Ukraine

The Saint Andrew's Church is a major Baroque church located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The church was constructed in 1747–1754, to a... design by the Imperial Russian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a cathedral. The Saint Andrew's Church overlooks the historic Podil neighborhood, situated on a steep hill to which the church gave its current name Andriyivska Hill. It is currently one of four architectural landmarks of Ukraine, which were put down on the List of Mankind Treasures of Five Continents by the world society. As the church sits atop a hill, foundation problems have been one of the main concerns of preservationists. More recently, the foundation below the church has started to shift, causing some concerns that the church's foundation might collapse. Cracks have already appeared in the foundation, and some of the church's falling decor has been found in neighboring areas. The location of the church is attributed to the place where the Apostle Saint Andrew arrived and erected a cross.
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Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev is an outstanding architectural monument of Kievan Rus'. Today, it is one of the city's best known landmarks and the... first Ukrainian patrimony to be inscribed on the World Heritage List. In Ukrainian the cathedral is known as Sobor Sviatoyi Sofiyi or Sofiys’kyi sobor . In Russian it is known as Sobor Svyatoi Sofii or Sofiyskiy sobor . The complex of the Cathedral is the main component the National Sanctuary "Sophia of Kiev" the state institution responsible for the preservation of the Cathedral complex along with several other historic landmarks of the city. The cathedral's name comes from the 6th-century Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople . According to a less popular theory, its model was the 13-domed oaken Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod , which Yaroslav I the Wise determined to imitate in stone as a sign of gratitude to the citizens of Novgorod who had helped him secure the Kievan throne in 1019.
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St Volodymyr's Cathedral is a cathedral in the centre of Kiev. It is one of the city's major landmarks and the mother cathedral of the Ukrainian... Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy, one of two major Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. In 1852, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow suggested a large cathedral should be built in Kiev to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Kievan Rus' by prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev . People from all over the Russian Empire started donating to this cause, so that by 1859 the cathedral fund had amassed a huge sum of 100,000 rubles. The Kiev Pechersk Lavra produced one million bricks and presented them to the cathedral as well. The design was executed in neo-Byzantine style initially by the architects I. Schtrom, P. Sparro, R. Bemhardt, K. Mayevsky, V. Nikolayev. The final version of the design belongs to Alexander Vikentievich Beretti.
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The Golden Gates of Kiev is a historic gateway in the ancient city walls of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Currently it serves as a museum and is... located on the corner of Volodymyr street and Yaroslaviv Val Street . The name Zoloti Vorota is also used for a nearby theatre and a station of the Kiev Metro. The modern history states that this gateway was one of three constructed by Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev, in 1037 about when the Saint Sophia Cathedral was erected. However some sources claim that the gates stood some time before that like for example the painting of Jan Matejko where he depicts both Bolelaw Chrobry and Sviatopolk I entering the city during the Kiev succession crisis in 1018. This version currently is being considered as a legend. Originally named as simply the Southern gates they were one of the three main gates of the city fortification with other being called: Ladski and Zydowski. The last two gates did not manage to survive. The stone fortifications stretched for only 3.5 km .
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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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Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation program aimed at creating trust between NATO and other states in Europe and the... former Soviet Union; 22 States are members. It was first proposed as an American initiative at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Travemünde, Germany, on 20–21 October 1993, and formally launched on 10-11 January 1994 NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium. Ten former member states, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have subsequently joined NATO. On April 26, 1995 Malta became a member of PfP; it left on October 27, 1996 in order to keep its security intact. On March 20, 2008 Malta decided to reactivate their PfP membership; this was accepted by NATO at the Summit in Bucharest on April 3, 2008. During the NATO summit in Riga on November 29, 2006, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia were invited to join PfP after which they joined PfP on December 14, 2006. Cyprus is the only European Union member that is not participating.
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World Bank is a term used to describe an international financial institution that provides leveraged loans to developing countries for capital... programs. The World Bank has a stated goal of reducing poverty. The World Bank differs from the World Bank Group, in that the World Bank comprises only two institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association , whereas the latter incorporates these two in addition to three more: International Finance Corporation , Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency , and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes . The World Bank is one of five institutions created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. The International Monetary Fund, a related institution, is the second. Delegates from many countries attended the Bretton Woods Conference. The most powerful countries in attendance were the United States and United Kingdom which dominated negotiations. Although both are based in Washington, D.C., the World Bank is by custom headed by an American, while the IMF is led by a European.
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The Council of Europe is one of the oldest international organisations working towards European integration, having been founded in 1949. It has a... particular emphasis on legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation. It has 47 member states with some 800 million citizens. It is distinct from the European Union which has common policies, binding laws and only twenty-seven members. The two do however share certain symbols such as their flag. Its statutory institutions are the Committee of Ministers comprising the foreign ministers of each member state, the Parliamentary Assembly composed of MPs from the Parliament of each member state, and the Secretary General heading the secretariat of the Council of Europe. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote the awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states.
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Krystyna Feldman was a Polish actress. Born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary to a Catholic mother, Katarzyna Sawicka-Feldman, an opera singer and a... Jewish father, Ferdynand Feldman, an actor, Krystyna Feldman starred in theatre productions there until 1944, and later in Łódź, Szczecin, Opole, and Kraków. Since 1983, she performed at the Teatr Nowy in Poznań. Feldman made her film debut in Celuloza , directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. Her career continued with various supporting roles. She was best known for a male role of an elderly disabled painter Nikifor in Mój Nikifor, for which she won the award for best actress in 2004 at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia and numerous awards at other festivals in the world. She also appeared as the grandmother in the TV sitcom, Świat według Kiepskich. Krystyna Feldman died of lung cancer in her flat in Poznań, aged 90.
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Andrzej Żuławski is a Polish film director. He was born in Lwów, Poland . Żuławski was an assistant of Andrzej Wajda. When... his second film Diabeł was banned in Poland he decided to move to France, where he made L'Important c'est d'aimer with Romy Schneider. After returning to Poland he worked for two years on a film which the authorities did not allow him to finish , based on a book by his great-uncle Jerzy Żuławski. Since then he has lived and worked mostly in France, making art films. Being a maverick who always defied mainstream commercialism, Żuławski enjoyed success mostly with the European art-house audiences. His wild, imaginative, and controversial pictures have received 16 awards at various international film festivals. He also wrote the novels Il était Un Verger, Lity Bór , W Oczach Tygrysa, and Ogród Milosci. He was in a relationship for fifteen years with the French actress Sophie Marceau with whom he made four films over a 15 year period .
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Emanuel Ax is a Grammy-winning American-Jewish classical pianist. He is currently a teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School. He is widely... considered one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century. Ax was born in Lviv, USSR to Joachim and Hellen Ax, both Nazi concentration camp survivors. Ax began to study piano at the age of six; his father was his first piano teacher. When he was eight the family moved to Warsaw, Poland and then two years later to Winnipeg, Canada where he continued to study music, including as a member of The Junior Musical Club of Winnipeg. In 1961 the family moved to New York City and Ax continued his studies at the Juilliard School under Mieczysław Munz. In 1970 he received his B.A. in French at Columbia University and became an American citizen. In 1973 he won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Ax is a particular supporter of contemporary composers and has given three world premieres in the last few seasons; Century Rolls by John Adams, Seeing by Christopher Rouse and Red Silk Dance by Bright Sheng.
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Wojciech Kilar  ; b. July 17, 1932 in Lwów, Poland is a Polish classical and film music composer. Wojciech Kilar is inarguably one of... Poland’s finest composers. Born in Lwów in 1932 - now a city in Ukraine, it was part of Poland at the time. His father was a medical doctor, a gynecologist and his mother was a theater actress. Kilar has spent most of his life where he lives now, in the city of Katowice in Southern Poland, happily married to Barbara Pomianowska, a pianist. Kilar was 22 years old when he met 18 year old Barbara, his future wife. Kilar studied at some of Poland's finest music academies, including the State Higher School of Music in Katowice, under the composer/pianist Władysława Markiewiczówna, graduating with top honors in 1955. He continued his post-graduate studies at the State Higher School of Music in Kraków from 1955 to 1958 under composer/pianist Bolesław Woytowicz. In 1957 he participated in the International New Music Summer Course in Darmstadt.
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The Slovak Republic ; Slovak: Slovensko , long form Slovenská republika is a state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million... and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres . Slovakia is a landlocked country bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the fifth and sixth centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire , Principality of Nitra , Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia.
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Moldova /mɒlˈdoʊvə/ , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to... the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldovan SSR in 1991, as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A strip of Moldova's internationally recognized territory on the east bank of the river Nistru has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990. The country is a parliamentary republic and democracy with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, Council of Europe, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations. Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union, and has implemented the first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy . About a quarter of the population lives on less than US $2 a day.
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Romania roe-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Rumania; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a]  is a country located at the crossroads of Central... and Southeastern Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south. Romania emerged as principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia united under prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza in 1859 and as the Kingdom of Romania under the Hohenzollern monarchy, it gained recognition of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Romanian Independence Day is May 9th 1877. In 1918, at the end of the World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories were occupied by the Soviet Union and Romania became a socialist republic, member of the Warsaw Pact.
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Hungary /ˈhʌŋɡəri/ , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin in Central... Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of EU, NATO, OECD, V4 and is a Schengen state. The official and vernacular language is Hungarian, which is part of the Finno-Ugric family, thus one of the four official languages of the European Union that are not of Indo-European origin. A great power until the end of World War I, Hungary lost over 70% of its territory, along with one third of its population of Hungarian ethnicity, under the Treaty of Trianon, the terms of which have been considered excessively harsh by many in Hungary. The kingdom was succeeded by a Communist era during which Hungary gained widespread international attention regarding the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal move of opening its border with Austria in 1989, thus accelerating the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The present form of government is a parliamentary republic .
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