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A bowl of borscht garnished with sour cream and dill
Borscht (English: /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...)
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King Władysław II Jagiełło, detail of the Triptych of Our Lady of Sorrows in the Wawel Cathedral, Kraków
Jogaila (Lithuanian:[jɔˈɡâːɪɫɐ]ⓘ; c. 1352/1362 – 1 June 1434), later Władysław II Jagiełło (Polish:[vwaˈdɨswafjaˈɡʲɛwwɔ]ⓘ), was Grand Duke of Lithuania beginning in 1377 and starting in 1386, becoming King of Poland as well. As Grand Duke, he ruled Lithuania from 1377 to 1381 and from 1382 to 1401, at which time he became the Supreme Duke of Lithuania in exchange for naming his cousin Vytautas as the new Grand Duke. Władysław II initially served as King of Poland alongside his wife Jadwiga until her death in 1399, and then the sole ruler until his own death in 1434.
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (French: Tintin au pays des Soviets) is the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle as anti-communistsatire for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from January 1929 to May 1930 before being published in a collected volume by Éditions du Petit Vingtième in 1930. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are sent to the Soviet Union to report on Stalin's government. Knowing of his intentions, however, the secret police of the OGPU are sent to hunt him down.
Bolstered by publicity stunts, Land of the Soviets was a commercial success in Belgium, and also witnessed serialisation in France and Switzerland. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in the Congo, and the series became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Damage to the original plates prevented republication of the book for several decades, while Hergé later expressed embarrassment at the crudeness of the work. As he began to redraw his earlier Adventures in second, colour versions from 1942 onward, he decided against doing so for Land of the Soviets; it was the only completed Tintin story that Hergé did not reproduce in colour. Growing demand among fans of the series resulted in the production of unauthorised copies of the book in the 1960s, with the first officially sanctioned republication appearing in 1969, after which it was translated into several other languages, including English. Critical reception of the work has been largely negative, and several commentators on The Adventures of Tintin have described Land of the Soviets as one of Hergé's weakest works. (Full article...)
The terrain complicated battle tactics for both sides, but the Russians and the Austrians, having arrived in the area first, were able to overcome many of its difficulties by strengthening a causeway between two small ponds. They had also devised a solution to Frederick's deadly modus operandi, the oblique order. Although Frederick's troops initially gained the upper hand in the battle, his limited scouting, combined with the strong defensive preparations of the Allied troops, gave the Russians and Austrians an advantage. By afternoon, when the combatants were exhausted, fresh Austrian troops thrown into the fray secured the Allied victory. (Full article...)
Tsereteli was born and raised in Georgia when it was part of the Russian Empire. A member of the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP, Tsereteli was elected to the Duma in 1907, where he gained fame for his oratorical skill. Shortly after entering the Duma, Tsereteli was arrested and charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Tsarist government, and exiled to Siberia. A dedicated Social Democrat who believed in the Menshevik ideology, Tsereteli was one of the leading figures of the movement in Russia. In 1915, during his Siberian exile, Tsereteli formed what would become known as Siberian Zimmerwaldism, which advocated for the role of the Second International in ending the war. He also developed the idea of "Revolutionary Defensism", the concept of a defensive war which only allowed for the defence of territory, and argued it was not being utilized. (Full article...)
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.
Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no public music education system. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. (Full article...)
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The Shuttle–Mir program (Russian: Программа «Мир»–«Шаттл») was a collaborative 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 allow American astronauts 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 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Space Agency (PKA). 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 1,000 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...)
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...)
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Largest European specimen, a male at Südostbayerisches Naturkunde- und Mammut-Museum, Siegsdorf
The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in Siberia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other. Mammoth remains were long known in Asia before they became known to Europeans. The origin of these remains was long debated and often explained as the remains of legendary creatures. The mammoth was identified as an extinct elephant species by Georges Cuvier in 1796.
The appearance and behaviour of the woolly mammoth are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and North America, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. It was roughly the same size as modern African elephants. Males reached shoulder heights between 2.67 and 3.49 m (8 ft 9 in and 11 ft 5 in) and weighed between 3.9 and 8.2 t (3.8 and 8.1 long tons; 4.3 and 9.0 short tons). Females reached 2.3–2.6 m (7 ft 7 in – 8 ft 6 in) in shoulder heights and weighed between 2.8–4 t (2.8–3.9 long tons; 3.1–4.4 short tons). A newborn calf weighed about 90 kg (200 lb). The woolly mammoth was well adapted to the cold environments present during glacial periods, including the last ice age. It was covered in fur, with an outer covering of long guard hairs and a shorter undercoat. The colour of the coat varied from dark to light. The ears and tail were short to minimise frostbite and heat loss. It had long, curved tusks and four molars, which were replaced six times during the lifetime of an individual. Its behaviour was similar to that of modern elephants, and it used its tusks and trunk for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging. The diet of the woolly mammoth was mainly grasses and sedges. Individuals could probably reach the age of 60. Its habitat was the mammoth steppe, which stretched across northern Eurasia and North America. (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.
Jeannette at Le Havre in 1878, prior to her departure for San Francisco in a trip that would see her round Cape Horn The Jeannetteexpedition of 1879–1881, officially called the U.S. Arctic Expedition, was an attempt led by George W. De Long to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. The premise was that a temperate current, the Kuro Siwo, flowed northwards into the strait, providing a gateway to the hypothesized Open Polar Sea and thus to the pole.
This theory proved illusory; the expedition's ship, USS Jeannette and its crew of thirty-three men, was trapped by ice and drifted for nearly two years before she was crushed and sunk north of the Siberian coast. De Long then led his men on a perilous journey by sled, dragging the Jeannette'swhaleboat and two cutters, eventually switching to these small boats to sail for the Lena Delta in Siberia. During this journey, and in the subsequent weeks of wandering in Siberia before rescue, twenty of the ship's complement died, including De Long. (Full article...)
Khrushchev was born in a village in western Russia. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth and 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...)
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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81; depicted in 1872) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. After publishing his first novel, Poor Folk, at age 25, Dostoyevsky wrote (among others) eleven novels, three novellas, and seventeen short novels, including Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
Ivan Goremykin (1839–1917) was a Russian prime minister during World War I. A politician with archconservative views, after some time in the Ministry of Justice, he transferred to the Ministry of the Interior in 1891. He held the rank of prime minister from May to July 1906 and again from 1914 to 1916; during both terms his effectiveness was strongly limited by opposition from the State Duma. In the aftermath of the October Revolution, Goremykin was recognized as a member of the Tsarist government and killed by a street mob.
A map detailing the events of the 2008 South Ossetia war, which began one year ago today, when Georgia launched an operation in the disputed region of South Ossetia. Ossetian, Russian, and Abkhazian forces ejected the Georgian forces after five days of heavy fighting. All parties reached a ceasefire agreement on August 12, and Russian troops remain stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia to this day.
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.
Lenin, a Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker, was both the world's first nuclear-powered surface ship and the first nuclear-powered civilian vessel. The ship entered operation in 1959 and worked to clear sea routes for cargo ships along Russia's northern coast. Nuclear power proved to be an ideal technology for a vessel working in such a remote area, as it obviated the need for regular replenishment of fuel. From 1960 to 1965, the ship covered over 85,000 mi (137,000 km) during the Arctic navigation season, of which three-quarters was through ice. After being decommissioned in 1989, the vessel was subsequently converted into a museum ship and is now permanently based at Murmansk.
This photograph of Skudina, taken in 2009, is part of a collection of 500 images of Russian sportspeople released to Wikimedia Commons by Bolshoi Sport.
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.
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.
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.
Manuscript miniature, part of double portrait with Empress Maria, Vatican Library
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 experienced a resurgence of military and economic power and enjoyed a cultural revival.
Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the great power of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic and ambitious foreign policy. In the process he made alliances with Pope Adrian IV and the resurgent West. He invaded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, although unsuccessfully, being the last Eastern Roman emperor to attempt reconquests in the western Mediterranean. The passage of the potentially dangerous Second Crusade through his empire was adroitly managed. Manuel established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader states of Outremer. Facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of FatimidEgypt. Manuel reshaped the political maps of the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, placing the kingdoms of Hungary and Outremer under Byzantine hegemony and campaigning aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. (Full article...)
I think Russian people are learning that democracy is not an alien thing; it's not a western invention. It's probably the most affordable mechanism to solve problems inside the country, inside the society because Putin proved to all of us that democracy has a world of alternatives, security forces and police and power abuse and that's why I think eventually the people of Russia will embrace democracy as the least costly institution to help them to solve their daily problems.
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