Finland Station
St Petersburg–Finlyandsky, is a railway station in St. Petersburg, handling transport to northern destinations including Helsinki and Vyborg; the station is most famous for having been the location where Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland on 16 April 1917, ahead of the October Revolution. Finland Station was built by Finnish State Railways as the eastern terminus of the Riihimäki–Saint Petersburg railway, it was designed by Swedish architects and opened in 1870. The station contained a special pavilion for Russian royalty; the station was owned and operated by Finnish railways until early 1918, when the last train, carrying station personnel and equipment, as well as some of the last Finns escaping revolutionary Russia, left for Finland. Ownership of the station was exchanged for Russian property in Finland, including the Alexander Theatre in Helsinki; the station is famously known for the arrival of Vladimir Lenin by train from Switzerland on 3 April 1917. The event is commemorated by the Soviet statue of Lenin dominating the square in front of the station.
This event is referred to in the title of Edmund Wilson's book To the Finland Station, a well-known study of revolutionary thought. After the turmoil of the July Days, when workers and soldiers in the capital clashed with government troops, Lenin had to flee to Finland for safety, to avoid arrest. Lenin secretly returned from Finland disguised as a railway worker and protected by Eino Rahja and Alexander Shotman on 9 August 1917. Both times Lenin crossed the Russian–Finnish border on the engine #293 driven by Finnish engineer Hugo Jalava; the steam locomotive was donated by Finland to the Soviet Union in 1957, is now installed as a permanent exhibit at one of the platforms on the station. During the Siege of Leningrad in 1941–43, the Finland Station was the only Leningrad rail terminus that remained in use; the railway would connect Leningrad with a station near the western shore of Lake Ladoga, at which supplies from the non-occupied parts of the Soviet Union would arrive from across the lake, by boat or over the lake ice, via the so-called Road of Life.
In the 1950s, the old station building was demolished and replaced with a new one, inaugurated in 1960. The turreted building is decorated with sculptures glorifying the October Revolution and incorporates a portico preserved from the original 1870 edifice. Before dawn on Wednesday 1 April 2009 a bomb exploded in the statue of Lenin, creating an 80–100 cm hole in the back of the statue. "West End Girls", a 1984 song by The Pet Shop Boys, contains the lyric "From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station". The song's co-writer, Neil Tennant, has a well-known interest and background in history that of Russia; this line refers to the train route taken by Vladimir Lenin when he was smuggled by the Germans to Russia during the First World War, a pivotal event in the Russian Revolution. Edmund Wilson's book To the Finland Station, which Tennant most had read, may have influenced this song's line. Trains from Helsinki arrive at the station, except for a transit train to Moscow through Ladozhsky railway station.
The station is a part of high-speed rail line between Saint Petersburg and Helsinki. The main entrance to the metro station Ploshchad Lenina is in the main building of Finland Station. Suburban commuter trains connect Finlyandsky station with the towns of Sestroretsk, Primorsk and Priozersk. Riihimäki–Saint Petersburg Railway Saint Petersburg–Hiitola railway To the Finland Station Emperor railway station, Pushkin town Media related to Finlyandsky Rail Terminal at Wikimedia Commons
Taxicab
A taxicab known as a taxi or a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice; this differs from other modes of public transport where the pick-up and drop-off locations are determined by the service provider, not by the passenger, although demand responsive transport and share taxis provide a hybrid bus/taxi mode. There are four distinct forms of taxicab, which can be identified by differing terms in different countries: Hackney carriages known as public hire, hailed or street taxis, licensed for hailing throughout communities Private hire vehicles known as minicabs or private hire taxis, licensed for pre-booking only Taxibuses come many variations throughout the developing countries as jitneys or jeepney, operating on pre-set routes typified by multiple stops and multiple independent passengers Limousines, specialized vehicle licensed for operation by pre-bookingAlthough types of vehicles and methods of regulation, hiring and negotiating payment differ from country to country, many common characteristics exist.
Disputes over whether smartphone-based ride hailing services should be regulated as taxicabs has resulted in some jurisdictions creating a new classification called transportation network company. Harry Nathaniel Allen of The New York Taxicab Company, who imported the first 600 gas-powered New York City taxicabs from France in 1907, borrowed the word "taxicab" from London, where the word was in use by early 1907. "Taxicab" is a compound word formed from contractions of "taximeter" and "cabriolet". "Taximeter" is an adaptation of the German word taxameter, itself a variant of the earlier German word "Taxanom". "Taxe" is a German word meaning "tax", "charge", or "scale of charges". The Medieval Latin word "taxa" means tax or charge. "Taxi" may be attributed to τάξις from τάσσω meaning "to place in a certain order" in Ancient Greek, as in commanding an orderly battle line, or in ordaining the payment of taxes, to the extent that ταξίδι now meaning "journey" in Greek denoted an orderly military march or campaign.
Meter is from the Greek μέτρον meaning "measure". A "cabriolet" is a type of horse-drawn carriage, from the French word "cabrioler", from Italian "capriolare", from Latin "capreolus". An alternative, folk-etymology holds that it was named for Franz von Taxis, a 16th-century postmaster for Philip of Burgundy, his nephew Johann Baptiste von Taxis, General Postmaster for the Holy Roman Empire. Both instituted reliable postal services across Europe; the taxicabs of Paris were equipped with the first meters beginning on 9 March 1898. They were called taxamètres renamed taximètres on 17 October 1904. Horse-drawn for-hire hackney carriage services began operating in both Paris and London in the early 17th century; the first documented public hackney coach service for hire was in London in 1605. In 1625 carriages were made available for hire from innkeepers in London and the first taxi rank appeared on the Strand outside the Maypole Inn in 1636. In 1635 the Hackney Carriage Act was passed by Parliament to legalise horse-drawn carriages for hire.
Coaches were hired out by innkeepers to visitors. A further "Ordinance for the Regulation of Hackney-Coachmen in London and the places adjacent" was approved by Parliament in 1654 and the first hackney-carriage licences were issued in 1662. A similar service was started by Nicolas Sauvage in Paris in 1637, his vehicles were known as fiacres, as the main vehicle depot was opposite a shrine to Saint Fiacre.. The hansom cab was designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York as a substantial improvement on the old hackney carriages; these two-wheel vehicles were fast, light enough to be pulled by a single horse were agile enough to steer around horse-drawn vehicles in the notorious traffic jams of nineteenth-century London and had a low centre of gravity for safe cornering. Hansom's original design was modified by John Chapman and several others to improve its practicability, but retained Hansom's name; these soon replaced the hackney carriage as a vehicle for hire. They spread to other cities in the United Kingdom, as well as continental European cities Paris, St Petersburg.
The cab was introduced to other British Empire cities and to the United States during the late 19th century, being most used in New York City. The first cab service in Toronto, "The City", was established in 1837 by Thornton Blackburn, an ex-slave whose escape when captured in Detroit was the impetus for the Blackburn Riot. Electric battery-powered taxis became available at the end of the 19th century. In London, Walter C. Bersey designed a fleet of such cabs and introduced them to the streets of London on 19 August 1897, they were soon nicknamed ` Hummingbirds' due to the idiosyncratic humming noise. In the same year in New York City, the Samuel's Electric Carriage and Wagon Company began running 12 electric hansom cabs; the company ran until 1898 with up to 62 cabs operating until it was reformed by its financiers to form the Electric Vehicle Company. The modern taximeter was perfected by a trio of German inventors; the Daimler Victoria—the w
Victory Day (9 May)
Victory Day is a holiday that commemorates the surrender of Nazis in 1945. It was first inaugurated in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, following the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender late in the evening on 8 May 1945; the Soviet government announced the victory early on 9 May after the signing ceremony in Berlin. Though the official inauguration occurred in 1945 the holiday became a non-labour day only in 1965 and only in certain Soviet republics. In East Germany, 8 May was observed as Liberation Day from 1950 to 1966, was celebrated again on the 40th anniversary in 1985. In 1975, a Soviet-style "Victory Day" was celebrated on 9 May. Since 2002, the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has observed a commemoration day known as the Day of Liberation from National Socialism, the End of the Second World War; the German Instrument of Surrender was signed twice. It was signed in Reims on 7 May 1945 by Alfred Jodl for Germany, Walter Bedell Smith, on behalf of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Ivan Susloparov, on behalf of the Soviet High Command, in the presence of French Major-General François Sevez as the official witness.
Since the Soviet High Command was not informed about the surrender, because Susloparov, a low-ranking officer, was not authorized to sign this document, the USSR requested that a second instrument of surrender be signed in Berlin. Joseph Stalin declared that the Soviet Union considered the Reims surrender a preliminary document, Eisenhower agreed with that. Another argument was that some German troops considered the Reims instrument of surrender as a surrender to the Western Allies only, fighting continued in the East in Prague. Today, in Reims, Germans signed the preliminary act on an unconditional surrender; the main contribution, was done by Soviet people and not by the Allies, therefore the capitulation must be signed in front of the Supreme Command of all countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, not only in front of the Supreme Command of Allied Forces. Moreover, I disagree that the surrender was not signed in Berlin, the center of Nazi aggression. We agreed with the Allies to consider the Reims protocol as preliminary.
A second surrender ceremony was organized in a surviving manor in the outskirts of Berlin late on 8 May, when it was 9 May in Moscow due to the difference in time zones. Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of OKW, signed a final German Instrument of Surrender, signed by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, on behalf of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, on behalf of the Allied Expeditionary Force, in the presence of General Carl Spaatz and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, as witnesses; the surrender was signed in the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst. Both English and Russian versions of the instrument of surrender signed in Berlin were considered authentic texts; the text of the instrument of surrender explicitly stipulated complete disarmament of all German military forces and handing over all weapons. Both the Reims and Berlin instruments of surrender stipulated that forces under German control to cease active operations at 23:01 hours CET on 8 May 1945.
However, due to the difference in Central European and Moscow time zones, the end of war is celebrated on 9 May in the USSR and most post-Soviet countries. To commemorate the victory in the war, the ceremonial Moscow Victory Parade was held in the Soviet capital on 24 June 1945. During the Soviet Union's existence, 9 May was celebrated throughout the USSR and in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Though the holiday was introduced in many Soviet republics between 1946 and 1950, it only became a non-labour day in the Ukrainian SSR in 1963 and the Russian SFSR in 1965. In the Russian SFSR a weekday off was given if 9 May fell on a Sunday; the celebration of Victory Day continued during subsequent years. The war became a topic of great importance in cinema, history lessons at school, the mass media, the arts; the ritual of the celebration obtained a distinctive character with a number of similar elements: ceremonial meetings, lectures and fireworks. In Russia during the 1990s, the 9 May holiday was not celebrated with large Soviet-style mass demonstrations due to the policies of successive Russian governments.
Following Vladimir Putin's rise to power, the Russian government began promoting the prestige of the governing regime and history, national holidays and commemorations became a source of national self-esteem. Victory Day in Russia has become a celebration in which popular culture plays a central role; the 60th and 70th anniversaries of Victory Day in Russia became the largest popular holidays since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2015 around 30 leaders, including those of China and India, attended the 2015 celebration, while Western leaders boycotted the ceremonies because of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Armenia has recognized 9 May since its independence in 1991; the holiday was celebrated there while the country was part of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan has recognized 9 May since its independence in 1991; the holiday was celebrated there while the country was part of the Soviet Union. A wreath laying ceremony is held at the monument to Hazi Aslanov. Belarus has recognized 9 May since its independence in 1991 and considers it a non-working day.
The holiday was celebrated there while the country was part of the Soviet Union. Belarus has had 2 Victory Day Parades on Masherov Avenue (1995, 2005, 2010, an
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks known in English as Bolshevists, were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk, 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, hence their name, they 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 and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. 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; the Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a major organization consisting of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia.
Their beliefs and practices were referred to as Bolshevism. In the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP held in Brussels and London, UK during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members who financially supported the party and participated in it. Martov suggested "by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the party's organisations". Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a smaller core of active members as opposed to card carriers who might only be active in party branches from time to time or not at all; this active base would develop the cadre, a core of professional revolutionaries, consisting of loyal communists who would spend most of their time organising the party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a workers' revolution against the Tsarist autocracy. A main source of the factions could be directly attributed to Lenin's steadfast opinion and what was described by Plekhanov as his inability to "bear opinions which were contrary to his own".
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. It was the loyalty that he had to his own self-envisioned utopia. Lenin was seen by fellow party members as being so narrow-minded that he believed that anyone who didn't follow him was his enemy. Leon Trotsky, one of Lenin's fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre. Lenin's view of politics as verbal and ideological warfare and his inability to accept criticism 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 distribution. One of the main 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 to allow socialism to encompass the nation. Lenin wrote that revolutionary leaders must dedicate their entire lives to the cause in order for it to be successful. Lenin said that if professional revolutionaries did not maintain control over the workers they would lose sight of the party's objective and adopt opposing beliefs abandon the revolution entirely. Lenin's view of a socialist intelligentsia showed that he was not a complete supporter of Marxist theory, which created some party unrest. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, but in his utopian society there would still be visible distinctions between those in politics and the common worker. Most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral and were loyal to the idea of a classless society, therefore Lenin's variations caused internal dissonance. Although the party split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would not become official until 1903, the differences began to surface with the publication of What Is To Be Done?.
Through the influence of the book, Lenin undermined another group of reformers known as "Economists", who were pushing for economic reform while wanting to leave the government unchanged and who failed to recognize the importance of uniting the working population behind the party's cause. Other than the debate between Lenin and Martov, Lenin felt membership should require support of the party program, financial contributions and involvement in a party organization whereas Martov did not see the need for joining Party organizations, internal unrest rose over the structure, best suited for Soviet power; as discussed in What Is To Be Done?, Lenin believed that a rigid political structure was needed to initiate a formal revolution. This idea was met with opposition from his once close followers including Julius Martov, Georgy Plekhanov, Leon Trotsky and Pavel Axelrod. Plekhanov and Lenin's major dispute arose addressing the topic of nationalizing land or leaving it for private use. Lenin wanted to nationalize to aid in collectivization whereas Plekhanov thought worker motivation would remain higher if individuals were able to maintain their own property.
Those who opposed Lenin and wanted to continue on the Marxist path t
Romanov Tercentenary
The Romanov Tercentenary was a country-wide celebration, marked in the Russian Empire from February 1913, in celebration of the ruling Romanov Dynasty. After a grand display of wealth and power in St. Petersburg, a week of receptions at the Winter Palace, the Imperial family embarked on a tour following Mikhail I Romanov's route after he was elected tsar in 1613, a sort of pilgrimage to the towns of ancient Muscovy associated with the Romanov dynasty, in May, it has been described as an ` extravaganza of a tremendous propaganda exercise. Throughout the jubilee, the leitmotiv as it were was the cult of seventeenth century Muscovy, with its patrimonialism, personal rule with the Tsar a representation of God on earth, the concept of a mystical union between the'Little Father Tsar' and his Orthodox subjects, who revered and adored him. In the celebrations, the symbols of the Tsar was in the centre, with all symbols of the state pushed far into the background. Foreign press noted how the celebrations showed the'true devotion' of the Russian peasant masses.
As Prime Minister Kokovtsov tried to warn the Tsar, he could not save his throne by adopting the'halo of the Muscovite Tsar' in an effort to attempt to rule Russia as his own patrimony. The tercentenary was kicked off in Imperial Capital St. Petersburg on a rainy February morning; the event had been on everyones' lips for several weeks leading up the actual date, dignitaries from the whole of the Empire had gathered in the capital's grand hotels: princes from the Baltic and Poland, high-priests from Armenia and Georgia in the Caucasus, mullahs and tribal chiefs from Central Asia alongside the Khan of Khiva and the Emir of Bukhara. Additionally there was a large group of visitors from the provinces and workers, which left the usual well-dressed promenaders of the Winter Palace outnumbered; the city was bustling with these visitors, Nevsky Prospect experienced the worst traffic jams in history, due to the converging of cars and trams. The streets themselves were decorated in the Imperial colors of blue and white, statues were dressed up with ribbons and garlands, portraits of the line of Tsars going all the way back to the Romanov dynasty's founder Michael were hung up on the facades of banks and stores.
Over tram lines were chains of light hung up, which spelled out'God Save the Tsar' or portrayed the Romanov double-headed eagle with'1613–1913' spelled out underneath it. For many of the provincial visitors this was their first sight of electric light, they stood in wonder of the'columns and obelisks of light'; the rituals were started in the Kazan Cathedral, outside of which stood a white pavilion filled with bromeliads and palms, where a vast crowd carrying icons and banners had been gathering since the morning. Inside the Cathedral were Russia's'ruling class', with Grand Dukes and Princes, Marshals of Nobility, Court members, members of government including ministers and state councillors alongside Duma parliamentarians, senior Civil servants, military leaders such as generals and admirals, provincial governors, city mayors, zemstvo leaders; the Patriarch of Antioch, who had arrived for the occasion from Greece, led a'solemn thanksgiving', alongside the three Russian metropolitans and fifty St. Petersburg priests.
The Imperial family had driven from the Winter Palace in open carriages, escorted by two squadrons of His Majesty's Own Horseguards and Cossack riders donning black caftans and red Caucasian hats. The Tsar, Nicholas II, rode for the first time in public since the 1905 Revolution. Along their route were Imperial Guards decorated in'gorgeous' uniforms, military bands played the national anthem. During the ceremony two doves flew down from the dome and hovered for several seconds over Nicholas II and his son, which the Tsar took as God's blessing on his dynasty; the ceremony in the Kazan Cathedral bore witness to some conflict symbolic between Rasputin and Duma President Rodzianko. Rodzianko had complained that the seating of the Duma members were at the back, behind those of the state councilors and senators, which he found beneath their dignity. After complaining to the master of ceremonies, pointing out that an assembly of the people had elected Mikhail as Tsar in 1613, their seats were swapped with those of the senators.
When he went to his new seat, he discovered Rasputin occupying his chair. After a heated exchange of words, only ended by a sergeant-at-arms' intervention, Rasputin left the building in a waiting carriage; the Prime Minister was outraged by the court's attitude towards the elected government during rituals of the tercentenary. Factories were closed for a public holiday, free meals were given out from municipal canteens to celebrate the three-hundred year anniversary. Rumors circulated that pawnshops were offering pawned items back without interest, but once the crowds learned that this was not the case, several pawnshops had their windows smashed. 2,000 prisoners were to be released under amnesty to mark the anniversary, women gathered outside the city jails hoping their men would be among the released. In the afternoon a sound and light show saw large crowds gather
Russia
Russia the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. At 17,125,200 square kilometres, Russia is by far or by a considerable margin the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, the ninth most populous, with about 146.77 million people as of 2019, including Crimea. About 77 % of the population live in the European part of the country. Russia's capital, Moscow, is one of the largest cities in the world and the second largest city in Europe. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, China and North Korea, it shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U. S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. However, Russia recognises two more countries that border it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are internationally recognized as parts of Georgia.
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, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. 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' disintegrated into a number of smaller states; the Grand Duchy of Moscow reunified the surrounding Russian principalities and achieved independence from the Golden Horde. By the 18th century, the nation had expanded through conquest and exploration to become the Russian Empire, the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland on the west to Alaska on the east. Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became the largest and leading constituent of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world's first constitutionally socialist state; the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War II, emerged as a recognized superpower and rival to the United States during the Cold War.
The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest economy, largest standing military in the world and the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, twelve independent republics emerged from the USSR: Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Baltic states regained independence: Estonia, Lithuania, it is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia's economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2018. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the leading producers of oil and natural gas globally; 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. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and an active global partner of ASEAN, as well as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Trade Organization, as well as being the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and one of the five members of the Eurasian Economic Union, along with Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan; the name Russia is derived from Rus', a medieval state populated by the East Slavs. However, this proper name became more prominent in the history, the country was called by its inhabitants "Русская Земля", which can be translated as "Russian Land" or "Land of Rus'". In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus' by modern historiography.
The name Rus itself comes from the early medieval Rus' people, Swedish merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and founded a state centered on Novgorod that became Kievan Rus. An old Latin version of the name Rus' was Ruthenia 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 Rus', Ρωσσία Rossía—spelled Ρωσία in Modern Greek. The standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are commonly
Nevsky Prospect
Nevsky Prospect is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, named after the 13th-century Russian prince Alexander Nevsky. Planned by Peter the Great as the beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow, the avenue runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and, after making a turn at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra; the chief sights include the Rastrelliesque Stroganov Palace, the huge neoclassical Kazan Cathedral, the Art Nouveau Bookhouse, Elisseeff Emporium, half a dozen 18th-century churches, a monument to Catherine the Great, an enormous 18th-century shopping mall, a mid-19th-century department store, the Russian National Library, the Anichkov Bridge with its horse statues, the Singer House. The feverish life of the avenue was described by Nikolai Gogol in his story "Nevsky Prospekt". Fyodor Dostoevsky employed the Nevksy Prospekt as a setting within his works, such as Crime and Punishment and The Double: A Petersburg Poem; the café-restaurant where the famous writers of the 19th century Golden Age of the Russian literature frequented still remains as "Literary Cafe" on Nevsky Prospect.
During the early Soviet years the name of Nevsky Prospect was changed, first to "Proletkult Street" in honor of that Soviet artistic organization. Following the demise of Proletkult the name was changed again, this time to "Avenue of the 25th of October," alluding to the day of the October Revolution; the Nevsky today functions as the main thoroughfare in Saint Petersburg. The majority of the city's shopping and nightlife are located right off the Nevsky Prospekt; the street is served by the stations Admiralteyskaya, Nevsky Prospekt, Gostiny Dvor, Ploshchad Vosstaniya and Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo I of Saint Petersburg Metro. List of upscale shopping districts Media related to Nevsky Prospekt at Wikimedia Commons
