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Rostislav between 1907 and 1916.
Rostislav was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the Nikolaev Admiralty Shipyard in the 1890s for the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. She was conceived as a small, inexpensive coastal defence ship, but the Navy abandoned the concept in favor of a compact, seagoing battleship with a displacement of 8,880 long tons (9,022 t). Poor design and construction practices increased her actual displacement by more than 1,600 long tons (1,626 t). Rostislav became the world's first capital ship to burn fuel oil, rather than coal. Her combat ability was compromised by the use of 10-inch (254 mm) main guns instead of the de facto Russian standard of 12 inches (305 mm).
Her hull was launched in September 1896, but non-delivery of the ship's main guns delayed her maiden voyage until 1899 and her completion until 1900. In May 1899 Rostislav became the first ship of the Imperial Navy to be commanded by a member of the House of Romanov, Captain Alexander Mikhailovich. From 1903 to 1912 the ship was the flagship of the second-in-command of the Black Sea Fleet. During the 1905 Russian Revolution her crew was on the verge of mutiny, but ultimately remained loyal to the regime, and actively suppressed the mutiny of the cruiser Ochakov. (Full article...)
Manuel I Komnenos (Greek: Μανουήλ Κομνηνός, romanized: Manouḗl Komnēnós; 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180), Latinized as Comnenus, also called Porphyrogenitus (Greek: Πορφυρογέννητος; "born in the purple"), was a Byzantine emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. His reign saw the last flowering of the Komnenian restoration, during which the Byzantine Empire had seen a resurgence of its military and economic power and had enjoyed a cultural revival.
Bezhin Meadow (Бежин луг, Bezhin lug) is a 1937 Soviet propaganda film, famous for having been suppressed and believed destroyed before its completion. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, it tells the story of a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by sabotaging the year's harvest and the son's efforts to stop his own father to protect the Soviet state, culminating in the boy's murder and a social uprising. The film draws its title from a story by Ivan Turgenev, but is based on the (largely fabricated) life story of Pavlik Morozov, a young Russian boy who became a political martyr following his death in 1932, after he supposedly denounced his father to Soviet government authorities and subsequently died at the hands of his family. Pavlik Morozov was immortalized in school programs, poetry, music, and film.
Commissioned by a communist youth group, the film's production ran from 1935 to 1937, until it was halted by the central Soviet government, which said it contained artistic, social, and political failures. Some, however, blamed the failure of Bezhin Meadow on government interference and policies, extending all the way to Joseph Stalin himself. In the wake of the film's failure, Eisenstein publicly recanted his work as an error. Individuals were arrested during and after the ensuing debacle. (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...)
The rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. 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. Freshwater forms that have been introduced into the Great Lakes and migrate into tributaries to spawn are also called steelhead.
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...)
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The Shuttle–Mir program was a collaborative 11-mission space program between Russia and the United States that involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space stationMir, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to engage in long-duration expeditions aboard Mir.
The project, sometimes called "Phase One", was intended to allow the United States to learn from Russian experience with long-duration spaceflight and to foster a spirit of cooperation between the two nations and their space agencies, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The project helped to prepare the way for further cooperative space ventures; specifically, "Phase Two" of the joint project, the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). The program was announced in 1993, the first mission started in 1994 and the project continued until its scheduled completion in 1998. Eleven Space Shuttle missions, a joint Soyuz flight and almost 1000 cumulative days in space for American astronauts occurred over the course of seven long-duration expeditions. In addition to Space Shuttle launches to Mir the United States also fully funded and equipped with scientific equipment the Spektr module (launched in 1995) and the Priroda module (launched in 1996), making them de facto U.S. modules during the duration of the Shuttle-Mir program. (Full article...)
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William FeinerSJ (born Wilhelm Feiner; December 27, 1792 – June 9, 1829) was a German Catholic priest and Jesuit who became a missionary to the United States and eventually the president of Georgetown College, now known as Georgetown University.
Born and raised in Georgia, in the Russian Empire, Ordzhonikidze joined the Bolsheviks at an early age and quickly rose within the ranks to become an important figure within the group. Arrested and imprisoned several times by the Russian police, he was in Siberian exile when the February Revolution began in 1917. Returning from exile, Ordzhonikidze took part in the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power. During the subsequent Civil War he played an active role as the leading Bolshevik in the Caucasus, overseeing the invasions of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. He backed their union into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR), which helped form the Soviet Union in 1922 and served as the First Secretary of the TSFSR until 1926. (Full article...)
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear and land carnivore, with adult males weighing 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb). The species is sexually dimorphic, as adult females are much smaller. The polar bear is white- or yellowish-furred with black skin and a thick layer of fat. It is more slender than the brown bear, with a narrower skull, longer neck and lower shoulder hump. Its teeth are sharper and more adapted to cutting meat. The paws are large and allow the bear to walk on ice and paddle in the water.
Polar bears are both terrestrial and pagophilic (ice-living) and are considered to be marine mammals due to their dependence on marine ecosystems. They prefer the annual sea ice but live on land when the ice melts in the summer. They are mostly carnivorous and specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals. Such prey is typically taken by ambush; the bear may stalk its prey on the ice or in the water, but also will stay at a breathing hole or ice edge to wait for prey to swim by. The bear primarily feeds on the seal's energy-rich blubber. Other prey include walruses, beluga whales and some terrestrial animals. Polar bears are usually solitary but can be found in groups when on land. During the breeding season, male bears guard females and defend them from rivals. Mothers give birth to cubs in maternity dens during the winter. Young stay with their mother for up to two and a half years. (Full article...)
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From the film advertising poster, by Izrail Bograd
In the early days of sound cinema, among the various distinguished composers ready to try their hand at film music, Prokofiev was not an obvious choice for the commission. Based in Paris for almost a decade, he had a reputation for experimentation and dissonance, characteristics at odds with the cultural norms of the Soviet Union. By early 1933, however, Prokofiev was anxious to return to his homeland, and saw the film commission as an opportunity to write music in a more popular and accessible style. (Full article...)
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A bowl of borscht garnished with sour cream and dill
Borscht (English: /ˈbɔːrʃ,ˈbɔːrʃt/ⓘ) is a sour soup, made with meat stock, vegetables and seasonings, common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word borscht is most often associated with the soup's variant of Ukrainian origin, made with red beetroots as one of the main ingredients, which give the dish its distinctive red color. The same name, however, is also used for a wide selection of sour-tasting soups without beetroots, such as sorrel-based green borscht, rye-based white borscht, and cabbage borscht.
Borscht derives from an ancient soup originally cooked from pickled stems, leaves and umbels of common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium), an herbaceous plant growing in damp meadows, which lent the dish its Slavic name. With time, it evolved into a diverse array of tart soups, among which the Ukrainian beet-based red borscht has become the most popular. It is typically made by combining meat or bone stock with sautéed vegetables, which – as well as beetroots – usually include cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Depending on the recipe, borscht may include meat or fish, or be purely vegetarian; it may be served either hot or cold, and it may range from a hearty one-pot meal to a clear broth or a smooth drink. It is often served with smetana or sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or potatoes, but there exists an ample choice of more involved garnishes and side dishes, such as uszka or pampushky, that can be served with the soup. (Full article...)
The referee for the final, played in front of an attendance of 79,115 spectators, was Arthur Holland from England. In the sixth minute, Marcelino dispossessed Valentin Ivanov and crossed for Chus Pereda, who scored to give Spain a 1–0 lead. Two minutes later, Viktor Anichkin passed to Galimzyan Khusainov, who equalised. With six minutes of the match remaining, Pereda beat Anichkin and played in a cross which Viktor Shustikov failed to clear, before Marcelino headed the winning goal inside the near post. Spain won the match 2–1 to win their first European Championship title. (Full article...)
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 executed 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...)
Alexei Leonov (1934–2019) was a Soviet cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. At the end of the spacewalk, his spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point that he had great difficulty re-entering the airlock, forcing him to open a valve to deflate his suit. His second trip into space took place ten years later, when he was commander of Soyuz 19, the Soviet half of the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, the first joint space mission between the Soviet Union and the United States. The crater Leonov on the far side of the Moon is named after him.
This picture shows Leonov photographed in 1974, wearing a lapel pin with a version of the emblem for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, which was then in development.
A female Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), a subspecies of tiger native to Central Asia, and her cub. The Siberian tiger is the largest of the extant tiger subspecies as well as the largest felid, attaining 320 kg (710 lb) in an exceptional specimen. Considered an endangered subspecies, the wild population is down to several hundred individuals and is limited to eastern Siberia.
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.
The Tauride Palace is one of the largest and most historic palaces in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was designed by Ivan Starov for Prince Grigory Potemkin, and was constructed between 1783 and 1789. After the owner's death, it was purchased by Catherine the Great, who constructed a theatre in the east wing and a church in the west wing. Many improvements were also made to the grounds, including construction of the Admiralty Pavilion, the gardener house, the orangery, glass-houses, bridges, and ironwork fences. Although the exterior of the building was rather plain, the interior was very luxurious. More recently, the building housed the first Imperial State Duma (1906–1917) and the post-revolution provisional government.
Kikin Hall, commissioned by Alexander Kikin in 1714, is one of the oldest buildings in Saint Petersburg. Incomplete at the time of Kikin's execution, the building was seized by the Russian crown and used for a variety of purposes. In the 1950s, Irina Benois arranged for the restoration of the dilapidated building. It is now home to a music school.
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.
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.
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the world's greatest novelists. He is best known for War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. Born to an aristocratic family on 9 September [O.S. 28 August] 1828, Tolstoy was orphaned when he was young. He studied at Kazan University, but this was not a success, and he left university without completing his degree. During this time, he began to write and published his first novel, Childhood, in 1852. Tolstoy later served at the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, and was appalled by the number of deaths and left at the conclusion of the war. He spent the remainder of his life writing whilst also marrying and starting a family. In the 1870s he converted to a form of fervent Christian anarchism.
Alexis (1629–1676) was the tsar of Russia from 1645 until his death. Born in Moscow on 29 March 1629, the son of Tsar Michael and Eudoxia Streshneva, the sixteen-year-old Alexis acceded to the throne after his father's death. Boris Morozov, a shrewd boyar open to Western ideas, took charge of Russia in the early years of Alexis's reign, but was exiled from Moscow following a popular uprising. Alexis responded to the uprising with a new legal code. His reign saw wars with Poland and with Sweden, a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church, and the major Cossack revolt of Stenka Razin. Alexis was married twice and had sixteen children, including tsars Fyodor III; Ivan V; Peter the Great; and Sofia, who ruled as regent for her brothers from 1682 to 1689.
This oil painting, made by an unknown artist in the 1670s, is now located in a museum in Ptuj, Slovenia.
Hotel Astoria is a five-star hotel located on Saint Isaac's Square in Saint Petersburg. Commissioned in 1910 by the Palace Hotel Company to host visitors to the Romanov tercentenary, the hotel was designed by Fyodor Lidval and first opened in 1912. After the October Revolution, it continued to be used as a state-operated hotel, though during World War II it was also a field hospital. The hotel, now owned by Rocco Forte Hotels, has been renovated several times, most recently in 2012.
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.
The Great Coat of Arms of the Russian Empire, as presented to Emperor Paul I in October 1800. The use of the double-headed eagle in the coat of arms (seen in multiple locations here) goes back to the 15th century. With the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Grand Dukes of Moscow came to see themselves as the successors of the Byzantine heritage, a notion reinforced by the marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Paleologue. Ivan adopted the golden Byzantine double-headed eagle in his seal, first documented in 1472, marking his direct claim to the Roman imperial heritage and his assertion as sovereign equal and rival to the Holy Roman Empire.
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.
... that Russian Jewish painter Marc Chagall created the windows of the St Stephan church(pictured) in Mainz as a sign of Jewish-German reconciliation?
Udmurt cuisine consists of the cuisine of Udmurtia and the Udmurt people, and is characterized by the rich use of local foods. Old traditions include foods made from grains and flour, especially milled rye, barley, wheat, and buckwheat. Meat, vegetables and black bread are staple foods in Udmurt cuisine. Additional foods include pelmeni, pancakes, pastries and small tarts. Milk is a scarce commodity, and that which exists is often made into ayran, a type of sour milk.
The Udmurt people have historically been involved in cattle breeding, agricultural production and hunting. Beekeeping is a common practice among the Udmurts and other groups in the area, and pig farming also exists. Potatoes, vegetables and flax are produced in significant quantities in Udmurtia. For total agricultural production in Russia, Udmurtia was ranked as 33rd. (Full article...)
Euler is held to be one of the greatest mathematicians in history and the greatest of the 18th century. Several great mathematicians who produced their work after Euler's death have recognised his importance in the field as shown by quotes attributed to many of them: Pierre-Simon Laplace expressed Euler's influence on mathematics by stating, "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all." Carl Friedrich Gauss wrote: "The study of Euler's works will remain the best school for the different fields of mathematics, and nothing else can replace it." Euler is also widely considered to be the most prolific; his 866 publications as well as his correspondences are being collected in the Opera Omnia Leonhard Euler which, when completed, will consist of 81 quarto volumes. He spent most of his adult life in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia. (Full article...)
... that Russian-Jewish medical student Leo Osnas won the first Cross of St. George of the First World War by saving his regiment's colours from capture?
... that the 1917 Leeds Convention in Britain passed resolutions calling for the end of the First World War and praising the February Revolution in Russia?
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