1.
Pskov Oblast
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Pskov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia, located in the west of the country. Its administrative center is the city of Pskov, as of the 2010 Census, its population was 673,423. Pskov Oblast is the westernmost federal subject of contiguous Russia, in the northwest, Pskov Oblast is limited by Lake Peipus, which makes up most of the state border with Estonia. The oblast is located in the Baltic Sea drainage basin, mostly in the basin of the Narva River, the biggest river of this basin is the Velikaya, which flows across the whole oblast from south to north and drains into Lake Peipus. The drainage basin of the Velikaya covers the territory of the oblast, with the exception of relatively minor areas in its southern, eastern. The rivers in the southeast drain into the Lovat, which has its source in Belarus and crosses Pskov Oblast from south to north, the Lovat is a major tributary of Lake Ilmen and is itself in the Neva Rivers basin. Another tributary of Lake Ilmen is the Shelon River, which flows in the part of the oblast. Finally, minor areas in the lie in the basin of the Western Dvina. A short stretch of the Western Dvina makes up the border between Pskov and Tver Oblasts, the north of the oblast is flat and swampy, whereas the central and the southern parts are formed by glacial landscapes. There are many lakes, especially in the south, the biggest one, after Lake Peipus, is Lake Zhizhitskoye, with an area of 51.3 square kilometers. It is located in the southeast of the oblast, in the basin of the Western Dvina, wood is one of the most important natural resources in the oblast, with forests taking up to one third of the territory. Total wood reserves as of January 1,2005 were estimated to be at 331,200,000 cubic meters, Pskov lands had significant importance in Russian history. Until the 1230s Pskov was a principality, and subsequently was subordinated to Novgorod and became a republic, in Pskov Republic the highest authority belonged to the assembly of citizens. In 1348, the Treaty of Bolotovo was concluded, recognizing independence of Pskov, however, Pskov quickly run into dependence from the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the emerging regional superpower, and after 1399 Moscow appointed vice-roys to Pskov. The formal independence ended in 1510, when Pskov was occupied by the troops of Vasili III of Russia, throughout the history, Pskov Lands were always located in the west of Russian Lands and were almost constantly at war. In particular, in 1242 the Battle of the Ice on Lake Peipus stopped the expansion of the Teutonic Knights to the East, during the Livonian War in 1581, the Polish troops laid siege to Pskov. The southeastern part of the oblast was a part of the Principality of Toropets before it was appended to Moscow in the 15th century, december 29,1708 Tsar Peter the Great issued an edict which established seven governorates. The north of the present area of Pskov Oblast, which at the time belonged to Russia, was a part of Ingermanland Governorate, in 1727, a separate Novgorod Governorate was established, and the area was transferred there
2.
Gdov
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Gdov is a town and the administrative center of Gdovsky District in Pskov Oblast, Russia, located on the Gdovka River, just 2 kilometers from its outflow into Lake Peipus. It was first mentioned in the beginning of the 14th century, between 1431 and 1434, Pskovians built a fortress there, the remains of which can still be seen. It was attacked on numerous occasions by Swedes and Poles, captured by Swedes in 1614, in the course of the administrative reform carried out in 1708 by Peter the Great, Gdov was included into Ingermanland Governorate. Gdov was mentioned as one of the towns into which the governorate was divided, in 1780, Gdov was granted town status, its coat of arms was granted on May 28,1781. Between 1874 and 1912, Gdov issued Zemstvo stamps, the first stamp, worth two kopecks, appeared on April 16,1874. Stamp production ceased, however, with the coming of World War I, in 1919, Gdov was an area where important events of the Russian Civil War and the Estonian War of Independence were taking place. Originally, the area east of Lake Peipus was under control of the revolutionary government, on May 15,1919, the detachment under command of Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz captured Gdov and the whole uyezd thus came under control by the White Army troops of Nikolai Yudenich. In November 1919, the Red Army recaptured Gdov, on August 1,1927, the uyezds and governorates were abolished and Gdovsky District, with the administrative center in Gdov, was established as a part of Luga Okrug of Leningrad Oblast. It included parts of former Gdovsky Uyezd, on July 23,1930, the okrugs were also abolished and the districts were directly subordinated to the oblast. Between March 22,1935 and September 19,1940, Gdovsky District was a part of the restored Pskov Okrug of Leningrad Oblast, between July 19,1941 and February 4,1944, Gdov was occupied by German troops. The town was damaged during the war but partially restored afterwards. On August 23,1944, the district was transferred to newly established Pskov Oblast, within the framework of administrative divisions, Gdov serves as the administrative center of Gdovsky District, to which it is directly subordinated. As a municipal division, the town of Gdov, together with sixty-two rural localities, is incorporated within Gdovsky Municipal District as Gdov Urban Settlement, the economy of Gdov is based on food and timber industries. A railway connects Gdov via Slantsy with Veymarn, originally, the railway connected Pskov with Veymarn. It was destroyed during World War II and the stretch between Gdov and Pskov was never rebuilt, Gdov is connected by roads with Pskov, Kingisepp via Slantsy, and Plyussa. There are also roads, with bus traffic originating from Gdov. An active military base, Smuravyevo, was located northeast of the town, Gdov is included into border security zone, intended to protect the borders of Russia from unwanted activity. In order to visit the zone, a permit issued by the local FSB department is required, Gdov contains two cultural heritage monuments of federal significance and additionally twelve objects classified as cultural and historical heritage of local significance
3.
Leningrad Oblast
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Leningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia. It was established on August 1,1927, although it was not until 1946 that the borders had been mostly settled in their present position. The oblast was named after the city of Leningrad, the first governor of Leningrad Oblast was Vadim Gustov. The current governor, since 2012, is Alexander Drozdenko, the oblast has an area of 84,500 square kilometers and a population of 1,716,868, up from 1,669,205 recorded in the 2002 Census. The most populous town of the oblast is Gatchina, with 88,659 inhabitants, Leningrad Oblast is located around the Gulf of Finland and south of two great lakes of the European Part of Russia, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. Its northeastern part, between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, occupies the Karelian Isthmus, some islands in the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga also belong to the oblast. Much of the area of the oblast belongs to the basin of the Neva. Whereas the Neva, which flows to the Gulf of Finland is relatively short, its basin is enormously big and includes Lake Onega. The Svir and the Volkhov flow from Lake Onega and Lake Ilmen, respectively, other major tributaries of Lake Ladoga include the Vuoksi and the Syas. Rivers in the part of the oblast flow to the Gulf of Finland. Minor areas in the east of the oblast belong to the basin of the Chagodoshcha, a tributary of the Mologa. Thus, the divide between the basins of the Baltic and Caspian Seas crosses the oblast, the Karelian Isthmus is a rocky terrain which hosts a lake district. The biggest lakes on the Karelian Isthmus are Lake Vuoksa, Lake Sukhodolskoye, the rest of the area of the oblast is essentially flat. The exception is the Tikhvin Ridge, a chain of hills in the east of the oblast, most of the area is covered by forests and swamps. The most taxonomically diverse vascular plant families are Asteraceae, Cyperaceae, Poaceae and Rosaceae, by far the most diverse genus is Carex. The territory has no endemic plant taxa, the territory of present-day Leningrad Oblast was populated shortly after the end of the Weichsel glaciation and now hosts numerous archaeological remnants. The Volga trade route and trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks crossed the territory, staraya Ladoga, the first capital of legendary Rurik, founded in the 8th-9th century, is situated in the east of the oblast, on the Volkhov River. During the Russo-Swedish Wars of the 15th-17th centuries, the border moved back, ingrian Finns soon became the dominant ethnic group
4.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
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The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
5.
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
6.
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
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Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, also known in English as Nizhegorod Oblast, is a federal subject of Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Nizhny Novgorod, from 1932 to 1990 it was known as Gorky Oblast. The oblast is crossed by the Volga River, apart from Nizhny Novgorods metropolitan area the biggest city is Arzamas. Near the town of Sarov there is the Serafimo-Diveyevsky Monastery, one of the largest convents in Russia, the Makaryev Monastery opposite of the town of Lyskovo used to be the location of the largest fair in Eastern Europe. Other historic towns include Gorodets and Balakhna, located on the Volga to the north from Nizhny Novgorod, the oblast covers an area of 76,900 square kilometers, which is approximately equal to the entire area of the Benelux countries or Czech Republic. Agricultural land occupies 41% of this area, forests, 48%, lakes and rivers, 2%, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast borders Kostroma Oblast, Kirov Oblast, the Mari El Republic, the Chuvash Republic, the Republic of Mordovia, Ryazan Oblast, Vladimir Oblast, and Ivanovo Oblast. Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is not rich in resources, which are limited to commercial deposits of sand, clay, gypsum, peat, mineral salt. After 1991, the CPSU lost all its power, the head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor, was appointed/elected alongside the elected regional parliament. The Charter of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is the law of the region. The Legislative Assembly of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is the provinces standing legislative body, the Legislative Assembly exercises its authority by passing laws, resolutions, and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it. According to the 2010 Census, ethnic Russians at 3,109,661 made up 95. 1% of the oblasts population, other ethnic groups included Tatars, Mordva, Ukrainians, and various smaller groups, each accounting for less than 0. 5% of the total. Additionally,42,349 people were registered from administrative databases and it is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group. Births,36,315 Deaths,54,184 Deaths decreased by 8. 5% in 2011 compared to 2010, the actual number of foreigners residing in the oblast as of June 1,2006 was estimated to be over 22,000. The oblast ranks seventh in Russia in industrial output, processing industries predominate in the local economy. More than 650 industrial companies employ nearly 700,000 people, industry generates 83% of the regional GDP and accounts for 89% of all material expenditures. The leading sectors are engineering and metalworking, followed by chemical and petrochemical industries and forestry, woodworking, the first three sectors account for about 75% of all industrial production. The oblast has traditionally been attractive to investors, in 2002, Moodys rating agency confirmed a Caa1rating based on the regions long-term foreign currency liabilities. The region maintains trade relations with countries and has an export surplus
7.
Nizhny Novgorod
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Nizhny Novgorod, colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is a city in the administrative center of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and Volga Federal District in Russia. From 1932 to 1990, it was known as Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, the city is an important economic, transportation, scientific, educational and cultural center in Russia and the vast Volga-Vyatka economic region, and is the main center of river tourism in Russia. In the historical part of the city there are a number of universities, theaters, museums. Nizhny Novgorod is located about 400 km east of Moscow, where the Oka empties into the Volga, the city was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri II of Vladimir. In 1612 Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky organized an army for the liberation of Moscow from the Poles, in 1817 Nizhny Novgorod became a great trade center of the Russian Empire. In 1896 at a fair, an All-Russia Exhibition was organized, during the Soviet period, the city turned into an important industrial center. In particular, the Gorky Automobile Plant was constructed in this period, then the city was given the nickname Russian Detroit. During the World War II Gorky became the biggest provider of equipment to the front. Due to this, the Luftwaffe constantly bombed the city from the air, the majority of the German bombs fell in the area of the Gorky Automobile Plant. Although almost all the sites of plant were completely destroyed. After the war, Gorky became a city and remained one until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. At that time the city was renamed Nizhny Novgorod once again, in 1985 the metro was opened. In 2016 Vladimir Putin opened the new 70th Anniversary of Victory Plant which is part of the Almaz-Antey Air, the Kremlin – the main center of the city – contains the main government agencies of the city and the Volga Federal District. Originally the name was just Novgorod, but to distinguish it from the other, older and well-known Novgorod to the west and this land was named lower because it is situated downstream, especially from the point of view of other Russian cities such as Moscow, Vladimir and Murom. Later it was transformed into the name of the city that literally means Lower Newtown. Later a major stronghold for border protection, Nizhny Novgorod fortress took advantage of a moat formed by the two rivers. With the agreement of the Mongol Khan, Nizhny Novgorod was incorporated into the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality in 1264, after 86 years its importance further increased when the seat of the powerful Suzdal Principality was moved here from Gorodets in 1350. Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich sought to make his capital a rival worthy of Moscow, he built a stone citadel, the earliest extant manuscript of the Russian Primary Chronicle, the Laurentian Codex, was written for him by the local monk Laurentius in 1377
8.
Diary
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A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a persons experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, someone who keeps a diary is known as a diarist. Diaries undertaken for institutional purposes play a role in aspects of human civilization, including government records, business ledgers. In British English, the word may also denote a preprinted journal format, today the term is generally employed for personal diaries, normally intended to remain private or to have a limited circulation amongst friends or relatives. The word journal may be used for diary, but generally a diary has daily entries. Although a diary may provide information for a memoir, autobiography or biography, it is written not with the intention of being published as it stands. In recent years, however, there is evidence in some diaries that they are written with eventual publication in mind. By extension the term diary is also used to mean a printed publication of a written diary, the word diary comes from the Latin diarium. The word journal comes from the root through Old French jurnal. The earliest use of the word to mean a book in which a record was written was in Ben Jonsons comedy Volpone in 1605. Pillowbooks of Japanese court ladies and Asian travel journals offer some aspects of genre of writing. The scholar Li Ao, for example, kept a diary of his journey through southern China, in the medieval Near East, Arabic diaries were written from before the 10th century. The earliest surviving diary of this era which most resembles the modern diary was that of Ibn Banna in the 11th century and his diary is the earliest known to be arranged in order of date, very much like modern diaries. The precursors of the diary in the modern sense include daily notes of medieval mystics, concerned mostly with inward emotions, one of the early preserved examples is the anonymous Journal dun bourgeois de Paris that covers the years 1405–49, giving subjective commentaries on the current events. Here we find records of even less important everyday occurrences together with reflection, emotional experience. In 1908 the Smythson company created the first featherweight diary, enabling diaries to be carried about, many diaries of notable figures have been published and form an important element of autobiographical literature. Samuel Pepys is the earliest diarist who is known today, his diaries. Pepys was amongst the first who took the diary beyond mere business transaction notation, the practice of posthumous publication of diaries of literary and other notables began in the 19th century
9.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
10.
Siege of Leningrad
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The siege started on 8 September 1941, when the last road to the city was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, Leningrads capture was one of three strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. By 1939 the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output and it has been reported Adolf Hitler was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had invitations printed to the victory celebrations to be held in the citys Hotel Astoria. According to a sent to Army Group North on 29 September, After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center. Following the citys encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot, in this war for our very existence, we can have no interest in maintaining even a part of this very large urban population. Hitlers ultimate plan was to raze Leningrad to the ground and give areas north of the River Neva to the Finns, Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad, its primary objective. Finnish military forces were north of Leningrad, while German forces occupied territories to the south, thus, it is argued that much of the Finns participation was merely defensive. The Germans planned on lack of food being their weapon against the citizens. On 27 June 1941, the Council of Deputies of the Leningrad administration organised First response groups of civilians, in the next days, Leningrads civilian population was informed of the danger and over a million citizens were mobilised for the construction of fortifications. Several lines of defences were built along the perimeter to repulse hostile forces approaching from north and south by means of civilian resistance. In the south, the line ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudovo, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo. Another line of defence passed through Peterhof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino, in the north the defensive line against the Finns, the Karelian Fortified Region, had been maintained in Leningrads northern suburbs since the 1930s, and was now returned to service. Even the guns from the cruiser Aurora were moved inland to the Pulkovo Heights to the south of Leningrad, the 4th Panzer Group from East Prussia took Pskov following a swift advance and managed to reach Novgorod by 16 August. The Soviet defenders fought to the death, despite the German discovery of the Soviet defence plans on an officers corpse, after the capture of Novgorod, General Hoepners 4th Panzer Group continued its progress towards Leningrad. However, the 18th Army — despite some 350,000 men lagging behind — forced its way to Ostrov and Pskov after the Soviet troops of the Northwestern Front retreated towards Leningrad. On 10 July, both Ostrov and Pskov were captured and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where advance toward Leningrad continued from the Luga River line. This had the effect of creating siege positions from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, the Finnish Army was then expected to advance along the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga
11.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
12.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
13.
Road of Life
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The siege lasted for 29 months from 8 September 1941, to 27 January 1944. Over one million citizens of Leningrad died from starvation, stress, exposure, each winter, the Lake Ladoga ice route was reconstructed by hand, and built according to precise arithmetic calculations depending on traffic volume. The road today forms part of the World Heritage Site, by 8 September 1941, the German Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb had almost completely surrounded Leningrad, successfully cutting off all major supply routes. To address this concern, a decision was cast by the Military Soviet of the Leningrad Front to establish an evacuation commission in November 1941. As the severity of the siege intensified, the proposed the construction of an ice road over Lake Ladoga as both a viable supply line and means for civilian evacuation en masse. The Road of Life began to operate on 19 November 1941 after Captain Mikhail Murov, however, due to proximal bombardments, ice breakage, and unreliable machinery, the route was far from fully functional at this time. It was only in mid-December, after troops of the Volkhov front recaptured Tikhvin, shortly thereafter, the ice road began receiving truck traffic, despite frequent breaks in the early stages of the ice. During the winter of 1941–42 the ice corridor of the Road of Life operated for 152 days, while the road was protected by anti-aircraft artillery on the ice and fighter planes in the air, truck convoys were constantly attacked by German artillery and airplanes, making travel dangerous. The Finnish forces intentionally left the route open in tacit defiance of Germanys requests. The total number of people evacuated from the siege of Leningrad through the Road of Life was about 1.3 million, mostly women and children. During 1942 the Artery of Life, a 29 km long oil pipeline via Lake Ladoga was built of which 21 km ran under water at a depth of 12.5 metres. During the following winter of 1942–1943, the Road of Life began to once again. Motor vehicles began to operate on 24 December 1942, construction of the 30 km long railway over piles and ice also began in December 1942. Operation Spark — a full-scale offensive of troops of the Leningrad, almost immediately, both truck and rail traffic began to bring supplies to Leningrad. For the heroic resistance of its citizens, Leningrad was the first city awarded the title of Hero City in 1945. Measuring 219 km in length and 138 km wide, Lake Ladoga is one of Europe’s largest lakes of its kind, due to its size and unpredictable weather conditions, many speculated that the construction of an ice road connecting its shores would be impossible. Although the Russians had previous experience in ice road construction. Even during winter, the region’s erratic winds were capable of increasing or decreasing the water level by as much as four feet within just a few hours
14.
Kingisepp
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The town was first documented in 1384, when the Novgorodians under Patrikas built there a fortress against the Swedes. It was called Yama or Yamsky Gorodok, after the Ingrian name Jaama, the environs of the town are still cited as the main location of speakers of the nearly extinct Ingrian language. The citadel withstood sieges by the Swedes in 1395 and by the Teutonic Knights during the 1444–1448 war, the town became the most important economic center of the Vodskaya pyatina of the Novgorod Republic. There were 201 homesteads in the 15th century in the town, at the end of the Livonian War, it was ceded to Sweden, only to be returned twelve years later, in 1595. Following the Treaty of Stolbovo, it passed to the Swedes. The town was destroyed by Russian armies during the war of 1656–1658. It is questionable whether the town, with its exclusively Russian population, first held by the Russians for a month in late 1700, the citadel was finally taken by the Russians in the course of the Great Northern War in 1703. On May 14,1703, Yam was renamed Yamburg, five years later, Peter the Great granted the town to Alexander Menshikov in his capacity of the Duke of Izhora. In the course of the reform, Yamburg was included into Ingermanland Governorate. In 1780, Catherine the Great re-approved with some changes a previously existing coat of arms, Uyezd town status was granted to it in 1784. Vladimir Lenin reportedly stayed in Yamburg in January 1919, when he ordered the Bolshevik troops to retake the town of Narva from Estonian forces. In October 1919, the anti-Bolshevist commander, General Nikolai Yudenich captured Yamburg, however, the Bolsheviks subsequently re-captured Yamburg on November 14,1919. On November 16,1919, the forces of General Yudenich were crowded together in a space near Yamburg in a serious state of disorganization. The German form of the name was retained until 1922. In the beginning of the 20th century, Yamburg was the seat of Yamburgsky Uyezd of St. Petersburg Governorate, on May 17,1922, Yamburgsky Uyezd was renamed Kingiseppsky, simultaneously with the town. On August 1,1927, the uyezds were abolished and Kingiseppsky District, the governorates were also abolished, and the district became a part of Leningrad Okrug of Leningrad Oblast. On July 23,1930, the okrugs were abolished as well, between March 22,1935 and September 19,1940, Kingisepp was the administrative center of Kingisepp Okrug of Leningrad Oblast, one of the okrugs abutting the state boundaries of the Soviet Union. After Kingisepp Okrug was abolished on September 19,1940, Kingisepp became a town of oblast significance on December 17,1940, in 2010, the administrative structure of Leningrad Oblast was harmonized with the municipal structure and Kingisepp became a town of district significance
15.
Partisan (military)
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A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity. The term can apply to the element of resistance movements. The French term partisan, derived from the Latin, first appeared in the 17th century to describe the leader of a war-party, one of the first manuals of partisan tactics in the 18th century was The Partisan, or the Art of Making War in Detachment. Published in London in 1760 by de Jeney, a Hungarian military officer who served in the Prussian Army as captain of engineers during the Seven Years War of 1756–1763. Johann von Ewald described techniques of warfare in detail in his Abhandlung über den kleinen Krieg. The concept of warfare would later form the basis of the Partisan Rangers of the American Civil War. In that war, Confederate States Army Partisan leaders, such as John S. Mosby, in essence, 19th-century American partisans were closer to commando or ranger forces raised during World War II than to the partisan forces operating in occupied Europe. Mosby-style fighters would have been legally considered uniformed members of their states armed forces, Partisans in the mid-19th century were substantially different from raiding cavalry, or from unorganized/semi-organized guerrilla forces. Russian partisans played a part in the downfall of Napoleon. Their fierce resistance and persistent inroads helped compel the French emperor to flee Russia in 1812, imperial Russia also made use of partisans in World War I, for example Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz. The group was the wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera faction, originally formed in Volyn in the spring. Its official date of creation is 14 October 1942, day of Intercession of the Theotokos feast, the OUNs stated immediate goal was the re-establishment of a united, independent national state on Ukrainian ethnic territory. The organization began as a group and developed into a guerrilla army. Soviet partisans during World War II, especially active in Belarus, effectively harassed German troops. As a result, Soviet authority was re-established deep inside the German-held territories, in some areas partisan kolkhozes raised crops and livestock to produce food. However this was not usually the case and partisans also requisitioned supplies from the local populace, Soviet partisans in Finland were known to have attacked villages and indiscriminately target the populace, killing entire families. The war crimes committed in Finland by Soviet partisans were investigated by the National Bureau since 1999, however, Russia refused access to Soviet archives and the investigation ended in 2003. Partisan warfare was routinely distorted in the Soviet Union, according to historian Veikko Erkkilä the Russian attitude towards civilian atrocities has been marred by the Great Patriotic War propaganda
16.
Operation Barbarossa
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Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which was launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. In the two leading up to the invasion, the two countries signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, the German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940, over the course of the operation, about four million Axis personnel invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2, 900-kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Wehrmacht employed some 600,000 motor vehicles, the offensive marked an escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition. Despite their successes, the German offensive stalled in the Battle of Moscow and was pushed back by the Soviet winter counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmachts strongest blows and forced the unprepared Germans into a war of attrition, the Wehrmacht would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet–Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations of limited scope inside the Soviet Union, such as Case Blue. The failure of Operation Barbarossa proved a point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, in more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The German armies captured 5,000,000 Soviet prisoners of war who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions, a majority of them never returned alive. The Nazis deliberately starved 3.1 million of the prisoners to death as part of a Hunger Plan that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe, over a million Soviet Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his commanders that the next war would be purely a war of Weltanschauungen. Totally a peoples war, a racial war, on 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world. The racial policy of Nazi Germany viewed the Soviet Union as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen, Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germanys destiny was to turn to the East as it did six hundred years ago. Accordingly, it was stated Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples, under the Generalplan Ost. Likening the Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan, Hitler told Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the Mongolian race threatened Europe. Following the invasion, Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood, German army commanders cast the Jews as the major cause behind the partisan struggle. The main guideline policy for German troops was Where theres a partisan, theres a Jew, many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human
17.
Ammunition
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Ammunition is the general term used for the material fired, scattered, dropped or detonated from any weapon. The term ammunition can be traced back to the mid 17th century, broadly speaking, ammunition refers to both expendable weapons and the component parts of other weapons that create the effect on a target. Nearly all weapons will require some form of ammunition to operate, the word comes from the French la munition, which refers to the material used for war. The terms ammunition and munitions are used interchangeably, although the term munition now usually refers to both the actual weapons system alongside the ammunition required to operate it. The purpose of ammunition is to project a force against a target to have an effect. The most iconic example of ammunition is the cartridge, which all components required to deliver the weapon effect in a single package. Ammunition comes in a range of sizes and types and is often designed to work only in specific weapons systems. However, there are internationally recognized standards for certain types that enable their use across different weapons. There are also types of ammunition that are designed to have a specialized effect on a target, such as armor-piercing shells and tracer ammunition. Ammunition is commonly colored in a manner to assist in the identification. A round is a cartridge containing a projectile, propellant, primer. A shell is a form of ammunition that is fired by a large cannon or artillery piece. Before the mid-19th century, these shells were made of solid materials. However, since that time, they are often filled with high-explosives. A shot refers to a release of a weapons system. This may involve firing just one round or piece of ammunition, a dud refers to loaded ammunition that fails to function as intended, typically failing to detonate on landing. However, it can refer to ammunition that fails to fire inside the weapon, known as a misfire, or when the ammunition only partially functions. Dud ammunition, which is classified as an ordnance, is regarded as highly dangerous
18.
Anti-aircraft warfare
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Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action. They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and it may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be homeland defence, NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight, a surface-based air defence capability can also be deployed offensively to deny the use of airspace to an opponent. Until the 1950s, guns firing ballistic munitions ranging from 20 mm to 150 mm were the weapons, guided missiles then became dominant. The term air defence was probably first used by Britain when Air Defence of Great Britain was created as a Royal Air Force command in 1925. However, arrangements in the UK were also called anti-aircraft, abbreviated as AA, after the First World War it was sometimes prefixed by Light or Heavy to classify a type of gun or unit. Nicknames for anti-aircraft guns include AA, AAA or triple-A, an abbreviation of anti-aircraft artillery, ack-ack, NATO defines anti-aircraft warfare as measures taken to defend a maritime force against attacks by airborne weapons launched from aircraft, ships, submarines and land-based sites. In some armies the term All-Arms Air Defence is used for air defence by nonspecialist troops, other terms from the late 20th century include GBAD with related terms SHORAD and MANPADS. Anti-aircraft missiles are variously called surface-to-air missile, abbreviated and pronounced SAM, non-English terms for air defence include the German FlaK, whence English flak, and the Russian term Protivovozdushnaya oborona, a literal translation of anti-air defence, abbreviated as PVO. In Russian the AA systems are called zenitnye systems, in French, air defence is called DCA. The maximum distance at which a gun or missile can engage an aircraft is an important figure, however, many different definitions are used but unless the same definition is used, performance of different guns or missiles cannot be compared. For AA guns only the part of the trajectory can be usefully used. By the late 1930s the British definition was that height at which an approaching target at 400 mph can be engaged for 20 seconds before the gun reaches 70 degrees elevation. However, effective ceiling for heavy AA guns was affected by nonballistic factors, The maximum running time of the fuse, the capability of fire control instruments to determine target height at long range. The essence of air defence is to detect aircraft and destroy them. The critical issue is to hit a target moving in three-dimensional space, Air defence evolution covered the areas of sensors and technical fire control, weapons, and command and control. At the start of the 20th century these were very primitive or non-existent
19.
Trench warfare
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The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges, Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. On the Western Front in 1914–18, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire, mines, the area between opposing trench lines was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties, with the development of armoured warfare, emphasis on trench warfare has declined, but still occurs where battle-lines become static. Field works are as old as armies, Roman legions, when in the presence of an enemy, entrenched camps nightly when on the move. In the early modern era they were used to block possible lines of advance and they played a pivotal role in manoeuvring that took place before the Battle of Blenheim. The lines were captured by the French in 1707 and demolished, the French built the 19-kilometre-long Lines of Weissenburg during the War of the Spanish Succession under the orders of the Duke of Villars in 1706. These were to remain in existence for just over 100 years and were last manned during Napoleons Hundred Days, the French built the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra during the winter of 1710–1711, which have been compared to the trenches of World War I. They ran from Arras to Cambrai and Valenciennes where they linked up with existing defensive lines fronted by the river Sambre and they were breached in the 1711 campaign season by the Duke of Marlborough through a magnificent piece of manoeuvring. During the Peninsular War, the British and Portuguese constructed the Lines of Torres Vedras in 1809 and 1810, nor were fortifications restricted to European powers. British casualty rates of up to 45 percent, such as at the Battle of Ohaeawai in 1845, proved contemporary firepower was insufficient to dislodge defenders from a trench system. Fundamentally, as the range and rate of fire of rifled small arms increased and this was only made more lethal by the introduction of rapid-firing artillery, exemplified by the French 75, and high explosive fragmentation rounds. The increases in firepower had outstripped the ability of infantry to cover the ground between firing lines, and the ability of armour to withstand fire and it would take a revolution in mobility to change that. Trench warfare is associated with the First World War of 1914–18. Both sides concentrated on breaking up attacks and on protecting their own troops by digging deep into the ground. Trench warfare was conducted on other fronts, including Italy. Trench warfare has become a symbol of the futility of war. To the French, the equivalent is the attrition of the Battle of Verdun in which the French Army suffered 380,000 casualties, Trench warfare is associated with mass slaughter in appalling conditions
20.
Incendiary device
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Napalm for example, is petroleum especially thickened with certain chemicals into a gel to slow, but not stop, combustion, releasing energy over a longer time frame than an explosive device. In the case of napalm, the gel adheres to surfaces, the first incendiary devices to be dropped during World War I fell on coastal towns in the south west of England on the night of 18–19 January 1915. The small number of German bombs, also known as firebombs, were finned containers filled with kerosene and oil and they were dropped from Zeppelin airships. On 8 September 1915, Zeppelin L-13 dropped a number of firebombs. They did, however, have an effect on the morale of the civilian population of the United Kingdom. After further experiments with 5-litre barrels of benzol, in 1918, a further advantage of the alloy casing was its lightness, being a quarter of the density of steel, which meant that each bomber could carry a considerable number. The hope was that the two capitals would be engulfed in a blaze, causing the Allies to sue for peace. The Royal Air Force had already used their own Baby Incendiary Bomb which also contained a thermite charge, Incendiary bombs were used extensively in World War II as an effective bombing weapon, often in a conjunction with high-explosive bombs. Probably the most famous incendiary attacks are the bombing of Dresden, different methods of delivery, e. g. small bombs, bomblet clusters and large bombs, were tested and implemented. For example, a bomb casing was filled with small sticks of incendiary. An explosive charge would then ignite the material, often starting a raging fire. The fire would burn at temperatures that could destroy most buildings made of wood or other combustible materials. Less successful was the Flammenbombe, a 250 kg or 500 kg high explosive bomb case filled with an inflammable oil mixture, nevertheless, the civilian destruction caused by such weapons quickly earned them a reputation as terror weapons with the targeted populations. The Nazi regime began the campaign of incendiary bombings at the start of World War II with the bombing of Warsaw, and continued with the London Blitz and the bombing of Moscow, among other cities. Later, an extensive reprisal was exacted by the Allies in the bombing campaign that lead to the annihilation of many German cities. Sixty-seven Japanese cities lost significant areas to incendiary attacks, the most deadly single bombing raid in all history was Operation Meetinghouse, an incendiary attack that killed some 100,000 Tokyo residents in one night. The 4 lb incendiary bomb, developed by ICI, was the standard light incendiary bomb used by RAF Bomber Command in very large numbers and it was the weapon of choice for the British dehousing plan. The bomb consisted of a body made from aluminium-magnesium alloy with a cast iron/steel nose
21.
Lake Ladoga
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Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia just outside the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in Europe, and the 15th largest freshwater lake by area in the world, Ladoga Lacus, a methane lake on Saturns moon Titan, is named after the lake. In one of Nestors chronicles from the 12th century he mentions a lake called the Great Nevo, ancient Norse sagas and Hanseatic treaties both mention a city made of lakes named Old Norse Aldeigja or Aldoga. Since the beginning of the 14th century this hydronym was commonly known as Ladoga, according to T. N. Jackson, it can be taken almost for granted, that the name of Ladoga first referred to the river, then the city, and only then the lake. Therefore, he considers the primary hydronym Ladoga to originate in the inflow to the lower reaches of the Volkhov River whose Finnic name was Alodejoki river of the lowlands. The Germanic toponym was soon borrowed by the Slavic population and transformed by means of the Old Russian metathesis ald- → lad- to Old East Slavic, Ладога. Other theories about the origin of the name derive it from Karelian, aalto wave and Karelian, aaltokas wavy, or from the Russian dialectal word алодь, meaning open lake, eugene Helimski by contrast, offers an etymology rooted in German. Through the intermediate form *Aldaugja, Old Norse, Aldeigja cam about, the lake has an average surface area of 17,891 km2. Its north-to-south length is 219 km and its width is 83 km. Basin area,276,000 km2, volume,837 km3, there are around 660 islands, with a total area of about 435 km2. Ladoga is, on average,5 m above sea level, most of the islands, including the famous Valaam archipelago, Kilpola and Konevets, are situated in the northwest of the lake. Separated from the Baltic Sea by the Karelian Isthmus, it drains into the Gulf of Finland via the Neva River, Lake Ladoga is navigable, being a part of the Volga-Baltic Waterway connecting the Baltic Sea with the Volga River. The Ladoga Canal bypasses the lake in the part, connecting the Neva to the Svir. The basin of Lake Ladoga includes about 50,000 lakes and 3,500 rivers longer than 10 km, about 85% of the water inflow is due to tributaries, 13% is due to precipitation, and 2% is due to underground waters. Geologically, the Lake Ladoga depression is a graben and syncline structure of Proterozoic age and this Ladoga–Pasha structure, as it known, hosts Jotnian sediments. During the Pleistocene glaciations the depression was partially stripped of its sedimentary rock fill by glacial overdeepening, deglaciation following the Weichsel glaciation took place in the Lake Ladoga basin between 12,500 and 11,500 radiocarbon years BP. Lake Ladoga was initially part of the Baltic Ice Lake, a historical stage of Baltic Sea. It is possible, though not certain, that Ladoga was isolated from it during regression of the subsequent Yoldia Sea brackish stage, at 9,500 BP, Lake Onega, previously draining into the White Sea, started emptying into Ladoga via the River Svir
22.
Stove
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A stove is an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated, or to heat the stove itself and items placed on it. This article is concerned with enclosed stoves burning solid fuels for room heating. A kitchen stove is used to cook food, a wood-burning stove or a coal stove is typically used for heating a dwelling. Enclosed stoves are efficient and prevents air from being sucked from the room into the chimney. Due to concerns about air pollution, efforts have made to improve stove design. Pellet stoves, for example are a type of clean-burning stove, air-tight stoves more completely combust wood and eliminate polluting combustion products. In the U. S. since 1992, all wood stoves being manufactured must limit particulate emission, the Old English word stofa meant any individual enclosed space, such as a room, and stove is still occasionally used in that sense, as in stoved in. In its earliest attestation, cooking was done by roasting meat, pottery and other cooking vessels may be placed directly on an open fire, but setting the vessel on a support, as simple as a base of three stones, resulted in a stove. The three-stone stove is still used around the world. In some areas it developed into a U-shaped dried mud or brick enclosure with the opening in the front for fuel and air, a kitchen stove, cooker, or cookstove is a kitchen appliance designed for the purpose of cooking food. Kitchen stoves rely on the application of heat for the cooking process. Traditionally these have been fueled by wood and one of the earliest recorded instances of a burning kitchen stove was the so-called stew stove. More modern versions such as the popular Rayburn Range offer a choice between using wood or gas as the fuel source, the most common stove for heating in the industrial world for almost a century and a half was the coal stove that burned coal. Coal stoves came in all sizes and shapes and different operating principles, coal burns at a much higher temperature than wood, and coal stoves must be constructed to withstand the high heat levels. A coal stove can burn wood or coal, but a wood stove cannot burn coal unless a grate is supplied. The grate may be removable or an extra and this is because coal stoves are fitted with a grate so allowing part of the combustion air to be admitted below the fire. The proportion of air admitted above/below the fire depends on the type of coal, brown coal and lignites evolve more combustible gases than say anthracite and so need more air above the fire. The ratio of air above/below the fire must be adjusted to enable complete combustion
23.
Land mine
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A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automatically by way of pressure when a target steps on it or drives over it, a land mine may cause damage by direct blast effect, by fragments that are thrown by the blast, or by both. The name originates from the ancient practice of mining, where tunnels were dug under enemy fortifications or troop formations. These killing tunnels were at first collapsed to destroy targets located above, nowadays, in common parlance, land mine generally refers to devices specifically manufactured as anti-personnel or anti-vehicle weapons. The use of mines is controversial because of their potential as indiscriminate weapons. They can remain dangerous many years after a conflict has ended, harming the economy, to date,162 nations have signed the treaty. To act as passive area-denial weapons, land mines are currently used in large quantities mostly for this first purpose, thus their widespread use in the demilitarized zones of likely flashpoints such as Cyprus, Afghanistan and Korea. As of 2013, the governments that still laid land mines were Myanmar in its internal conflict. Land mines continue to kill or injure at least 4,300 people every year, even decades after the ends of the conflicts for which they were placed. This claim is dubious, as gunpowder warfare did not develop in China until the advent of the flamethrower in the 10th century, while the land mine was not seen in China until the late 13th century. Explosive land mines were being used in 1277 by the Chinese during the Song dynasty against an assault of the Mongols, the invention of this detonated enormous bomb was credited to one Lou Qianxia of the 13th century. The wad of the mine was made of wood, carrying three different fuses in case of defective connection to the touch hole. Pieces of bamboo are sawn into sections nine feet in length, all septa in the bamboo being removed, save only the last, boiling oil is next poured into and left there for some time before being removed. The fuse starts from the bottom, and is compressed into it to form an explosive mine, the gunpowder fills up eight-tenths of the tube, while lead or iron pellets take up the rest of the space, then the open end is sealed with wax. A trench five feet in depth is dug, the fuse is connected to a firing device which ignites them when disturbed. Further description of how this flint device operated was not made until a Chinese text of 1606 AD revealed that a drive had been used to work the steel wheel. Besides the use of steel wheels providing sparks for the fuses, there were other methods used as well, when the weapons were removed from the mound, this movement disturbed the bowl beneath them where the butt ends of the staffs were, which in turn ignited the fuses. According to the Wubei Huolongjing volume of the 17th century, the formula for this slow-burning incandescent material allowed it to burn continuously for 20 to 30 days without going out
24.
Blood donation
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A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called fractionation. Donation may be of whole blood, or of components directly. Blood banks often participate in the process as well as the procedures that follow it. Today in the world, most blood donors are unpaid volunteers who donate blood for a community supply. In poorer countries, established supplies are limited and donors usually give blood when family or friends need a transfusion. Many donors donate as an act of charity, but in countries that allow paid donation some donors are paid, Donors can also have blood drawn for their own future use. Donating is relatively safe, but some donors have bruising where the needle is inserted or may feel faint, potential donors are evaluated for anything that might make their blood unsafe to use. The screening includes testing for diseases that can be transmitted by a transfusion, including HIV. The donor must also answer questions about history and take a short physical examination to make sure the donation is not hazardous to his or her health. How often a donor can donate varies from days to months based on what component they donate, for example, in the United States, donors must wait eight weeks between whole blood donations but only seven days between plateletpheresis donations and twice per seven-day period in plasmapheresis. The amount of blood drawn and the methods vary, the collection can be done manually or with automated equipment that takes only specific components of the blood. Most of the components of used for transfusions have a short shelf life. Blood donations are divided into groups based on who will receive the collected blood, an allogeneic donation is when a donor gives blood for storage at a blood bank for transfusion to an unknown recipient. A directed donation is when a person, often a family member, directed donations are relatively rare when an established supply exists. A replacement donor donation is a hybrid of the two and is common in developing such as Ghana. In this case, a friend or family member of the recipient donates blood to replace the blood used in a transfusion. When a person has blood stored that will be transfused back to the donor at a date, usually after surgery. Blood that is used to make medications can be made from allogeneic donations or from donations exclusively used for manufacturing and this blood is sometimes treated as a blood donation, but may be immediately discarded if it cannot be used for transfusion or further manufacturing
25.
Rationing
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Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is ones allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a day or at a particular time. Rationing is often done to keep price below the price determined by the process of supply. Thus, rationing can be complementary to price controls, an example of rationing in the face of rising prices took place in the various countries where there was rationing of gasoline during the 1973 energy crisis. A reason for setting the lower than would clear the market may be that there is a shortage. High prices, especially in the case of necessities, are undesirable with regard to those who cannot afford them, traditionalist economists argue, however, that high prices act to reduce waste of the scarce resource while also providing incentive to produce more. Rationing using ration stamps is only one kind of non-price rationing, for example, scarce products can be rationed using queues. This is seen, for example, at amusement parks, where one pays a price to get in, similarly, in the absence of road pricing, access to roads is rationed in a first come, first served queueing process, leading to congestion. Authorities which introduce rationing often have to deal with the goods being sold illegally on the black market. Rationing has been instituted during wartime for civilians, for example, each person may be given ration coupons allowing him or her to purchase a certain amount of a product each month. Rationing often includes food and other necessities for which there is a shortage, including materials needed for the war such as rubber tires, leather shoes, clothing. Rationing of food and water may become necessary during an emergency. In the U. S. the Federal Emergency Management Agency has established guidelines for civilians on rationing food, according to FEMA standards, every person should have a minimum of 1 US quart per day of water, and more for children, nursing mothers and the ill. Military sieges have often resulted in shortages of food and other essential consumables, in such circumstances, the rations allocated to an individual are often determined based on age, sex, race or social standing. During the Siege of Lucknow a woman received three quarters the food ration a man received and children received only half, during the Siege of Ladysmith in the early stages of the Boer War in 1900 white adults received the same food rations as soldiers while children received half that. Food rations for Indian people and black people were significantly smaller, the first modern rationing systems were brought in during the First World War. In Germany, suffering from the effects of the British blockade, although Britain did not suffer from food shortages, as the sea lanes were kept open for food imports, panic buying towards the end of the war prompted the rationing of first sugar and then meat. It is said to have in the most part benefited the health of the country, to assist with rationing, ration books were introduced on 15 July 1918 for butter, margarine, lard, meat and sugar
26.
Zhe (Cyrillic)
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Zhe is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced palato-alveolar sibilant /ʒ/, or the somewhat similar voiced retroflex sibilant /ʐ/ in Russian and in other languages, Zhe is romanized as ⟨zh⟩ or ⟨ž⟩. It is not known how the character for Zhe was derived, no similar letter exists in Greek, Latin or any other alphabet of the time, though there is some graphic similarity with its Glagolitic counterpart Zhivete ⟨Ⰶ⟩ which represents the same sound. However, the origin of Zhivete, like that of most Glagolitic letters, is unclear, one possibility is that it was formed from two connecting Hebrew letters Shin ⟨ש⟩, the bottom one inverted. In the Early Cyrillic alphabet the name of Zhe was живѣтє, Zhe was not used in the Cyrillic numeral system. Zhe is used in the alphabets of all Slavic languages using a Cyrillic alphabet, the position in the alphabet and the sound represented by the letter vary from language to language. Zhe can also be used in Leet speak or faux Cyrillic in place of the letter ⟨x⟩, Ж is most often transliterated as the digraph ⟨zh⟩ for English-language readers. In linguistics and for Central European readers, it is most often transliterated as ⟨ž⟩, the scientific transliteration convention comes from Czech spelling and is also used in the Latin alphabets of several other Slavic languages. Thus, Leonid Brezhnevs surname could be transliterated as Brežnev, as it is spelled in a number of Slavic languages, the closest Polish counterpart is ⟨ż⟩ and, in some instances, ⟨rz⟩. It is often transliterated ⟨j⟩ in Mongolian because of its pronunciation as IPA
27.
Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery
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Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery is located in Saint Petersburg, on the Avenue of the Unvanquished, dedicated mostly to the victims of the Siege of Leningrad. The memorial complex designed by Alexander Vasiliev and Yevgeniy Levinson was opened on May 9,1960, about 420,000 civilians and 50,000 soldiers of the Leningrad Front were buried in 186 mass graves. Near the entrance an eternal flame is located, the center of the architectural composition is the bronze monument symbolizing the Mother Motherland, by sculptors V. V. By granite steps leading down from the Eternal Flame visitors enter the main 480-meter path which leads to the majestic Motherland monument. The words of poet Olga Berggolts are carved on a wall located behind this monument, Here lie Leningraders Here are citydwellers - men, women. They defended you, Leningrad, The cradle of the Revolution With all their lives and we cannot list their noble names here, There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite. But know this, those who regard these stones, No one is forgotten, official site Album of photographs Photographs from the Siege Museum
28.
Be (Cyrillic)
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Be is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, like the English pronunciation of ⟨b⟩ in bee and it should not be confused with the Cyrillic letter Ve, which is shaped like Latin capital letter B but represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/. The Cyrillic letter Б is romanized using the Latin letter B, both the Cyrillic letters Be and Ve were derived from the Greek letter Beta. In the Early Cyrillic alphabet the name of the letter Be was бѹкы, in the Cyrillic numeral system, the letter Be had no numeric value because the letter Ve inherited the Greek letter Betas numeric value. The Russian small letter б is similar in shape to the digit 6, in the Serbian and Macedonian alphabets, the lowercase letter б has a different form used in printing, as is shown in the illustration to the side, which shows both the standard and variant forms. Its lowercase form also resembles a lowercase letter B, the letter to which it corresponds in the Latin alphabet. After all, lowercase letter B developed from scribal alterations to the capital letter B, on the World Wide Web, <span lang=sr>б</span> and <span lang=ru>б</span> must give different results. Since Unicode does not provide the difference, OpenType locl support must be present. Programs like Mozilla Firefox, LibreOffice, as well as a few others, starting from CSS3, web authors also have to use this, font-feature-settings, locl. Of course, font families like GNU FreeFont, DejaVu, Ubuntu, Microsoft C* fonts from Windows Vista, the cursive form of the lowercase letter Be resembles the lowercase Greek letter Delta, but they are slightly different in their upper portions. In Russian and Bulgarian, the letter Be generally represents the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, before a palatalizing vowel, it represents /bʲ/. In Macedonian, the letter represents the sound /b/, but it is in the position of the word, it is pronounced as /p/. In Mari, it may represent either /b/ or the voiced bilabial fricative /β/. Β β, Greek letter Beta В в, Cyrillic letter Ve B b, Latin letter B Ƃ ƃ, Latin letter Ƃ The dictionary definition of Б at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of б at Wiktionary
29.
Admiralty Shipyard
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The Admiralty Shipyard is one of the oldest and largest shipyards in Russia, located in Saint Petersburg. The shipyards building ways can accommodate ships of up to 70,000 tonnes deadweight,250 metres in length and 35 metres in width, military products include naval warships such as nuclear and diesel-powered submarines and large auxiliaries. The shipyard was founded as the Galley Yard by Peter the Great during the Great Northern War on 5 November 1704 and it was administered by the Russian Admiralty, hence its later name. In 1721 it was renamed Galley Wharf and in 1800 the New Admiralty Yard, supplementing, in 1908, it was renamed the Admiralty Shipyard. In 1937 its two sections were known as Admiralty and Sudomekh, Shipyards No.194 and No, in 1966 it once again became the New Admiralty Shipyard as in 1800 and, in 1972, the Leningrad Admiralty Association. The latest name changes occurred in 1992 – State Enterprise Admiralty Wharves –, finally, in 2008, it became an open stock company – OAO Admiralty Wharves. In 1959 it delivered the worlds first non-naval nuclear-powered vessel, the icebreaker LENIN, in the 19th century it was a major builder of battleships and submarines and cruisers in the 20th. All were products of the shipyards foundry, in 1966, the shipyard delivered the Victor I-class nuclear attack submarine, and later the Victor II and Victor III-class submarines as well as the titanium hulled Alfa class. From 1973 to 1998, the shipyard has built 298 submarines, including 41 nuclear submarines, as well as 68 submersibles. The specialized submersibles produced include the civilian Sever-2, Tinro-2, Bentos, Tetis, Osa, Argus, and Osmotr types, plus the naval Lima, Uniform, Xray, Beluga, Admiralty Shipyards still specializes in submarine shipbuilding. The most recently built submarines include Kilo-class submarines and the smaller Petersburg/Lada class, in 1992 Iran purchased two Kilo-class submarines for $600 million from the United Admiralty Sudomekh shipyard, with an option to buy a third. The shipyards latest development are the Lada-class submarine and its version, the Amur-class submarine. The construction of underwater vessels constitutes 70% of the production volume of the shipyard. Out of all built in the world, 15% by tonnage are produced at the Admiralty Shipyards. Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg will build six Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines for delivery to Vietnam, sources in Rosoboronexport later confirmed that Russia and Vietnam had been negotiating a $1.8 billion deal on the delivery of six Kilo-class submarines to the Vietnamese navy for about a year. Admiralty Shipyards is currently building two Kilo-class submarines for Algeria to be delivered in 2009 and 2010 and these tankers have been equipped with the latest automated ships systems of world class. The tanker has double hull and is able to run in solid-ice up to a half-meter thick at a speed of 1½–2 knots, during recent years the shipyard constructed five ships for Russias largest oil company —Astrakhan, Magas, Kaliningrad, Saratov, Usinsk. All of which are working on the Northern Sea Route, military shipbuilding consists of orders from the Russian Ministry of Defense and export orders for foreign governments
30.
El (Cyrillic)
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El is a letter of the Cyrillic script. El commonly represents the alveolar lateral approximant /l/, in Slavic languages it may be either palatalized or slightly velarized, see below. In some typefaces the Cyrillic letter El has a grapheme which may be confused with the Cyrillic letter Pe, note that Pe has a straight left leg, without the hook. An alternative form of the letter El closely resembles the Greek letter lambda and this form is more common in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia. The Cyrillic letter El was derived from the Greek letter lambda, in the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was людиѥ, meaning people. In the Cyrillic numeral system, El had a value of 30, Serbian and Macedonian orthographies use a separate letter Љ for the soft /l/ – it looks as a ligature of El with the soft sign. In these languages, ⟨Л⟩ denotes only hard /l/, pronunciation of hard /l/ is sometimes given as, but it is always more velar than in French or German. Slavic languages except Serbian and Macedonian use another orthographic convention to distinguish between hard and soft /l/, so ⟨Л⟩ can denote either variant depending on the subsequent letter, the pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language. In addition, л was formerly used in Chukchi to represent the alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ but has since been replaced by ԓ
31.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
32.
Ve (Cyrillic)
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Ve is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/, like ⟨v⟩ in very, the capital letter Ve looks the same as the capital Latin letter B but is pronounced differently. Ve is romanized usually by the Latin letter V but sometimes the Latin letter W, both Ve and the Cyrillic letter Be were derived from the Greek letter Beta, which already represented /v/ in Greek by the time that the Cyrillic alphabet was created. In the Early Cyrillic alphabet, its name was вѣдѣ, meaning I know, in the Cyrillic numeral system, it had the value of 2. In Russian and Bulgarian, Ve generally represents /v/, but at the end of a word or before voiceless consonants, before a palatalizing vowel, it represents /vʲ/. In standard Ukrainian pronunciation, Ve represents a sound like the English W when in the final position. Because of this, it is not uncommon to see words ending in ⟨в⟩ transcribed to end in ⟨w⟩, for example, Владислав = Vladyslaw for Vladislav. Additionally, some Ukrainians also use this pronunciation in words where the letter is preceded by a consonant. In the Eastern Ukraine, the letter Ve may represent a voiceless, for example, the standard Ukrainian pronunciation of the word сказав is /skazaw/. However in the Eastern Ukraine one is likely to hear the Russified, in Belarusian, the letter Ve represents only the sound /v/. In the word final position, or if directly proceeded by a consonant, it mutates to the letter Short U, E. g. the Belarusian noun language is мова, but the adjectival form is моўны, and the genitive plural of the noun is моў. In Serbian, the letter Ve represents only the sound /v/, in Macedonian the letter is used for the sound /v/, but if the letter appears at the end of the word then it is pronounced as /f/. An example of this is the word бев, in Slovene and Tuvan, it is used for /ʋ/. In Mongolian and Kalmyk, it is used for /w/
33.
Es (Cyrillic)
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Es is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the alveolar fricative /s/, like the pronunciation of ⟨s⟩ in sand. The Cyrillic letter Es is derived from a variant of the Greek letter Sigma known as lunate sigma, as its name suggests, Es is actually related to the Latin S. The name of Es in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was слово, in the Cyrillic numeral system, Es had a value of 200. Σ σ/ς, Greek letter Sigma S s, Latin letter S Ц ц, Cyrillic letter Tse C c, Latin letter C The dictionary definition of С at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of с at Wiktionary
34.
O (Cyrillic)
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O is a letter of the Cyrillic script. O commonly represents the close-mid back rounded vowel /o/, like the pronunciation of ⟨o⟩ in Scottish English go, the Cyrillic letter O was derived from the Greek letter Omicron. The name of O in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was онъ, in the Cyrillic numeral system, O had a value of 70. In modern-style typefaces, the Cyrillic letter O looks exactly like the Latin letter O ⟨O o⟩, in Russian, O is used word-initially, after another vowel, and after non-palatalized consonants. Because of a vowel reduction processes, the Russian /o/ phoneme may have a number of pronunciations in unstressed syllables, including, in Macedonian the letter represents the sound /ɔ/. In Tuvan the Cyrillic letter can be written as a double vowel
35.
Prosecutor
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The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law. Prosecutors are typically lawyers who possess a law degree, and are recognized as legal professionals by the court in which they intend to represent society and they usually only become involved in a criminal case once a suspect has been identified and charges need to be filed. They are typically employed by an office of the government, with safeguards in place to such an office can successfully pursue the prosecution of government officials. Often, multiple offices exist in a country, especially those countries with federal governments where sovereignty has been bifurcated or devolved in some way. Since prosecutors are backed by the power of the state, they are subject to special professional responsibility rules in addition to those binding all lawyers. For example, in the United States, Rule 3.8 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires prosecutors to make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information and that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense. Not all U. S. states adopt the rules, however, U. S. Supreme Court cases. Typical sources of requirements imposed on prosecutors come from appellate court opinions, state or federal court rules. A DPP may be subject to varying degrees of control by the Attorney General, in Australia, the Offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions institute prosecutions for indictable offences on behalf of the Crown. More recent constitutions, such as South Africas, tend to guarantee the independence, in Canada, public prosecutors in most provinces are called Crown Attorney or Crown Counsel. They are generally appointed by the provincial Attorney-General, though Scots law is a mixed system, its civil law jurisdiction indicates its civil law heritage. Here, all prosecutions are carried out by Procurators Fiscal and Advocates Depute on behalf of the Lord Advocate, in very serious cases, a Procurator Fiscal, Advocate Depute or even the Lord Advocate, may take charge of a police investigation. Other remedies are open to a prosecutor in Scotland, including fines and non-court based interventions, such as rehabilitation. All prosecutions are handled within the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Procurators fiscal will usually refer cases involving minors to Childrens Hearings, which are not courts of law, but a panel of lay members empowered to act in the interests of the child. In the United States, the director of an office may be known by any of several names depending on the jurisdiction. Prosecutors are most often chosen through local elections, and typically hire other attorneys as deputies or assistants to conduct most of the work of the office. United States Attorneys, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, represent the government in federal court
36.
Nuremberg trials
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The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, and their decisions marked a turning point between classical international law and contemporary international law. Not included were Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels, all of whom had committed suicide in the spring of 1945, reinhard Heydrich was not included, as he had been assassinated in 1942. The second set of trials of war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No.10 at the U. S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which included the Doctors Trial. This article primarily deals with the IMT, see Subsequent Nuremberg Trials for details on the NMT, at the beginning of 1940, the Polish government-in-exile asked the British and French governments to condemn the German invasion of their country. The British initially declined to do so, however, in April 1940, three-and-a-half years later, the stated intention to punish the Germans was much more trenchant. In order that justice may be done and this intention by the Allies to dispense justice was reiterated at the Yalta Conference and at Berlin in 1945. British War Cabinet documents, released on 2 January 2006, showed that as early as December 1944 the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of the leading Nazis if captured. In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Churchill was vigorously opposed to executions for political purposes, US Secretary of the Treasury, suggested a plan for the total denazification of Germany, this was known as the Morgenthau Plan. The plan advocated the forced de-industrialisation of Germany and the execution of so-called arch-criminals. Roosevelt initially supported this plan, and managed to convince Churchill to support it in a less drastic form, later, details were leaked generating widespread condemnation by the nations newspapers. Roosevelt, aware of public disapproval, abandoned the plan. The demise of the Morgenthau Plan created the need for a method of dealing with the Nazi leadership. The plan for the Trial of European War Criminals was drafted by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, following Roosevelts death in April 1945, the new president, Harry S. Truman, gave strong approval for a judicial process. After a series of negotiations between Britain, the US, Soviet Union and France, details of the trial were worked out, the trials were to commence on 20 November 1945, in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. On 20 April 1942, representatives from the nine countries occupied by Germany met in London to draft the Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes, France was also awarded a place on the tribunal. The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany. Because the court was limited to violations of the laws of war, leipzig and Luxembourg were briefly considered as the location for the trial
37.
Museum of Leningrad History
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The State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, formerly Museum of Leningrad History from 1955 to 1991, is a museum of the city history in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The headquarters of the museum are located in the Peter and Paul Fortress and it was established in 1938 as the Museum of History and Development of Leningrad. It is a successor of the City Museum and the Museum of Old St. Petersburg, during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 the content were moved to Sarapul. The first full historical exhibitions began in 1957, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Leningrad, the museum contained over 1 million objects in 2002, including the collection of architects documents, photos and plans of Saint Petersburg of the 18th–20th centuries
38.
Memorial
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A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, the most common type of memorial is the gravestone or the memorial plaque. Also common are war memorials commemorating those who have died in wars, memorials in the form of a cross are called intending crosses. Online memorials and tributes are becoming popular especially with the increase in natural burial where the laying of gravestones. When somebody has died, the family may request that a gift be given to a designated charity. Those temporary or makeshift memorials are also called grassroots memorials, sometimes, when a high school student has died, the memorials are placed in the form of a scholarship, to be awarded to high-achieving students in future years
39.
Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
