the Varangians in the mid-9th century. Under Varangian rule, the city became a capital of the Kievan Rus, completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240, the city lost most of its influence for the centuries to come.
It was a capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbours, first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Poland. The city prospered again during the Russian Empires Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, in 1917, after the Ukrainian National Republic declared independence from the Russian Empire, Kiev became its capital. From 1919 Kiev was an important center of the Armed Forces of South Russia and was controlled by the White Army. From 1921 onwards Kiev was a city of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed by the Red Army, during World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years, remaining the third largest city of the Soviet Union. During the countrys transformation to an economy and electoral democracy. Kievs armament-dependent industrial output fell after the Soviet collapse, adversely affecting science, Kiev emerged as the most pro-Western region of Ukraine where parties advocating tighter integration with the European Union dominate during elections.
As a prominent city with a history, its English name was subject to gradual evolution. The early English spelling was derived from Old East Slavic form Kyjev, the name is associated with that of Kyi, the legendary eponymous founder of the city. Early English sources use various names, including Kiou, Kiew, on one of the oldest English maps of the region, Moscoviae et Tartariae published by Ortelius the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, in the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall, the city is referred to as Kiovia
Beeswax
Beeswax is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus Apis. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the segments of worker bees. The hive workers collect and use it to cells for honey-storage. Chemically, beeswax consists mainly of esters of fatty acids and various long-chain alcohols, Beeswax has long-standing applications in human food and flavoring. For example, it is used as an agent, a sweetener. It is edible, in the sense of having similar negligible toxicity to plant waxes, and is approved for use in most countries. However, the wax monoesters in beeswax are poorly hydrolysed in the guts of humans and other mammals, some birds, such as honeyguides, can digest beeswax. Beeswax is the diet of Wax moth larvae. The wax is formed by worker bees, which secrete it from eight wax-producing mirror glands on the sides of the sternites on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The sizes of these wax glands depend on the age of the worker, and after many daily flights, the new wax is initially glass-clear and colourless, becoming opaque after mastication and adulteration with pollen by the hive worker bees.
Also, the wax becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils, the wax scales are about 3 mm across and 0.1 mm thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax. Honey bees use the beeswax to build cells in which their young are raised with honey. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive must be 33 °C to 36 °C, the amount of honey used by bees to produce wax has not been accurately determined. The book, Beeswax Production, Harvesting and Products, suggests 1 pound of beeswax is used to store 22 pounds honey, according to Whitcombs 1946 experiment,6.66 to 8.80 pounds of honey yields 1 pound of wax. Another study estimated that 24 to 30 pounds of honey is produced per pound of wax, when beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity, the region. Wax from the comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb.
Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb, due to the impurities, the wax must be rendered before further use
Ukraine
Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II.
Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace.
Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
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 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 one of several World Heritage Sites in the city.
Both chambers of the Russian parliament 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 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, Lithuanian and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, majjati to drown, 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, 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
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the worlds largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is in a basin located between Europe and Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, the Caspian Sea lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia. In its northern part, the Caspian Depression lies 28 to 130 m below sea level, the sea bed in the southern part reaches as low as 1023 m below sea level, which is the second lowest natural depression on earth after Lake Baikal. The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness, the sea has a surface area of 371,000 km2 and a volume of 78,200 km3. It has a salinity of approximately 1. 2%, about a third of the salinity of most seawater, the word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia.
Strabo wrote that to the country of the Albanians belongs the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was the sea, but the tribe has now disappeared. Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Irans Tehran province, the Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Bahr al-Qazwin, in classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the Hyrcanian Ocean. In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as the دریای خزر, Daryā-e Khazar, ancient Arabic sources refer to it as Baḥr Gīlān meaning the Gilan Sea. Turkic languages refer to the lake as Khazar Sea, in Turkmen, the name is Hazar deňizi, in Azeri, it is Xəzər dənizi, and in modern Turkish, it is Hazar denizi. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called Каспий теңізі, old Russian sources call it the Khvalyn or Khvalis Sea after the name of Khwarezmia. In modern Russian, it is called Каспи́йское мо́ре, Kaspiyskoye more, the Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, Namak Lake, and Lake Urmia, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea.
It became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. Due to the current inflow of water, the Caspian Sea is a freshwater lake in its northern portions, and is most saline on the Iranian shore. Currently, the salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earths oceans. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world, the coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct regions, the Northern and Southern Caspian
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913).