Named for the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, the ship was commissioned into the First Pacific Squadron of the Russian Pacific Fleet and was stationed at Port Arthur (today Lüshunkou District, Dalian, Liaoning, China), a Russian naval base acquired from China in 1898 as part of the Kwantung Leased Territory. One of the first ships to use Harvey nickel-steel armor and Popov radios, she displaced 11,854 long tons (12,044 t) at full load and was 369 feet (112.5 m) long overall, and mounted a main battery of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two twin turrets. She was laid down in May 1892, launched on 1 June 1895 and completed in 1899. Her sea trials lasted until 1900. (Full article...)
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The Norslunda runestone bearing runic inscription U 419, which mentions the personal name Kylfingr The Kylfings (Old NorseKylfingar; EstonianKalevid; HungarianKölpények; Old East Slavic Колбяги, Kolbiagi; Byzantine Greek Κουλπίγγοι, Koulpingoi; Arabical-Kilabiyya) were a people of uncertain origin active in Northern Europe during the Viking Age, roughly from the late ninth century to the early twelfth century. They could be found in areas of Lapland, Russia, and the Byzantine Empire that were frequented by Scandinavian traders, raiders and mercenaries. Scholars differ on whether the Kylfings were ethnically Finnic or Norse. Also disputed is their geographic origin, with Denmark, Sweden and the Eastern Baltic all put forward as candidates. Whether the name Kylfing denotes a particular tribal, socio-political, or economic grouping is also much debated.
Khrushchev was born in 1894 in a village in western Russia. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he was a political commissar during the Russian Civil War. Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich, Khrushchev worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He originally supported Stalin's purges and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continued the purges there. During the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers. (Full article...)
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Eduard Anatolyevich Streltsov (Russian: Эдуа́рд Анато́льевич Стрельцо́в, IPA:[ɨdʊˈartɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲitɕstrʲɪlʲˈtsof]ⓘ; 21 July 1937 – 22 July 1990) was a Soviet footballer who played as a forward for Torpedo Moscow and the Soviet national team during the 1950s and 1960s. A powerful and skilful attacking player, he scored the fourth-highest number of goals for the Soviet Union and has been called "the greatest outfield player Russia has ever produced". He is sometimes dubbed "the Russian Pelé".
Born and raised in east Moscow, Streltsov joined Torpedo at the age of 16 in 1953 and made his international debut two years later. He was part of the squad that won the gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and came seventh in the 1957 Ballon d'Or. The following year, his promising career was interrupted by allegations of sexual assault shortly before the 1958 World Cup. Soviet authorities pledged he could still play if he admitted his guilt, after which he confessed, but was instead prosecuted and sentenced to twelve years of forced labour under the Gulag system (abolished in 1960 and replaced by prisons). The conviction was highly controversial, with many pointing to conflicts between Streltsov and government officials. (Full article...)
Viatkogorgon is a genus of gorgonopsian (a type of therapsid, the group that includes modern mammals) that lived during the Permian period in what is now Russia. The first fossil was found at the Kotelnich locality near the Vyatka River and was made the holotype of the new genus and speciesV. ivachnenkoi in 1999. The generic name refers to the river and the related genus Gorgonops—the gorgons of Greek mythology are often referenced in the names of the group. The specific name honors the paleontologist Mikhail F. Ivakhnenko. The holotype skeleton is one of the most complete gorgonopsian specimens known and includes rarely preserved elements such as gastralia (abdominal ribs) and a sclerotic ring (a bony ring inside the eye). A larger, but poorly preserved specimen has also been assigned to the species.
The holotype specimen is about 80 cm (31 in) long, including the 14 cm (5.5 in) long skull, making Viatkogorgon a relatively small gorgonopsian. The assigned specimen is larger, with a 17 cm (6.7 in) long skull, and the holotype may have been young. As a gorgonopsian, it would have been skeletally robust with a somewhat dog-like stance, though with outwards-turned elbows. The snout was high, and the teeth were generally recurved (curved backward), pointed, and serrated. The canines (the saber teeth) were much larger than the incisors at the front and postcanines behind but relatively small for a gorgonopsian. Viatkogorgon was characterized by its unusually large eye socket and sclerotic ring. It was distinct from other gorgonopsians in that the lower end of the postorbital bar was narrow, and it had a very large sulcus (or furrow) at the back of the skull on each side. Since gorgonopsians have been described mainly from skulls, it is uncertain how widespread the postcranial features of Viatkogorgon were in other members of the group. The skeleton of Viatkogorgon was unusual in having gastralia, in that the tail was differentiated with a front and hind part, with the former less flexible, and in that some of the foot bones and its digits were reduced in size and interconnected. (Full article...)
Dubnium does not occur naturally on Earth and is produced artificially. The Soviet Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) claimed the first discovery of the element in 1968, followed by the American Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1970. Both teams proposed their names for the new element and used them without formal approval. The long-standing dispute was resolved in 1993 by an official investigation of the discovery claims by the Transfermium Working Group, formed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, resulting in credit for the discovery being officially shared between both teams. The element was formally named dubnium in 1997 after the town of Dubna, the site of the JINR. (Full article...)
Due to the length of the front lines created by the German 1942 summer offensive, which had aimed at taking the Caucasus oil fields and the city of Stalingrad, German and other Axis forces were over-extended. The German decision to transfer several mechanized divisions from the Soviet Union to Western Europe exacerbated their situation. Furthermore, Axis units in the area were depleted by months of fighting, especially those which had taken part in the struggle for Stalingrad. The Germans could only count on the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps, which had the strength of a single panzer division, and the 29th Panzergrenadier Division as reserves to bolster their Romanian allies guarding the German Sixth Army's flanks. These Romanian armies lacked the heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor. In contrast, the Red Army deployed over one million personnel for the offensive. Soviet troop movements were not without problems: concealing their build-up proved difficult, and Soviet units commonly arrived late due to logistical issues. Operation Uranus was first postponed by the Soviet high command (Stavka) from 8 to 17 November, then to 19 November. (Full article...)
Little was known about the effects of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and animal flights were viewed by engineers as a necessary precursor to human missions. The experiment, which monitored Laika's vital signs, aimed to prove that a living organism could survive being launched into orbit and continue to function under conditions of weakened gravity and increased radiation, providing scientists with some of the first data on the biological effects of spaceflight. (Full article...)
The Caspian expeditions of the Rus' were military raids undertaken by the Rus' between the late 9th century and c. 1041 on the Caspian Sea shores, of what are nowadays Iran, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan. Initially, the Rus' appeared in Serkland in the 9th century travelling as merchants along the Volga trade route, selling furs, honey, and slaves. The first small-scale Viking raids took place in the late 9th and early 10th century. The Rus' undertook the first large-scale expedition in 913; having arrived on 500 ships, they pillaged in the Gorgan region, in the territory of present-day Iran, and more to the west, in Gilan and Mazandaran, taking slaves and goods. On their return, the northern raiders were attacked and defeated by the Khazars in the Volga Delta, and those who escaped were killed by the local tribes in the middle Volga.
During their next expedition in 943, the Rus' captured Bardha'a, the capital of Arran, in the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan. The Rus' stayed there for several months, killing many inhabitants of the city and amassing substantial plunder. It was only an outbreak of dysentery among the Rus' that forced them to depart with their spoils. Sviatoslav, prince of Kiev, commanded the next attack, which destroyed the Khazar state in 965. Sviatoslav's campaign established the Rus's hold on the north-south trade routes, helping to alter the demographics of the region. Raids continued through the time period with the last Scandinavian attempt to reestablish the route to the Caspian Sea taking place in c. 1041 by Ingvar the Far-Travelled. (Full article...)
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Antarctica (/ænˈtɑːrktɪkə/ⓘ) is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Erivansky Square expropriation, was an armed robbery on 26 June 1907[a] in the city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia) in the Tiflis Governorate in the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. A Bolshevik group "expropriated" a bank cash shipment to fund their revolutionary activities. The robbers attacked a bank stagecoach, and the surrounding police and soldiers, using bombs and guns while the stagecoach was transporting money through Erivansky Square (present-day Freedom Square) between the post office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. The attack killed forty people and injured fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped with 241,000 rubles.
The robbery was organized by a number of top-level Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Maxim Litvinov, Leonid Krasin, and Alexander Bogdanov; and committed by a party of revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Simon Ter-Petrosian, also known as "Kamo" and "The Caucasian Robin-Hood". Because such activities had been explicitly prohibited by the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) only weeks previously, the robbery and the killings caused outrage within the party against the Bolsheviks (a faction within the RSDLP). As a result, Lenin and Stalin tried to distance themselves from the robbery. (Full article...)
Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov. This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony, and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five. Rimsky-Korsakov's techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner. (Full article...)
At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Petropavlovsk took part in the Battle of Port Arthur, where she was lightly damaged by Japanese shells and failed to score any hits in return. On 13 April 1904, the ship sank after striking one or more mines near Port Arthur, in northeast China. Casualties numbered 27 officers and 652 enlisted men, including Vice AdmiralStepan Makarov, the commander of the squadron, and the war artistVasily Vereshchagin. The arrival of the competent and aggressive Makarov after the Battle of Port Arthur had boosted Russian morale, which plummeted after his death. (Full article...)
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Adult rainbow trout
The rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coastal rainbow trout(O. m. irideus) or Columbia River redband trout(O. m. gairdneri) that usually returns to freshwater to spawn after living two to three years in the ocean.
Adult freshwater stream rainbow trout average between 0.5 and 2.5 kilograms (1 and 5 lb), while lake-dwelling and anadromous forms may reach 9 kg (20 lb). Coloration varies widely based on subspecies, forms, and habitat. Adult fish are distinguished by a broad reddish stripe along the lateral line, from gills to the tail, which is most vivid in breeding males. (Full article...)
The Krestovsky Stadium is the home ground of FC Zenit Saint Petersburg. Photographed here in 2016, when construction was nearing completion, it is situated on Krestovsky Island in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg. It was opened in 2017 as a venue for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, and hosted the final, in which Germany beat Chile 1–0. It was one of the venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup the following year. Among other features, it has a retractable roof, and is equipped with a video-surveillance and identification system, as well as security-alarm, fire-alarm and robotic fire-extinguishing systems. The stadium's seating capacity is 67,800.
Photograph credit: Arto Jousi; restored by Adam Cuerden
Yuri Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space; his capsule, Vostok 1, completed a single orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour. In 1967, he served as a member of the backup crew for the ill-fated Soyuz 1 mission, after which the Russian authorities, fearing for the safety of such an iconic figure, banned him from further spaceflights. However, he was killed the following year, when the MiG-15 training jet that he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.
This photograph of Gagarin, dated July 1961, was taken at a press conference during a visit to Finland approximately three months after his spaceflight.
An aerial view of the Field of Mars, a large park in central Saint Petersburg, Russia, pictured in 2016. It is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. The park's history goes back to the 18th century, when it was converted from bogland and named the Grand Meadow. Later, it was the setting for celebrations to mark Russia's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War. Its next name, the Tsaritsyn Meadow, appears after the royal family commissioned Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to build the Summer Palace for Empress Elizabeth. It became the Field of Mars during the reign of Paul I. Towards the end of the 18th century, the park became a military drill ground, where they erected monuments commemorating the victories of the Russian Army and where parades and military exercises took place regularly. After the February Revolution in 1917, the Field of Mars became a memorial area for the revolution's honoured dead. In the summer of 1942, as the city was besieged by the German army in the Siege of Leningrad, the park was covered with vegetable gardens to supply food. An eternal flame was lit in the centre of the park in 1957, in memory of the victims of various wars and revolutions.
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, which holds ballet and opera performances. The company was founded on 28 March [O.S. 17 March] 1776, when Catherine the Great granted Prince Pyotr Urusov a licence to organise theatrical performances, balls and other forms of entertainment. Usunov set up the theatre in collaboration with English tightrope walker Michael Maddox. The present building was built between 1821 and 1824 and designed by architect Joseph Bové.
A Chechen man prays during the First Battle of Grozny, January 1995. The flame in the background is coming from a gas pipeline which was hit by shrapnel.
The Chesme Column is a victory column in the Catherine Park at the Catherine Palace, a former Russian royal residence in Tsarskoye Selo, a suburb of Saint Petersburg. It was erected to commemorate three Russian naval victories in the 1768–1774 Russo-Turkish War, including the Battle of Chesma in 1770. The column is made from three pieces of white-and-pink marble; decorated with the rostra of three ships' bows, and crowned by a triumphal bronze statue depicting a Russian eagle trampling a crescent moon, the symbol of Turkey. Bronze plaques on three sides of the pedestal depict scenes from the battles, and the campaign is described on the plaque on the fourth side.
Kombat (Russian for 'battalion commander') is a black-and-white photograph by Soviet photographer Max Alpert. It depicts a Soviet military officer, armed with a TT pistol, raising his unit for an attack during World War II. This work is regarded as one of the most iconic Soviet World War II photographs, yet neither the date nor the subject is known with certainty. According to the most widely accepted version, it depicts junior politruk Aleksei Gordeyevich Yeryomenko, minutes before his death on 12 July 1942, in Voroshilovgrad Oblast, now part of Ukraine. The photograph is in the archives of RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency.
Maslenitsa, a 1919 painting depicting the carnival of the same name, which takes place the last week before Great Lent. The painting encompasses a broad range of things associated with Russia, such as snowy winter weather, a troika, an Orthodox church with onion domes. Painted in the aftermath of the October Revolution, the canvas was intended as a farewell to the unspoilt "Holy Russia" of yore.
Although James Clerk Maxwell made the first color photograph in 1861, the results were far from realistic until Prokudin-Gorsky perfected the technique with a series of improvements around 1905. His process used a camera that took a series of monochrome pictures in rapid sequence, each through a different colored filter. Prokudin-Gorskii then went on to document much of the country of Russia, travelling by train in a specially equipped darkroomrailroad car.
The Last Day of Pompeii is an oil painting on canvas completed by the Russian artist Karl Bryullov between 1830 and 1833. The painting is based on sketches the artist completed in 1828 while visiting Pompeii, a city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is now held in the State Russian Museum.
This photo of the Nilov Monastery on Stolobny Island in Tver Oblast, Russia, was taken by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky in 1910 before the advent of colour photography. His process used a camera that took a series of monochrome pictures in rapid sequence, each through a different coloured filter. By projecting all three monochrome pictures using correctly coloured light, it was possible to reconstruct the original colour scene.
Charles Minard's Carte figurative (1869), which details the losses of men, the position of the army, and the freezing temperatures on Napoleon's disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia. Created in an effort to show the horrors of war, the graph "defies the pen of the historian in its brutal eloquence" and has been called the best statistical graphic ever drawn.
Two paskhas with candles (with a kulich and Easter eggs in the background)
Paskha (also spelled pascha, or pasha; Russian: па́сха; [ˈpasxə]; "Easter") is a Slavic festive dish made in Eastern Orthodox countries which consists of food that is forbidden during the fast of Great Lent. It is made during Holy Week and then brought to Church on Great Saturday to be blessed after the Paschal Vigil. The name of the dish comes from Pascha, the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Easter. Besides Russia, Ukraine, etc. Pasha is also often served in Finland.
Cheese paskha is a traditional Easter dish made from tvorog (like cottage cheese, Russian: творог, romanized: tvorog), which is white, symbolizing the purity of Christ, the Paschal Lamb, and the joy of the Resurrection. It is formed in a mold, traditionally in the shape of a truncated pyramid which symbolizes the first Passover in Egypt, a nod to Christianity's early Jewish beginnings and a reminder that the Last Supper of Jesus was a Passover Seder. Others believe the pyramid is a symbol of the Trinity, the Church; Tomb of Christ). It is usually served as an accompaniment to rich Easter breads called paska in Ukraine and kulich in Russia (where the "paskha" name is also used in the Southern regions) and Poland “Pascha”. The Easter foods; bread and cheese paska are very rich and made of many dairy items given up during Great Lent. They are brought to church on Easter to be blessed by the priest. (Full article...)
... that American teacher Marc Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in Russian prison for possessing a small amount of marijuana, but has gotten little public attention compared to Brittney Griner?
... that Russian pianist Pavel Kushnir died on a hunger strike after his arrest for anti-war videos posted on a YouTube channel with five subscribers?
... that Cambridge don R. R. Bolgar was heard to say that if it had not been for a misfortune, he might well have supported the Nazis as a landowner in Moravia and been murdered by the Russians?
You know, I never planned to leave. I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. You know, I played their game, pretending, of course. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB... Horrifying.
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![Image 5 Bolshoi Theatre Photograph: DmitriyGuryanov The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, which holds ballet and opera performances. The company was founded on 28 March [O.S. 17 March] 1776, when Catherine the Great granted Prince Pyotr Urusov a licence to organise theatrical performances, balls and other forms of entertainment. Usunov set up the theatre in collaboration with English tightrope walker Michael Maddox. The present building was built between 1821 and 1824 and designed by architect Joseph Bové. More selected pictures](/wiki/File:Moscow-Bolshoi-Theare-1.jpg)
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