Russia

Tsarskoye Selo is a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located 26 kilometres south from the center of... St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. In the 17th century, the estate belonged to a Swedish noble. Its original Finnish name is usually translated as "a higher ground". Max Vasmer, on the other hand, derives this toponym from the Finnish word for island, "saari". In any case, the Finnish name came to be pronounced by the 18th-century Russians as "Sarskoye Selo", later changed to "Tsarskoye Selo" . In 1708, Peter the Great gave the estate to his wife—future Empress Catherine I—as a present. She founded the Blagoveschenskaya church there in 1724, changing the name of the settlement to Blagoveschenskoye, but this artificial derivation quickly went out of use. It was Catherine who started to develop the place as a royal country residence.
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The Peter and Paul Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox cathedral located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is the first... and oldest landmark in St. Petersburg, built between 1712 and 1733 on Zayachy Island along the Neva River. Both the cathedral and the fortress were originally built under Peter the Great and designed by Domenico Trezzini. The cathedral's bell tower is the world's tallest Orthodox bell tower. Since the belfry is not standalone, but an integral part of the main building, the cathedral is sometimes considered the highest Orthodox Church in the world. The cathedral is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, the patron saints of the fortress . The current cathedral is the second one on the site. The first, built soon after Peter's founding of the city, was consecrated by Archbishop Iov of Novgorod the Great in April 1704. The current building, the first stone church in St. Petersburg, was designed by Trezzini and built between 1712 and 1733. Its golden spire reaches a height of 404 feet and features at its top an angel holding a cross. This angel is one of the most important symbols of St.
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Rastrelli began the design in 1734, and used a Muscovite style with vague French touches to the detailing. The building stands in the cdentre of a... magnificent square formed by the monastic buildings. The central dome is over 105m high.
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The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by the architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and... opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and greatest ballet and opera companies of the world, respectively. The theatre is the parent company of The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, a world-leading school of ballet. The company was founded in 1776 by Prince Peter Urusov and Michael Maddox. Initially, it held performances in a private home, but in 1780, it acquired the Petrovka Theatre and began producing plays and operas. The current building was built on Theatre Square in 1824 to replace the Petrovka Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1805. It was designed by architect Andrei Mikhailov, who had built the nearby Maly Theatre in 1824. At that time, all Russian theatres were imperial property. Moscow and St Petersburg each had only two theatres, one intended for opera and ballet , and one for plays .
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The Battle of Kodori Valley was a military operation in the Upper Kodori Valley, during the 2008 South Ossetia war, the only part of Abkhazia, which... remained under Georgian control after the War in Abkhazia from 1992 to 1993. Hostilities started, during the 2008 South Ossetia war, the Abkhazian military launched an operation to remove the remaining Georgian troops from the disputed gorge. The Georgian side denied an all-out Abkhazian attack and said, they were ready to stop any attacks. On August 9, 2008, the Abkhazian Air Force began a sortie against Georgian positions, while Abkhazian ground forces moved to invest the valley. Russia also sent a naval squadron to blockade Georgia's Black Sea coast. According to the Georgian government, 6,000 Russian troops rolled into South Ossetia from the neighbouring Russian province of North Ossetia and 4,000 more landed in Abkhazia. According to the commander of Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia, Alexander Novitsky, Russia has boosted its forces in Abkhazia and now deploys more than 9,000 paratroopers and 350 armoured vehicles.
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Gimry fighting took place between January 2-January 5, 2006, near the village of Gimry in Dagestan. The fighting happened on a mountain between some... 3,000 Russian troops, including 1,500 special forces on one side and a group of estimated up to eight armed rebels . The government forces were led by the Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov . Despite heavy artillery and aerial bombardment all the fighters managed to escape the encirclement back to the village, leaving behind only an abandoned dugout. At least three OMON and Spetznaz servicemen died and more than 10 were wounded in a three-day battle, some of them possibly by friendly fire. According to the separatist website, more than 50 Russian troops were "eliminated". The government's plans to pacify the village of Gimry were initially dropped because of the village's symbolical importance as the historical birthplace of Imam Shamil.
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The 2005 Nalchik attack was a raid by a large group of militants on Nalchik , in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic of southern Russia, on 13 October... 2005. A number of buildings associated with the Russian security forces were targeted. More than 100 people , including at least 14 civilians, were reported to have been killed during the ensuing shooting, which continued into the next day. Many other people were wounded. After the raid, Arsen Kanokov, the newly appointed president of the KBR, admitted publicly that it could have been triggered at least in part by brutal crackdowns by local police. According to the Russian news source Agentura, fighting began about 9 AM on the morning of October 13, while a statement made by Shamil Basayev on the Kavkaz Center website puts the exact time at 9:14. The initial attack included nine targets: Soon after, a gun store called Arsenal was robbed and three police stations were attacked as well. An attack on the KBR MVD directorate on fighting the organized crime, one more target, was prevented by pure chance.
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January 15 2005 sieges were two raids of the Russian security forces on a militant Islamist group's safehouses in Dagestan. At least four Russian... commandos and six rebels died in the clashes, while one was captured. The group, called Shariat Jamaat, previously killed 29 members of the Dagestani department for fighting extremism and criminal terrorism, including its chief Akhberdilav Akilov. In the first incident, the government forces surrounded a group of five rebel fighters in a two-story house on the outskirts of Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan. For 17 hours, the rebels battled Russian special forces supported by armoured vehicles and a helicopter, killing one of elite Alpha Group commandos and wounding another. In the end a tank belonging to the Russian Marines smashed the remains of the burned and gutted house. The authorties claimed that among the five bodies recovered from the ruins was the Jennet leader Rasul Makasharipov, but it turned out to be incorrect when Makasharipov resurfaced four days later. In a separate clash this day, special police task force stormed another house in Dagestan's port of Kaspiysk to arrest a separate group of militants.
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The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum which addresses issues faced by the Arctic governments and the indigenous people of the... Arctic. The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy . The Ottawa Declaration of 1996 formally established the Arctic Council as a high level intergovernmental forum to provide a means for promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, with the involvement of the Arctic Indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic. The Ottawa Declaration named eight members of the Arctic Council: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, The United States, Sweden and Finland. There are currently 6 non-Arctic Observer states to the Arctic Council: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
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The Eurasian Economic Community originated from the Commonwealth of Independent States customs union between Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan on 29... March 1996. The Treaty on the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Community was signed on 10 October 2000, in Kazakhstan's capital Astana by Presidents Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan. On 7 October 2005 it was decided between the member states that Uzbekistan would join. Freedom of movement is implemented among the members . Common Economic Space may be launched on 1 January 2010. The Organization of Central Asian Cooperation was an international organization, composed of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine had observer status. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan formed the OCAC in 1991 as Central Asian Commonwealth .
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The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear... Weapons which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. Between 1971 and 1974, a group of 15 nuclear supplier states held a series of informal meetings in Vienna chaired by Professor Claude Zangger of Switzerland. The group's objective was to reach a common understanding on: the definition of "equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material;" and the conditions and procedures that would govern exports of such equipment or material in order to meet the obligations of Article III.2 on the basis of fair commercial competition. The group, which became known as the Zangger Committee, decided that it would be informal and that its decisions would not be legally binding upon its members.
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The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is an intergovernmental mutual-security organisation which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of... China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Except for Uzbekistan, the other countries had been members of the Shanghai Five, founded in 1996; after the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organisation. The official working languages of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are Chinese and Russian. The official names of the organisation in the two languages, abbreviations in parentheses, are: Chinese: Russian: The Shanghai Five grouping was originally created 26 April 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai by the heads of states of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. 24 April 1997 the same countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions in a meeting in Moscow. Subsequent annual summits of the Shanghai Five group occurred in Almaty in 1998, in Bishkek in 1999, and in Dushanbe in 2000.
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Timur Mucuraev is a popular Chechen nasheed singer and bard. Also spelled Mucurayev. Timur was born in Grozny, although his ancestors hailed from... the village of Novye Atagi. He studied at Grozny's School No. 30, and would eventually graduate from the same secondary school. As a youth Timur excelled in karate, winning the championship title of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR at the age of fifteen in 1991, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, capturing the championship title for the Chechen Republic in 1993 and qualifying for the Russian national team. His martial arts career abruptly ended in December 1994, when Russian forces entered Chechnya and effectively started the First Chechen War. Timur then enlisted in the units of the Central Front division in the Chechen resistance, and was seriously wounded in the village of Serzhen-Yurt. During this war Timur would compose and sing songs as a personal hobby. Timur's first recorded song, Jerusalem, became a hit on the Caucasian television channels, gaining extensive airplay and becoming an anthem for many Chechen fighters during the 1999-2000 Battle of Grozny.
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Makka Umarovna Sagaipova is a singer from Chechnya. She is also a dancer in the Chechen dance ensemble, Lovzar. She is the daughter of accordion... player Umar Sagaipov. Since Sagaipova was six years of age, she began to sing, and when she was eight, she learned to dance in the Chechen youth ensemble Lovzar. Sagaipova lives in Moscow and dances in the dance ensembleLovzar. She attends the Moscow College of Jazz and Pop Music and the Economics Department of Moscow State Social University. She has released two CDs. Makka's career was largely sponsored by Chechen millionaire Malik Saidullaev.
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Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya was a Russian actress who achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in... Hollywood films. Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russia and studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow. She performed extensively in on the Russian stage. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, Ouspenskaya was directed by Constantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his 'system', which in America became "method acting". The Moscow Art Theatre traveled widely throughout Europe, and when it arrived in New York in 1922, she decided to stay there. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade, and in 1929, together with her colleague from Moscow Art Theatre Ryszard Bolesławski, she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was Anne Baxter, then an unknown teenager.
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Elena Sergeevna Katina , born October 4, 1984, better known as Lena Katina, is one half of the Russian music duo t.A.T.u., the other half being Yulia... Volkova. She entered Russian show-business as an 8-year old girl, joining the Russian children act Avenue, and later Neposedi. In 1999, Katina was chosen by Ivan Shapovalov for his project, later becoming the most famous Russian group of all time, t.A.T.u. Katina became famous worldwide thanks to hits such as "All The Things She Said", "Not Gonna Get Us", and "All About Us". In 2009, it was announced that Katina would pursue a solo career. Born in Moscow in 1984, Katina is the eldest of three children, and the only daughter of Inessa Katina and Sergej Katin, a prominent Russian pop music author. Her younger half sister Katya has a different father and her half brother Ivan has a different mother. She was raised religiously and is a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian. In 1993, she joined the famous Russian children's ensemble "Avenue", where she sang for three years.
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Belarus, bel-ə-ROOS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian:... Беларусь or Белоруссия, Belorussia see Etymology, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mogilev and Vitebsk . Forty percent of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested, and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing. Until the 20th century, the lands of modern day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Russian Empire, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result of the Russian Revolution, Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union and was renamed into the Belorussian SSR. The final unification of the modern day Belarusian lands took place in 1939 when lands that were part of the Second Polish Republic were united with Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Georgia ; English pronunciation: /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/  is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at... the juncture of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 km² and its population is more than 4.6 million. Georgia's constitution is that of a representative democracy, organized as a unitary, semi-presidential republic. It is currently a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Community of Democratic Choice, the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, and the Asian Development Bank. The country aspires to join NATO and the European Union. The history of Georgia can be traced back to the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia, and it was one of the first countries to adopt Christianity, in the 4th century.
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Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan. It is located in Eurasia and ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also ranked... the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. The capital was moved in 1997 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana. Vast in size, the terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.2 million people . Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre . For most of its history, the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan has been inhabited by nomadic tribes. By the 16th century the Kazakhs emerged as a distinct group, divided into three hordes.
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Mongolia , literally Mongol country/nation, is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and the People's... Republic of China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 38 kilometres from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 38% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic. The area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Gökturks and others. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols returned to their earlier pattern of constant internal conflict and occasional raids on the Chinese borderlands. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mongolia came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism. At the end of the 17th century, most of Mongolia had been incorporated into the area ruled by the Qing Dynasty.
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