Adolphe De Polier
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Adolphe De Polier
Count Adolphe de Polier (1795 – 1830) was a French officer in the service of the Russian Empire. He is remembered as the man who found Russia's first diamonds. Life Polier was born in Avignon in 1795. He was posthumous son of Antoine Polier, an engineer who had made a fortune in India and then returned in time to be called an aristocrat during the French revolution. His father was killed leaving a pregnant widow and a son. In 1812 Polier joined the French cavalry. He then worked for the French General Staff. Adolphe married Princess Varvara Shakhovskaya (1796–1870), one of Russia's richest women, in 1826. The following year he entered the Russian service as Chamberlain of Emperor Nicholas I. He also served as vice-minister of Finance. As a member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences he organised several scientific expeditions. In 1829, he accompanied Alexander von Humboldt to the Ural region to some land that was owned by his wife. Whilst Humboldt found gold and plat ...
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Thomas Wright (engraver)
Thomas Wright (2 March 1792, Birmingham – 30 March 1849, London) was an engraver and portrait-painter. Biography He served as an apprentice to Henry Hoppner Meyer, Henry Meyer, and worked for four years as assistant to William Thomas Fry, for whom he engraved the popular plate of Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in a box at Covent Garden Theatre. About 1817 he began to practise independently as a stipple-engraver, and also found employment in taking portraits in pencil and miniature. He became much associated with George Dawe, whose sister he married, and in 1822 followed him to Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg to engrave his gallery of portraits of Russian generals; there he also executed a fine plate of the Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Alexander, and another of the Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Empress Alexandra with her children, both after Dawe, on account of which he received diamond rings from members of the royal family and a gold medal from the king of ...
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Pargolovo
Pargolovo (, , ) is a municipal settlement in the Vyborgsky District of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Until the late 20th century, it was the city's northern suburb. The name derives from ''Parkola'', a Karelian placename. Its population in 2010 was 15,852. Pargolovo was a family seat of the junior line of the Counts Shuvalov, starting with Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov who received the Pargolovo manor from Empress Elizabeth in 1746. His Baroque palace was rebuilt by Stepan Krichinsky (1874-1923) as a Neoclassical villa for the estate's last owner, Count Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov. A smaller palace, designed by Harald Julius von Bosse, dates from the mid-19th century. The Shuvalov Park also contains a network of old ponds; the Yellow Dacha, a wooden lodge designed by Maximilian Messmacher for his own family; the Parnassus hill, which used to offer views of the capital's downtown; and the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, built in the 1840s to a Gothic Revival design by Ale ...
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Expatriates In The Russian Empire
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and other individuals who have chosen to live outside their native country. The International Organization for Migration of the United Nations defines the term as 'a person who voluntarily renounces his or her nationality'. Historically, it also referred to exiles. The UAE is the country with the highest percentage of expatriates in the world after the Vatican City, with expatriates in the United Arab Emirates representing 88% of the population. Etymology The word ''expatriate'' comes from the Latin words and , from , . Semantics Dictionary definitions for the current meaning of the word include: :Expatriate: :* 'A person who lives outside their native country' (Oxford), or :* 'living in a foreign land' (Webster's). These definitions ...
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People From Avignon
The term "the people" refers to the public or common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. In contrast, a people is any plurality of persons considered as a whole. Used in politics and law, the term "a people" refers to the collective or community of an ethnic group or nation. Concepts Legal Chapter One, Article One of the Charter of the United Nations states that "peoples" have the right to self-determination. Though the mere status as peoples and the right to self-determination, as for example in the case of Indigenous peoples (''peoples'', as in all groups of indigenous people, not merely all indigenous persons as in ''indigenous people''), does not automatically provide for independent sovereignty and therefore secession. Indeed, judge Ivor Jennings identified the inherent problems in the right of "peoples" to self-determination, as i ...
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1830 Deaths
It is known in European history as a rather tumultuous year with the Revolutions of 1830 in France, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland and Italy. Events January–March * January 11 – LaGrange College (later the University of North Alabama) begins operation, becoming the first publicly chartered college in Alabama. * January 12 – Webster–Hayne debate: In the United States Congress, Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina debates against Daniel Webster of Massachusetts about the question of states' rights vs. federal authority. The debate lasts until –January 27. * February 3 – The London Protocol (1830), London Protocol establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire, as the result of the Greek War of Independence. * February 5 – A fire destroys the Argyll Rooms in London, where the Philharmonic Society of London presents concerts, but firefighters are able to prevent its further spread by use of their new equipment, steam-powered fire e ...
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1795 Births
Events January–June * January – Central England records its coldest ever month, in the CET records dating back to 1659. * January 14 – The University of North Carolina opens to students at Chapel Hill, becoming the first state university in the United States. * January 16 – War of the First Coalition: Flanders campaign: The French occupy Utrecht, Netherlands. * January 18 – Batavian Revolution in Amsterdam: William V, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands), flees the country. * January 19 – The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in Amsterdam, ending the Dutch Republic (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands). * January 20 – French troops enter Amsterdam. * January 23 – Flanders campaign: Capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder: The Dutch fleet, frozen in Zuiderzee, is captured by the French 8th Hussars. * February 7 – The Eleventh Amendment to the United Sta ...
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Alexander Brullov
Alexander Pavlovich Brullov, sometimes Brulloff (Brulleau until 1822; ; 29 November 1798 – 9 January 1877), was a Russian artist associated with Russian Neoclassicism. Early life Alexander Brullov was born in Saint Petersburg into a family of French artists: his great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father and his brothers (including Karl Brullov) were artists. His first teacher was his father Paul. He attended the Imperial Academy of Arts architecture class from 1810 to 1820, and graduated with honors. Along with his brother, Karl, he was sent to Europe to study art and architecture with a stipend from the Society for the Promotion of Artists. Career Alexander Brullov spent eight years abroad, from 1822 to 1830, in Italy, Germany and France, studying architecture and art. He painted many watercolor portraits at that time. Among the best were those of Yekaterina Pavlovna Bakunina, John Capodistria, Natalia Pushkina, Natalya Goncharova-Pushkina, wife of the Russian poet Al ...
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Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the Saint Petersburg metropolitan area, metropolitan area. Saint Petersburg is the List of European cities by population within city limits, fourth-most populous city in Europe, the List of cities and towns around the Baltic Sea, most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's List of northernmost items#Cities and settlements, northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As the former capital of the Russian Empire, and a Ports of the Baltic Sea, historically strategic port, it is governed as a Federal cities of Russia, federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the s ...
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Diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insoluble in water. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of carbon at Standard temperature and pressure, room temperature and pressure, but diamond is metastable and converts to it at a negligible rate under those conditions. Diamond has the highest Scratch hardness, hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are used in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. Because the arrangement of atoms in diamond is extremely rigid, few types of impurity can contaminate it (two exceptions are boron and nitrogen). Small numbers of lattice defect, defects or impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) can color ...
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Avignon
Avignon (, , ; or , ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the Communes of France, commune had a population of 93,671 as of the census results of 2017, with about 16,000 (estimate from Avignon's municipal services) living in the ancient town centre enclosed by its Walls of Avignon, medieval walls. It is Functional area (France), France's 35th-largest metropolitan area according to INSEE with 337,039 inhabitants (2020), and France's 13th-largest urban unit with 459,533 inhabitants (2020). Its urban area was the fastest-growing in France from 1999 until 2010 with an increase of 76% of its population and an area increase of 136%. The Communauté d'agglomération du Grand Avignon, a cooperation structure of 16 communes, had 197,102 inhabitants in 2022. Between 1309 and 1377, during the Avignon Papacy, seven successive popes resided in Avi ...
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Zircon
Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of the range of substitution in zircon is (Zr1–y, REEy)(SiO4)1–x(OH)4x–y. Zircon precipitates from silicate melts and has relatively high concentrations of high field strength incompatible elements. For example, hafnium is almost always present in quantities ranging from 1 to 4%. The crystal structure of zircon is tetragonal crystal system. The natural color of zircon varies between colorless, yellow-golden, red, brown, blue, and green. The name derives from the Persian ''zargun'', meaning "gold-hued". This word is changed into " jargoon", a term applied to light-colored zircons. The English word "zircon" is derived from ''Zirkon'', which is the German adaptation of this word. Yellow, orange, and red zircon is also known as " hyacint ...
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Ural (region)
Ural () is a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European Plain, East European and West Siberian Plain, West Siberian plains. It is considered a part of the Eurasian Steppe, extending approximately from the North to the South; from the Arctic Ocean to the end of the Ural (river), Ural River near Orsk city. The border between Europe and Asia runs along the Eastern side of the Ural Mountains. Ural mostly lies within Russia but also includes a small part of Northwestern Kazakhstan. This is historical, not an official entity, with borders overlapping its Western Volga and Eastern Siberia neighboring regions. At some point in the past, parts of the currently existing Ural region were considered a gateway to Siberia, or even Siberia itself, and were combined with the Volga administrative the divisions. Today, there are two official namesake entities: the Ural Federal District and the Ural economic region. While the latter follows the historical border ...
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