1.
Russia
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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
2.
Ivan the Terrible
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Ivan IV Vasilyevich, commonly known as Ivan the Terrible or Ivan the Fearsome, was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547, then Tsar of All the Russias until his death in 1584. The last title was used by all his successors, during his reign, Russia conquered the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan and Sibir, becoming a multiethnic and multicontinental state spanning approximately 4,050,000 km2. Ivan exercised autocratic control over Russias hereditary nobility and developed a bureaucracy to administer his new territories and he transformed Russia from a medieval state into an empire, though at immense cost to its people, and its broader, long-term economy. In one such outburst, he killed his son and heir Ivan Ivanovich and this left his younger son, the pious but politically ineffectual Feodor Ivanovich, to inherit the throne. Ivan was a diplomat, a patron of arts and trade. He was popular among Russias commoners, except possibly the people of Novgorod and surrounding areas, the English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word grozny in Ivans nickname, but this is a somewhat archaic translation. The Russian word grozny reflects the older English usage of terrible as in inspiring fear or terror, dangerous, powerful and it does not convey the more modern connotations of English terrible, such as defective or evil. Vladimir Dal defines grozny specifically in archaic usage and as an epithet for tsars, courageous, magnificent, magisterial and keeping enemies in fear, other translations have also been suggested by modern scholars. Ivan was the first son of Vasili III and his wife, Elena Glinskaya. When Ivan was three years old, his father died from an abscess and inflammation on his leg that developed into blood poisoning, Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscow at the request of his father. His mother Elena Glinskaya initially acted as regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination by poison, the regency then alternated between several feuding boyar families fighting for control. According to his own letters, Ivan, along with his younger brother Yuri, on 16 January 1547, at age sixteen, Ivan was crowned with Monomakhs Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition. He was the first to be crowned as Tsar of All the Russias, prior to that, rulers of Muscovy were crowned as Grand Princes, although Ivan III the Great, his grandfather, styled himself tsar in his correspondence. Two weeks after his coronation, Ivan married his first wife Anastasia Romanovna, a member of the Romanov family, who became the first Russian tsaritsa. By being crowned Tsar, Ivan was sending a message to the world and to Russia, he was now the one and only ruler of the country. The new title symbolized an assumption of powers equivalent and parallel to those held by former Byzantine Emperor, the political effect was to elevate Ivans position. The new title not only secured the throne, but it also granted Ivan a new dimension of power and he was now a divine leader appointed to enact Gods will, as church texts described Old Testament kings as Tsars and Christ as the Heavenly Tsar. The newly appointed title was passed on from generation to generation
3.
Sergei Eisenstein
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Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a Soviet film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and October, as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. Eisenstein was born to a family in Riga, Latvia. His father, Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein was born to a German Jewish father who had converted to Christianity, Osip Eisenstein, and his mother, Julia Ivanovna Konetskaya, was from a Russian Orthodox family. According to other sources, both of his grandparents were of Baltic German descent. His father was an architect and his mother was the daughter of a prosperous merchant, Julia left Riga the same year as the Russian Revolution of 1905, taking Sergei with her to St. Petersburg. Her son would return at times to see his father, who joined them around 1910, divorce followed and Julia left the family to live in France. Eisenstein was raised as an Orthodox Christian, but became an atheist later on, at the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering, Sergei studied architecture and engineering, the profession of his father. In 1918 Sergei left school and joined the Red Army to serve the Bolshevik Revolution and this brought his father to Germany after the defeat of the Tsarist government, and Sergei to Petrograd, Vologda, and Dvinsk. In 1920, Sergei was transferred to a position in Minsk. At this time, he was exposed to Kabuki theatre and studied Japanese, learning some 300 kanji characters and these studies would lead him to travel to Japan. In 1920 Eisenstein moved to Moscow, and began his career in working for Proletkult. His productions there were entitled Gas Masks, Listen Moscow, Eisenstein would then work as a designer for Vsevolod Meyerhold. In 1923 Eisenstein began his career as a theorist, by writing The Montage of Attractions for LEF, Eisensteins first film, Glumovs Diary, was also made in that same year with Dziga Vertov hired initially as an instructor. Strike was Eisensteins first full-length feature film, the Battleship Potemkin was acclaimed critically worldwide. Officially, the trip was supposed to allow Eisenstein and company to learn about sound motion pictures, for Eisenstein, however, it was also an opportunity to see landscapes and cultures outside those found within the Soviet Union. He spent the two years touring and lecturing in Berlin, Zürich, London, and Paris. In 1929, in Switzerland, Eisenstein supervised an educational documentary about abortion directed by Tissé entitled Frauennot - Frauenglück, in late April 1930, Jesse L. Lasky, on behalf of Paramount Pictures, offered Eisenstein the opportunity to make a film in the United States
4.
Tsar
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Tsar /zɑːr/ or /tsɑːr/, also spelled tzar, csar, or czar, is a title used to designate certain Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, occasionally, the word could be used to designate other secular supreme rulers. Simeon II, the last Tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have borne the title Tsar, the title Tsar is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors, Caesar. In the history of the Greek language, basileus had originally meant something like potentate and it gradually approached the meaning of king in the Hellenistic Period, and it came to designate emperor after the inception in the Roman Empire. Thus, tsar was not only used as an equivalent of Latin imperator but was used to refer to Biblical rulers. From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages, thus, the Bulgarian language and Russian language no longer use tsar as an equivalent of the term emperor/imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. Currently, the term refers to native sovereigns, ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales. The title of king is sometimes perceived as alien and is by some Russian-speakers reserved for European royalty, foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called imperator, rather than tsar. Biblical rulers in Serbian are called цар and in Croatian kralj, in the Polish language however tsar is always used as imperator, never as king. The term tsar is very used to refer to the Russian rulers after Peter the Great. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title, the sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the tsar was actually adopted and used for the first time by his son Simeon I. Since in Byzantine political theory there was place for two emperors, Eastern and Western, the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as a spiritual son of the Byzantian basileus. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated Emperor of Zagora, various additional epithets and descriptions apart, the official style read Emperor and autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks. During the five-century period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the sultan was referred to as tsar. This may be related to the fact that he had claimed the legacy of the Byzantine Empire or to the fact that the sultan was called Basileus in medieval Greek, after Bulgarias liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first autonomous prince. With the declaration of independence, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the traditional title tsar in 1908. However, these titles were not generally perceived as equivalents of emperor any longer, in the Bulgarian as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shifted
5.
Boyar
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The rank has lived on as a surname in Russia, Ukraine and Romania, and also in Finland, where it is spelled Pajari. Also known as bolyar, the various names in other languages include Bulgarian, боляр or болярин, Ukrainian, буй or боярин, Russian, боя́рин. Multiple different derivation theories of the word have been suggested by scholars and linguists, such as it having possible roots from old Turkic, bai and är. Another possible etymology of the term it may come from the Romanian word boi, the title entered Old Russian as быля. It was probably transformed through boilar or bilyar to bolyar and bolyarin, a member of the nobility during the First Bulgarian Empire was called a boila, while in the Second Bulgarian Empire, the corresponding title became bolyar or bolyarin. Bolyar, as well as its predecessor, boila, was a hereditary title, the Bulgarian bolyars were divided into veliki and malki. Presently in Bulgaria, the word bolyari is used as a nickname for the inhabitants of Veliko Tarnovo—once the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. In medieval Serbia, the rank of the Boyars was equivalent to the rank of the Baron, meaning free warrior, with the rule of the Ottoman Empire after 1450, the Ottoman as well as the Austro-Hungarian terms exchanged the Serbian one. Today, it is a term representing the aristocracy. Boyars 9th - 13th centuries, wielded power through their military support of the Kievan princes. Power and prestige of many of them, however, soon came to depend almost completely on service to the state, family history of service and, to a lesser extent, land ownership. Boyars of Kievan Rus were visually similar to knights, but after the Mongol invasion. The boyars occupied the highest state offices and, through a council and they received extensive grants of land and, as members of the Boyars Duma, were the major legislators of Kievan Rus. After the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, the boyars from central and southern parts of Kievan Rus were incorporated into Lithuanian, during the 14th and 15th centuries, the boyars of Moscow had considerable influence that continued from the Muscovy period. However, starting with the reign of Ivan III, the boyars were starting to lose that influence to the tsars in Russia. Because of Ivan III’s expansionist policies, administrative changes were needed in order to ease the burden of governing Muscovy, the face of provincial rule disappeared. What is interesting about the boyars is their implied duties, because boyars were not constitutionally instituted, much of their powers and duties came from agreements signed between princes. Agreements, such as one between Ivan III and Mikhail Borisovich in 1484 showed how allegiances needed to be earned and secured, instead of the grand prince personally overseeing his lands, he had to rely on his lieutenants and close advisors to oversee day-to-day operations
6.
Vologda
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Vologda is a city and the administrative, cultural, and scientific center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the Vologda River within the watershed of the Northern Dvina. The city serves as a transport hub of the Northwest of Russia. The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation has classified Vologda as a city, one of forty-one in Russia. 224 buildings in Vologda have been recognized as cultural heritage monuments. Two conflicting theories exist as to the date of Vologdas foundation, the year 1147 is the official date first fixed in 1780 by Alexey Zasetsky in his book Stories about miracles of Gerasimus of Vologda. The story mentions that in 1147 the Trinity Monastery was founded close to the Vologda River, the date of the foundation of the monastery is then taken as the date of the foundation of the city of Vologda and is mentioned in official city documents. This date, which would make Vologda to be of the age as Moscow, is, however. The story was written in 1666 by a certain Foma. Foma himself admitted that he had no sufficient data on the biography, the story contains many contradicting details. Besides, the life in the Russian north was not known in the 12th century. Archeological excavations do not confirm this date either, instead, they demonstrate that the city of Vologda was founded in the 13th century. The year 1264 was the first mention of Vologda when it was included in the list of possessions of the Novgorod Republic in the agreement between the Republic and the Grand Prince of Vladimir and this date is also supported by archaeological data. The nucleus of Vologda in the 13th century was not located in the area which is now the city center and this area was the center of Vologda up to 1565. Until that year, no stone constructions existed in Vologda, all of the city fortifications, bridges, houses, churches, and industrial enterprises were made of wood. In 1371, Dmitry Prilutsky, a monk from the Nikolsky Monastery in Pereslavl-Zalessky, founded Nikolsky Monastery, now known as Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery, in 1397, during the reign of Vasily I, Vologda was added to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Subsequently, the city was several times attacked by Novgorod forces, during the Muscovite Civil War, Vologda played a key role. From there Vasily traveled to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery where the hegumen released him from the oath, the civil war continued, and in 1450, Vologda was besieged by the troops of Dmitry Shemyaka, however, they did not manage to occupy the town. After the death of Vasily in 1462, Vologda passed to the possession of his son Andrey Menshoy and became the center of the Principality of Vologda
7.
Rurik dynasty
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The Rurik dynasty or Rurikids was a dynasty founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year AD862. They ruled until 1610 and the Time of Troubles, following which they were succeeded by the Romanovs and they are one of Europes oldest royal houses, with numerous existing cadet branches. The Rurikid dynasty was founded in 862 by Rurik, a Varangian prince, come and reign as princes and have authority over us. Three brothers came with their kin and all the Rus in response to this invitation, Rurik set up rule in Novgorod, giving more provincial towns to his brothers. The Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project of FamilyTreeDNA commercial genetic genealogy company reports that Y-DNA testing of the descendants of Rurikids suggests their non-Slavic origin, Rurik and his brothers founded a state that later historians called Kievan Rus′. By the middle of the century, Kievan Rus′ had dissolved into independent principalities. The dynasty followed agnatic seniority and the izgoi principle, in addition, a line of Polotsk princes assimilated themselves with the princes of Lithuania. In the 10th century the Council of Liubech made some amendments to a succession rule, vsevolods line eventually became better known as the Monomakhovychi and was the predominant one. The line of Svyatoslav later became known as Olegovychi and often claim to the lands of Chernihiv. The Izyaslavychi who ruled Turov and Volhynia were eventually replaced by a Monomakhovychi branch, the Rurikid dynasty… attempted to impose on their highly diverse polity the integrative concept of russkaia zemlia and the unifying notion of a Rus′ people. But Kievan Rus′ was never really a unified polity and it was a loosely bound, ill-defined, and heterogeneous conglomeration of lands and cities inhabited by tribes and populous groups whose loyalties were primarily territorial. This caused the Rurik dynasty to effectively dissolve into several sub-dynasties ruling smaller states in the 10th and 11th centuries and these were the Olgoviches of Severia who ruled in Chernigov, Yuryeviches who controlled Vladimir-Suzdal, and Romanoviches in Galicia-Volhynia. The Olgoviches descended from Oleg I of Chernigov, a son of Sviatoslav II of Kiev and they continued to rule until the early 14th century when they were torn apart by the emerging Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Grand Duchy of Moscow. Vsevolod I of Kiev was the father of Vladimir II Monomakh, two of Vladimir IIs sons were Mstislav I of Kiev and Yuri Dolgorukiy. The Romanoviches were the line of Roman the Great, descended from Mstislav I of Kiev through his son Iziaslav II of Kiev and his grandson Mstislav II of Kiev, father of Roman the Great. The older Monomakhovychi line that ruled Principality of Volhynia, they were crowned kings of Galicia and Volhynia. Romanovychi displaced the line of Izyaslavychi from Turov and Volhynia as well as Rostyslavychi from Galicia. The last were two brothers of Romanovychi, Andrew and Lev II, who ruled jointly and were trying to repel Mongol incursions
8.
Time of Troubles
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In 1601–03, Russia suffered a famine that killed one-third of the population, about two million. At the time, during the Polish–Muscovite War, Russia was occupied by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Godunovs short reign was not as successful as his administration under the weak Feodor. Extremely poor harvests were encountered in 1601–03, with night temperatures in all summer months often below freezing, wrecking crops. The probable cause of changes was the eruption of Huaynaputina volcano in Peru in 1600. Under the influence of the nobles who had unsuccessfully opposed the election of Godunov. Rumours circulated that the tsars younger brother Dmitri, thought to be dead, was still alive. In 1603 a man calling himself Dmitri—first of the so-called False Dmitris—and professing to be the heir to the throne. He attracted support both in Russia and outside its borders, particularly in the Polish Commonwealth and the Papal States, False Dmitri was married per procura to Marina Mniszech, and immediately after Godunovs death in 1605, he made his triumphal entry into Moscow. The reign of False Dimitri was short, before a year had passed, Vasily Shuisky, an ambitious Rurikid prince, formed a conspiracy against him. His forces murdered False Dimitri soon after his marriage in the Moscow Kremlin, together with many of his supporters, Shuisky and his men were estimated to have killed 2,000 Poles. The reaction to the massacre in Poland was strong, but the government decided to postpone revenge against those responsible, like his predecessor, he enjoyed the protection and support of the Polish–Lithuanian magnates. After Shuisky signed an alliance with Sweden, the king of the Commonwealth, Sigismund III, seeing the Russian–Swedish alliance as a threat, resolved to intervene, Polish–Lithuanian troops crossed the Russian borders and laid siege to the fortress of Smolensk. After the combined Russo–Swedish forces were destroyed at the Battle of Klushino, before False Dmitri II could gain the throne, the Polish commander, voivode, and magnate Stanisław Żółkiewski, put forward a rival candidate, Sigismunds son, Władysław. Some people in Moscow swore allegiance to him on condition of his maintaining Orthodoxy, on this understanding, they allowed Polish troops to enter the city and occupy the Kremlin. The Polish king opposed the compromise, deciding to take the throne for himself, the contending factions were opposed and his plan aroused the anti-Catholic and anti-Polish feelings in Russia. The Swedes disapproved as they were rivals of the Poles on the Baltic coast and they declared war on Russia, supporting a false Dmitri of their choice in Ivangorod. Russia was in a critical condition, tens of thousands died in battles and riots, on 17–19 March 1611, the Poles and German mercenaries suppressed riots in Moscow, they massacred 7,000 Muscovites and set the city on fire. Many other cities were devastated or weakened
9.
Christian III of Denmark
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Christian III reigned as king of Denmark from 1534 until his death and Norway from 1537 until his death. During his reign, Christian established Lutheranism as the religion within his realms as part of the Protestant Reformation. Christian was the eldest son of future king Frederick I and Anna of Brandenburg and he was born at Gottorf Castle which Frederick I had made a primary residence. In 1514, when he was just ten years old, Christians mother died, four years later, his father remarried to Sophie of Pomerania. In 1523, Frederick I was elected king of Denmark in the place of his nephew, the young prince Christians first public service after his father became king was gaining the submission of Copenhagen, which stood firm for the fugitive Christian II. As stadtholder of the Duchies of Holstein and Schleswig in 1526, Christians earliest teacher, Wolfgang von Utenhof, and his Lutheran tutor, the military general Johann Rantzau, were both zealous reformers who had an influence on the young prince. At their urging, while traveling in Germany in 1521, he made present at the Diet of Worms to hear Martin Luther speak. The prince made no secret of his Lutheran views and his outspokenness brought him into conflict, not only with the Roman Catholic Rigsraad, but also with his cautious and temporizing father. At his own court at Schleswig he did his best to introduce the Protestant Reformation and he made the Lutheran Church the State Church of Schleswig-Holstein with the Church Ordinance of 1528. After his fathers death, in 1533, Christian was proclaimed king at an assembly in Rye, Christian II had supported both the Roman Catholics and Protestant Reformers at various times. In opposition to King Christian III, Count Christopher was proclaimed regent at the Ringsted Assembly and this resulted in a two-year civil war, known as the Counts Feud, between Protestant and Catholic forces. Count Christopher had the support of most of Zealand, Scania, the Hanseatic League, Christian III found his support among the nobles of Jutland. In 1534, peasants under Skipper Clement began an uprising in northern Jutland, an army of nobles and their vassals assembled at Svendstrup and suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the peasants. Clement and his army fled north, taking refuge inside the walls of Aalborg, in December, Rantzaus forces breached the walls and stormed the city. In the following days 3,000 people were massacred and the city was plundered by the Protestant German mercenaries, Clement managed to escape the slaughter, but was apprehended a few days later. He was tried and beheaded in 1535, with Jutland more or less secure, Christian next focused on gaining control of Scania. He appealed to the Protestant Swedish king Gustav Vasa for help in subduing the rebels, Gustav immediately obliged by sending two armies to ravage central Scania and Halland. The peasants suffered a defeat at Loshult in Scania
10.
Boris Godunov
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Boris Fyodorovich Godunov ruled the Tsardom of Russia as de facto regent from c.1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. The end of his reign saw Russia descend into the Time of Troubles, Boris Godunov was the most noted member of an ancient, now extinct, Russian family of Tatar origin, which came from the Horde to Kostroma in the early 14th century. This legend is written in the annals dating from early 17th century and he was descended from the Tatar Prince Chet, who went from the Golden Horde to Russia and founded the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma. Boris was the son of Feodor Ivanovich Godunov Krivoy and his wife Stepanida Ivanovna and his older brother Vasily died young and without issue. Godunovs career began at the court of Ivan the Terrible and he is mentioned in 1570 for taking part in the Serpeisk campaign being an archer of the guard. The following year, he became an oprichnik – a member of Ivans personal guard, in 1570/1571, Godunov strengthened his position at court by his marriage to Maria Grigorievna Skuratova-Belskaya, the daughter of oprichniks head Malyuta Skuratov-Belskiy. In 1580, the Tsar chose Boris Godunovs sister Irina Godunova to be the wife of his son and eventual heir. On this occasion, Godunov was promoted to the rank of Boyar, on 15 November 1581, he was present at the scene of the Tsars murder of his own eldest son, the crown prince Ivan. Godunov tried to intervene, but received blows from the Tsars sceptre, the elder Ivan immediately repented and Godunov rushed to get help for the Tsarevich, who died four days later. Upon his death, Ivan also left the three-year-old Dmitry Ivanovich, from his seventh, since the Orthodox Church recognized legitimate only his first three marriages, and any offspring thereof, Dmitri had no claim to the throne. Still, taking no chances, shortly after Ivans death the Council had both Dmitri and his mother Maria Nagaya moved to Uglich, some 120 miles north of Moscow and it was there in 1591 that Dmitri died at the age of ten. An official commission headed by Vasili Shuiski was sent to determine the cause of death, the official verdict was that the boy had cut his throat during an epileptic seizure. Ivans widow claimed that her son had been murdered by Godunovs agents, Godunovs guilt was never established and shortly thereafter Dmitris mother was forced to take the veil. Dmitry Ivanovich was laid to rest and promptly, though temporarily, when Nikita died in 1586, Boris had no serious rival for the regency. A conspiracy of other boyars and of Dionysius II, Metropolitan of Moscow, the attempt proved unsuccessful, and the conspirators were banished or sent to monasteries. After that, Godunov remained supreme in Russia and he corresponded with foreign princes as their equal and his policy was generally pacific and always prudent. In 1595, he recovered from Sweden some towns lost during the former reign, five years previously he had defeated a Tatar raid upon Moscow, for which he received the title of Konyushy, an obsolete dignity even higher than that of Boyar. He supported a faction in the Crimea and gave the emperor subsidies in his war against the sultan
11.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
12.
Alexandrov, Vladimir Oblast
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Alexandrov is a town and the administrative center of Alexandrovsky District in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located 120 kilometers northeast of Moscow. It was established in the century and was known as Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. It served as the capital of Russia for three months under Tsar Ivan the Terrible until he agreed to return his court and the relics of Moscow which he had taken with him, Ivan agreed to return after the church gave him permission to found the Oprichnina. It was granted town status in 1778, within the framework of administrative divisions, Alexandrov serves as the administrative center of Alexandrovsky District, to which it is directly subordinated. As a municipal division, the town of Alexandrov is incorporated within Alexandrovsky Municipal District as Alexandrov Urban Settlement, Česká Lípa, Czech Republic Compton, California, United States Администрация Владимирской области. Постановление №433 от13 июня2007 г, «О реестре административно-территориальных образований и единиц Владимирской области», в ред. Постановления №169 от5 марта2015 г, «О внесении изменения в Постановление Губернатора области от13.06.2007 №433 О реестре административно-территориальных образований и единиц Владимирской области». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования, Опубликован, Владимирские ведомости, №114,20 июня2007 г. Закон №61-ОЗ от16 мая2005 г, «О наделении округа Александров и вновь образованных муниципальных образований, входящих в его состав, соответствующим статусом муниципальных образований и установлении их границ», в ред. Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования, Опубликован, Владимирские ведомости, №№158–165,18 мая2005 г. Alexandrov travel guide from Wikivoyage Official website of Alexandrov Unofficial website of Alexandrov
