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Russia (Russian: , Rossiya, Russian pronunciation: [r?'s?ij?]), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black and Caspian seas in the south. Russia covers over 17,125,191 square kilometres (6,612,073 sq mi), stretching more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, with eleven time zones, and borders with 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country's capital and largest city; and Saint Petersburg is the second-largest city.

Russia is the largest country in the world, the ninth-most populous country, as well as the most populous country in Europe. The country is one of the world's most sparsely populated and urbanised. About half of the country's total area is forested, concentrating around four-fifths of its total population of over 146.8 million on its smaller and dense western portion, as opposed to its larger and sparse eastern portion. Russia is administratively divided into 85 federal subjects. The Moscow Metropolitan Area is the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and among the largest in the world, with more than 20 million residents. (Full article...)

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Dubnium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Db and atomic number 105. Dubnium is highly radioactive: the most stable known isotope, dubnium-268, has a half-life of about 28 hours. This greatly limits extended research on dubnium.

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...)
A postcard of Poltava

The Petropavlovsk class, sometimes referred to as the Poltava class, was a group of three pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1890s. They were transferred to the Pacific Squadron shortly after their completion in 1899-1900 and were based at Port Arthur before the start of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. All three ships participated in the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war. Petropavlovsk sank two months after the war began after striking one or more mines laid by the Japanese. Her two sister ships, Sevastopol and Poltava, took part in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in August 1904 and were sunk or scuttled during the final stages of the Siege of Port Arthur in early 1905.

Poltava was salvaged after the Japanese captured Port Arthur and incorporated into the Imperial Japanese Navy. The ship, renamed Tango in Japanese service, participated in the Battle of Tsingtao in late 1914, during World War I. She was sold back to the Russians in 1916 and renamed Chesma as her original name was in use by another battleship. The ship became the flagship of the Russian Arctic Flotilla in 1917, and her crew supported the Bolsheviks later that year. Chesma was seized by the British in early 1918 when they intervened in the Russian Civil War, abandoned by them when they withdrew and scrapped by the Soviets in 1924. (Full article...)
Clockwise from top: Remnants of Azerbaijani APCs; internally displaced Azerbaijanis from the Armenian-occupied territories; Armenian T-72 tank memorial at the outskirts of Stepanakert; Armenian soldiers

The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from the late 1980s to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet Republics, entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh. The enclave's parliament had voted in favor of uniting itself with Armenia and a referendum, boycotted by the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh, was held, whereby most of the voters voted in favor of independence. The demand to unify with Armenia began in a relatively peaceful manner in 1988; in the following months, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, it gradually grew into an increasingly violent conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, resulting in ethnic cleansing, with the Sumgait (1988) and Baku (1990) pogroms directed against Armenians, and the Gugark pogrom (1988) and Khojaly Massacre (1992) directed against Azerbaijanis being notable examples.
Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in Azerbaijan voted to unify the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the final result of a territorial conflict regarding the land. As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Full-scale fighting erupted in early 1992. International mediation by several groups including the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In early 1993, Armenian forces captured seven Azerbaijani-majority districts outside the enclave itself, threatening the involvement of other countries in the region. By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of the enclave, in addition to surrounding Azerbaijani territories, most notably the Lachin Corridor - a mountain pass that links Nagorno-Karabakh with mainland Armenia. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994. (Full article...)
The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943 near Prokhorovka, 87 kilometres (54 mi) southeast of Kursk in the Soviet Union, during the Second World War. Taking place on the Eastern Front, the engagement was part of the wider Battle of Kursk, and occurred when the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Soviet Red Army attacked the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Waffen-SS in one of the largest tank battles in military history.

In April 1943, the German leadership began preparing for Operation Citadel, with the objective of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, by attacking and breaking through the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. The German offensive was delayed several times due to the vacillation of the leadership and the addition of more forces and new equipment. The Soviet high command, Stavka, had learned of the German intentions, and therefore used the delay to prepare a series of defensive belts along the routes of the planned German offensive. The Soviet leadership also massed several armies deep behind their defences as the Stavka Reserve. This army group, the Steppe Front, was to launch counteroffensives once the German strength had dissipated. The 5th Guards Tank Army was the primary armoured formation of the Steppe Front. (Full article...)
Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of Le Sacre du printemps

The Rite of Spring (Russian: , romanized: Vesna svyashchennaya, lit. 'sacred spring'; French: Le Sacre du printemps) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation. Many have called the first-night reaction a "riot" or "near-riot", though this wording did not come about until reviews of later performances in 1924, over a decade later. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.

Stravinsky was a young, virtually unknown composer when Diaghilev recruited him to create works for the Ballets Russes. The Rite was the third such project, after the acclaimed Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911). The concept behind The Rite of Spring, developed by Roerich from Stravinsky's outline idea, is suggested by its subtitle, "Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts"; the scenario depicts various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death. After a mixed critical reception for its original run and a short London tour, the ballet was not performed again until the 1920s, when a version choreographed by Léonide Massine replaced Nijinsky's original, which saw only eight performances. Massine's was the forerunner of many innovative productions directed by the world's leading ballet-masters, gaining the work worldwide acceptance. In the 1980s, Nijinsky's original choreography, long believed lost, was reconstructed by the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles. (Full article...)
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The 2nd Red Banner Army (Russian: 2-? , romanized: 2-ya Krasnoznamennaya armiya) was a Soviet field army of World War II that served as part of the Far Eastern Front.

The army was formed at Khabarovsk in the Soviet Far East in 1938 as the 2nd Army. After the Far Eastern Front was split in September that year it became the 2nd Independent Red Banner Army. When the front was reformed in June 1940, the army was redesignated as the 2nd Red Banner Army, stationed in the Blagoveshchensk area. It spent the bulk of World War II guarding the border in that area, sending formations to the Eastern Front while undergoing several reorganizations. In August 1945, the army fought in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, capturing the Japanese fortified regions of Aihun and Sunwu adjacent to its sector of the border, and advancing into Manchuria to Qiqihar. The army was disbanded after the war in late 1945. (Full article...)
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary is a neo-Gothic Catholic Church at Moscow's center, that serves as the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow. Located in the Central Administrative Okrug, it is one of three Catholic churches in Moscow and the largest in Russia.

The construction of the cathedral was approved in 1894 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs under Tsarist Russia. Groundbreaking was in 1899; construction work began in 1901 and was completed ten years later. Three-aisled and built from red brick, the cathedral is based on a design by architect Tomasz Bohdanowicz-Dworzecki. The style was influenced by Westminster Abbey and Milan Cathedral. With the help of funds from Catholic parishes in Russia and its neighbouring states, the church was consecrated as a chapel for Moscow's Polish parish in 1911. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Provisional Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks and Russia eventually became part of the Soviet Union in 1922. Because the promotion of state atheism was a part of Marxist-Leninist ideology, the government ordered many churches closed; the cathedral was closed in 1938. During World War II, it was threatened with demolition, and was used after the war for civil purposes, as a warehouse and then a hostel. Following the fall of communism in 1991, it returned to being a church in 1996. In 2002 it was elevated to the status of cathedral. Following an extensive and costly programme of reconstruction and refurbishment, the cathedral was reconsecrated in 2005. (Full article...)
Pobeda at anchor, probably about March 1904

Pobeda (Russian: , lit. 'Victory') was the last of the three Peresvet-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy at the end of the nineteenth century. The ship was assigned to the Pacific Squadron upon completion and based at Port Arthur from 1903. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, she participated in the battles of Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea. Having escaped serious damage in these engagements, Pobeda was sunk by gunfire during the Siege of Port Arthur, and then salvaged by the Japanese and placed into service under the name Suwo ().

Rearmed and re-boilered by the Japanese, Suwo was reclassified by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) as a coastal defense ship in 1908 and served as a training ship for several years. She was the flagship of the Japanese squadron that participated in the Battle of Tsingtao at the beginning of World War I and continued in that role until she became a gunnery training ship in 1917. The ship was disarmed in 1922 to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and probably scrapped around that time. (Full article...)
Arena Active Protection System

Arena (Russian: ) is an active protection system (APS) developed at Russia's Kolomna-based Engineering Design Bureau for the purpose of protecting armoured fighting vehicles from destruction by light anti-tank weapons, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), and missiles with top attack warheads. It uses a Doppler radar to detect incoming warheads. Upon detection, a defensive rocket is fired that detonates near the inbound threat, destroying it before it hits the vehicle.

Arena is the successor to Drozd, a Soviet active protection system from the late 1970s, which was installed on several T-55s during the Soviet-Afghan War. The system improved the vehicle's survivability rate, increasing it by up to 80%. Drozd was followed by Shtora in the late 1980s, which used an electro-magnetic jammer to confuse inbound enemy anti-tank missiles and rockets. In late 1994 the Russian Army deployed many armoured fighting vehicles to Chechnya, where they were ambushed and suffered heavy casualties. The effectiveness of Chechen rocket-propelled grenades against Russian combat vehicles prompted the Kolomenskoye machine-building design bureau to devise the Arena active protection system in the early and mid-1990s. An export variant, Arena-E, was also developed. The system has been tested on the T-80UM-1, demonstrated at Omsk in 1997, and was considered for use on the South Korean K2 Black Panther main battle tank. (Full article...)
Slava (Russian: "Glory") was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, the last of the five Borodino-class battleships. Completed too late to participate in the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War, she survived while all of her sister ships were either sunk during the battle or surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Serving in the Baltic Sea during World War I, Slava was the largest ship of the Russian Gulf of Riga Squadron that fought the German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. She repeatedly bombarded German positions and troops for the rest of 1915 and during 1916. During the Battle of Moon Sound in 1917, Slava was badly damaged by the German dreadnought SMS König, significantly increasing her draft. The shallow channel made it impossible to escape and she was scuttled in the Moon Sound Strait between the island of Muhu (Moon) and the mainland. The Estonians scrapped her during the 1930s. (Full article...)
Manuscript miniature of Manuel I (part of double portrait with Maria of Antioch, Vatican Library, Rome)

Manuel I Komnenos (Greek: ? ?' ; 28 November 1118 - 24 September 1180), Latinized Comnenus, also called Porphyrogennetos ("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.

Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower 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 Fatimid Egypt. 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...)
1893 lithograph of Dvenadsat Apostolov

Dvenadsat Apostolov (Russian: ? --"Twelve Apostles") was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy, the sole ship of her class. She entered service in 1893 with the Black Sea Fleet, but was not fully ready until 1894. The ship participated in the failed attempt to recapture the mutinous battleship Potemkin in 1905. Decommissioned and disarmed in 1911, Dvenadsat Apostolov became an immobile submarine depot ship the following year. The ship was captured by the Germans in 1918 in Sevastopol and was handed over to the Allies in December. Lying immobile in Sevastopol, she was captured by both sides in the Russian Civil War before she was abandoned when the White Russians evacuated the Crimea in 1920. Dvenadsat Apostolov was used as a stand-in for the title ship during the 1925 filming of The Battleship Potemkin before she was finally scrapped in 1931. (Full article...)
Bezhin Meadow ( , 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 life of Pavlik Morozov, a young Russian boy who became a political martyr following his death in 1932, after he 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...)
A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter War

The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union (USSR) and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the organisation.

The Soviets made several demands, including that Finland cede substantial border territories in exchange for land elsewhere, claiming security reasons--primarily the protection of Leningrad, 32 km (20 mi) from the Finnish border. When Finland refused, the USSR invaded. Most sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and use the establishment of the puppet Finnish Communist government and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols as evidence of this, while other sources argue against the idea of the full Soviet conquest. Finland repelled Soviet attacks for more than two months and inflicted substantial losses on the invaders while temperatures ranged as low as -43 °C (-45.4 °F). After the Soviet military reorganized and adopted different tactics, they renewed their offensive in February and overcame Finnish defences. (Full article...)

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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.
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Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov
Credit: This image comes from Gallica Digital Library and is available under the digital ID btv1b6926750k/f1
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov is the Russian scientist who discovered phagocytes and won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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Sadko
Painting: Ilya Repin
Sadko is a character in the Russian medieval epic Bylina. An adventurer, merchant and gusli musician from Novgorod, Sadko becomes wealthy with the help of the Sea Tsar, but is thrown in the sea when he fails to pay the Sea Tsar his due respects. This story was widely adapted in the 19th century, including in a poem by Alexei Tolstoy and an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Shown here is Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom, an 1876 painting by Ilya Repin. It depicts Sadko meeting the Sea Tsar under the sea.
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Sukhoi Su-25 diagram
Diagram: Altoing
Layout scheme of a Sukhoi Su-25 (details), a jet aircraft designed to provide close air support for the Soviet Ground Forces and used by various countries. Since production began in 1978, the Su-25 has seen combat in several conflicts, including the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Russia-Georgia War.
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Sukhoi Superjet 100
Photograph: Katsuhiko Tokunaga/SuperJet International
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a modern fly-by-wire twin-engine regional jet with 8 to 108 passenger seats. Development began in 2000; the aircraft had its maiden flight on 19 May 2008 and entered commercial service on 21 April 2011. This aircraft is seen flying off the coast of Italy near Sanremo.
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Monument to Nicholas I
Photograph: Godot13
The Monument to Nicholas I is a bronze equestrian monument of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia located in Saint Isaac's Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Created by French sculptor Auguste de Montferrand and unveiled in 1859, the statue was considered a technical wonder at the time of its creation and is one of only a few bronze statues with just two support points (the rear hooves of the horse).
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Hotel Astoria (Saint Petersburg)
Photograph: Florstein
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.
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St. Isaac's Square
Image from: Detroit Publishing Co. (1905 catalogue)
A photochrom of St Isaac's Square in St Petersburg, Russia from the 1890s, as seen from the dome of St Isaac's Cathedral towards Marie Palace. Behind the palace, the capital of the Russian Empire is seen all the way to the Trinity Cathedral. The square is dominated by the equestrian Monument to Nicholas I.
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Maxim Gorky
Photo: Herman Mishkin; Restoration: Fallschirmjäger
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) was a Russian political activist and writer who helped establish the Socialist Realism literary method. This portrait dates from a trip Gorky made to the United States in 1906, on which he raised funds for the Bolsheviks. During this trip he wrote his novel The Mother.
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Chesme Column
Photograph credit: Andrew Shiva
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.
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Nilov Monastery
Credit: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
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.
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Portrait of Chaliapin
Painting credit: Boris Kustodiev
The Portrait of Chaliapin is an oil-on-canvas painting by Boris Kustodiev, produced in 1921. Feodor Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer; possessing a deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses. He is depicted here wearing an expensive fur coat, which had come from a Soviet warehouse containing items confiscated from rich people during the Russian Revolution, and which he had received in lieu of payment for a performance. The background shows festivities at the traditional folk holiday of Maslenitsa. Dressed in a smart suit and holding a cane, Chaliapin is portrayed as having risen above his contemporaries. His favourite dog is at his feet and, at the bottom left, his two daughters stroll on the festive square in front of a poster promoting his concert. This copy of the painting is in the collection of the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg.
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A Boyar Wedding Feast
Painting credit: Konstantin Makovsky
A Boyar Wedding Feast is an oil-on-canvas painting created by Russian artist Konstantin Makovsky in 1883. The boyars were members of the highest rank of the feudal aristocracy of Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a wedding was an important social event. In this painting, the guests are depicted toasting a newlywed couple. They stand at the head of the table, where the groom sees his bride without her veil for the first time; she appears timid and bashful as the men toast for the first kiss. Behind the couple, the Lady of Ceremony gently urges on the bride. A roasted swan is being brought in on a large platter, the last dish to be served before the couple retires to the bedroom. The work is in the collection of the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, in Washington, D.C.
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Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
Credit: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky was a Russian pioneer of color photographer. This view of Lugano was most likely taken in 1909.

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 darkroom railroad car.
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Natalya Naryshkina
Painting: Anonymous
Natalya Naryshkina (1651-1694) was the Tsaritsa of Russia from 1671–1676 as the second spouse of Tsar Alexis I of Russia. She was the mother of Tsar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great), who was born in 1672.
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Mohammed Alim Khan
Credit: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
An early colour photograph of the Emir of Bukhara, Mohammed Alim Khan, in 1911, taken by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky as part of his work to document the Russian Empire from 1909 to 1915. Alim Khan, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, was the last emir of the Manghud dynasty. He reigned from 1911 to 1920, fleeing to Afghanistan when the Bolsheviks annexed Bukhara and proclaimed the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.
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Reindeer
Image credit: Detroit Publishing Co.
A late nineteenth-century photochrom of a reindeer sled, Arkhangelsk, Russia. Reindeer have been herded for centuries by several Arctic and Subarctic people including the Sami and the Nenets. They are raised for their meat, hides, antlers and, to a lesser extent, for milk and transportation.
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Balzhinima Tsyrempilov
Photograph: ? ?
Balzhinima Tsyrempilov is a World Cup-winning and former world number-one archer from Russia. He has competed in both the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics, though he has not medalled.
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"Family Ruble"
Coin: Russian Empire (image courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History)
The "Family Ruble", a coin issued by the Russian Empire in 1836 and denominated both as 1½ rubles and as 10 z?oty. It depicts Tsar Nicholas I on the obverse and his family on the reverse: Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (center), surrounded by Alexander II as Tsarevich, Maria, Olga, Nicholas, Michael, Konstantin, and Alexandra.
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Did you know...

... that as a teenager, Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhaylovich Reshetnikov (pictured) was convicted of stealing mail and sentenced to three months in a monastery?
... that the first foreigner decorated in World War Two with the highest Soviet medal, Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Czechoslovak soldier, Otakar Jaro? after the Battle of Sokolovo in 1943?
... that the Polish Second Army was the second major formation of the Peoples' Army of Poland fighting alongside the Soviet Union in the Second World War?

More did you know

In this month

January 7, 1598 - Feodor I of Russia died with no children.
January 15, 1714 - The northwestern territory of the Kazan Governorate was transferred to the newly established Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.
January 25, 1721 - Peter established the Holy Synod, a body of ten clergymen chaired by a secular official, that was to head the Russian Orthodox Church in lieu of the Patriarch of Moscow.
January 28, 1725 - Peter died of urinary problems. He failed to name a successor; one of Peter's closest advisers, Aleksandr Menshikov, convinced the Imperial Guard to declare in favor of Peter's wife Catherine I.
January 31, 1924 - The 1924 Soviet Constitution came into effect.

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Selected cuisine - show another

Çi? börek and ayran in a Turkish cafe

Chebureki is a deep-fried turnover with a filling of ground or minced meat and onions. It is made with a single round piece of dough folded over the filling in a crescent shape.

Chebureki is a national dish of Crimean Tatar cuisine. They are popular as snack and street food throughout the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, as well as with the Crimean Tatar diasporas in Turkey and Romania. (Full article...)

Featured biography - show another

Portrait of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1898 by Valentin Serov (detail)

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian: ? ?-, tr. Nikoláy Andréyevich Rimskiy-Kórsakov, IPA: [nk?'laj ?n'dr?ej?vt? 'r?imskj 'kors?k?f] ; 18 March 1844 - 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions--Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade--are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects.

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...)

List of featured biographies

In the news

18 January 2021 - COVID-19 pandemic: Turkmenistan registers the Sputnik V vaccine despite having no confirmed cases in the country, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund. It becomes the first country in Central Asia to approves a Russian-made vaccine. (RFE/RL)
18 January 2021 - Germany-Russia relations: Germany condemns the arrest of opposition politician and activist Alexei Navalny upon his return to Russia yesterday. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas calls the arrest "utterly incomprehensible" and calls for Navalny's immediate release. Likewise, British, Danish, and other European diplomats also condemn the arrest. (DW)
17 January 2021 - COVID-19 pandemic: Guinean President Alpha Condé receives the first dose of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. (Africanews)
17 January 2021 - Aftermath of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny: Opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny is arrested upon landing in Moscow, according to a statement from the prison service. The prominent Putin critic was arrested on charges of parole violations and terms of a suspended prison sentence and will be held in custody until a court makes a decision in his case. (Politico)
16 January 2021 - COVID-19 pandemic: Argentina receives their second batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. (U.S. News & World Report); The Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency announces that the country has returned documents from União Química seeking approval for Russia's Sputnik V vaccine as it didn't meet the criteria. (Reuters)

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WikiProject Russia

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Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-determination; the unity of the workers of all nations--such is the national program that Marxism, the experience of the whole world, and the experience of Russia, teach the workers.

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