1.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
Georgia (country)
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It is said that
Georgians were so named because they revered
Saint George.
Georgia (country)
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Flag
Georgia (country)
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Ancient Georgian states of
Colchis and
Iberia, 500-400 BC
Georgia (country)
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Queen
Tamar of Georgia presided over the "Golden Age" of the medieval Georgian monarchy. Her position as the first woman to rule Georgia in her own right was emphasized by the title "Mepe mepeta" ("King of Kings").
2.
South Ossetia
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It has a population of 53,000 people which live in an area of 3,900 km2, south of the Russian Caucasus, with 30,000 living in its capital city of Tskhinvali. South Ossetia declared independence from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, the Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetias autonomy and trying to re-establish its control over the region by force. The crisis escalation led to the 1991–92 South Ossetia War, Georgian fighting against those controlling South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The latter conflict led to the Russo–Georgian War, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. In the wake of the 2008 war, Russia, followed by Nicaragua, Venezuela, Georgia and a significant part of the international community consider South Ossetia to be occupied by the Russian military. South Ossetia relies heavily on military, political and financial aid from Russia, Russia does not allow European Union Monitoring Mission monitors to enter South Ossetia. South Ossetia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Abkhazia are sometimes referred to as post-Soviet frozen conflict zones, the Ossetians are believed to originate from the Alans, a Sarmatian Iranian tribe. In the 17th century, Ossetians started migration from the North Caucasus to Georgia, Ossetian peasants, who were migrating to the mountainous areas of the South Caucasus, often settled in the lands of Georgian feudal lords. The Georgian King of the Kingdom of Kartli permitted Ossetians to immigrate, in the 1770s there were more Ossetians living in Kartli than ever before. This period has been documented in the diaries of Johann Anton Güldenstädt who visited Georgia in 1772. The Baltic German explorer called modern North Ossetia simply Ossetia, while he wrote that Kartli was populated by Georgians, Güldenstädt also wrote that the northernmost border of Kartli is the Major Caucasus Ridge. The Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, part of which was the territory of modern South Ossetia, was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1801. Following the Russian revolution, the area of modern South Ossetia became part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, although the Ossetians were initially discontented with the economic policies of the central government, the tension soon transformed into ethnic conflict. The first Ossetian rebellion began in February 1918, when three Georgian princes were killed and their land was seized by the Ossetians, the central government of Tiflis retaliated by sending the National Guard to the area. However, the Georgian unit retreated after they had engaged the Ossetians, Ossetian rebels then proceeded to occupy the town of Tskhinvali and began attacking ethnic Georgian civilian population. During uprisings in 1919 and 1920, the Ossetians were covertly supported by Soviet Russia, but even so, were defeated. Between 3,000 and 7,000 Ossetians were killed during the crushing of the 1920 uprising, according to Ossetian sources ensuing hunger, the drawing of administrative boundaries of the South Ossetian AO was quite a complicated process. Many Georgian villages were included within the South Ossetian AO despite numerous protests by the Georgian population, while the city of Tskhinvali did not have a majority Ossetian population, it was made the capital of the South Ossetian AO
South Ossetia
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Historical Russian map of the Caucasus region at the beginning of the 19th century
South Ossetia
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Flag
South Ossetia
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Fragment of the historical map by
J. H. Colton. The map depicts Caucasus region in 1856. Modern South Ossetia is not labeled. Modern North Ossetia is labeled as "Ossia".
South Ossetia
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Map of South Ossetia (November 2004).
3.
Moscow time
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Moscow Time is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, Belarus, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the time zones of Russia. It has been set to UTC+3 permanently on 26 October 2014, Moscow Time is used to schedule trains, ships, etc. throughout Russia, while airplane travel is scheduled using local time. Times in Russia are often announced throughout the country on radio stations as Moscow Time, descriptions of time zones in Russia are often based on Moscow Time rather than UTC. For example, Yakutsk is said to be MSK+6 within Russia, on 27 March 2011, Muscovites set their clocks forward for a final time, effectively observing MSD, or UTC+4, permanently. On 1 July 2014, the State Duma passed a bill repealing the 2011 change, most of the European Russia uses Moscow Time. In Kaliningrad Oblast, Kaliningrad time is used, Samara Oblast and Udmurtia use Samara time and Perm Krai, Bashkortostan and Orenburg Oblast use Yekaterinburg time. Prior to 27 March 2011, Moscow Time was UTC+3, daylight saving time was used in the summer, advancing it to UTC+4. UTC+3 was also used in European parts of what was then the USSR, Belarus, in 1930–1991. Estonia, in 1940–1989 Latvia, in 1940–1989 Lithuania, in 1940–1989 Moldova, in 1940–1991 Ukraine, in 1930–1990 Kaliningrad Oblast, in 1946–1991 Samara Oblast, in 1989–1991, and again from 2010–2011. Moscow Summer Time, was first applied in 1981 and was used, until 1988 in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania until 1989 in Belarus, Moldova, between 1989 and 1990 and in 2010 in Samara Oblast. In 1922–1930 and 1991–1992, Moscow observed EET, daylight saving time was observed in the summer of 1991, and the city and region reverted to UTC+3 by the summer of 1992. The time in Moscow has been as follows, Time in Russia East Africa Time, also in UTC+03,00 Current time in Moscow Moscow time
Moscow time
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Time in Russia Time
4.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
Daylight saving time
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Ancient
water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season.
Daylight saving time
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G. V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.
Daylight saving time
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Retailers generally favor DST.
United Cigar Stores hailed a 1918 DST bill.
Daylight saving time
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William Willett independently proposed DST in 1907 and advocated it tirelessly.
5.
Oceanic climate
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Oceanic climates are defined as having a monthly mean temperature below 22 °C in the warmest month, and above 0 °C in the coldest month. It typically lacks a dry season, as precipitation is evenly dispersed throughout the year. Oceanic climates generally have cool summers and mild to cool winters, Oceanic climates are most dominant in Europe, where they spread much farther inland than in other continents. Oceanic climates can have much storm activity as they are located in the belt of the stormy westerlies, many oceanic climates have frequent cloudy or overcast conditions due to the near constant storms and lows tracking over or near them. Precipitation is both adequate and reliable throughout the year in oceanic climates, extended months of rain and cloudy conditions are common in oceanic climates. Seattle is an example of this, between October and May, Seattle experiences high rainfall and is mostly or partly cloudy six out of every seven days. In most areas with a climate, precipitation comes in the form of rain for the majority of the year. However, some areas with this climate see some snowfall annually during winter, outside of Australia and parts of New Zealand, most areas with an oceanic climate experience at least one snowstorm per year. In the poleward locations of the climate zone, snowfall is more frequent. Overall temperature characteristics of the oceanic climates feature cool temperatures and infrequent extremes of temperature, summers are cool, with the warmest month having a mean temperature below 22 °C. Poleward of the latter is a zone of the subpolar oceanic climate, with long and cold winters and cool. Examples of this climate include parts of coastal Iceland in the Northern Hemisphere and extreme southern Chile, Oceanic climates are not necessarily always found in coastal locations on the aforementioned parallels, however, in most cases oceanic climates parallel higher middle latitude oceans. The polar jet stream, which moves in a west to east direction across the middle latitudes, advancing low pressure systems, storms, in coastal areas of the higher middle latitudes, the prevailing onshore flow creates the basic structure of most oceanic climates. Oceanic climates are a product and reflection of the adjacent to them. In summer, high pressure pushes the prevailing westerlies north of many oceanic climates. As a result of the Gulf Stream, west-coast areas located in high latitudes like Ireland, the UK, Oceanic climates in Europe occur mostly in Northwest Europe, from Ireland and Great Britain eastward to central Europe. Most of France, Germany, Norway, the north coast of Spain, examples of oceanic climates are found in London, Bergen, Dublin, Berlin, Bilbao, Donostia-San Sebastian, Biarritz, Bayonne, Zürich, Copenhagen and Paris. With decreasing distance to the Mediterranean Sea, the climate of Northwest Europe gradually changes to the subtropical dry-summer or Mediterranean climate of southern Europe
Oceanic climate
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Seattle, a city with an oceanic climate
Oceanic climate
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World map showing oceanic climate zones, as defined by the
Köppen climate types "Cfb", "Cfc", "Cwb" and "Cwc"
Oceanic climate
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Curitiba, capital city of Brazilian
Paraná state features a subtropical highland climate
6.
Georgian language
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Georgian is a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians. It is the language of Georgia. Georgian is written in its own writing system, the Georgian script, Georgian is the literary language for all regional subgroups of Georgians, including those who speak other Kartvelian languages, Svans, Mingrelians and the Laz. Georgian is the most pervasive of the Kartvelian languages, a family that also includes Svan and Megrelian and Laz. Dialects of Georgian are from Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi, Guria, Adjara, Imerkhevi, Kartli, Kakheti, Saingilo, Tusheti, Khevsureti, Khevi, Pshavi, Fereydan, Mtiuleti and Meskheti. Georgian as separate from the other Kartvelian languages would have emerged in the 1st millennium BC in the area known later as the Kingdom of Iberia, the evolution of Georgian into a written language was a consequence of the conversion of the Georgian elite to Christianity in the mid-4th century. The first Georgian texts are inscriptions and palimpsests dating to the 5th century, Georgian has a rich literary tradition. The oldest surviving work in Georgian is the 5th century Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik by Iakob Tsurtaveli. In the 11th century, Old Georgian gives rise to Middle Georgian, the Georgian national epic, Shota Rustavelis The Knight in the Panthers Skin, dates from the 12th century. This marked the beginning of the modern Georgian language, symbols on the left are those of the IPA and those on the right are of the modern Georgian alphabet. Opinions also differ on the aspiration of /t͡sʰ, t͡ʃʰ/, as it is non-contrastive, a former distinction between /x/ and /qʰ/ has been lost. Prosody in Georgian involves stress, intonation, and rhythm, stress is very weak, and linguists disagree as to where stress occurs in words. Jun, Vicenik, and Lofstedt have proposed that Georgian stress and intonation are the result of pitch accents on the first syllable of a word, the rhythm of Georgian speech is syllable-timed. Georgian contains many harmonic clusters involving two consonants of a type which are pronounced with only a single release, e. g. ბგერა bgera, ცხოვრება tskhovreba. There are also frequent consonant clusters, sometimes involving more than six consonants in a row, as may be seen in words like გვფრცქვნი gvprtskvni and მწვრთნელი mtsvrtneli. Vicenik has observed that Georgian vowels following ejective stops have creaky voice, Georgian has been written in a variety of scripts over its history. Currently the Mkhedruli or Military script is almost completely dominant, the others are used mostly in religious documents, Mkhedruli has 33 letters in common use, a half dozen more are obsolete in Georgian, though still used in other alphabets, like Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan. The letters of Mkhedruli correspond closely to the phonemes of the Georgian language, however, the first examples of a Georgian script date from the 5th century AD
Georgian language
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The Kartvelian people
Georgian language
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Georgian
Georgian language
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Calligraphy
Georgian language
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Road sign in Latin and Georgian
7.
Ossetian language
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Ossetian, also known as Ossete and Ossetic, is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. It is a descendant of the Scythian, Sarmatian and Alanic languages. Ossetian speakers number about 577,450, with 451,000 speakers in the Russian Federation recorded in the 2010 census, Ossetian belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages. Within Iranian it is placed in an Eastern subgroup and further to a Northeastern sub-subgroup, the other Eastern Iranian languages such as Pashto and Yaghnobi show certain commonalities but also deep-reaching divergences from Ossetic. From deep Antiquity, the languages of the Iranian group were distributed in a vast territory including present-day Iran, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Ossetian is the sole survivor of the branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. The Scythian group included numerous tribes, known in ancient sources as the Scythians, Massagetae, Saka, the more easterly Khorezmians and the Sogdians were also closely affiliated, in linguistic terms. Ossetian, together with Kurdish, Tati and Talyshi, is one of the main Iranian languages with a community of speakers in the Caucasus. It is descended from Alanic, the language of the Alans and it is believed to be the only surviving descendant of a Sarmatian language. The closest genetically related language may be the Yaghnobi language of Tajikistan, the names of ancient Iranian tribes in fact reflect this pluralization, e. g. Saromatae and Masagetae. The earliest known sample of Ossetian is an inscription which dates from the 10th to 12th centuries and was found near the River Bolshoi Zelenchuk at Arkhyz. The text is written in the Greek alphabet, with special digraphs, the scholarly transliteration of the Alanic phrases is, dæ ban xʷærz, mæ sfili, xsinjæ kurθi kændæ and du farnitz, kintzæ mæ sfili, kajci fæ wa sawgin. Equivalents in modern Ossetian would be Dæ bon xwarz, me’fšini ‘xšinæ, kurdigæj dæ. and farm neč, the passage translates as, The Alans I greet in their language, Good day to you my lords lady, where are you from. Good day to you my lords lady, where are you from, and other things, When an Alan woman takes a priest as a lover, you might hear this, Arent you ashamed, my lordly lady, that your cunt is being fucked by a priest. Arent you ashamed, my lady, to have an affair with the priest. Marginalia of Greek religious books, with parts of the book translated into Old Ossetic, have been recently found. Heavy-stem nouns possessed a long vowel or diphthong, and were stressed on the first-occurring syllable of this type. This is precisely the situation observed in the earliest records of Ossetian presented above and this situation also obtains in Modern Ossetian, although the emphasis in Digor is also affected by the openness of the vowel. The trend is found in a glossary of the Jassic dialect dating from 1422
Ossetian language
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Ossetian text from a book published in 1935. Part of an alphabetic list of proverbs. Latin script.
Ossetian language
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Ossetic text written with Georgian script, from a book on Ossetian folklore published in 1940 in South Ossetia
Ossetian language
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The first page of the first issue of the Ossetian newspaper "
Ræstdzinad ". Sjögren's Cyrillic alphabet. 1923
8.
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
Russian language
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Russian language street sign in
Russia.
Russian language
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Russian minimarket in
Limassol, Cyprus; translation: "Teremok market. Russian goods. Phone number: 96 74 19 63"
Russian language
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This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letter
П.
Russian language
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The
Ostromir Gospels of 1056 is the second oldest
East Slavic book known, one of many medieval
illuminated manuscripts preserved in the
Russian National Library.
9.
Russian Federation
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
Russian Federation
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Kievan Rus' in the 11th century
Russian Federation
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Flag
Russian Federation
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The
Baptism of Kievans, by
Klavdy Lebedev
Russian Federation
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Sergius of Radonezh blessing
Dmitry Donskoy in
Trinity Sergius Lavra, before the
Battle of Kulikovo, depicted in a painting by
Ernst Lissner
10.
Tbilisi
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Tbilisi, commonly known by its former name Tiflis, is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of roughly 1.5 million inhabitants. Founded in the 5th century by the monarch of Georgias ancient precursor the Kingdom of Iberia, Tbilisi has since served, with intermissions, as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics. Under Russian rule, from 1801 to 1917 Tiflis was the seat of the Imperial Viceroy governing both sides of the entire Caucasus. Tbilisis varied history is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval, classical, Middle Eastern, Art Nouveau, historically, Tbilisi has been home to people of diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, though it is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox Christian. Archaeological studies of the region have indicated human settlement in the territory of Tbilisi as early as the 4th millennium BC, according to an old legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the legend of Tbilisis founding states that King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of Georgia went hunting in the wooded region with a falcon. The Kings falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to cut down the forest and build a city on the location. The name Tbilisi derives from Old Georgian Tbilisi, and further from Tpili, the name Tbili or Tbilisi was therefore given to the city because of the areas numerous sulphuric hot springs that came out of the ground. King Dachi I Ujarmeli, who was the successor of Vakhtang I Gorgasali, Tbilisi was not the capital of a unified Georgian state at that time and did not include the territory of Colchis. It was, however, the city of Eastern Georgia/Iberia. During his reign, King Dachi I oversaw the construction of the wall that lined the citys new boundaries. From the 6th century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the favourable and strategic location which placed the city along important trade. Tbilisis favourable and strategic location did not necessarily bode well for its existence as Eastern Georgias/Iberias capital, in the year 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the Byzantine/Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II Ibn-Muhammad. After this point, the Arabs established an emirate centered in Tbilisi, in 764, Tbilisi, still under Arab control was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 853, the armies of Arab leader Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to Abbasid allegiance, the Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1068, the city was again sacked, only this time by the Seljuk Turks under Sultan Alp Arslan. In 1122, after fighting with the Seljuks that involved at least 60,000 Georgians and up to 300,000 Turks. After the battles for Tbilisi concluded, David moved his residence from Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified Georgian State, from 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a dominant regional power with a thriving economy and a well-established social system/structure
Tbilisi
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Historical center of Tbilisi
Tbilisi
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Detail from the Nautical chart by
Angelino Dulcert, depicting Georgian Black Sea coast and Tiflis, 1339.
Tbilisi
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View of Tbilisi by French traveler
Jean Chardin, 1671.
Tbilisi
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Mikhail Lermontov, Tiflis, 1837.
11.
Old Georgian
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Old Georgian was the literary language of Georgia beginning in the 5th century. The language remains as the liturgical language of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Spoken Old Georgian gave way to what is classified as Middle Georgian in the 11th century, fähnrich distinguishes three stages of Old Georgian, Chanmeti, Haemeti and Sani, noting grammatical difference between the extant texts of these stages. Fähnrich, H. Grammatik der altgeorgischen Sprache
Old Georgian
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Old Georgian of
Bir El Qutt inscriptions
12.
Hornbeam
–
Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus Carpinus in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the regions of the northern hemisphere. The common English name hornbeam derives from the hardness of the woods and the Old English beam, the botanic name for the genus, Carpinus, is the original Latin name for the European species. Though some botanists grouped them with the hazels and hop-hornbeams in a family, Corylaceae. Hornbeams are small to medium-sized trees, Carpinus betulus reaching a height of 32 m, the leaves are deciduous, alternate, and simple with a serrated margin, and typically vary from 3–10 cm in length. The flowers are wind-pollinated pendulous catkins, produced in spring, the male and female flowers are on separate catkins, but on the same tree. The fruit is a nut about 3–6 mm long, held in a leafy bract, the bract may be either trilobed or simple oval. The asymmetry of the seedwing makes it spin as it falls, the shape of the wing is important in the identification of different hornbeam species. Typically, 10–30 seeds are on each seed catkin, the 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, with the greatest number of species in east Asia, particularly China. Only two species occur in Europe, only one in eastern North America, and one in Mesoamerica, Carpinus betulus can be found in Europe, Turkey and Ukraine. Hornbeams yield a hard timber, giving rise to the name ironwood. Dried heartwood billets are nearly white and are suitable for decorative use, for general carpentry, hornbeam is rarely used, partly due to the difficulty of working it. The wood is used to construct carving boards, tool handles, handplane soles, coach wheels, piano actions, shoe lasts, the wood can also be used as gear pegs in simple machines, including traditional windmills. It is sometimes coppiced to provide hardwood poles and it is also used in parquet flooring and for making chess pieces. — European hornbeam - widespread across much of Europe, Turkey, Iran, Caucasus, - Nepal, Himalayas of northern India Carpinus fangiana Hu - Sichuan, Guangxi Carpinus hebestroma Yamam. - Tibet, Yunnan Carpinus omeiensis Hu & W. P. Fang - Sichuan, — Oriental hornbeam - Hungary, Balkans, Italy, Crimea, Turkey, Iran, Caucasus Carpinus paohsingensis W. Y. Hsia - China Carpinus polyneura Franch. — Chonowskis hornbeam - China, Korea, Japan Carpinus turczaninowii Hance — Korean hornbeam, - China, Korea, - China, Korea, Himalayas, northern Indochina Acer carpinifolium, hornbeam maple Eichhorn, Markus. Brady Haran for the University of Nottingham
Hornbeam
–
Hornbeam
Hornbeam
–
Hornbeam trunk
13.
Joseph Stalin
–
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
Joseph Stalin
–
Stalin at the
Tehran Conference in 1943.
Joseph Stalin
–
Prior to the revolution of 1917, Stalin played an active role in fighting the Russian government. Here he is shown on a 1911 information card from the files of the Russian police in Saint Petersburg.
Joseph Stalin
–
A group of participants in the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, 1919. In the middle are Stalin,
Vladimir Lenin, and
Mikhail Kalinin.
14.
Ossetia
–
Ossetia is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. The Ossetian language is part of the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages family, the northern portion of the region consists of the republic of North Ossetia–Alania within the Russian Federation. 1922 — Creation of South Ossetia in Kartli, renaming of Ossetia into North Ossetia, North Ossetia remains a part of Russian SFSR, South Ossetia remains a part of Georgian SSR.20 September 1990 — Independent Republic of South Ossetia. The republic remained unrecognized, yet it detached itself from Georgia de facto, on Sunday 12 November 2006, South Ossetians went to the polls to vote in a referendum regarding the regions independence from Georgia. The result was a yes to independence, with a turnout above 95% from those among the territorys 70,000 people who were eligible to vote at that time, there was also a vote in favour of a new term for South Ossetias president, Eduard Kokoity. On August 8,2008, the 2008 South Ossetia war broke out, involving Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, history of North Ossetia–Alania Alania Jászság Samachablo Ossetian Dance, Rustavi Dance Company,2008
Ossetia
–
Map of
North and
South Ossetia
15.
Ossetian people
–
The Ossetians or Ossetes are an Iranian ethnic group of the Caucasus Mountains, indigenous to the region known as Ossetia in Eastern Europe. They speak Ossetic, an Eastern Iranian language of the Indo-European languages family, the Ossetian language is neither closely related to nor mutually intelligible with any other language of the family today. Ossetic, a remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect group which was spoken across the Steppe, is the only Iranian language native to Europe. The Ossetians are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christian, with a minority Muslim or Ossetian Traditional beliefs and their closest relatives, the Jász, live in the Jászság region within the north-western part of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County in Hungary. Iron in the east and south form a group of Ossetians. Irons are divided into subgroups, Alagirs, Kurtats, Tagaurs, Kudar, Tual, Urstual. Kudar, the group of Ossetians. Tual in the part of Ossetia. Chsan in the east of South Ossetia, digors live in Digora district, Iraf district and in some settlements in Kabardino-Balkaria and Mozdok district. Digors in Digora district are Christian, while living in Iraf district are Muslim. The folk beliefs of the Ossetian people are rooted in their Sarmatian origin and Christian religion, the Nart saga serves the basic pagan mythology of the region. The Ossetians descend from the Alans, a Sarmatian tribe, between AD.350 and 374, the Huns destroyed the Alan kingdom, and a few survive to this day in the Caucasus as the Ossetes. At its height, Alania was a monarchy with a strong military force and had a strong economy which benefited from the Silk Road. However, after the Mongol invasions of the 1200s the Alans were forced out of their homeland south of the River Don in present-day Russia. Due to this, the Alans migrated towards the Caucasus mountains, the Jassic people were a fourth group that migrated in the 13th century to Hungary. In recent history, the Ossetians participated in Ossetian–Ingush conflict and Georgian–Ossetian conflicts, key events,1774 — North Ossetia becomes part of the Russian Empire. 1801 — Following the Treaty of Georgievsk, the modern-day South Ossetia territory becomes part of the Russian Empire, along with Georgia. 1922 — Ossetia is divided into two parts, North Ossetia remains a part of Russian SFSR, South Ossetia remains a part of Georgian SSR.20 September 1990 – independent Republic of South Ossetia, the republic remained unrecognized, yet it detached itself from Georgia de facto
Ossetian people
–
(left to right):
Kosta Khetagurov,
Gaito Gazdanov,
Arsen Kocojty,
Grigori Tokaty,
Valery Gergiev,
Veronika Dudarova,
Artur Taymazov
Ossetian people
–
Charnel vaults at a
necropolis near the village of Dargavs,
North Ossetia
Ossetian people
–
Ossetian woman in traditional clothes, early years of the 20th century.
Ossetian people
–
Ossetian women working (19th century)
16.
Nominative case
–
Generally, the noun that is doing something is in the nominative, and the nominative is often the form listed in dictionaries. Dionysius Thrax in his Art of Grammar refers to it as orthḗ or eutheîa straight, thus the reference or least marked form of an adjective might be the nominative masculine singular. The parts of speech which are often declined and therefore may have a case are nouns, adjectives, pronouns and less frequently numerals. The nominative case often indicates the subject of a verb but sometimes does not indicate any relationship with other parts of a sentence. In some languages the nominative case is unmarked, it may be said to be marked by a zero morpheme. Moreover, in most languages with a case, the nominative form is the lemma. English still retains some nominative pronouns, which are contrasted with the accusative, I, we, he, she, they, a usage that is archaic in most, but not all, current English dialects is the singular second-person pronoun thou. A special case is the word you, Originally, ye was its form and you the accusative. The term nominative case is most properly used in the discussion of languages, such as Latin, Greek. The term objective case is used for the oblique case, which covers the roles of accusative, dative. The genitive case is usually called the possessive form, rather than a noun case per se. In this system, English is said to have two cases, the subjective and the objective, the nominative case marks the subject of a verb. When the verb is active, the nominative is the person or thing doing the action, when the verb is passive, the nominative can also change adjectives into nouns Socrates was a wise man. German nominative case A lesson covering the case in the German language The Nominative Case - Russian Grammar A lesson covering the nominative case in the Russian language
Nominative case
–
A chart explaining the concept of the nominative case.
17.
Bronze Age
–
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
Bronze Age
–
Chalcolithic copper mine in
Timna Valley,
Negev Desert,
Israel.
Bronze Age
–
Diffusion of metallurgy in
Europe and
Asia Minor. The darkest areas are the oldest.
Bronze Age
–
A
Shang Dynasty two-handled bronze gefuding gui (1600–1046 BC).
Bronze Age
–
Spring and Autumn Period pu bronze vessel with interlaced
dragon design (722–481 BC)
18.
Caucasian Iberia
–
Iberia, centered on present-day Eastern Georgia, was bordered by Colchis in the west, Caucasian Albania in the east and Armenia in the south. Its population, known as the Iberians, formed the nucleus of the Georgians, Iberia, ruled by Pharnavazid, Arsacid and Chosroid royal dynasties, together with Colchis to its west, would form the nucleus of the unified medieval Kingdom of Georgia under Bagrationi dynasty. In the 4th century, after Christianization of Iberia by Saint Nino during the reign of King Mirian III Christiantity was made the religion of the kingdom. Starting in the early 6th century AD, the position as a Sassanian vassal state was changed into effectively direct Persian rule. In 580, king Hormizd IV abolished the monarchy after the death of King Bakur III, the term Caucasian Iberia is also being used to distinguish it from the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe. The provenance of the name Iberia is unclear, the letter s in this instance served as a prefix for the root word Ver. Accordingly, in following Ivane Javakhishvilis theory, the designation of Sber, a variant of Sver, was derived from the word Hber. According to another theory, it is derived from a Colchian word, Imer, meaning country on the side of the mountain, that is of the Likhi Range. In earliest times, the area of Caucasian Iberia was inhabited by several related tribes stemming from the Kura-Araxes culture, collectively called Iberians in Greco-Roman ethnography. The Moschi, mentioned by various historians, and their possible descendants. The Moschi had moved slowly to the northeast forming settlements as they traveled, one of these was Mtskheta, the future capital of the Kingdom of Iberia. The Mtskheta tribe was ruled by a prince locally known as mamasakhlisi. The written sources for the periods of Iberias history are mostly medieval Georgian chronicles. Pharnavaz, victorious in a struggle, became the first king of Iberia. His successors managed to control over the mountainous passes of the Caucasus with the Daryal being the most important of them. The period following this time of prosperity was one of incessant warfare as Iberia was forced to defend against numerous invasions into its territories. Some southern parts of Iberia, that were conquered from Kingdom of Armenia, in the 2nd century BC were reunited to Armenia, nineteen years later, the Romans again marched on Iberia forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Albania. While another Georgian kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, a stone inscription discovered at Mtskheta speaks of the 1st-century ruler Mihdrat I as the friend of the Caesars and the king of the Roman-loving Iberians
Caucasian Iberia
–
Map of Iberia and Colchis by
Christoph Cellarius printed in Leipzig in 1706
Caucasian Iberia
–
Colchis and Iberia
19.
Colchis
–
Colchis was an ancient kingdom and region on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Internationally, Colchis is perhaps best known for its role in Greek mythology, most notably as the destination of the Argonauts, as well as the home to Medea and the Golden fleece. Colchis was populated by Colchians, an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe, ancestral to the contemporary Western Georgians, namely Svans and Mingrelians, the kingdom of Colchis, Kolkhis or Qulha which existed from the c. According to the scholar of Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff, Colchis appears as the first Caucasian State to have achieved the coalescence of the newcomer. Colchis can be regarded as not a proto-Georgian, but a Georgian kingdom. It would seem natural to seek the beginnings of Georgian social history in Colchis. A second South Caucasian tribal union emerged in the 13th century BC on the Black Sea coast. There is some difference in authors as to the extent of the country westward, thus Strabo makes Colchis begin at Trabzon, while Ptolemy, on the other hand. The name of Colchis first appears in Aeschylus and Pindar, the earlier writers only speak about it under the name of Aea, the residence of the mythical king Aeëtes, Kolchian Aia lies at the furthest limits of sea and earth, wrote Apollonius of Rhodes. Scylax mentions also Mala or Male, which he, in contradiction to other writers, the central part of the region is Colchis Plain, stretching between Sokhumi and Kobuleti, most of that lies on the elevation below 20 m above sea level. Marginal parts of the region are mountains of the Great and the Lesser Caucasus, the climate is mild humid, near Batumi, annual rainfall level reaches 4,000 mm, which is the absolute maximum for the continental western Eurasia. The dominating natural landscapes of Colchis are temperate rainforests, yet degraded in the part of the region, wetlands. In at least some parts of Colchis, the process of urbanization seems to have been advanced by the end of the 2nd millennium BC. The Colchian Late Bronze Age saw the development of significant skill in the smelting and casting of metals, sophisticated farming implements were made, and fertile, well-watered lowlands and a mild climate promoted the growth of progressive agricultural techniques. Colchis was inhabited by a number of related but distinct tribes whose settlements lay along the shore of the Black Sea and these Colchian tribes differed so completely in language and appearance from the surrounding Indo-European nations that the ancients provided various wild theories to account for the phenomenon. Herodotus regarded the Colchians as Ancient Egyptian race, Apollonius of Rhodes states that the Egyptians of Colchis preserved as heirlooms a number of wooden tablets, which show, with considerable accuracy, seas and highways. Detlev Fehling regards the link between Colchis and Egypt as a clear example of the way Herodotus used spurious sources to back up stories he had made up himself. In the 13th century BC, the Kingdom of Colchis was formed as a result of the consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region. This power, celebrated in Greek mythology as the destination of the Argonauts, the home of Medea, the kingdom of Tabal was conquered by the Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III in the 830s BC
Colchis
–
Colchis and
Iberia in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC
Colchis
–
Colchis and Iberia
Colchis
–
Central and southern parts of Colchis, 3rd to 1st centuries BC - 1st century AD
Colchis
–
Colchis between the
Black and
Caspian Seas. London, 1529
20.
Sarmatian
–
The Sarmatians were a large confederation of Iranian people during classical antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD. They spoke Scythian, an Indo-European language from the Eastern Iranian family and their territory, which was known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponded to the western part of greater Scythia. In the 1st century AD the Sarmatians began encroaching upon the Roman Empire in alliance with Germanic tribes, in the 3rd century AD their dominance of the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Germanic Goths. With the Hunnic invasions of the 4th century, many Sarmatians joined the Goths, a related people to the Sarmatians known as the Alans survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group. The Sarmatians were eventually assimilated and absorbed by the Proto-Slavic population of Eastern Europe. Sarmatae probably originated as just one of several names of the Sarmatians. Strabo in the 1st century names as the tribes of the Sarmatians the Iazyges, the Roxolani, the Aorsi. The Greek name Sarmatai sometimes appears as Sauromatai, which is almost certainly no more than a variant of the same name, nevertheless, historians often regarded these as two separate peoples, while archaeologists habitually use the term Sauromatian to identify the earliest phase of Sarmatian culture. Any idea that the name derives from the lizard, linking to the Sarmatians use of reptile-like scale armour. Both Pliny the Elder and Jordanes recognised the Sar- and Sauro- elements as interchangeable variants, Greek authors of the 4th century mention Syrmatae as the name of a people living at the Don, perhaps reflecting the ethnonym as it was pronounced in the final phase of Sarmatian culture. Oleg Trubachyov derived the name from the Indo-Aryan *sar-mat, the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian word *sar-, by this derivation was noted the unusual high status of women from the Greek point of view and went to the invention of Amazons. Other scholars, like Harold Walter Bailey, derived the word from Avestan sar- from tsar- in Old Iranian. It was also derived from the name of Avestan region in the west Sairima, recently R. M. Kozlova derived it from *Sъrm- < Proto-Slavic adjective *sъrmatъ, with the meaning that is rich with sormima i. e. shallows, referring to the rivers. The Sarmatians emerged in the 7th century BC in a region of the steppe to the east of the Don River, for centuries they lived in relatively peaceful co-existence with their western neighbors the Scythians. Then, in the 3rd century BC, they fought with the Scythians on the Pontic steppe to the north of the Black Sea, the Sarmatians were to dominate these territories over the next five centuries. Pliny the Elder wrote that they ranged from the Vistula River to the Danube, in 1947, Soviet archaeologist Boris Grakov defined a culture flourishing from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, apparent in late kurgan graves, sometimes reusing part of much older kurgans. It was a nomadic steppe culture ranging from the Black Sea eastward to beyond the Volga, in Hungary, a great Late Sarmatian pottery centre was reportedly unearthed between 2001 and 2006 near Budapest, in the Üllő5 archaeological site. Typical grey, granular Üllő5 ceramics form a group of Sarmatian pottery found everywhere in the north central part of the Great Hungarian Plain region
Sarmatian
–
Great steppe of Kazakhstan in early spring.
Sarmatian
–
Approximate extent of
East Iranian languages in the 1st century BC is shown in orange.
Sarmatian
–
A Sarmatian
diadem, found at the Khokhlach
kurgan near
Novocherkassk (1st century AD,
Hermitage Museum).
Sarmatian
–
Sarmatian cataphracts during
Dacian Wars as depicted on
Trajan's Column.
21.
Kartli
–
Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari, on which Georgias capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a role in the ethnic. Kartli had no defined boundaries and they significantly fluctuated in the course of history. After the partition of the kingdom of Georgia in the 15th century, the historical lands of Kartli are currently divided among several administrative regions of Georgia. The Georgians living in the lands of Kartli are known as Kartleli. Most of them are Eastern Orthodox Christians adhering to the national Georgian Orthodox Church and speak a dialect, the toponym Kartli first emerges in written accounts in the 5th-century Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik, the earliest surviving piece of Georgian literature. Kartlos seems to be a medieval contrivance and his being the founder of Kartli is not convincing. The term itself derives from Proto-Kartvelian root *kart-, which is considered an ancient inner-Kartvelian formation by modern linguists. See ქართლი and ქართველი for more, parallels have also been sought with the Khaldi and Carduchi of the Classical sources. The formation of Kartli and its people, the Kartveli is poorly documented, the infiltration of several ancient, chiefly Anatolian, tribes into the territory of modern-day Georgia and their fusion with the autochthons played a decisive role in this process. This might have been reflected in the story of Arian-Kartli, the place of the aboriginal Georgian habitat found in the early medieval chronicle Conversion of Kartli. In the 3rd century BC, Kartli and its original capital Mtskheta formed a nucleus around which the ancient Georgian kingdom known to the Greco-Roman world as Iberia evolved. The role of Kartli as an ethnic and political unit which would form a basis for the subsequent Georgian unification further increased as a result of its Christianization early in the 4th century. Located on the crossroads of the Byzantine and Iranian influences, Kartli developed a vibrant Christian culture, but the Kyrie eleison is said in Greek, which means in Georgian Lord, have mercy or Lord, be merciful to us. After the unification of various Georgian polities into the kingdom of Georgia early in the 11th century, the Georgian circumfix sa-X-o is a standard geographic construction designating the area where X dwell, where X is an ethnonym. Most of these lands are now part of Georgias regions of Shida Kartli and Kvemo Kartli, but also of Samtskhe-Javakheti, a significant portion of Zemo Kartli is now part of Turkey. With the fragmentation of the kingdom of Georgia in the 15th century, the kings of Kartli did not relinquish the titles of the all-Georgian monarchs whose legitimate successors they claimed to be. The Europeans, thus, knew it as Georgia proper and later also as Kartalinia via the Russian Карталиния, similarly, the toponym Gorjestān was usually used in Persian in the narrower sense of Kartli
Kartli
–
Kartli (Cardueli) in the 18th century. Detail from a map of Jean Clouet, 1767.
22.
Russian Empire
–
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
Russian Empire
–
Peter the Great officially renamed the Tsardom of Russia the Russian Empire in 1721, and himself its first emperor. He instituted the
sweeping reforms and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power.
Russian Empire
–
Flag
Russian Empire
–
Empress
Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an
enlightened absolutist, she played a key role in the
Russian Enlightenment.
Russian Empire
–
Catherine II Sestroretsk Rouble (1771) is made of solid copper measuring 77 millimetres (3 3 ⁄ 100 in) (diameter), 26 millimetres (1 1 ⁄ 50 in) (thickness), and weighs 1.022 kg (2.25 lb). It is the largest copper coin ever issued.
23.
Trade route
–
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water, among notable trade routes was the Amber Road, which served as a dependable network for long-distance trade. Maritime trade along the Spice Route became prominent during the Middle Ages, during the Middle Ages, organizations such as the Hanseatic League, aimed at protecting interests of the merchants, and trade became increasingly prominent. In modern times, commercial activity shifted from the trade routes of the Old World to newer routes between modern nation-states. Innovative transportation of modern times includes pipeline transport and the relatively well-known trade involving rail routes, automobiles, one of the vital instruments which facilitated long distance trade was portage and the domestication of beasts of burden. Organized caravans, visible by the 2nd millennium BCE, could carry goods across a distance as fodder was mostly available along the way. The domestication of camels allowed Arabian nomads to control the long distance trade in spices, caravans were useful in long-distance trade largely for carrying luxury goods, the transportation of cheaper goods across large distances was not profitable for caravan operators. With productive developments in iron and bronze technologies, newer trade routes—dispensing innovations of civilizations—began to rise, evidence of maritime trade between civilizations dates back at least 90 millennia. Navigation was known in Sumer between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BCE, and was known by the Indians. The Egyptians had trade routes through the Red Sea, importing spices from the Land of Punt, maritime trade began with safer coastal trade and evolved with the manipulation of the monsoon winds, soon resulting in trade crossing boundaries such as the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. South Asia had multiple maritime trade routes which connected it to Southeast Asia, Indian connections to various Southeast Asian states buffered it from blockages on other routes. By making use of the trade routes, bulk commodity trade became possible for the Romans in the 2nd century BCE. A Roman trading vessel could span the Mediterranean in a month at one-sixtieth the cost of over-land routes, the peninsula of Anatolia lay on the commercial land routes to Europe from Asia as well as the sea route from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Records from the 19th century BCE attest to the existence of an Assyrian merchant colony at Kanesh in Cappadocia, trading networks of the Old World included the Grand Trunk Road of India and the Incense Road of Arabia. Parts of the Mediterranean world, Roman Britain, Tigris-Euphrates river system, beyond this was a margin which included not only temperate areas such as Europe, but the dry steppe corridor of central Asia. This was truly a world system, even though it occupied only a portion of the western Old World. Whilst each civilization emphasized its ideological autonomy, all were part of a common world of interacting components. These routes - spreading religion, trade and technology - have historically been vital to the growth of urban civilization
Trade route
–
Much of the
Radhanites '
Indian Ocean trade would have depended on coastal cargo-ships such as this
dhow.
Trade route
–
The economy of the
Kingdom of Qataban (light blue) was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh. These were exported to the Mediterranean, India and
Abyssinia where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea.
Trade route
–
For centuries, the Grand Trunk Road has served as the main artery for travel across Northern India. A scene from the
Ambala cantonment during the days of the
British Raj.
Trade route
–
High-capacity freeway
interchange in
Los Angeles, California, USA.
24.
North Caucasus
–
The North Caucasus or Ciscaucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Sea of Azov and Black Sea on the west and the Caspian Sea on the east, within European Russia. Geopolitically, the Northern Caucasus includes the Russian republics and krais of the North Caucasus, the outer border of the Soviet Unions North Caucasus Krai was the same as that of present-day North Caucasus Economic Region which includes an oblast, two krais, and seven republics. The former North Caucasus Military District also included Astrakhan Oblast, Volgograd Oblast, and its administrative center was Rostov-on-Don until 10 January 1934, Pyatigorsk until January 1936, then Ordzhonikidze and, from 15 December 1936, Voroshilovsk. Geographically, the term North Caucasus also refers to the slope and western extremity of the Caucasus Major mountain range. The Forecaucasus steppe area is also encompassed under the notion of Ciscaucasus, thus the northern boundary of the Forecaucasus steppe is generally considered to be the Manych River. Ciscaucasus was historically covered by the Pontic steppe, mostly on fertile calcareous chernozyom soils and it is bounded by the Sea of Azov on the west, and the Caspian Sea on the east. According to the Concise Atlas of the World, Second Edition, shaw, Institute of British Geographers Media related to North Caucasus at Wikimedia Commons North Caucasus travel guide from Wikivoyage Relations between The North and South Caucasus. Articles in the Caucasus Analytical Digest No.27
North Caucasus
–
The village of Tindi, in
Dagestan, in the late 1890s.
North Caucasus
–
North Caucasus regions within the Russian Federation.
25.
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the homonymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora, that is, heap, Gori was an important military stronghold in the Middle Ages and maintains a strategic importance due to its location on the principal highway connecting eastern and western parts of Georgia. In the course of its history, Gori has been invaded by the armies of regional powers several times, the city was occupied by Russian troops during the 2008 Russia–Georgia war. Gori is also known as the birthplace of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, ballistic missile designer Alexander Nadiradze, Gori is located 86 kilometers west of Georgias capital Tbilisi, at the confluence of the rivers Mtkvari and Greater Liakhvi,588 meters above sea level. The climate is transitional from moderately warm steppe to moderately humid, the average annual temperature is 10.6 °C, minimal in January and maximal in July and August. The maximum precipitation falls in May and minimum in February, the territory of Gori has been populated since the early Bronze Age. According to medieval Georgian chronicles, the town of Gori was founded by King David IV who settled refugees from Armenia there. However, the fortress of Gori appears to have been in use already in the 7th century, in 1299, Gori was captured by the Alan tribesmen fleeing the Mongol conquest of their original homeland in the North Caucasus. The Georgian king George V recovered the town in 1320, pushing the Alans back over the Caucasus mountains and it was first taken and sacked by Uzun Hassan of the Ak Koyunlu in 1477, followed by Tahmasp I of Persia in the mid-16th century. The town was again garrisoned by the Persians under Shah Abbas I in 1614. Following the Russian annexation of Georgia, Gori was granted the status of a town within the Tiflis Governorate in 1801 and it grew in size and population throughout the 19th century but was destroyed in the 1920 earthquake. An important industrial center in Soviet times, Gori suffered from an economic collapse, Gori is close to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone. It is connected to breakaway South Ossetias capital Tskhinvali via a spur which has been defunct since the early 1990s. Since the 2000s, Georgia has increased the military infrastructure in, thus, the Central Military Hospital was relocated from Tbilisi to Gori and re-equipped in October 2006. On January 18,2008, Georgia’s second NATO-standard base to accommodate the 1st Infantry Brigade of the Georgian Ground Forces was established at Gori, the Georgian Agrarian Science Academy Branch was established in the city in 1995, this became Sukhishvili University in 2003. Human Rights Watch claimed that Russian forces had indiscriminately deployed cluster bombs in areas around Gori. According to HRW, on August 12 Russian forces dropped bombs in the center of Gori, killing 11 civilians. Russian military officials deny using cluster munitions in the conflict, calling the HRW assertion slanderous, numerous unexploded bomblets have been found by locals and HRW employees
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori გორი
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori Fortress as of 1642, by an
Italian missionary
Cristoforo Castelli
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori Fortress on the hilltop
Gori, Georgia
–
A damaged apartment building in Gori.
26.
Georgian Jews
–
Georgian Jews are one of the oldest communities in Georgia, tracing their migration into the country during the Babylonian captivity in 6th century BC. The Georgian Jews were considered ethnically and culturally distinct from neighboring Mountain Jews and they were also traditionally a highly separate group to the Ashkenazi Jews in Georgia, who arrived following the Russian annexation of Georgia. As a result of a major wave in the 1990s. The Georgian Jews have traditionally lived separately, not only from the surrounding Georgian people, but also from the Ashkenazi Jews in Tbilisi, who had different practices and language. The community, which numbered about 80,000 as recently as the 1970s, has emigrated to Israel, the United States. As of 2004, only about 13,000 Georgian Jews remained in Georgia, according to the 2002 First General National Census of Georgia, there are 3,541 Jewish believers in the country. For example, the Lezgishvili branch of Georgian Jews have families in Israel, Moscow, Baku, Düsseldorf, several hundred Georgian Jewish families live in the New York tri-state area, particularly in New York City and Long Island. Georgian-speaking Jewry is one of the oldest surviving Jewish communities in the world, the Georgian Jews have an approximately 2, 600-year history in the region. The origin of Georgian Jews, also known as Gurjim or kartveli ebraelebi, is debated, the most popular view is that the first Jews made their way to southern Georgia after Nebuchadnezzars conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and exile in Babylon. This claim is supported by the medieval Georgian historical account by Leonti Mroveli, the Jews who fled thence come to Kartli and requested from the mamasakhlisi of Mtskheta territory in return for tribute. He gave and settled them on the Aragvi, at spring which was called Zanavi, which was renamed as Zanavi. Another version offered by Mroveli, was the settlement of the Jews in Georgia during the Roman period of Emperor Vespasian and he wrote that Jews lived in Georgia long before 1st century AD. According to Mroveli, During their reign, Vespasian, the emperor of the Romans, from there refugee Jews come to Mtskheta and settled with the old Jews. The ancient Georgian historic chronicle, The Conversion of Kartli, is the oldest, Georgian sources also refer to the arrival of the first Jews in Western Georgia from the Byzantine Empire during the 6th century AD. Approximately 3,000 of the Jews fled to Eastern Georgia, according to the Georgian hagiography, Jewish communities existed in Georgia in the 1st century. A Georgian Jew called Elias was said to be in Jerusalem during the Crucifixion and he had acquired it from a Roman soldier at Golgotha. The Jews spoke Georgian, and later Jewish traders developed a dialect called Kivruli, or Judaeo-Georgian, in the second half of the 7th century, the Muslim Empire conquered extensive Georgian territory, which became an Arab caliph province. Arab emirs ruled in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and surrounding territory for nearly 500 years, genetic studies carried out on Georgian Jews as part of a wider survey showed close genetic links with other Jews, and in particular with Iraqi and Persian Jews
Georgian Jews
–
The Kartvelian people
Georgian Jews
–
Ancient Georgian capital
Mtskheta, where Jews lived for thousands of years
Georgian Jews
–
A Judeo-Aramaic inscription of Abraham, son of Sarah, from Mtskheta from the 4th to 6th centuries
Georgian Jews
–
Georgian Jews of Tbilisi in 1800s
27.
Georgian people
–
The Georgians or Kartvelians are a nation and ethnic group who constitute a majority of the population in Georgia. Large Georgian communities are present throughout Russia, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Ukraine, United States. Georgians arose from the ancient Colchian and Iberian civilizations, there are also small Georgian Catholic and Muslim communities in Tbilisi and Adjara, as well as a significant number of irreligious Georgians. By the early 11th century they formed a unified Kingdom of Georgia and inaugurated the Georgian Golden Age and this lasted until being weakened by Mongol invasions, as well as internal divisions following the death of George V the Brilliant, the last of the great kings of Georgia. To ensure Georgias survival, in 1783 Heraclius II of Georgia forged an alliance with the Russian Empire, the Russo-Georgian alliance, however, backfired as Russia was unwilling to fulfill the terms of the treaty, proceeding to annex the troubled kingdom in 1801. Georgians briefly reasserted their independence from Russia under the First Georgian Republic from 1918-1921, Georgians call themselves Kartvelebi, their land Sakartvelo, and their language Kartuli. According to The Georgian Chronicles, the ancestor of the Kartvelian people was Kartlos, however, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the latter being one of the proto-Georgian tribes that emerged as a dominant group in ancient times. Ancient Greeks and Romans referred to western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians, the term Georgians is derived from the country of Georgia. Starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. Scholars usually refer to them as Proto-Kartvelian tribes, the Georgian people in antiquity have been known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Colchians and Iberians. East Georgian tribes of Tibarenians-Iberians formed their kingdom in 7th century BCE, however, western Georgian tribes established the first Georgian state of Colchis before the foundation of the Iberian Kingdom in the east. According to the scholars of Georgia, the formations of these two early Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia, resulted in the consolidation and uniformity of the Georgian nation. The ancient Jewish chronicle by Josephus mentions Georgians as Iberes who were also called Thobel, diauehi in Assyrian sources and Taochi in Greek lived in the northeastern part of Anatolia, a region that was part of Georgia. This ancient tribe is considered by scholars as ancestors of the Georgians. Modern Georgians still refer to this region, which now belongs to present-day Turkey, as Tao-Klarjeti, some people there still speak the Georgian language. Colchians in the ancient western Georgian Kingdom of Colchis were another proto-Georgian tribed and they are first mentioned in the Assyrian annals of Tiglath-Pileser I and in the annals of Urartian king Sarduri II, and are also included western Georgian tribe of the Meskhetians. Iberians, also known as Tiberians or Tiberanians, lived in the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Iberia, both Colchians and Iberians played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the modern Georgian nation
Georgian people
–
The Kartvelian people
Georgian people
–
Alpine type of Georgian, Svan.
Mestia (1888 -1900)
Georgian people
–
The
Bagrati Cathedral, The Cathedral of the Dormition, built during the reign of King
Bagrat III, one of Georgia's most significant medieval religious buildings returned to its original state in 2012.
Georgian people
–
Georgians having a feast at
Supra and
Tamada making a toast. Painting by
Niko Pirosmani.
28.
Armenians
–
Armenians are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands. Armenians constitute the population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide, most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the worlds oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, in the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, historically, the name Armenian has come to internationally designate this group of people. It was first used by neighbouring countries of ancient Armenia, the earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th century BC. In his trilingual Behistun Inscription dated to 517 BC, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to Urashtu as Armina (in Old Persian, Armina and Harminuya. In Greek, Αρμένιοι Armenians is attested from about the same time, xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC. He relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians and it is also further postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. Movses Khorenatsi, the important early medieval Armenian historian, wrote that the word Armenian originated from the name Armenak or Aram, the Armenian Highland lies in the highlands surrounding Mount Ararat, the highest peak of the region. In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire, Mitanni, soon after Hayasa-Azzi were Arme-Shupria, the Nairi and the Kingdom of Urartu, who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Under Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire reached the Caucasus Mountains, yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, was founded in 782 BC by king Argishti I. T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov proposed the Indo-European homeland around the Armenian Highland, eric P. Hamp in his 2012 Indo-European family tree, groups the Armenian language along with Greek and Ancient Macedonian in the Pontic Indo-European subgroup. In Hamps view the homeland of this subgroup is the northeast coast of the Black Sea and he assumes that they migrated from there southeast through the Caucasus with the Armenians remaining after Batumi while the pre-Greeks proceeded westwards along the southern coast of the Black Sea. However, fresh genetics studies explain Armenian diversity by several mixtures of Eurasian populations that occurred between ~3,000 and ~2,000 b. c
Armenians
Armenians
–
Hayk, the legendary founder of the Armenian nation. Painting by
Mkrtum Hovnatanian (1779–1846)
Armenians
–
The
Cathedral of Ani, completed in 1001
Armenians
–
About 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the
Armenian Genocide in 1915–1918.
29.
Ossetians
–
The Ossetians or Ossetes are an Iranian ethnic group of the Caucasus Mountains, indigenous to the region known as Ossetia in Eastern Europe. They speak Ossetic, an Eastern Iranian language of the Indo-European languages family, the Ossetian language is neither closely related to nor mutually intelligible with any other language of the family today. Ossetic, a remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect group which was spoken across the Steppe, is the only Iranian language native to Europe. The Ossetians are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christian, with a minority Muslim or Ossetian Traditional beliefs and their closest relatives, the Jász, live in the Jászság region within the north-western part of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County in Hungary. Iron in the east and south form a group of Ossetians. Irons are divided into subgroups, Alagirs, Kurtats, Tagaurs, Kudar, Tual, Urstual. Kudar, the group of Ossetians. Tual in the part of Ossetia. Chsan in the east of South Ossetia, digors live in Digora district, Iraf district and in some settlements in Kabardino-Balkaria and Mozdok district. Digors in Digora district are Christian, while living in Iraf district are Muslim. The folk beliefs of the Ossetian people are rooted in their Sarmatian origin and Christian religion, the Nart saga serves the basic pagan mythology of the region. The Ossetians descend from the Alans, a Sarmatian tribe, between AD.350 and 374, the Huns destroyed the Alan kingdom, and a few survive to this day in the Caucasus as the Ossetes. At its height, Alania was a monarchy with a strong military force and had a strong economy which benefited from the Silk Road. However, after the Mongol invasions of the 1200s the Alans were forced out of their homeland south of the River Don in present-day Russia. Due to this, the Alans migrated towards the Caucasus mountains, the Jassic people were a fourth group that migrated in the 13th century to Hungary. In recent history, the Ossetians participated in Ossetian–Ingush conflict and Georgian–Ossetian conflicts, key events,1774 — North Ossetia becomes part of the Russian Empire. 1801 — Following the Treaty of Georgievsk, the modern-day South Ossetia territory becomes part of the Russian Empire, along with Georgia. 1922 — Ossetia is divided into two parts, North Ossetia remains a part of Russian SFSR, South Ossetia remains a part of Georgian SSR.20 September 1990 – independent Republic of South Ossetia, the republic remained unrecognized, yet it detached itself from Georgia de facto
Ossetians
–
(left to right):
Kosta Khetagurov,
Gaito Gazdanov,
Arsen Kocojty,
Grigori Tokaty,
Valery Gergiev,
Veronika Dudarova,
Artur Taymazov
Ossetians
–
Charnel vaults at a
necropolis near the village of Dargavs,
North Ossetia
Ossetians
–
Ossetian woman in traditional clothes, early years of the 20th century.
Ossetians
–
Ossetian women working (19th century)
30.
Bolshevik
–
The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk in Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party. In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues and they ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks or Reds came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, with the Reds defeating the Whites, and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union in December 1922. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism, in the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, held in Brussels and London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members who recognise the Party Programme and support it by material means, Julius Martov suggested by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the partys organisations. Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a core of active members. A main source of the factions could be attributed to Lenin’s steadfast opinion. It was obvious at early stages in Lenin’s revolutionary practices that he would not be willing to concede on any party policy that conflicted with his own predetermined ideas and it was the loyalty that he had to his own self-envisioned utopia that caused the party split. He was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow minded that he believed there were only two types of people, Friend and enemy—those who followed him, and all the rest. Leon Trotsky, one of Lenins fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Robespierre, Lenins view of politics as verbal and ideological warfare and his inability to accept criticism even if it came from his own dedicated followers was the reason behind this accusation. The root of the split was a book titled What is to be Done. that Lenin wrote while serving a sentence of exile, in Germany, the book was published in 1902, in Russia, strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the points of Lenin’s writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by the strong leadership of one person over the masses. After the proposed revolution had overthrown the government, this individual leader must release power. Lenin also wrote that revolutionary leaders must dedicate their lives to the cause in order for it to be successful. Lenins view of a socialist intelligentsia showed that he was not a supporter of Marxist theory. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral, and were loyal to the idea of a completely classless society, so Lenin’s variations caused the party internal dissonance. Although the party split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would not become official until 1903, as discussed in What is to be Done. Lenin firmly believed that a political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution
Bolshevik
–
Bolshevik Party meeting. Sitting (from left):
Avel Enukidze,
Mikhail Kalinin,
Nikolai Bukharin,
Mikhail Tomsky,
Mikhail Lashevich,
Lev Kamenev,
Yevgeni Preobrazhensky,
Leonid Serebryakov,
Vladimir Lenin and
Alexei Rykov.
Bolshevik
–
Boris Kustodiev ’s 1920 painting " Bolshevik "
Bolshevik
–
Left to right:
Leon Trotsky,
Vladimir Lenin, and
Lev Kamenev
Bolshevik
–
"Down with Bolshevism. Bolshevism brings war and destruction, hunger and death", anti-Bolshevik propaganda, Germany, 1919.
31.
Democratic Republic of Georgia
–
The Democratic Republic of Georgia existed from May 1918 to February 1921 and was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia. The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and it had a total land area of roughly 107,600 km², and a population of 2.5 million. The republics capital was Tbilisi, and its language was Georgian. Proclaimed on May 26,1918, on the break-up of the Transcaucasian Federation, after the February Revolution of 1917 and collapse of the tsarist administration in the Caucasus, most power was held by the Special Transcaucasian Committee of the Russian Provisional Government. All of the soviets in Georgia were firmly controlled by the Georgian Social Democratic Party, the Bolshevist October Revolution changed the situation drastically. The Caucasian soviets refused to recognize Vladimir Lenins regime, many Georgians, influenced by the ideas of Ilia Chavchavadze and other intellectuals from the late 19th century, insisted on national independence. A cultural national awakening was further strengthened by the restoration of the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church, in contrast, the Georgian Mensheviks regarded independence from Russia as a temporary step against the Bolshevik revolution and considered calls for Georgias independence chauvinistic and separatist. The union of Transcaucasus was short-lived though, Noe Ramishvili formed the first government of Democratic Republic of Georgia. Georgia was immediately recognized by Germany and the Ottoman Empire, the young state had to place itself under German protection and to cede its largely Muslim-inhabited regions to the Ottoman government. However, German support enabled the Georgians to repel the Bolshevik threat from Abkhazia, German forces were almost certainly under the command of Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein. Following the German defeat in the First World War, British occupation forces arrived in the country, Relations between the British and the local population were more strained than they had been with the Germans. British-held Batum, remained out of Georgias control until 1920, on December 25,1918, a British force was deployed in Tbilisi too. Georgias relations with its neighbours were uneasy, territorial disputes with Armenia, Denikins White Russian government and Azerbaijan led to armed conflicts in the first two cases. A British military mission attempted to mediate these conflicts in order to consolidate all anti-Bolshevik forces in the region, the threat of invasion by Denikins forces, notwithstanding the British position, brought Georgia and Azerbaijan together in a mutual defense alliance on June 16,1919. On February 14,1919, Georgia held parliamentary elections won by the Social Democratic Party of Georgia with 81. 5% of the vote. On March 21, Noe Zhordania formed the government, which had to deal with armed peasants revolts incited by local Bolshevik activists. These became more troublesome when carried out by ethnic minorities such as Abkhazians and Ossetians, in 1919, reforms in judicial system and local self-governance were carried out. Nevertheless, ethnic issues continued to trouble the country, especially on the part of the Ossetians, some contemporaries also observed increasing nationalism among the Social Democratic Party of Georgia leaders
Democratic Republic of Georgia
–
Nikolay Chkheidze president of Georgian Provisional Assembly, later of Constituent Assembly
Democratic Republic of Georgia
–
Flag
Democratic Republic of Georgia
–
National Council meeting, May 26, 1918.
Democratic Republic of Georgia
–
Noe Ramishvili became the chairman of the first government of the Republic. In 1930, he was assassinated by a
Bolshevik spy in
Paris.
32.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
Soviet Union
–
Vladimir Lenin addressing a crowd with Trotsky, 1920
Soviet Union
–
Flag
Soviet Union
–
Stalin and
Nikolai Yezhov, head of the
NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was
edited out of the image.
Soviet Union
33.
Red Army invasion of Georgia
–
The independence of Georgia had been recognized by Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Moscow, signed on 7 May 1920, and the subsequent invasion of the country was not universally agreed upon in Moscow. Soviet forces took the Georgian capital Tbilisi after heavy fighting and declared the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 February 1921, the rest of the country was overrun within three weeks, but it was not until September 1924 that Soviet rule was firmly established. Georgia effectively escaped Russian control in the aftermath of the February Revolution in Russia in 1917. After an abortive attempt to unite with Armenia and Azerbaijan in a federative state, although there were a significant number of highly qualified officers who had served in the Imperial Russian military, the army as a whole was underfed and poorly equipped. Since early 1920, local Bolsheviks were actively fomenting political unrest in Georgia, capitalizing on agrarian disturbances in rural areas, the operational centre of the Soviet military-political forces in the Caucasus was the Kavburo attached to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. Set up in February 1920, this body was chaired by the Georgian Bolshevik Grigol Ordzhonikidze, the Soviet leadership successfully exploited this situation and sent in its army to occupy Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Following the establishment of Soviet rule in Baku in April 1920, Ordzhonikidze, probably acting on his own initiative, when the coup failed, the Georgian government was able to concentrate all its forces on successfully blocking the Soviet advance over the Georgian-Azerbaijani border. Facing a difficult war with Poland, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin ordered a start to negotiations with Georgia, in the Treaty of Moscow signed on 7 May 1920, Soviet Russia recognized Georgias independence and concluded a non-aggression pact. The treaty established the borders between the two nations de jure and also obliged Georgia to surrender all third-party elements considered hostile by Moscow. In a secret supplement, Georgia promised to legalize the local Bolshevik party, despite the peace treaty, an eventual overthrow of the Menshevik-dominated government of Georgia was both intended and planned. Stalin called his homeland the kept woman of the Western Powers, Georgian independence was seen as a propaganda victory for exiled Russian Mensheviks in Europe, the Bolsheviks couldnt long tolerate a viable Menshevik state on their own doorstep. By that time, the British expeditionary corps had completely evacuated the Caucasus, Soviet military intervention was not universally agreed upon in Moscow, and there was considerable disagreement among the Bolshevik leaders on how to deal with their southern neighbor. He strongly supported a military overthrow of the Georgian government and continuously urged Lenin to give his consent for an advance into Georgia. The Peoples Commissar of War, Leon Trotsky, strongly disagreed with what he described as a “premature intervention”, for many Bolsheviks, self-determination was increasingly seen as a diplomatic game which has to be played in certain cases. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks had already set up a Georgian Revolutionary Committee in Shulaveri, chaired by the Georgian Bolshevik Filipp Makharadze, the Revkom formally applied to Moscow for help. Disturbances also erupted in the town of Dusheti and among Ossetians in northeast Georgia who resented the Georgian governments refusal to grant them autonomy, Georgian forces managed to contain the disorders in some areas, but the preparations for a Soviet intervention were already being set in train. The ultimate decision was made at the 14 February meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and it was opposed by Karl Radek and was held secret from Trotsky who was in the Ural area at that time. Later Trotsky would reconcile himself to the fact and even defend the invasion in a special pamphlet
Red Army invasion of Georgia
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The Red Army in Tbilisi, Feb 25 1921
Red Army invasion of Georgia
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Mikhail Tukhachevsky with
Grigol Ordzhonikidze in the headquarters of the Soviet Caucasus Front, c. 1921
Red Army invasion of Georgia
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Georgian officers at the Headquarters of People’s Guard in Tbilisi
Red Army invasion of Georgia
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The 11th Red Army occupies Tbilisi. 25 February 1921
34.
Red Army
–
The Workers and Peasants Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army is credited as being the land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote, There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, at the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters,1.8 million dead,5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners and he estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. Therefore, the Council of Peoples Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918 and they envisioned a body formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes. All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible, in the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary. Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations, some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army, men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages, in some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy, Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as peoples commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars, at a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked, We have no army. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies and we have no power to stay the enemy, only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledins Volunteer Army in the River Don region, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics. The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a series of engagements resulted, involving, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. The Whites defeated the Red Army on each front, Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked, the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchaks army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted, in January 1920, Budennys First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923 At the wars start, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments, Civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, removing Russia from the Great War
Red Army
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Red Guards unit of the Vulkan factory
Red Army
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Soviet Armed Forces
Red Army
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Vladimir Lenin,
Klim Voroshilov,
Leon Trotsky and soldiers,
Petrograd, 1921
Red Army
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Soviet tanks in the
Battle of Khalkhin Gol, August 1939
35.
Georgian SSR
–
Georgia, formally the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Georgia was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its inception in 1922 to its breakup in 1991. From November 18,1989, the Georgian SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws, geographically, the Georgian SSR was bordered by Turkey to the south-west and the Black Sea to the west. Within the Soviet Union it bordered the Russian SFSR to the north, Armenian SSR to the south, on November 28,1917, after the October Revolution in Russia, there was a Transcaucasian Commissariat established in Tiflis. A moderate, multi-party democratic system led by the Social Democratic Party of Georgia operated in the Democratic Republic of Georgia, but in February 1921, the Red Army invaded Georgia. The Socialist Soviet Republic of Georgia was established on February 25,1921, on March 2 of the following year the first constitution of Soviet Georgia was accepted. From March 12,1922 to December 5,1936 it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR, in 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved. In 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved and Georgia became the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, lavrentiy Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and purged Georgia until he was transferred to Moscow in 1938. Reaching the Caucasus oilfields was one of the objectives of Hitlers invasion of the USSR in June 1941. The country contributed almost 700,000 fighters to the Red Army and he abolished their respective autonomous republics. The Georgian SSR was briefly granted some of their territory until 1957, the decentralisation program introduced by Khrushchev in the mid-1950s was soon exploited by Georgian Communist Party officials to build their own regional power base. A thriving pseudo-capitalist shadow economy emerged alongside the official state-owned economy, corruption was at a high level. Among all the republics, Georgia had the highest number of residents with high or special secondary education. Although corruption was hardly unknown in the Soviet Union, it became so widespread, shevardnadze ascended to the post of First Secretary with the blessings of Moscow. He was an effective and able ruler of Georgia from 1972 to 1985, improving the official economy, Soviet power and Georgian nationalism clashed in 1978 when Moscow ordered revision of the constitutional status of the Georgian language as Georgias official state language. Bowing to pressure from street demonstrations on April 14,1978. April 14 was established as a Day of the Georgian Language, on April 9,1989, Soviet troops were used to break up a peaceful demonstration at the government building in Tbilisi. Twenty Georgians were killed and hundreds wounded and poisoned, the event radicalised Georgian politics, prompting many - even some Georgian communists - to conclude that independence was preferable to continued Soviet unity. On October 28,1990, democratic elections were held
Georgian SSR
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Map of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1931-1943
Georgian SSR
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Flag
36.
Korenizatsiya
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The term derives from the Russian term коренное население for indigenous nationals. Not only was the cadre of the titular nations to be promoted at all levels. In most cases korenizatsiya was preceded by the delimitation of nationality-based borders for administrative, the nationalities policy was formulated by the Bolshevik party in 1913, four years before they came to power in Russia. Vladimir Lenin sent a young Joseph Stalin to Vienna, at the time a very ethnically diverse city, Stalin reported back to Moscow with the ideas for the policy. It was summarized in Stalins pamphlet, Marxism and the National Question, ironically Stalin would also be the major proponent of its eventual dismemberment and the reemergence of Russification. For example, in Ukraine in the late 1920s there were even natssoviety for Russians and Estonians and this policy was meant to partially reverse decades of Russification, or promotion of Russian identity culture and language in non-Russian territories that had taken place during the imperial period. It won over many previously anti-bolshevik non-Russians throughout the country and it also provoked hostility among some Russians and Russified non-Russians in non-Russian republics. In 1920s, the society was still not Socialist, there was animosity towards the Russians and towards other nationalities on the part of the Russians, but there were also conflicts and rivalries among other nationalities. In 1923 at the 12th Party Congress, Stalin identified two threats to the success of the nationalities policy, Great Power Chauvinism and local nationalism. However, he described the former as the danger, Great-Russian chauvinist spirit. Expression in an arrogantly disdainful and heartlessly bureaucratic attitude on the part of Russian Soviet officials towards the needs, hence, the first immediate task of our Party is vigorously to combat the survivals of Great-Russian chauvinism. The main danger, Great-Russian chauvinism, should be kept in check by the Russians themselves, on the central level the nationalities should be represented in the Soviet of Nationalities. The main idea of the Korenizatsiya was to grow communist cadres for every nationality, by the mid-1930s the percentage of locals in both the party and state service grew considerably. The initial period of korenizatsiya went together with the development of administrative units. The latter was reflected above all in the areas of construction and education. And in the very large Ukrainian Republic, the program of Ukrainianization led to a shift of the language of instruction in schools to Ukrainian. In 1930, Stalin proclaimed at the 16th Party Congress that building socialism was a period of blossoming of national cultures, the final goal would be to merge into one international culture with a common language. Meanwhile, the first Five-Year Plan in 1928–1931 was a period of radicalism, utopianism, Russian cultural heritage was under attack, churches were closed, old specialists were dismissed, and science and art were proletarianized
Korenizatsiya
37.
Soviet Census (1989)
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The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants. In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States, although it was well behind China and India. In 1989, about half of the Soviet Unions total population lived in the Russian SFSR, almost two-thirds of the population was urban, leaving the rural population with some 34. 3%. In this way, its gradual increase continued, as shown by the represented by 47. 9%,56. 3% and 62. 3% of 1959,1970 and 1979 respectively. The previous postwar censuses, conducted in 1959,1970 and 1979, had enumerated 208,826,650,241,720,134, and 262,436,227 inhabitants respectively. In 1990, the Soviet Union was more populated than both the United States and Canada together, having some 40 million more inhabitants than the U. S. alone. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the next census was possibly planned for 1999. Research Guide to Russian and Soviet Censuses, Ithaca, Cornell University Press,1986, dewdney, Population change in the Soviet Union, 1979-1989, Geography, Vol.75, Pt.3, No. Subjects of Russia, on the www. statoids. com website
Soviet Census (1989)
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Census Logo
Soviet Census (1989)
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Soviet State Emblem
Soviet Census (1989)
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1989 Soviet census information pamphlet
Soviet Census (1989)
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1989 census form
38.
Georgian-Ossetian conflict
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The Georgian–Ossetian conflict is an ethno-political conflict over Georgias former autonomous region of South Ossetia, which evolved in 1989 and developed into a 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Despite a declared ceasefire and numerous peace efforts, the conflict remained unresolved, in August 2008, military tensions and clashes between Georgia and South Ossetian separatists erupted into the Russo-Georgian War. The conflict between Georgian and Ossetians dates back until at least 1918, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Georgia declared independence under Mensheviks, while the Bolsheviks took control of Russia. In June 1920, a Russian-sponsored Ossetian force attacked the Georgian Army, the Georgians responded vigorously and defeated the insurgents, with several Ossetian villages being burnt down and 20,000 Ossetians displaced in Soviet Russia. Eight months later, the Red Army successfully invaded Georgia, in the late 1980s, Ossetian nationalistic organization, Adamon Nikhas was created. On 10 November 1989, the South Ossetian Supreme Soviet asked the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic for the status of the region to be upgraded to that of autonomous republic. However this application was rejected on 16 November and the Georgians besieged Tskhinvali on 23 November 1989, South Ossetia declared about its state sovereignty on 20 September 1990. In October 1990, the Georgian parliamentary elections were boycotted by South Ossetia, on 11 December 1990, the Georgian Parliament passed a bill that effectively abolished South Ossetias autonomous status. Russia intervened and a state of emergency was declared in South Ossetia, on May 4,1991, the South Ossetian Parliament declared its intention to separate from Georgia and to unite with the North Ossetia, which was located within the borders of the Russian Federation. Amidst rising ethnic tensions, war broke out when Georgian forces entered the capital of South Ossetia, more than 2,000 people are believed to have been killed in the war. The separatists were helped by former Soviet military units, who by now had come under Russian command, approximately 100,000 Ossetians fled Georgia proper and South Ossetia, while 23,000 Georgians left South Ossetia. A ceasefire agreement was reached on 24 June 1992, while it ended the war, it did not deal with the status of South Ossetia. A Joint Control Commission for Georgian–Ossetian Conflict Resolution and peacekeeping force, the Ossetian de facto government controlled the region independently from Tbilisi. The JPKF’s activities were concentrated in the Conflict Zone, which included an area within a 15-km radius from Tskhinvali. The separatists retained control over the districts of Tskhinvali, Java, Znauri, the Tbilisi central government controlled the rest of Akhalgori and the Georgian villages in the Tskhinvali district. In 1996, the Ergneti market was opened and soon became the place where Georgians, in 1996, Lyudvig Chibirov won the presidential elections. This was followed up by meetings between President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, and de facto President of South Ossetia Chibirov. They met in Vladikavkaz in 1996, in Java in 1997 and these resulted in some positive developments as the talks about IDP return, economic development, a political solution to the issues, and the protection of the population in the conflict zone
Georgian-Ossetian conflict
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Detailed map of South Ossetia showing the secessionist and Georgian-controlled territories, November 2004.
Georgian-Ossetian conflict
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Location of South Ossetia (purple) within Georgia.
Georgian-Ossetian conflict
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Men from the 113th elite battalion of the Georgian Army charging up a hill where Ossetian rebels were entrenched.
Georgian-Ossetian conflict
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A Georgian sniper takes aim at Ossetian rebels.
39.
Sochi
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Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the Black Sea coast near the border between Georgia/Abkhazia and Russia. The area of the city proper is 176.77 square kilometers, according to the 2010 Census, the city had a permanent population of 343,334, up from 328,809 recorded in the 2002 Census, making it Russias largest resort city. Being part of the Caucasian Riviera, it is one of the few places in Russia with a subtropical climate, with warm to hot summers. It will also be one of the host cities for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Greater Sochi is elongated along the Black Sea coast for 145 kilometers. Sochi is in the north of Western Asia, falling on the side of the Greater Caucasus. Sochi is approximately 1,603 kilometers from Moscow, from the southwest, it is bordered by the Black Sea. The vast majority of the population of Sochi lives in a strip along the coast and is organized in independent microdistricts. The biggest of these microdistricts, from the northwest to the southeast, are Lazarevskoye, Loo, Dagomys, central Sochi, Khosta, Matsesta, the whole city is located on the slopes of the Western Caucasus which descend to the Black Sea and are cut by the rivers. The biggest rivers in Sochi are the Mzymta, which is in fact the longest Black Sea tributary in Russia, other rivers include the Ashe, the Psezuapse, the Sochi, the Khosta, and the Matsesta. The Psou River makes the border with Abkhazia, the northeastern part of the city belongs to the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve which is a World Heritage Site spanning vast areas in Krasnodar Krai and Adygea. Almost the whole area of the Greater Sochi, with the exception of the coast, Sochi has a humid subtropical climate with mild winters in the period from December to March and warm summers in the period from May to October. From the 6th to the 11th centuries, the area belonged to the kingdom of Lazica. The Christian settlements along the coast were destroyed by the invading Göktürks, Khazars, Mongols, the northern wall of an 11th-century Byzantine basilica still stands in the Loo Microdistrict. Provision of weapons and ammunition from abroad to the Circassians caused a conflict between the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom that occurred in 1836 over the mission of the Vixen. The Russians had no detailed knowledge of the area until Baron Feodor Tornau investigated the route from Gelendzhik to Gagra. At the outbreak of the Crimean War, the garrison was evacuated from Navaginsky in order to prevent its capture by the Turks, who effected a landing on Cape Adler soon after. The last battle of the Caucasian War took place at the Godlikh river on March 18,1864 O. S. where the Ubykhs were defeated by the Dakhovsky regiment of the Russian Army. On March 25,1864, the Dakhovsky fort was established on the site of the Navaginsky fort, the end of Caucasian War was proclaimed at Kbaade tract on June 2,1864, by the manifesto of Emperor Alexander II read aloud by Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia
Sochi
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Views of Sochi, Top:Sochi Summer (Zimny) Theater, 2nd left:A monument of Mikhael archangel in Kurorthy Prospekt, 2nd right:Sochi Rail Station, 3rd left:Svobodny Perevlok Cinema, 3rd right:Cathedral of the Sochi Archangel Mikhael, Bottom:Sochi Port
Sochi
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Location of Krasnodar Krai in Russia
Sochi
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Sochi seen from the Black Sea
Sochi
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Plan of Fort Alexandria at the mouth of Sochi, which initiated the city of Sochi
40.
Russo-Georgian War
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The Russo-Georgian War was a war between Georgia, Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The war took place in August 2008 following a period of worsening relations between Russia and Georgia, both constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region, which borders the Middle East and it was regarded as the first European war of the 21st century. The Republic of Georgia declared its independence in early 1991 as the Soviet Union began to fall apart, following the war, a joint peacekeeping force of Georgian, Russian, and Ossetian troops was stationed in the territory. Meanwhile, a stalemate developed in the region of Abkhazia. By August 1,2008, Ossetian separatists began shelling Georgian villages, to put an end to these deadly attacks and restore order, the Georgian Army was sent to the South Ossetian conflict zone on 7 August. Georgians took control of most of Tskhinvali, a separatist stronghold, Georgia later stated it was also responding to Russia moving non-peacekeeping units into the country. Russia accused Georgia of aggression against South Ossetia, and launched a land, air. Russian and Ossetian forces battled Georgian forces in and around South Ossetia for several days, Russian and Abkhaz forces opened a second front by attacking the Kodori Gorge held by Georgia. Russian naval forces blockaded part of the Georgian coast and this was the first war in history in which cyber warfare coincided with military action. An active information war was waged during and after the conflict. President of France Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated an agreement on 12 August. Russian forces temporarily occupied the Georgian cities of Zugdidi, Senaki, Poti, the South Ossetians destroyed most ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia and were responsible for an ethnic cleansing of Georgians. Russia recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as separate republics on 26 August, in response, Russia mostly completed its withdrawal of troops from Georgia proper on 8 October. In the aftermath, Russias international relations were largely unharmed, the war displaced 192,000 people and while many returned to their homes after the war,20,272 people remained displaced as of 2014. Russia has, since the war, occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia in violation of the agreement of August 2008. In the tenth century AD, Georgia for the first time emerged as a concept in the territories where the Georgian language was used to perform Christian rituals. After the Mongol invasions of the region, the Kingdom of Georgia eventually was broken up into several kingdoms, in the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire gradually annexed the Georgian lands
Russo-Georgian War
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Russian
BMP-2 from the
58th Army in South Ossetia
Russo-Georgian War
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Location of Georgia (including Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and Russian
North Caucasus
Russo-Georgian War
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Destroyed Georgian tank in Tskhinvali
Russo-Georgian War
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Georgian servicemen leaving South Ossetia (August 2008)
41.
Battle of Tskhinvali
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The Battle of Tskhinvali was a fight for the city of Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia. It was the major battle in the Russo-Georgian War. Georgian ground troops entered the city on early 8 August 2008 and their advance was stopped by South Ossetian militia and members of the Russian peacekeeping force stationed in the city. Russian combat troops began entering South Ossetia through the Roki tunnel, after being initially forced to withdraw, the Georgian troops made several attempts to retake the city. Due to the logistics of the terrain, the arrival of Russian reinforcements was slow. After fierce fighting, Georgian troops were forced to withdraw from the city on the evening of 10 August. On 11 August, all Georgian troops left South Ossetia, parts of Tskhinvali were devastated in the three-day fighting. Tskhinvali is located about 25 km from Gori, on 7 August 2008, the Georgian authorities received foreign intelligence reports about movement of Russian troops towards the Roki tunnel. According to Der Spiegel, the Georgian tanks were to advance to the Roki Tunnel to seal it off, the Georgian aircrafts target was only the Gupta bridge, which links the northern part of South Ossetia to its southern part where Tskhinvali is located. On the opposite side at the time, there were said to be 500 Russian soldiers and 500 South Ossetian fighters ready to defend Tskhinvali. The total strength of the separatist military and law enforcement personnel and it appears that during the night from August 7 to 8. Tbilisi intended to deliver strikes on the positions of the Russian peacekeepers, at 23,35 on 7 August, Georgian artillery units began firing smoke bombs into South Ossetia. Soon afterwards, at 23.50 Georgia opened fire against fixed, the interval was supposed to allow the civilian population to leave dangerous areas. The equipment used in the assault included 27 rocket launchers, 152-millimetre guns. He called for the Russian peacekeepers not to interfere, early on the morning of 8 August, Georgia launched a ground attack, as well as operations on the left and right flanks of Tskhinvali. The left flank operation was undertaken by the 4th Infantry Brigade coming from Vaziani and this was done in order to block Russian troops from travelling through the tunnel to Tskhinvali. Georgians seized several South Ossetian villages located on higher ground around the city, the artillery of the 4th Brigade began to shell targets inside Khetagurovo at 00,40. After several hours of bombardment Georgian forces began to advance towards Tskhinvali, South Ossetian forces employed artillery and mortars against Georgian troops massed near the village of Zemo-Nikozi, but the bombardment was ineffective
Battle of Tskhinvali
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Situation in South Ossetia before the war
Battle of Tskhinvali
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Movements of opposing forces around Tskhinvali. Blue arrows show Georgian movements, red show Russian movements
Battle of Tskhinvali
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Tskhinvali after the battle. The sign (in Russian) reads "Secondary school #6". August 2008.
Battle of Tskhinvali
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Russian peacekeepers base in Tskhinvali
42.
Kavkaz Center
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The Kavkaz Center is a privately run website/portal which aims to be a Chechen internet agency which is independent, international and Islamic. Since its inception it has broadcast views supporting independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and later the Caucasian Emirate, the website is published in five languages, English, Arabic, Ukrainian, Russian, and Turkish. The organisation is banned in Russia, according to Dr Greg Simons from Swedish National Defence College, not all of the content on Kavkazcenter can be classified as being extremist and dangerous. However, some material that appears on the website clearly is falling into the realm of extremist and terrorist material. The website subsequently re-opened on a webserver at the Internet service provider PRQ, in Sweden, another spam attack campaign was active again on November 29,2005, soliciting donations to a bank account in Sweden. In 2006, Russian journalist and regular KC contributor Boris Stomakhin was sentenced by a Moscow court to five years in prison for fueling religious hatred. Another Russian regular contributor, Pavel Lyuzakov, was sentenced to two years in a colony for illegally acquiring and possessing a firearm in 2005. Starting on 6 June 2012 and continuing for two months, Kavkaz Center was the target of a massive distributed denial of service attack that peaked at 45 million packets per second. The attack was said to be among the largest on record and took the agency’s main Sweden-based server, Russia has also pressured Swedish authorities to take down the web site which is hosted by PRQ, a company owned by the founders of The Pirate Bay. According to rulings of the bodies of the Russian Federation, materials published on the site are extremist. It was therefore included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials per Russian internet censorship law and blocked for viewing from Russia
Kavkaz Center
43.
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
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The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is the unrecognized secessionist government of the Chechen Republic. The republic was proclaimed in late 1991 by Dzhokhar Dudayev, and this change was rejected by some members of the former Chechen government-in-exile. Ichkeria was a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, diplomatic relations with Ichkeria were also established by the partially recognized Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the Taliban government on 16 January 2000. This recognition ceased with the fall of the Taliban in 2001, however, despite Taliban recognition, there were no friendly relations between the Taliban and Ichkeria—Maskhadov rejected their recognition, stating that the Taliban were illegitimate. In October 1991, he won the presidential election, Dudayev, in his new position as president of Ichkeria, unilaterally declared the republics sovereignty and its secession from the Soviet Union and Russia. Not recognized by any government except Georgia under Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the country has maintained an unstable existence, dudayevs government had created the constitution of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which was introduced on March 1992. In the same month, the opposition attempted a coup détat, a month later, Dudayev introduced direct presidential rule, and in June 1993, dissolved the parliament. After staging another coup attempt in December 1993, the organized a Provisional Council as a potential alternative government for Chechnya. However, the issue of contention was not independence from Russia, again, in 1995, during the heat of the First Chechen War, Khalid Delmayev, an anti-Dudayev belonging to an Ichkerian liberal coalition, stated that Chechnyas statehood may be postponed. Maskhadov sought to maintain Chechen sovereignty while pressing Moscow to help rebuild the republic, whose formal economy, Russia continued to send money for the rehabilitation of the republic, it also provided pensions and funds for schools and hospitals. Most of these transfers were stolen by corrupt Chechen authorities and divided between themselves and favoured warlords, nearly half a million people have been internally displaced and lived in refugee camps or overcrowded villages. Two Russian brigades were stationed in Chechnya and did not leave He took effort to rebuild the country, Chechnya had been badly damaged by the war and the economy was in a shambles. Aslan Maskhadov tried to power in his hands to establish authority. The war ravages and lack of economic opportunities left numbers of armed former guerrillas with no occupation, kidnappings became common in Chechnya, procuring over $200 million during the three year independence of the chaotic fledgling state, but victims were rarely killed. In 1998,176 people had kidnapped, and 90 of them had been released during the same year according to official accounts. There were several public executions of criminals, Maskhadov hoped that this would discredit the opposition, putting stability before his own ideological affinities. However, according to former Foreign Minister Ilyas Akhmadov, the public primarily supported Maskhadov, his Independence Party and this was exemplified by the much greater numbers in political rallies supporting the government than those supporting the Islamist opposition. President Maskhadov started a campaign against hostage-takers, and on 25 October 1998, Shadid Bargishev
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
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The first three
Presidents of Ichkeria Yandarbiyev,
Dudayev and
Maskhadov praying together in 1994.
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
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Flag
44.
Battle of the Kodori Valley
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The Battle of the Kodori Valley was a military operation during the Russo-Georgian War in the Upper Kodori Valley of Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. It was the part of Abkhazia, which was under Georgian control before this military conflict. On 9 August 2008, the Abkhaz military, with support by Russian forces, after three days, the Georgian military left the Upper Kodori Valley. Russia sent naval vessels to blockade Georgias Black Sea coast, according to the Russian navy, a group of ships from Russias Black Sea Fleet, including the flagship Moskva missile cruiser, arrived on 10 August 2008 near the Georgian border. The source in the Russian Navys headquarters claimed, that the purpose of the Black Sea Fleet vessels presence in this region is to aid to refugees. On 10 August 2008, the Georgian government said, that 6,000 Russian troops had rolled into South Ossetia from the neighbouring Russian province of North Ossetia and 4,000 more landed in Abkhazia. On the morning of 9 August 2008, the Abkhaz de facto deputy defense minister requested, UNOMIG then withdrew all 15 observers from the Upper Kodori Valley. The Abkhaz de facto authorities announced a decision, taken by president Bagapsh, on the afternoon, UNOMIG reported aerial bombardments of Georgian villages in the Upper Kodori Valley. On 10 August, the president of Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapsh and he gave both Georgian civilians and armed personnel an ultimatum to leave the Upper Kodori Valley. He also said, that the government of Abkhazia had requested Russia to take measures to strengthen the Abkhaz maritime border, Bagapsh said, that his decision to start a military operation against the Upper Kodori Valley was approved by the parliament. A second front against Georgia was opened, in a separate report by Interfax news agency, Sergei Bagapsh said, that its aviation is currently conducting an operation in the upper part of the Kodori gorge of Abkhazia controlled by Georgia. Shamba also said, Today was only the part of the operation by heavy artillery supported by aviation. Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili was quoted by the Itar-Tass agency as saying that Georgia had defeated all attacks on the part of the Kodori gorge. On 10 August Abkhaz warplanes and artillery continued to pound Georgian positions for a day in a row. Bagapsh said, Abkhazia was acting independently, the separatist authorities of Abkhazia announced a full military mobilisation. The president of Abkhazia said, that around 1,000 special Abkhaz troops were involved in operations against Georgian forces and they were attacking the Georgians using warplanes, multiple rocket launchers and artillery. The operation will enter the next phase as planned, and you will learn about that, he said, adding that he would create a humanitarian corridor, allowing residents to flee. On 11 August 2008, the Abkhaz defense minister, Mirab Kishmaria, told the Russian news agency Interfax, on 12 August 2008, Abkhaz authorities announced a military offensive against Georgian troops in the Kodori gorge
Battle of the Kodori Valley
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Map of Abkhazia, showing the location of the Kodori Valley.
45.
Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia
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The Human Rights Watch concluded that the South Ossetian forces sought to ethnically cleanse the Georgian-populated areas. Between 1989 and 1992, fighting flared in the South Ossetian A. O. South Ossetia declared its independence from Georgia. In turn, Georgia abolished South Ossetian autonomous status, which existed since early Soviet years, the Georgian government, led by the president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, responded by sending in army and paramilitary units, in an attempt to restore its control of the region. On the night of 5 January 1991,6,000 armed Georgians entered Tskhinvali, after fierce street fighting, the Georgian forces were repelled and driven out of Tshkinvali by South Ossetian troops. 100 villages were destroyed in South Ossetia. Additionally, the North Ossetia-Georgian border went largely uncontrolled, providing an almost unhindered access point for weapons, fighters, there are 15,000 Georgians living here, just in Vladikavkaz. We stopped this, no one fled. The attacks — some witnessed by reporters or documented by a rights group — include stealing. Some are ethnically motivated, while at least some of the looting appears to be the work of opportunistic profiteers, the identities of the attackers vary, but a pattern of violence by ethnic Ossetians against ethnic Georgians is emerging and has been confirmed by some Russian authorities. Now Ossetians are running around and killing poor Georgians in their enclaves, said Major-General Vyacheslav Borisov, the Human rights monitors found evidence of the burning of houses, attacks on civilians and forced displacement of the Georgian population as late as Friday 17 October. The material collected describes 16 alleged cases of killings of civilians, in controlled by Russian forces. Such deliberate attacks are war crimes, and if committed as part of a widespread or systematic pattern, according to the HRW,15,000 of 17,500 Georgians left South Ossetia prior to the arrival of the Russian soldiers. Gave the following answer, We do not intend to let anybody in here anymore, the Economist also quoted a South Ossetian intelligence officer as follows, We burned these houses. We want to make sure that they cant come back, because if they do come back, this will be a Georgian enclave again, ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia Humanitarian impact of the 2008 South Ossetia war
Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia
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Georgian refugees from South Ossetia in Tbilisi on August 10, 2008.
Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia
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A picture from a South Ossetian government website depicting South Ossetian civilians killed by Georgian forces in May 1992
Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia
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The Tserovani settlement built by the Georgian government for the IDPs from South Ossetia
46.
Improvised explosive device
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An improvised explosive device is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional explosives, such as an artillery round. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, IEDs are generally seen in heavy terrorist actions or in unconventional warfare by guerrillas or commando forces in a theater of operations. In the second Iraq War, IEDs were used extensively against US-led invasion forces and they are also used in Afghanistan by insurgent groups, and have caused over 66% of coalition casualties in the 2001–present Afghanistan War. IEDs were also used extensively by cadres of the rebel Tamil Tiger organization against military targets in Sri Lanka, an IED is a bomb fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy or incapacitate personnel or vehicles. In some cases, IEDs are used to distract, disrupt, or delay an opposing force, IEDs may incorporate military or commercially sourced explosives, and often combine both types, or they may otherwise be made with homemade explosives. An IED has five components, a switch, an initiator, container, charge, an IED designed for use against armoured targets such as personnel carriers or tanks will be designed for armour penetration, by using a shaped charge that creates an explosively formed penetrator. IEDs are extremely diverse in design and may contain many types of initiators, detonators, penetrators, antipersonnel IEDs typically also contain fragmentation-generating objects such as nails, ball bearings or even small rocks to cause wounds at greater distances than blast pressure alone could. IEDs are triggered by various methods, including remote control, infrared or magnetic triggers, in some cases, multiple IEDs are wired together in a daisy chain to attack a convoy of vehicles spread out along a roadway. IEDs made by inexperienced designers or with substandard materials may fail to detonate, the sophistication of an IED depends on the training of the designer and the tools and materials available. IEDs may use artillery shells or conventional high-explosive charges as their explosive load as well as homemade explosives, chlorine liquid has been added to IEDs in Iraq, producing clouds of chlorine gas. A vehicle-borne IED, or VBIED, is a term for a car bomb or truck bomb but can be any type of transportation such as a bicycle, motorcycle, donkey. They are typically employed by insurgents, and can carry a large payload. They can also be detonated from a remote location, vBIEDs can create additional shrapnel through the destruction of the vehicle itself and use vehicle fuel as an incendiary weapon. The act of a persons being in this vehicle and detonating it is known as an SVBIED suicide, the fougasse was improvised for centuries, eventually inspiring factory-made land mines. Ernst Jünger mentions in his war memoir the systematic use of IEDs, another early example of coordinated large-scale use of IEDs was the Belarusian Rail War launched by Belarusian guerrillas against the Germans during World War II. Both command-detonated and delayed-fuse IEDs were used to derail thousands of German trains during 1943–1944, starting six months before the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR on 27 December 1979, the Afghan Mujahideen were supplied with large quantities of military supplies. Among those supplies were many types of anti-tank mines, the insurgents often removed the explosives from several foreign anti-tank mines, and combined the explosives in tin cooking-oil cans for a more powerful blast
Improvised explosive device
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Ammunition rigged for an IED discovered by
Iraqi police in Baghdad in November 2005
Improvised explosive device
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This
Cougar in Al Anbar, Iraq, was hit by a directed charge IED approximately 300–500 lbs in size.
Improvised explosive device
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A
portable X-ray generator and a portable
flat panel detector are used to inspect a suspicious carrying case.
Improvised explosive device
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U.S. Marines with Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) destroy an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) cache in southern
Afghanistan in June 2010.
47.
Andrey Illarionov
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Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov is a Russian economist and former economic policy advisor to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. He works as a fellow in the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute in Washington. Illarionov was born on 16 September 1961, in Sestroretsk, Leningrad Oblast, at seventeen he started working at a communications office in the town of Sestroretsk. He then went on to study economics at the Leningrad State University, graduating in 1983, from 1983 to 1984, and again from 1988 to 1990 Illarionov taught for the International Economic Relations Department of Leningrad State University. From 1990 to 1992 he was researcher at the Regional Economic Research Department of the Saint Petersburg State University of Economics. He has created the Institute for Economic Analysis and was its director from 1994 to 2000, Illarionov had called for a sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble before the August 1998 financial meltdown to prevent it. On 3 January 2005 Illarionov resigned from his position as representative to the G8. On 21 December 2005, Illarionov declared This year Russia has become a different country and it is no longer a democratic country. It is no longer a free country, the Washington Post reported that he had cited a recent report by the U. S. -based and government sponsored Freedom House. On 27 December 2005, Illarionov offered his resignation in protest against the government course, saying that Russia was no longer politically free and it is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the system has changed. He also claimed that he had no ability to influence the governments course. Illarionov has also been a proponent of secession of Chechnya, in October 2006, Illarionov was appointed senior researcher of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity of the US libertarian think tank Cato Institute in Washington, DC. On 14 April 2007, and 9 June 2007, Illarionov took part in opposition Dissenters Marches in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Illarionov is one of the 34 first signatories of the online anti-Putin manifesto Putin must go, published on 10 March 2010. Illarionov was able to end the cooperation between Klaus and the Cato Institute, Illarionov has questioned the official Russian version of the Russian-Georgian war over Georgias breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He has suggested that the war was premeditated by the Russian leadership which had introduced its military into South Ossetia, Illarionov has also stated that Moscows bellicose rhetoric scared away investors and was in part responsible for the 2008 Russian financial crisis. He has heavily criticized both Western and Russian government plans to ease the credit crunch, saying they amounted to a bailout of bad decisions made by the private sector. But if Putin is not stopped, the issue will be sooner or later
Andrey Illarionov
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Illarionov in 2003
48.
Don Cossacks
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Don Cossacks are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don. As of 1992, by the decree of the Russian Federation. A number of Cossack communities have been reconstituted to further the Cossack cultural traditions, Don Cossacks have had a rich military tradition, playing an important part in the historical development of the Russian Empire and participating in most of its major wars. The name Cossack was widely used to free people as opposed to others with different standing in a feudal society. The word cossack was also applied to migrants, free-booters and bandits, the exact origins of Cossacks are unknown. More than two years ago the Scythians lived on the banks of the river Don. Many Scythian tombs have found in this area. Subsequently, the area was inhabited by the Khazars and the Polovtsians, the steppes of the Don River were called The Wild Field. The area was under the control of the Golden Horde. The first Christians to settle on the territories around the Don were the Jassi, after the fall of the Golden Horde in 1480, more Russian colonists started to expand onto this land from the Novgorod Republic after the Battle of Shelon and from neighboring Principality of Ryazan. Until the end of the 16th century, the Don Cossacks inhabited independent free territories, Cossacks of Ryazan are mentioned in 1444 as a defenders of Pereslavl-Zalessky against the units of Golden Horde and in a letter of Ivan III of Russia since 1502. After the Golden Horde fell in 1480, the area around the Don River was divided between the Crimean west side and the Nogai east side, in the course of time they turned into a united community and were called the Cossacks. At first the main occupation of these armed detachments was hunting and fishing—as well as the constant struggle against the Turks. Only later they began to settle and work on the land, the first records relating to the Cossack villages, the stanitsa, date back to 1549. In the year 1552 Don Cossacks under the command of Ataman Susar Fedorov joined the Army of Ivan the Terrible during the Siege of Kazan in 1552. On 2 June 1556 the Cossack regiment of Ataman Lyapun Filimonov, together with the Army of Moscovits comprising strelets, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the ataman Yermak Timofeyevich went on an expedition to conquer Siberia. After defeating Khan Kuchum in the fall of 1582 and occupying Isker, the detachment led by Bogdan Bryazga, passed through the lands of the Konda-Pelym Voguls and reached the walls of the town of Samarovo. Taken by surprise by the attack, the Ostyaks surrendered
Don Cossacks
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Flag of the Don Cossacks. [
citation needed]
Don Cossacks
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Don cossacks in Paris in 1814
Don Cossacks
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1915 drawing from
The War Illustrated showing a charging Don Cossack. The figure is portrayed in peacetime dress uniform
