1.
T-72
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The T-72 is a Soviet second-generation main battle tank that entered production in 1971. About 20,000 T-72 tanks were built, making it one of the most widely produced post–World War II tanks, the T-72 was widely exported and saw service in 40 countries and in numerous conflicts. The development of the T-72 was a result of the introduction of the T-64 tank. The T-64 was an ambitious project to build a competitive tank with a weight of not more than 36 tons under the direction of Alexander Morozov in Kharkov. To achieve that goal, the crew was reduced to three soldiers, saving the loader by introducing an automated loading system and this and other steps allowed a reduced weight, but caused problems when looking for a reliable engine to fit in the smaller hull. The production of the T-64 with a 115-mm gun began in 1964, problems with the first batch of T-64 tanks were centred on the 5TDF700 hp engine and the auto loading mechanism. The engine was unreliable, was difficult to repair and had a life span of only a World War 2-era tank engine. A strong lobby around designer Morozov advocated for the T-64 in Moscow, preventing rival developments, the 5TDF was too complex and its production twice as costly as the V-45 engine. In 1967, the Uralvagonzavod formed Section 520, which was to prepare the serial production of the T-64 for 1970. The team soon found out that the more powerful V-45 engine put a lot of stress on the fragile T-64 hull, a more stable solution had to be found. Under influence from Kharkov, the idea had been turned down by Moscow, but this construction, with its big, rubbercoated roadwheels now formed the basis for the mobilisation model of the T-64. Additional changes were made to the loading system, which also was taken from an earlier project. Ammunition, consisting of a projectile and a propellant charge was now stored horizontally on two levels, not vertically on one level like in the T-64. It was said to be more reliable than the T-64 autoloader, in 1964, two 125-mm guns of the D-81 type had been used to test their installation in the T-62, so the Ural plant was ready to adopt the 125-mm calibre for the T-64A as well. Uralvagonzavod produced the first prototype with a 125-mm gun and V-45K engine in 1968 as Object 172, after intensive comparative testing with the T-64A, Object 172 was re-engineered in 1970 to deal with some minor problems. However, being only a model, a serial production of Object 172 was not possible in peacetime. In an unclear political process decree number 326-113 was issued, which allowed the production of Object 172 in the Soviet Union from 1, January 1972 and freed Uralvagonzavod from the T-64A production. At least some technical documentation on the T-72 is known to have passed to the CIA by the Polish Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski between 1971 and 1982
2.
Nagorno-Karabakh War
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Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in Azerbaijan voted to unify the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the result of a territorial conflict regarding the land. Full-scale fighting erupted in the winter of 1992. International mediation by several including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself, a Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994, but regular peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group have failed to result in a peace treaty. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia, the territorial ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh today is still heavily contested between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The current conflict has its roots in events following World War I, shortly before the Ottoman Empires capitulation in the war, the Russian Empire collapsed in November 1917 and fell under the control of the Bolsheviks. Fighting soon broke out between the First Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in three regions, Nakhchevan, Zangezur and Karabakh itself, in Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan quarreled about the boundaries of the three provinces. The Karabakh Armenians attempted to declare their independence but failed to contact with the Republic of Armenia. British troops occupied the South Caucasus in 1919, and the British command suggested Andranik cease his offense, afterward, the British provisionally affirmed Azerbaijani statesman Khosrov bey Sultanov as the governor-general of Karabakh and ordered him to squash any unrest in the region. Afterward followed the Shusha massacre of an estimated 20,000 Armenians, Two months later however, the Soviet 11th Army invaded the Caucasus and within three years, the Caucasian republics were formed into the Transcaucasian SFSR of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks thereafter created a committee, the Caucasus Bureau. Under the supervision of the Peoples Commissar for Nationalities, the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was created in 1923, leaving it with a population that was 94% Armenian. The reversal was substantiated with the connections the region had with Azerbaijan. The capital was moved from Shusha to Khankendi, which was renamed as Stepanakert. Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars have speculated that the decision was an application of the principle of divide and this can be seen, for example, by the odd placement of the Nakhichevan exclave, which is separated by Armenia but is a part of Azerbaijan. Others have also postulated that the decision was a gesture by the Soviet government to help maintain good relations with Atatürks Turkey
3.
Artsakh University
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Artsakh State University is the main and the biggest public university in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Currently, the university prepares specialists in 31 areas, the university has established close ties with other educational institutions and universities in Armenia and other countries. Artsakh State University is the university with the best reputation in Nagorno Karabakh, scholars and students of Artsakh State University commonly do research on National Security, Politics, Agricultural Studies, and Archaeology. In 2006, a team of archaeologists began doing research in the village of Azokh where in the 1970s it was discovered that the place is a home to ancient settlers
4.
Republic of Artsakh
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Nagorno-Karabakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh, is an unrecognised republic in the South Caucasus. The region is considered by the UN to be part of Azerbaijan, the dispute was largely shelved after the Soviet Union established control over the area and created the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan SSR in 1923. During the fall of the Soviet Union, the region re-emerged as a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in 1991, a referendum held in the NKAO and the neighbouring Shahumian region resulted in a declaration of independence. Large-scale ethnic conflict led to the 1991–1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended with a ceasefire that left the current borders, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is a semi-presidential democracy with a unicameral legislature. Its reliance on Armenia means that in many ways it functions de facto as part of Armenia, the country is very mountainous, averaging 1,097 metres above sea level. The population is predominantly Christian, most being affiliated with the Armenian Apostolic Church, several historical monasteries are popular with tourists, mostly from the Armenian diaspora, as most travel can take place only between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is a democracy, whereby the executive power resides with both the President and the Prime Minister. The president is elected for a maximum of two-consecutive five-year terms. The current President is Bako Sahakyan, in the most recent presidential elections, held on 19 July 2012, Sahakyan was reelected to a second term. The President appoints a potential Prime Minister who is approved by a majority vote in the National Assembly. The National Assembly is a unicameral legislature and it has 33 members who are elected for 5-year terms. Three organisations have members in the parliament, the Democratic Party of Artsakh has 18 members, Free Motherland has 8 members, Nagorno-Karabakh is heavily dependent on Armenia, and in many ways de facto functions and is administered as part of Armenia. On 3 November 2006, the then-President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkadi Ghukasyan and it was held on 10 December of the same year and voters overwhelmingly approved the new constitution. According to official results, with a turnout of 87. 2%. The First article of the document describes the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as a sovereign, more than 100 non-governmental international observers and journalists who monitored the poll evaluated it positively, stating that it was held to a high international standard. Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis asserted that the poll will not be recognized, and is therefore of no consequence. The outcome was also criticised by Turkey, which traditionally supports Azerbaijan because of common ethnic Turkic roots, another referendum was held on 20 February 2017, with a 87. 6% vote in favour on a 76% turnout for instituting a new constitution. The new name implies a claim to the areas controlled beyond the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, the referendum is seen as a response to the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh clashes
5.
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
6.
Armenian language
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The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. Like Hellenic Greek, it has its own branch in the language tree. It is the language of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is spoken in the Armenian diaspora. Armenian has its own script, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots. Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages and it is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups, Armenia was a monolingual country by the 2nd century BC at the latest. Its language has a literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian, and to an extent by Greek, Persian. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible and he is also credited by some with the creation of the Caucasian Albanian alphabet. In The Anabasis, Xenophon describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. W. M. However, unlike shared innovations, the retention of archaisms is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, loan words from Iranian languages, along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two meant that Iranian and Armenian were the same language. The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann used the method to distinguish two layers of Iranian loans from the older Armenian vocabulary. Meillets hypothesis became popular in the wake of his Esquisse, eric P. Hamp supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis, anticipating even a time when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian. Nevertheless, as Fortson comments, by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, graeco--Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-third millennium BC
7.
Azerbaijani language
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The language has official status in Azerbaijan and Dagestan but it does not have official status in Iranian Azerbaijan, where the majority of Azerbaijanis live. It is also spoken to varying degrees in Azerbaijani communities of Georgia and Turkey and by diaspora communities, primarily in Europe. Azerbaijani is a member of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, modern literature in Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iranian Azerbaijan region it is based on the Tabrizi one. Azerbaijani evolved from the Eastern branch of Oghuz Turkic which spread to the Caucasus, in Eastern Europe, Persian and Arabic influenced the language, but Arabic words were mainly transmitted through the intermediary of literary Persian. By the beginning of the 16th century, it had become the dominant language of the region, the historical development of Azerbaijani can be divided into two major periods, early and modern. Early Azerbaijani differs from its descendant in that it contained a larger number of Persian. Early writings in Azerbaijani also demonstrate linguistic interchangeability between Oghuz and Kypchak elements in many aspects, despite major differences, they all aimed primarily at making it easy for semi-literate masses to read and understand literature. They all criticized the overuse of Persian, Arabic, and European elements in both colloquial and literary language and called for a simpler and more popular style. Despite the wide use of Azerbaijani in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, after independence, Azerbaijan republic decided to switch back to the Latin script. The first examples of Azerbaijani literature date to the late 1200s following the Mongol conquest and were written in Arabic script, in the 1300s Kadi Burhan al-Din, Hesenoghlu, and Imadaddin Nasimi helped to establish Azerbaiijani as a language through poetry and other literary works. In 1875 Akinchi became the first Azerbaijani newspaper to be published in the Russian Empire and it was started by Hasan bey Zardabi, a journalist and education advocate. Following the rule of the Qajar dynasty Iran was ruled by Reza Shah who banned the publication of texts in Azerbaijani, modern literature in the Republic of Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iranian Azerbaijan it is based on the Tabrizi dialect. Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar is an important figure in Azerbaijani poetry and his most important work is Heydar Babaya Salam and it is considered to be a pinnacle of Azerbaijani literature and gained popularity in the Turkic-speaking world. It was translated more than 30 languages. In the mid-19th century Azerbaijani literature was taught at schools in Baku, Ganja, Shaki, Tbilisi, since 1845, it has also been taught in the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia. Per the 1829 Caucasus School Statute, Azerbaijani was to be taught in all schools of Ganja, Shusha, Nukha, Shamakhi, Quba, Baku, Derbent, Yerevan, Nakhchivan, Akhaltsikhe. Beginning in 1834, it was introduced as a language of study in Kutaisi instead of Armenian, in 1853, Azerbaijani became a compulsory language for students of all backgrounds in all of Transcaucasia with the exception of the Tiflis Governorate. Azerbaijani is one of the Oghuz languages within the Turkic language family, the International Organization for Standardization encodes North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani as distinct languages
8.
Capital city
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A capital city is the municipality exercising primary status in a country, state, province, or other region, usually as its seat of government. A capital is typically a city that encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government. In some jurisdictions, including countries, the different branches of government are located in different settlements. In some cases, a distinction is made between the capital and the seat of government, which is in another place. The word capital derives from the Latin caput, meaning head, in several English-speaking states, the terms county town, county seat, and borough seat are also used in lower subdivisions. In unitary states, subnational capitals are known as administrative centres. The capital is often, but not necessarily, the largest city of its constituent, historically, the major economic centre of a state or region often becomes the focal point of political power, and becomes a capital through conquest or federation. Examples are Ancient Babylon, Abbasid Baghdad, Ancient Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Changan, Ancient Cusco, Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Vienna, and Berlin. Some of these cities are or were also religious centres, e. g. Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Ancient Babylon, Moscow, Belgrade, Paris, and Peking. A capital city that is also the economic, cultural. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal, traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, e. g. Nanking by Shanghai, Quebec City by Montreal, and numerous US state capitals. The decline of a dynasty or culture could also mean the extinction of its city, as occurred at Babylon. Although many capitals are defined by constitution or legislation, many long-time capitals have no legal designation as such, for example Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris, are located in or near them. In Canada, there is a capital, while the ten provinces. The states of such countries as Mexico, Brazil, and Australia all have capital cities, for example, the six state capitals of Australia are Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. In Australia, the capital cities is regularly used, to refer to the aforementioned state capitals plus the federal capital Canberra and Darwin. Abu Dhabi is the city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In unitary states which consist of multiple constituent countries, such as the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of Denmark, the national capitals of Germany and Russia, the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the Federal City of Moscow, are also constituent states of both countries in their own right
9.
Political status of Nagorno-Karabakh
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Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, calling itself the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent nation. The territory is internationally recognized as de jure part of Azerbaijan, according to Human Rights Watch, from the beginning of the Karabakh conflict, Armenia provided aid, weapons, and volunteers. Armenian involvement in Karabakh escalated after a December 1993 Azerbaijani offensive, the Republic of Armenia began sending conscripts and regular Army and Interior Ministry troops to fight in Karabakh. Three UN Security Council Resolutions and United Nations General Assembly resolutions 49/13, none of these resolutions were passed under Chapter VII of the Charter. Certain politicians and legal scholars have expressed the view that resolutions are only binding if they are made under Chapter VII of the Charter. The Council of Europe called on the Nagorno-Karabakh de facto authorities to refrain from staging one-sided local self-government elections in Nagorno-Karabakh and this event should not prejudice the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The European Union declared that The European Union confirms its support for the integrity of Azerbaijan. The European Union cannot consider legitimate the presidential elections that were scheduled to take place on 11 August 2002 in Nagorno Karabakh, the European Union reiterated this position with regard to the presidential elections, held in the region in 2007. During the year incidents along the line of contact separating the sides again resulted in numerous casualties on both sides. It would however seem that according to this law N-K would have the choice of two options – to remain within the USSR or to join independent Azerbaijan, N-K independence does not seem possible. The USSR embodies the state unity of the Soviet people and draws all its nations and nationalities together for the purpose of building communism. ”There is no mechanism, other than the right of the union republics to secede. The Azerbaijani community is led by Bayram Safarov, the head of the power of Shusha region. I perfectly know that till 1917 Nagorno Karabakh was a part of the Russian Empire, the history is necessary in order to settle conflicts, but it is necessary to proceed from international law. Meanwhile, on 10 June 2007 after US-Azerbaijani security consultations in Washington D. C, the resolution was supported mainly by members of the OIC and GUAM, both of which Azerbaijan is a member, as well as other nations facing breakaway regions. The resolution was opposed by all three members of the OSCE Minsk Group, also in 2006, Russia published its 63-volume Great Encyclopedia which described Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent entity that belonged to Armenians historically, in its introduction to the region. Azerbaijan has protested this passage in the Russian encyclopedia and it handed a protest letter to the Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan demanding that the encyclopedia be confiscated and amended. In September 2014, the Basque parliament adopted a motion supporting Nagorno-Karabakhs right to self-determination, before California recognized Nagorno-Karabakh in May 2014, three places within the state had already recognized it, Fresno County Highland Los Angeles Highland is twinned with Berdzor. Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign relations of Nagorno-Karabakh Madrid Principles Government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
10.
Azerbaijan
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Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a country in the South Caucasus region, situated at the crossroads of Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe. It is bound by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bound by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence in 1918 and became the first democratic state in the Muslim orient world. The country was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920 as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, prior to the official dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. In September 1991, the Armenian majority of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region seceded to form the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the region and seven adjacent districts outside it became de facto independent with the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. These regions are recognized as part of Azerbaijan pending a solution to the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic, the country is a member state of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the NATO Partnership for Peace program. It is one of six independent Turkic states, a member of the Turkic Council. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations and it is one of the founding members of GUAM, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Its term of office began on 19 June 2006, Azerbaijan is also a member state of the Non-Aligned Movement, holds observer status in World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not declare an official religion and all political forces in the country are secularist. However, the majority of the population are of a Shiite Muslim background, Azerbaijan has a high level of human development which ranks on par with most Eastern European countries. It has a rate of economic development and literacy, as well as a low rate of unemployment. According to the Davos World Economic Forum, Azerbaijans economy has scored 37th place within 138 countries in 2016, Global Competitiveness Index 2015 indicates that Azerbaijan scores highest in its region. ASAN services, established with Presidential Decree, are known for eliminating bribery. ASAN Service has been awarded with United Nations Public Service Award 2015, the ruling party, the New Azerbaijan Party, has been accused of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. The original etymology of name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrianism. In the Avesta, Frawardin Yasht, there is a mention of âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, the name Atropates itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably Median, compounded name with the meaning Protected by the Fire or The Land of the Fire
11.
Stepan Shaumian
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Stepan Georgevich Shaumian was a Bolshevik revolutionary and politician active throughout the Caucasus. Unlike many of the other Bolsheviks at the time however, he preferred to many of the conflicts he faced peacefully, rather than with force. He was known by various aliases, including Suren, Surenin, as the Baku Commune was voted out of power in July 1918, Shahumyan and his followers, known as the 26 Baku Commissars abandoned the city, fleeing across the Caspian Sea. However, he and the rest of the Commissars were captured and executed by forces on 20 September 1918. Stepan Gevorgi Shahumyan was born in Tiflis, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire and he studied at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and the Riga Technical University, where he joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in the 1900. In 1905 he graduated from the department of Humboldt University of Berlin. He was arrested by the Tsarist government for taking part in student political activities on campus, Shahumyan made his way to German soil, where he met with such exiles from the Russian Empire as Lenin, Julius Martov and Georgi Plekhanov. Upon returning to Transcaucasia, he became a teacher, and the leader of local Social Democrats in Tiflis, at the 1903 Congress, he sided with the Bolsheviks. By 1907 he had moved to Baku to head up the significant Bolshevik movement in the city, in 1914, he led the general strike in the city. The strike was crushed by Imperial Army and Shahumyan was arrested and he escaped just as the February Revolution of 1917 was beginning. Following the October Revolution, Shaumyan was made Commissar Extraordinary for the Caucasus, the government of the Baku Commune consisted of an alliance of Bolsheviks, Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Dashnaks. In response, a crowd gathered in the yard of one of the Baku mosques. The Azerbaijani Bolshevik organization Hümmet attempted to mediate the dispute by proposing that the arms taken from the Savage Division are transferred to the custody of the Hümmet. While it was not established who fired the first shot, the Baku commune leaders accused the Muslims of starting the hostilities, Shahumyan, himself an Armenian, chose the latter. Estimates of the number of Azerbaijanis and other Muslims massacred in Baku, the Bolsheviks clashed with Dashnaks and Mensheviks over the involvement of British forces, which the latter two welcomed. In either case, Shahumyan was under orders from Moscow to refuse aid offered by the British. However, he understood the consequences of not accepting British aid, major Ranald MacDonell, a seasoned diplomat and the British vice-consul of Baku, was tasked by his superiors in attempting to persuade Shahumyan to revise his position. In mid-summer, MacDonell personally visited Shahumyans home in Baku and the two discussed the issue of British military involvement in a generally amiable conversation, Shahumyan first raised the specter of what British involvement would entail, Is your General Dunsterville coming to Baku to turn us out
12.
Khan (title)
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Khan is originally a title for a sovereign or a military ruler, widely used by Turkic and later medieval nomadic Mongolian tribes living to the north of China. Khan also occurs as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289, the Rourans were the first people who used the titles khagan and khan for their emperors. Subsequently the Ashina adopted the title and brought it to the rest of Asia, in the middle of the sixth century the Iranians knew of a Kagan – King of the Turks. Khan now has many equivalent meanings such as commander, leader, as of 2015 khans exist in South Asia, Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Turkey. The female alternatives are Khatun, Khatoon and Khanum and these titles or names are sometimes written as Han, Kan, Hakan, Hanum, or Hatun and as xan, xanım. Khagan is rendered as Khan of Khans and it was the title of Chinese Emperor Emperor Taizong of Tang, and also the title of Genghis Khan and of the persons selected to rule the Mongol Empire. For instance Möngke Khan and Ogedei Khan would be Khagans but not Chagatai Khan, some managed to establish principalities of some importance for a while, as their military might repeatedly proved a serious threat to such empires as China and kingdoms in Central Asia. One of the earliest notable examples of such principalities in Europe was Danube Bulgaria, Khan was the official title of the ruler until 864 AD, when Kniaz Boris adopted the Eastern Orthodox faith. The title Khan became unprecedently prominent when the Mongol Temüjin created the Mongol empire, the greatest land empire the world has ever seen and his title was khagan, or Khan of Khans, but has often been abbreviated to Khan or described as Great Khan. The great leader was regarded as a khan in the middle east, ming Dynasty Chinese Emperors also used the term Xan to denote brave warriors and rulers. The title Khan was used to designate the greatest rulers of the Jurchens, while most Afghan principalities were styled emirate, there was a khanate of ethnic Uzbeks in Badakhshan since 1697. For example, in present Armenia and nearby territories to the left and right, diverse khanates existed in Dagestan, Azerbaijan, including Baku, Ganja, Jawad, Quba, Salyan, Shakki and Shirvan=Shamakha, Talysh, Nakhichevan and Karabakh. The most important of these states were, Khanate of Kazan, sibir Khanate Astrakhan Khanate Crimean Khanate. The ruling descendants of the branch of Genghis Khans dynasty are referred to as the Great Khans. The title Khan of Khans was among numerous titles used by the Sultans of the Ottoman empire as well as the rulers of the Golden Horde and its descendant states. The title Khan was also used in the Seljuk Turk dynasties of the near-east to designate a head of multiple tribes, clans or nations, jurchen and Manchu rulers also used the title Khan, for example, Nurhaci was called Genggiyen Han. Rulers of the Göktürks, Avars and Khazars used the higher title Kaghan, see the main article for more details. Khan-i-Khanan was a given to the commander-in-chief of the army of the Mughals
13.
Karabakh Khanate
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The Karabakh Khanate was a semi-independent Turkic khanate on the territories of modern Azerbaijan established in about 1750 under Iranian suzerainty in Karabakh and adjacent areas. The Karabakh khanate existed until 1806, when the Russian Empire gained control over it from Iran, the khanate was abolished in 1822, after a few years of Russian tolerance towards its Muslim rulers, and a province, with a military administration, was formed. However, the agreement was of value, as the borders were changing constantly up to the end of the war in 1813. Russian control was confirmed with Iran by the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828. The precursor of the Karabakh khanate, Karabakh beylerbeylik was one of the 4th provinces established in Northern part of Safavid Empire, however, following the collapse of Safavid dynasty and the death of Nadir Shah Afshar in 1747, Safavid domain split into several independent khanates. The capital of the khanate was first the castle of Bayat in 1748, in the Karabakh Steppe, later, Panah Ali khan expanded the territory of Karabakh khanate subjugating territory of Karabakh, Meghri, Tatev, Karakilise, Kafan in Zangezur, and Nakchivan Khanate. In less than a year after Shusha was founded, the Karabakh khanate was attacked by Muhammed Hassan khan Qajar, one of the major claimants to the Iranian throne. Muhammed Hassan khan besieged Panahabad, but soon had to retreat because of the attack on his khanate by one of his opponents to the Iranian throne. His retreat was so hasty that he left his cannons under the walls of Shusha fortress. Panah Ali khan counterattacked the retreating troops of Muhammad Hassan khan, in 1759, Shusha and Karabakh khanate underwent a new attack from Fatali khan Afshar, ruler of Urmia. With his 30, 000-strong army Fatali khan also managed to support from the meliks of Jraberd and Talysh. The siege of Shusha lasted for six months and Fatali khan eventually had to retreat, in 1761, Karim Khan Zand allied with Panah Ali Khan of Karabakh to defeat Fath Ali Khan Afshar of Urmia, who earlier subordinated the khanates of Karabakh, Marageh, and Tabriz. In 1762, during his war with Kazem Khan of Qaradagh, Panah Khan submitted to Karim Khan Zand, after the fall of the city, Karim took Panah Khan among the hostages to Shiraz, where he soon died. Panah-Ali Khans son Ibrahim-Khalil Khan was sent back to Karabakh as governor, under Ibrahim-Khalil khan Javanshir Karabakh khanate became one of the strongest state formations of the South Caucasus and Shusha turned into a big town. According to travelers who visited Shusha at the end of 18th-early 19th centuries the town had about 2,000 houses and a population of 10,000. In the summer of 1795, Shusha underwent a major attack by Aga Muhammad khan Qajar, Aga Muhammad Khan Qajars goal was to end with the feudal fragmentation and to restore the old Safavid imperial domain. For this purpose he also wanted to proclaim himself shah of Iran, however, according to Safavid tradition, the shah had to control the South Caucasus before his coronation. Therefore, Karabakh khanate and its fortified capital Shusha were the first, Aga Muhammad khan Qajar besieged Shusha with his 80,000 strong army
14.
Turkic languages
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The Turkic languages are a language family of at least thirty-five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples from Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China. Turkic languages are spoken as a language by some 170 million people. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans, characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family. Apparent similarities with the Uralic languages family even caused these families to be regarded as one for a time under the hypothesis of Ural-Altaic languages. Turkic languages are languages, have vowel harmony, extensive agglutination by means of suffixes, and lack of grammatical articles, noun classes. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family, the geographical distribution of Turkic-speaking peoples across Eurasia ranges from the North-East of Siberia to Turkey in the West, since the Ottoman era. The two groups shared a religion, Tengrism, and there exists a multitude of evident loanwords between Turkic languages and Mongolic languages, although the loans were bidirectional, today Turkic loanwords constitute the largest foreign component in Mongolian vocabulary. The most famous of these loanwords include lion, gold, the Compendium of the Turkic Dialects, written during the 11th century AD by Kaşgarlı Mahmud of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, constitutes an early linguistic treatment of the family. The Compendium is the first comprehensive dictionary of the Turkic languages and it mainly pertains to the Southwestern branch of the family. The earliest records of the language spoken by Volga Bulgars, the parent to todays Chuvash language, are dated to the 13th–14th centuries AD. With the Turkic expansion during the Early Middle Ages, Turkic languages, in the course of just a few centuries, spread across Central Asia, various terminologies from the Turkic languages have passed into Persian, Hindustani, Russian, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Arabic. This has obscured the historical developments within each language and/or language group, the modern genetic classification schemes for Turkic are still largely indebted to Samoilovich. It is not clear when two major types of Turkic can be assumed to have actually diverged. With less certainty, the Southwestern, Northwestern, Southeastern and Oghur groups may further be summarized as West Turkic, the following isoglosses are traditionally used in the classification of the Turkic languages, Rhoticisation, e. g. in the last consonant of the word for nine *toqqız. This separates the Oghur branch, which exhibits /r/, from the rest of Turkic, in this case, rhoticisation refers to the development of *-/r/, *-/z/, and *-/d/ to /r/, *-/k/, *-/kh/ in this branch. See Antonov and Jacques on the debate concerning rhotacism and lambdacism in Turkic and this separates Khalaj as a peripheral language. The following table is based upon the classification presented by Lars Johanson The following is a brief comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across the Turkic language family. Also, there may be shifts in the meaning from one language to another, in some cases the form given is found only in some dialects of the language, or a loanword is much more common
15.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
16.
26 Baku Commissars
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The 26 Baku Commissars were Bolshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionary members of the Baku Soviet Commune. The commune was established in the city of Baku, which was then the capital of the briefly independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and is now the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The commune, led by Stepan Shahumyan, existed until 26 July 1918 when the Bolsheviks were forced out of power by a coalition of Dashnaks, Right SRs, after their overthrow, the Baku commissars attempted to leave Baku but were captured by the Centrocaspian Dictatorship and imprisoned. The Baku Commune, a political entity, lasted from 13 April to 25 July 1918. It came to power after the confrontation with the Muslim population. During its brief existence the Commune had to several problems, from the shortage of food. Despite the difficult conditions, the Commune carried out social reforms. The Bolsheviks and their leftist allies opposed this scheme, but on 25 July the majority of the Soviet voted to call in the British, and the Bolsheviks resigned. In contrast to what happened in many parts of Russia, where the Bolsheviks earned a reputation for ruthlessness executing those who did not support them, the Bolsheviks of Baku were not so strict. Official Soviet version After the fall of the Baku Soviet in July 1918, the Bolshevik leaders and some loyal troops tried to reach Astrakhan, the only Caspian port still in Bolshevik hands. However, their ship was intercepted by the vessels of the Caspian fleet. Most of the Bolshevik militants were arrested and remained in prison until, after the fall of Baku to the Turks, Shahumyan, Dzhaparidze, Azizbekov, and their comrades, along with Mikoyan, then boarded the ship Turkmen, intending to reach Astrakhan by sea. According to recent historians, the sailors chose instead to sail to Krasnovodsk for fear of being arrested in Astrakhan and that same day, Teague-Jones attended the Committees meeting in Ashkabad which had the task of deciding the fate of the Commissars. For some reason Teague-Jones did not communicate Mallesons request to the Committee and he further claimed that next day he discovered the committee had eventually decided to issue orders that the commissars should be executed. How Anastas Mikoyan, who was part of the group, managed to survive is still uncertain, in 1922, V. Chaikin, a Socialist Revolutionary journalist, published a description of the moments before the execution. On the way to Astrakhan, the crew of the led by naval officers changed course to the city of Petrovsk that was held by the White forces. At that time all 27 commissars mixed with the other 600 refugees, the chief of staff of General L. Thanks to the help of Mikoyan all the commissars were detained, upon completion of the investigation all 26 members were sentenced to death by firing squad, while Mikoyan was released on condition that he did not engage in anti-government activities
17.
Shusha massacre
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The event took place between 22 and 26 March 1920, and had as its background a conflict over competing claims of ownership of the region by Armenia and Azerbaijan. It resulted in the destruction of the Armenian-populated quarters of Shusha. At the end of the First World War, the ownership of the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh was disputed between the newly founded republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Shusha – the territorys largest settlement, its capital, and with a population consisting mostly of ethnic Armenians. The government of Azerbaijan proclaimed in Baku about the annexation of the territory and, on January 15,1919, appointed Khosrov bek Sultanov. An ardent pan-Turkist, a friend of the Ittihadists of Constantinople, britain agreed to Sultanovs appointment as a provisional governor, but insisted that a final decision on the territorys ownership should be decided only at a future Peace Conference. On April 23,1919 the National Council of Karabagh met again in Shusha and rejected again Azerbaijans claim of sovereignty, after this, a local Azerbaijani detachment encircled the Armenian quarters of Shusha, demanding the inhabitants to surrender fortress. Shots were fired, but when the British mediated, Armenians agreed to surrender to them, on the 4 and 5 June 1919, armed clashes occurred in Shusha between the two communities and Sultanov began a blockade of the towns Armenian quarters. American nurses working in Shusha for Near East Relief wrote of a massacre by Tartars of 700 of the Christian inhabitants of the town, a cease-fire was quickly organised after the Armenian side agreed to Sultanovs condition that members of the Armenian National Council leave the town. The seventh Congress of the Armenians of Karabagh was convened in Shusha on August 13,1919, on February 19,1920 Sultanov issued a demand that the Armenian National Council of Karabagh urgently to solve the question of the final incorporation of Karabagh into Azerbaijan. Armenians of Karabakh prepared a revolt against the Azerbaijani power, according to Richard Hovannisian, the failure at Khankendi sealed the doom of Shusha. As planned, the Varanda militia entered Shushi on the evening of March 22, supposedly to receive its pay and that same night, about 100 armed men led by Nerses Azbekian slipped into the city to disarm the Azerbaijani garrison in the Armenian quarter. It was only then that the Varanda militiamen were roused and began seizing Azerbaijani officers quartered in Armenian homes. The confusion on both sides continued until dawn, when the Azerbaijanis learned that their garrison at Khankend had held and, heartened, the fighting took the Armenians of Shushi by surprise. Several thousand fled under cover of the fog by way of Karintak into the Varanda countryside. According to Richard Hovannisian, Azerbaijani troops, joined by the city’s Azerbaijani inhabitants, the chief of police, Avetis Ter-Ghukasian, was turned into a human torch, and many intellectuals, including Bolshevik Alexander Tsaturyan, were among the 500 Armenian victims. According to the description of Azerbaijani communist Odzhakhkuli Musayev, a destruction of defenceless women, children, old women. Armenians were exposed to a mass slaughter, and what beautiful Armenian girls were raped and then shot
18.
Shusha
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Shusha, or Shushi, is a city in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, however, it is a de jure part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, with the status of an administrative division of the surrounding Shusha Rayon. Situated at an altitude of 1, 400–1,800 metres in the picturesque Karabakh mountains, according to some sources the town of Shusha was founded in 1752 by Panah Ali Khan. Other sources suggest that Shusha served as a town and an ancient fortress in the Armenian principality of Varanda during the Middle Ages, from the mid-18th century to 1822 Shusha was the capital of the Karabakh Khanate. The town became one of the centers of the South Caucasus after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus region in the first half of the 19th century over Qajar Iran. Over time, it became a city and a home to many Azerbaijani intellectuals, poets, writers and especially, along with Tbilisi, it was one of the two main Armenian cities of the Transcaucasus and the center of a self-governing Armenian principality from medieval times through the 1750s. Throughout modern history the city mainly fostered a mixed Armenian–Azerbaijani population, after the capture of Shusha in 1992 by Armenian forces, its population diminished dramatically again and is now almost exclusively Armenian. The Gospel was created in Shusha by the calligrapher Ter-Manuel in 1428, panin, the Georgian king Erekle II documented that there was an ancient fortress which was conquered, through deceit, by one man from the Muslim Jevanshir tribe. The same information about the ancient fortress is confirmed by the Russian Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov in his letter to Prince Grigory Potemkin, when discussing Karabakh and Shusha in the 18th century, the Russian diplomat and historian S. M. Bronevskiy (Russian, С. Броневский implied in his Historical Notes that Shusha was a possession of the Melik-Shahnazarian clan, Russian historian P. G. Butkov (Russian, П. The mid-18th century foundation is supported by Encyclopaedia of Islam, Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Melik Shahnazar of Varanda, who was the first of the Armenian meliks to accept the suzerainty of Panah Ali Khan, Panah khan resettled to Shusha the population of Shahbulag and some nearby villages, and built strong fortifications. During the rule of Ibrahim-Khalil khan, the son of Panah Ali khan, although Panah Ali khan has been in conflict with Nader Shah, but the new ruler of Persia, Adil Shah, issued a firman recognizing Panah Ali as the Khan of Karabakh. Less than a year after Shusha was founded, the Karabakh Khanate was attacked by Muhammed Hassan khan Qajar, during the Safavid Empire Karabakh was for almost two centuries ruled by Ziyad-oglu family of the clan of Qajars, and therefore, Muhammed Hassan khan considered Karabakh his hereditary estate. Muhammed Hassan khan besieged Shusha but soon had to retreat, because of the attack on his territory by his opponent to the Iranian throne. His retreat was so hasty that he left his cannons under the walls of Shusha fortress. Panah Ali khan counterattacked the retreating troops of Muhammad Hassan khan, in 1756 Shusha and the Karabakh Khanate underwent a new attack from Fatali khan Afshar, ruler of Urmia. With his 30,000 strong army Fatali khan also managed to support from the meliks of Jraberd and Talish
19.
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
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The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was an autonomous oblast within the borders of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians. Had Turkey not been an issue, Stalin would probably have left Karabakh under Armenian control, as a result, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was established with the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic on July 7,1923. According to Karl R. DeRouen it was created as an enclave so that a strip of land would separate it from Armenia proper. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union broke out in 1987, on November 26,1991, the Parliament of the Azerbaijan SSR abolished the autonomous status of the NKAO. Most of the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast is under the control of the ethnic Armenian forces of Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the NKAO was dissolved as an entity of Azerbaijan by the Law on Abolishment of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Mardakert District Martuni District Shusha District Askeran District Hadrut District First Secretary of the Nagorno–Karabakh Communist Party Former Soviet Union Carnage in Karabakh
20.
Alexander Tamanian
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Alexander Tamanian was a Russian-born Armenian neoclassical architect, well known for his work in the city of Yerevan. Tamanian was born in the city of Yekaterinodar in 1878 in the family of a banker and he graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1904. His works portrayed sensitive and artistic trends popular in those years. Some of his works included the mansion of V. P. Kochubei in Tsarskoye Selo, 1911–1912. He became an Academician of Architecture in 1914, in 1917 he was elected as the Vice-President of the Academy of Arts, in 1923 he moved to Yerevan, heading the new construction effort in the republic. Tamanian created the first general plan of the city of Yerevan which was approved in 1924. Tamanians style was instrumental in transforming what was essentially a small city into the modern Armenian capital. Neoclassicism dominated his designs but Tamanian also implemented a national flavor, among his most famous designs in Yerevan are the hydroelectric station, the Opera and Ballet house named after A. Spendiarian, the Republic Square and others. He also played a role in the development of restoration projects of historical landmarks in the country. Tamanian was married to Camilla Edwards, a member of the Benois family and their sons Gevorg and Yulius Tamanian also became noted architects and continued their fathers work. Tamanian died in Yerevan on February 20,1936 and is buried at the Komitas Pantheon which is located in the city center of Yerevan, aghasi Khanjian’s mansion, Hrazdan River gorge – 1920s Andrei Sakharov Square –1924 – Nalbandyan St. Pushkin St. Vardanants St
21.
Maxim Gorky
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Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, primarily known as Maxim Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire. Gorkys most famous works were The Lower Depths, Twenty-six Men and he had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs. Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement and he publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanovs Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia, in 1932, he returned to Russia on Joseph Stalins personal invitation and died there in June 1936. Born as Alexei Maximovich Peshkov on 28 March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod and he was brought up by his grandmother and ran away from home at the age of twelve in 1880. After an attempt at suicide in December 1887, he travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, changing jobs, as a journalist working for provincial newspapers, he wrote under the pseudonym Иегудиил Хламида. He began using the pseudonym Gorky in 1892, while working in Tiflis for the newspaper Кавказ, the name reflected his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the bitter truth. Gorkys first book Очерки и рассказы in 1898 enjoyed a sensational success, Gorky wrote incessantly, viewing literature less as an aesthetic practice than as a moral and political act that could change the world. He described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of society, revealing their hardships, humiliations, and brutalisation, but also their inward spark of humanity. Gorkys reputation grew as a literary voice from the bottom strata of society and as a fervent advocate of Russias social, political. By 1899, he was associating with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. At the heart of all his work was a belief in the inherent worth, in his writing, he counterposed individuals, aware of their natural dignity, and inspired by energy and will, with people who succumb to the degrading conditions of life around them. But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore art thou and he publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many times. Gorky befriended many revolutionaries and became a friend of Vladimir Lenin after they met in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press, in 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary Academician of Literature, but Tsar Nicholas II ordered this annulled. In protest, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the Academy, from 1900 to 1905, Gorkys writings became more optimistic
22.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, Privolnoye, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party
23.
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
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It was established in December 1920, when the Soviets took over control of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia and lasted until 1991. On August 23,1990, it was renamed the Republic of Armenia after its sovereignty was declared and its independence was recognized on 26 December 1991 when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the state of the post-Union Republic of Armenia existed until the adoption of the new constitution in 1995, the modern Armenian Hayastan derives from earlier Armenian Hayk’ and Persian -stān. Hayk’ derives from Old Armenian Haykʿ, traditionally derived from a legendary patriarch named Hayk, aram above was considered to be one of his descendants. Officially, the name of the republic was the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic as defined by the 1937 and 1978 constitutions. From 1828 with the Treaty of Turkmenchay to the October Revolution in 1917, Eastern Armenia was part of the Russian Empire, after the October Revolution, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenins government announced that minorities in the empire could pursue a course of self-determination. Following the collapse of the empire, in May 1918 Armenia, a number of Armenians joined the advancing 11th Soviet Red Army. The medieval Armenian capital of Ani, as well as the icon of the Armenian people Mount Ararat, were located in the ceded area. Additionally, Joseph Stalin, then acting Commissar for Nationalities, granted the areas of Nakhchivan, the republic began under the name the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia in 1920. From March 12,1922 to December 5,1936, Armenia was a part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Georgian SSR, the Red Army, which was campaigning in Georgia at the time, returned to suppress the revolt and drove its leaders out of Armenia. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy, Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability, life under the Soviet rule proved to be a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent final years of the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from the central government, the situation was difficult for the Armenian Apostolic Church, however, which became a regular target of criticism in educational books and in the media and struggled greatly under Communism. After the death of Vladimir Lenin in January 1924, there was a power struggle in the Soviet Union. Armenian society and its economy were changed by Stalin and his fellow Moscow policymakers, in 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved under Stalins orders and the socialist republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were established instead. For the Armenian people, conditions grew worse under Stalins rule, in a period of twenty-five years, Armenia was industrialized and educated under strictly prescribed conditions, and nationalism was harshly suppressed. Stalin took several measures in persecuting the Armenian Church, already weakened by the Armenian Genocide, in the 1920s, the private property of the church was confiscated and priests were harassed. Soviet assaults against the Armenian Church accelerated under Stalin, beginning in 1929, in 1932, Khoren Muradpekyan became known as Khoren I and assumed the title of His Holiness the Catholicos. However, in the late 1930s, the Soviets renewed their attacks against the Church and this culminated in the murder of Khoren in 1938 as part of the Great Purge, and the closing of the Catholicosate of Echmiatsin on August 4,1938
24.
Turkification
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Turkification is the transformation of entities, or cultures into the various historical Turkic states and cultures, such as the Ottoman Empire. As the Turkic states developed and grew, there were instances of this cultural shift. The term is used in the Greek language since the 1300s or late-Byzantine era as εκτουρκισμός and it literally means becoming Muslim or Turk. For example, Είχε τουρκέψει κάτω από βία, τον καιρό της άτυχης εκείνης επανάστασης του1770, τούρκεμα κανονικό με σουνέτι από Τούρκο παπά and he had been turkified by force, at the time of the unfortunate revolution of 1770. A real turkification, with circumcision by a Turkish priest, apart from persons, it may refer also to cities that were conquered by Turks or churches that were converted to mosques. Rather, it signifies the conversion of Slavic people to Islam during Ottoman rule of the Balkans. Andrew Mango describes the diversity of phenotypes amongst the Turkish people as follows, The Turkish nation took shape in the centuries of Seljuk and they intermarried with them, while many local people converted to Islam and turned Turk. They were joined by Muslims from the north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus, by Persian craftsmen and Arab scholars. As a result, the Turks today exhibit a variety of ethnic types. A numerically small, but commercially and intellectually important, group is descended from converts from Judaism, one can hear Turks describe some of their fellow countrymen as hatchet-nosed Lazes, dark Arabs, or even fellahs. Anatolia was home to different peoples in ancient times who were either natives or settlers and invaders. Byzantine authorities routinely conducted large-scale population transfers in an effort to impose religious uniformity, after the subordination of the First Bulgarian Empire in 1018, for instance, much of its army was resettled in Eastern Anatolia. The Byzantines were particularly keen to assimilate the large Armenian population, to that end, in the eleventh century, the Armenian nobility were removed from their lands and resettled throughout western Anatolia. An unintended consequence of this resettlement was the loss of military leadership along the eastern frontier. Beginning in the century, war with Turks led to the deaths of many in the native population. As areas became depopulated, Turkic nomads moved in with their herds, one mark of the progress of Turkification was that by the 1330s, place names in Anatolia had changed from Greek to Turkish. They were then converted to Islam with the objective of selecting and training the ablest children for the military or civil service of the Empire. Started by Murad I as a means to counteract the power of the Turkish nobility
25.
Shelling of Stepanakert
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The bombardment of Stepanakert and adjacent Armenian towns and villages, which took place under the conditions of total blockade by Azerbaijan, caused widespread destruction and many civilian deaths. Human Rights Watch reported that the bases used by Azerbaijani armed forces for the bombardment of Stepanakert included the towns of Khojaly. Azerbaijani forces used weapons such as the BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket systems, as a result of the offensive launched by Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh more than 40,000 people became refugees, dozens of villages were burnt and ruined. According to Memorial Human Rights Center, the areas of both Stepanakert and Shushi were shelled on a regular basis with the use of artillery and rocket launchers. The indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas stopped only after the suppression of Azerbaijani military outposts in the nearby town of Shusha by Armenian units on May 8–9,1992. Azerbaijan blockaded railroad lines and the delivery of oil and natural gas to Armenia, since the fall of 1991 the imposed blockade became full and continuous. The blockades shattered the Armenian economy, sparked social unrest and created a humanitarian crisis. Throughout the spring of 1992, Stepanakert was under siege - Azerbaijan had cut all the communication between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Stepanakert had no access by road to Armenia for almost two years and its link to the outside world was by helicopter across the mountains to Armenia. Thus many of its residents had been trapped there all that time. As a result of tightening of the blockade by Azerbaijan all essential supplies, including water, electricity, food, the Armenians living in Stepanakert had to spend almost the whole time sheltering in basements and cellars in appalling conditions. According to Human Rights Watch, It was in conditions of total blockade that Azerbaijan subjected Stepanakert to shelling. During the winter of 1991-92, Stepanakert was hit by artillery, in May 1992, when Helsinki Watch arrived to Stepanakert, the city had already suffered heavy destruction. On August 22–24 alone, Azerbaijani bombings had caused at least 40 civilian deaths, Helsinki Watchs report stated that the Azerbaijani shelling and bombing were reckless and indiscriminate, and aimed at terrorizing and forcing out Armenian civilians. Like previous Azerbaijani attacks on Stepanakert, the shelling and bombing throughout the counter-offensive, according to Caroline Cox, I used to count 400 Grad missiles every day pounding in on Stepanakert. The shelling aimed to intimidate and oust the Armenian civilian population from Karabakh, in the words of the State Secretary of Azerbaijan in 1992 Lala-Shovket Gajiyeva, For more than 100 days we were shelling Stepanakert, but the Armenians did not abandon their land. Geographically Stepanakert lay in the most vulnerable position, with Aghdam 15 miles to the East, Khojaly to the North, the Azeri controlled towns of Shushi and Khojalu were overlooking Stepanakert and were used as main bases for shelling and bombing the capital. Russian pilot Anatolii Chistiakov said that the Azerbaijanis routinely ask mercenary pilots to drop tear gas to cause panic among civilians
26.
Fire support base
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A fire support base is a temporary military encampment to provide artillery fire support to infantry operating in areas beyond the normal range of fire support from their own base camps. FSBs follow a number of plans, their shape and construction varying based on the terrain they occupy, widely used during the Vietnam War, the concept has continued on through current military operations including in Afghanistan. A fire support base was originally a firing base for artillery. Large FSBs might also have 2 artillery batteries, and an infantry battalion, the other 5 howitzers were arranged around it in a star pattern. Smaller FSBs tended to vary greatly from this layout, with two to four howitzers of various calibers located in dispersed and fortified firing positions and these smaller bases arranged their guns in square or triangle patterns when possible. One of the first fire support bases constructed by U. S. troops was built in October 1965, designated Bill, it was built by the First Cavalry Division in Pleiku Province soon after the division arrived in South Vietnam. Based on the concept developed by that division, firebases would move about every two days, minimizing the amount of security and semi-permanent construction they would need. Over time this changed, and firebases evolved into small forts with all the defensive measures those required, Firebase Bastogne was a United States firebase constructed in Vietnam in 1968 by the 101st Airborne Division. Firebase Mary Ann, constructed by elements of the 23rd Infantry Division Americal, was typical of smaller fire support bases. Firebases have been set up in Afghanistan since the action by U. S. -led Coalition forces began in 2001 and these bases provide fire support to Coalition forces in the search for Taliban fighters along the Pakistan border. Kunar Province Firebase Phoenix Helmand Province Firebase Fiddlers Green Nangarhar Province A former firebase - Forward Operating Base Torkham Firebase Thomas Firebase Tinsley near Char Chiehna, Forward operating base Hedgehog defense Coleman, J. D. Pleiku, The Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam. Sappers in the Wire, The life and death of Firebase Mary Ann, washington D. C. Department of the Army. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division, 1st Cav in Vietnam, the Gunpit - Basic Layout The 2001 version of Vietnam LZs, FBs, FSBs and Camps Vietnam Studies, Field Artillery 1954-1973 - Chapter 3 deals with the FSB concept from the field artillery viewpoint
27.
BM-21 Grad
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The BM-21 Grad, is a Soviet truck-mounted 122 mm multiple rocket launcher. The weapons system and the M-21OF rocket it fires were developed in the early 1960s, BM stands for boyevaya mashina, and the nickname grad means hail. The complete system with the BM-21 launch vehicle and the M-21OF rocket is designated as the M-21 field rocket system, the complete system is more commonly known as a Grad multiple rocket launcher system. In NATO countries, the system was known as M1964. Several other countries have copied it or developed similar systems, the M-21 field rocket system with a BM-21 launch vehicle. The launch vehicle consists of a Ural-375D six-by-six truck chassis fitted with a bank of 40 launch tubes arranged in a shape that can be turned away from the unprotected cab. The vehicle is powered by a water-cooled V-8180 hp gasoline engine, has a road speed of 75 km/h, road range of up to 750 kilometers. The original vehicle together with supporting equipment is referred to by the GRAU index 9K51, in 1976, the BM-21 was mounted on the newer Ural-4320 six-by-six army truck. The three-member crew can emplace the system and have it ready to fire in three minutes, the crew can fire the rockets from the cab or from a trigger at the end of a 64-meter cable. All 40 rockets can be away in as little as 20 seconds, a PG-1M panoramic telescope with K-1 collimator can be used for sighting. The BM-21 can be packed up and ready to move in two minutes, which can be necessary when engaged by counter-battery fire, reloading is done manually and takes about 10 minutes. Each 2. 87-meter rocket is slowly spun by rifling in its tube as it exits, rockets armed with high explosive-fragmentation, incendiary, or chemical warheads can be fired 20 kilometers. Newer high explosive and cargo rockets have a range of 30 kilometers, warheads weigh around 20 kilograms, depending on the type. The number of rockets that each vehicle is able to bring to bear on an enemy target makes it effective. One battalion of eighteen launchers is able to deliver 720 rockets in a single volley, the system has lower precision than typical artillery and cannot be used in situations that call for pinpoint precision. It relies on a number of shells dissipating over an area for a certain hit rate on specific targets. Nonetheless, because of the warning time for the impact of the whole volley. BM-21, Original version known as the BM-21 launch vehicle, the launcher unit was mounted on a modified Ural-375D truck chassis
28.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931
29.
Capture of Shusha
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It was named Wedding in the Mountains by the Armenian commandership. The seizure of the town proved decisive, however, some of the shelling was, according to the accounts of former residents, either indiscriminate or intentionally aimed at civilian targets. In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over seventy years inside the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR. Following its governments decision to secede from Azerbaijan and unify with Armenia, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azeris vied to take control of Karabakh with full-scale battles in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning, a large scale population shift had also been in effect since the conflict began, with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan fleeing to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia to Azerbaijan. The battle was preceded by the capture of the town. With the loss of Khojaly, Azeri commanders concentrated the rest of their firepower upon Stepanakert, on 26 January 1992 the Azerbaijani forces stationed in Shusha encircled and attacked nearby Armenian village Karintak attempting to capture it. This operation was conducted by Azerbaijan’s then defence minister Tajedin Mekhtiev and was supposed to prepare ground for future attack on Stapanakert, the operation failed as the villagers and the Armenian fighters strongly retaliated in self-defense. Mekhtiev was ambushed and up to seventy Azeri soldiers died, after this debacle, Mekhtiev left Shusha and was fired as defence minister. The Armenians to date celebrate the self-defence of Karintak as one of their early, Shusha sits on a mountaintop overlooking the NKRs highly populated capital, Stepanakert, from an elevation of 600m. An old fortress with walls, the town is five kilometers to the south of Stepanakert. From a geographical standpoint Shusha was well-suited for Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert, the main type of artillery used in the bombardment, which began on January 10,1992, was the Soviet-made BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, which was capable of firing 40 rockets in one volley. The GRAD launcher was similar to the World War II-era Katyusha in that it did not have a missile system. Essentially, the GRAD is designed to deliver anti-personnel devastation on an open battlefield, Shusha was the main fire point from where Stepanakert was assaulted. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day, by early 1992 the bombing intensified. In a course of one week the city was bombed with over 1,000 shells, in an article that appeared in TIME in April 1992, it was noted that scarcely a single building escaped damage in Stepanakert. In addition to the shelling, the Azeri military also launched air raids, while they were staved off numerous times, the citys leaders complained that military action had to be taken to relieve it from the continuous bombardment. On April 27, the military plans were approved to move in
30.
Sea level
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Mean sea level is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earths oceans from which heights such as elevations may be measured. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is the midpoint between a low and mean high tide at a particular location. Sea levels can be affected by factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, the term above sea level generally refers to above mean sea level. Precise determination of a sea level is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level. Sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and this is because the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth. The easiest way this may be calculated is by selecting a location and calculating the mean sea level at that point, for example, a period of 19 years of hourly level observations may be averaged and used to determine the mean sea level at some measurement point. One measures the values of MSL in respect to the land, hence a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates. In the UK, the Ordnance Datum is the sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the datum was MSL at the Victoria Dock, in Hong Kong, mPD is a surveying term meaning metres above Principal Datum and refers to height of 1. 230m below the average sea level. In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and it is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe vertical elevation references are made to the Amsterdam Peil elevation, satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, height above mean sea level is the elevation or altitude of an object, relative to the average sea level datum. It is also used in aviation, where some heights are recorded and reported with respect to sea level, and in the atmospheric sciences. An alternative is to base height measurements on an ellipsoid of the entire Earth, in aviation, the ellipsoid known as World Geodetic System 84 is increasingly used to define heights, however, differences up to 100 metres exist between this ellipsoid height and mean tidal height. The alternative is to use a vertical datum such as NAVD88. When referring to geographic features such as mountains on a topographic map, the elevation of a mountain denotes the highest point or summit and is typically illustrated as a small circle on a topographic map with the AMSL height shown in metres, feet or both. In the rare case that a location is below sea level, for one such case, see Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
31.
Humid subtropical climate
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A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterised by hot, usually humid summers and mild to cool winters. It normally lies on the southeast side of all continents, generally between latitudes 25° and 40° and it tends to be located at coastal or near coastal locations. However, in cases it extends inland, most notably in China. Under the Köppen climate classification, subtropical climates are found in the warmest parts of his Warm Temperate climates or Cfa and this climate features mean temperatures in the coldest month between 0 °C and 18 °C and mean temperatures in the warmest month 22 °C or higher. However, while some climatologists have opted to describe this type as a humid subtropical climate Köppen himself never used this term. The humid subtropical climate classification was created under the Trewartha Climate classification. The Trewartha system was a 1966 update of the Köppen climate classification and this was seen to effectively separate temperate climates like London or New York City from true subtropical locations like Brisbane or Savannah for example. Rainfall often shows a peak, especially where monsoons are well developed, as in Southeast Asia. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms that build up due to the surface heating and strong subtropical sun angle. Weak tropical lows that move in from adjacent warm tropical oceans, winter rainfall is often associated with large storms in the westerlies that have fronts that reach down into subtropical latitudes. However, many subtropical climates such as southeast Asia or Florida have very dry winters, with frequent brush fires, in Africa, the humid subtropical climates are found in two separate areas on the southern hemisphere of the continent. The Cwa climate is found over a portion of the interior of the Middle. Some lower portions of the Ethiopian Highlands also have this climate, the climate is also found in the narrow coastal sections of southern and eastern South Africa, primarily in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape provinces. South Africas version of this climate features heavy oceanic influences resulting in milder temperatures. This is particularly evident in its winters when temperatures do not drop as low as in other regions within the humid subtropical category. Locations in Asia with a subtropical climate differ from those in other continents in that they often have marked seasonal differences in precipitation. Cities near the boundary of this zone include Hong Kong, Hanoi. At Hainan Island and in Taiwan, the transitions from subtropical into fully tropical
32.
Semi-arid climate
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A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely. There are different kinds of climates, depending on such variables as temperature. Semi-arid climates tend to short or scrubby vegetation, with semi-arid areas usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. If the areas precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold. Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the tropics and subtropics and these climates tend to have hot, sometimes extremely hot, summers and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found around the fringes of subtropical deserts, hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Africa, Australia and South Asia. In Australia, a portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate regime. Hot semi-arid climates can also be found in North America, primarily in Mexico, areas of Texas near Mexico, cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in temperate zones or elevated portions in subtropical zones. They are typically found in continental interiors some distance from bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters and these areas usually see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. These large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Asia and North America, however, they can also be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, Europe, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, California, which has cool summers for the due to prevailing winds off the ocean. Arid Forest Research Institute Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyders Line Pallisers Triangle Köppen climate classification Wave height Ustic
33.
Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
34.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
35.
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
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Established on 28 April 1920 as the Azerbaijan SSR, from 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936, it was part of the Transcausasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR. In December 1922, the Transcaucasian SFSR became part of the newly established Soviet Union, the Constitution of Azerbaijan SSR was approved by the 9th Extraordinary All-Azerbaijani Congress of Soviets on 14 March 1937. On 19 November 1990, Azerbaijan SSR was renamed the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR ceased to exist in 1995, upon the adoption of the new Constitution of Azerbaijan. The name Azerbaijan originates as the Land of Atropates, an Achaemenid then Hellenistic-era king over a region in present-day Iranian Azarbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan, despite this difference, the present name was chosen by the Musavat to replace the Russian names Transcaucasia and Baku in 1918. Azerbaijan derives from Persian Āzarbāydjān, from earlier Ādharbāyagān and Ādharbādhagān, from Middle Persian Āturpātākān, from its founding it was officially known as the Azerbaijan Socialist Soviet Republic. Upon independence, it was renamed to the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1991, the current official name was retained after the new Constitution of Azerbaijan was adopted in 1995. On 13 October 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the previously independent Naxicivan SSR would also become an autonomous ASSR within Azerbaijan by the Treaty of Kars. Borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, like elsewhere in the USSR, were several times. On 12 March 1922 the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenian, and this was the first attempt at a union of Soviet republics, preceding the USSR. The Union Council of TSFSR consisted of the representatives of the three republics – Nariman Narimanov, Polikarp Mdivani, and Aleksandr Fyodorovich Miasnikyan, the First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Communist Party was Sergo Ordzhonikidze. In December 1922 TSFSR agreed to join the union with Russia, Ukraine, the TSFSR, however, did not last long. In December 1936, the Transcaucasian Union was finally dismantled when the leaders in the Union Council found themselves unable to come to agreement over several issues, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia then became union Republics of the Soviet Union directly. In the spring of 1921, a general change-over from revkoms, in order to help the Azerbaijani oil industry the Supreme Council of the National Economy decided in the same year to provide it with everything necessary out of turn. The new oilfields, like Ilyich Bay, Qara-Chukhur, Lok-Batan, in 1929 a great kolkhoz movement had developed and Azerbaijan became the second Soviet tea producer after the Georgian SSR for the first time. On 31 March 1931 the oil industry of the Azerbaijan SSR, the republic gained the second Order on 15 March 1935 during the observation of its 15th anniversary. At the end of the second five-year plan Azerbaijan appeared at 3rd place in the Soviet Union by its capital investment size, in 1938, the Azerbaijani alphabet was changed from Latin to Cyrillic alphabet. During the period 17 September 1939 to 21 June 1941, the Soviet Union was Nazi Germanys most important ally, in April,1940, intelligence flights by the British and French Air Forces passed over the Absheron Peninsula. Great Britain and France seriously considered the possibility of bombing the Republics oil fields and this changed when Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941
36.
Presidential system
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A presidential system is a system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch. The United States, for instance, has a presidential system, the executive is elected and often titled president and is not responsible to the legislature, which cannot in normal circumstances dismiss it. Presidential systems are numerous, but the following are true, The executive can veto legislative acts and, in turn. The veto is generally derived from the British tradition of royal assent in which an act of parliament can only be enacted with the assent of the monarch, the president has a fixed term of office. Members of the cabinet serve at the pleasure of the president, cabinet ministers or executive departmental chiefs are not members of the legislature. However, presidential systems often need legislative approval of executive nominations to the cabinet, judiciary, a president generally can direct members of the cabinet, military, or any officer or employee of the executive branch, but cannot direct or dismiss judges. The president can often pardon or commute sentences of convicted criminals, countries that feature a presidential system of government are not the exclusive users of the title of president. For example, a dictator, who may or may not have been popularly or legitimately elected may be, likewise, leaders of one-party states are often called presidents. Most parliamentary republics have presidents, but this position is ceremonial, notable examples include Germany, India, Ireland, Israel. The title is used in parliamentary republics with an executive presidency. In a full-fledged presidential system, a president is chosen directly by the people or indirectly by the party to be the head of the executive branch. Presidential governments make no distinction between the positions of head of state and head of government, both of which are held by the president, a few countries have powerful presidents who are elected by the legislature. These executives are titled president, whereas in practice they are similar to prime ministers, other countries with the same system include Botswana, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Suriname. By contrast, national presidents are figurehead heads of state, like constitutional monarchs, such symbolic presidents can be directly elected by the people or indirectly by a legislative vote. Only a few nations, such as Ireland, have a popularly elected ceremonial president, subnational governments, usually states, may be structured as presidential systems. All of the governments in the United States use the presidential system. On a local level, many cities use Council-manager government, which is equivalent to a parliamentary system, some countries without a presidential system at the national level use a form of this system at a subnational or local level. Supporters generally claim four basic advantages for presidential systems, Direct elections — in a presidential system and this makes the presidents power more legitimate than that of a leader appointed indirectly
37.
Democracy
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Democracy, in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. Democracy is sometimes referred to as rule of the majority, Democracy was originally conceived in Classical Greece, where political representatives were chosen by a jury from amongst the male citizens, rich and poor. The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French, in the 5th century BC, to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, the term is an antonym to aristocracy, meaning rule of an elite. While theoretically these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically, the political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In 1906, Finland became the first government to harald a more inclusive democracy at the national level. Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders, No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics. These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law, other uses of democracy include that of direct democracy. In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, in the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a central attribute. In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review, though the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations. Majority rule is listed as a characteristic of democracy. Hence, democracy allows for political minorities to be oppressed by the tyranny of the majority in the absence of legal protections of individual or group rights. An essential part of a representative democracy is competitive elections that are substantively and procedurally fair, i. e. just. It has also suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society. While representative democracy is sometimes equated with the form of government. Many democracies are constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, the term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from demos, common people and kratos, strength, led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC
Artsakh
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Montebello, United States: On 25 September 2005, Montebello, California and Stepanakert became sister cities. This prompted a complaint by the ambassador of Azerbaijan to the United States, Hafiz Pashayev, who sent a letter to California leaders, stating that the decision jeopardized peace talks between his country and Armenia,[34] the letter was sent to then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who deferred the letter to Montebello mayor Bill Molinari since it concerned a local, not a state, issue. Molinari responded to Pashayev that the city would go ahead with its plans to inaugurate Stepanakert under the sister city program.[34] Stepanakert's relationship with Montebello is aimed at revitalizing the capital's economic infrastructure and building cultural and educational ties, as well as developing trade and health care between the two cities. Azerbaijan has described this as a contradictory foreign policy of the United States that purportedly supports the NKR government and Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan.[35]
Yerevan, Armenia: Yerevan and Stepanakert, the capitals of the two Armenian republics, became sister cities after a partnership agreement signed on 28 September 2012 between the mayors of the two cities.[36][37]
San Sebastián, Spain: San Sebastián (Donostia) and Stepanakert signed a cooperation agreement on 15 September 2014.[38]
