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Lubyanka Prison
Lubyanka (, ) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947. It was previously the national headquarters of the KGB. Soviet hammer and sickles can still be seen on the building's facade. Description The Lubyanka building is home to the Lubyanka prison, the headquarters of the Border Guard Service, a KGB museum, and a subsection of the FSB. Part of the prison was turned into a prison museum, but a special authorization is required for visits. The lower floors are made of granite with emblazoned Soviet crests. History Origins The Lubyanka was originally built in 1898 as a revenue house by the All-Russia Insurance Company (''Rossiya Insurance Company''), on the spot where Catherine the Great had once headquartere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents within the city limits, over 19.1 million residents in the urban area, and over 21.5 million residents in Moscow metropolitan area, its metropolitan area. The city covers an area of , while the urban area covers , and the metropolitan area covers over . Moscow is among the world's List of largest cities, largest cities, being the List of European cities by population within city limits, most populous city entirely in Europe, the largest List of urban areas in Europe, urban and List of metropolitan areas in Europe, metropolitan area in Europe, and the largest city by land area on the European continent. First documented in 1147, Moscow became the capital of the Grand Principality of Moscow, which led the unification of the Russian lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Savinkov
Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (; 31 January 1879 – 7 May 1925) was a Russian revolutionary, writer, and politician. As a leading figure in the Socialist Revolutionary Party's (SR) Combat Organization in the early 20th century, he was a key organizer of high-profile assassinations of tsarist officials, including that of Interior Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Following the February Revolution of 1917, Savinkov served as Assistant Minister of War in the Russian Provisional Government. After the October Revolution, he became a prominent leader of armed resistance against the Bolsheviks, notably founding the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom. Savinkov's political career was characterized by dramatic shifts in allegiance and a reputation as an enigmatic "revolutionary rogue." He transitioned from militant anti-tsarism to patriotic nationalism during World War I, and later became a dedicated anti-Bolshevik, before an apparent, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monument To Felix Dzerzhinsky, Moscow
The Monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky (), also known by the nickname Iron Felix (), commemorates Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877–1926), Bolshevik revolutionary and head of the first two Soviet state-security secret police organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU. The monument, designed by and incorporating a statue of Dzerzhinsky sculpted by Yevgeny Vuchetich, was erected on Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow in 1958, next to the Lubyanka Building. History Construction and unveiling In 1918, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission was located in the buildings on Lubyanska Square, the founder and first head of which was Felix Dzerzhinsky, who later headed other state security secret police agencies that were located there. In the autumn of 1926, shortly after Dzerzhinsky's death, Lubyanka Square was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square by the decision of the Presidium of the Moscow City Council. In 1940, a competition was announced for the project of a monument to Dzerzhinsky, which was won by Sarra Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detsky Mir
Children's World () or Detsky Mir is a Russian children's retailer. Founded in June 1957, as of March 2022, the company had 1125 stores. It is the largest children's goods retailer in Russia and the CIS, with the retail chain in Russia, as well as in Belarus and Kazakhstan. In February 2017, PAO Detsky Mir listed its shares in an initial public offering. Maria Davydova is the CEO. History 1957-2008: Formation and first store Detsky Mir first opened on June 6, 1957 in the center of Moscow at Lubyanka Square. The original store was built between 1953 and 1957, with design by architect Alexey Dushkin. After the original store opened, ''Bloomberg'' writes that "Detsky Mir became a household name, prompting the Soviet government to open a network of large stores by the same name." Detsky Mir became a chain of children's retailers in Russia in the 2000s. In 2005, the original Detsky Mir building received the status of cultural heritage at the regional level. The original Detsky ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as the fourth Premier of the Soviet Union, premier from 1941 until his death. He initially governed as part of a Collective leadership in the Soviet Union, collective leadership, but Joseph Stalin's rise to power, consolidated power to become an absolute dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he created is known as Stalinism. Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Georgia, Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He raised f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. In accordance with Swedish law, the Swedish Tax Agency in October 2016 determined his ''pro-forma'' date of death as 31 July 1952. was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat, and humanitarian. He saved thousands of Jews in Government of National Unity (Hungary), German-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from German Nazis and Arrow Cross Party, Hungarian fascists during the later stages of World War II. While serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest between July and December 1944, Wallenberg issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings which he Extraterritoriality, declared as Swedish territory. On 17 January 1945, during the Siege of Budapest by the Red Army, agents of SMERSH detained Wallenberg on suspicion of espi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century Revivalism (architecture), architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes. Under the broad designation Renaissance architecture 19th-century architects and critics went beyond the architectural style which began in Florence and Central Italy in the early 15th century as an expression of Renaissance humanism; they also included styles that can be identified as Mannerism, Mannerist or Baroque. Self-applied style designations were rife in the mid- and later 19th century: "Neo-Renaissance" might be applied by contemporaries to structures that others called "Italianate", or when many French Baroque features are present (Second Empire (architecture), Second Empire). The divergent forms of Renaissance architect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexey Shchusev
Alexey Victorovich Shchusev (; – 24 May 1949) was a Russian and Soviet architect who was successful during three consecutive epochs of Russian architecture – Art Nouveau (broadly construed), Constructivism (art), Constructivism, and Stalinist architecture, being one of the few Russian architects to be celebrated under both the House of Romanov, Romanovs and the communists, becoming the most decorated architect in terms of USSR State Prize, Stalin prizes awarded. In the 1900s, Shchusev established himself as a church architect, and developed his Modern architecture#Early modernism in Europe (1900–1914), proto-modernist style, which blended Art Nouveau with Russian Revival architecture. Immediately before and during World War I he designed and built railway stations for the Nikolai von Meck, von Meck family, notably the Moscow Kazansky railway station, Kazansky Rail Terminal in Moscow. After the October Revolution, Shchusev pragmatically supported the Bolsheviks, and was rew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Purge
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of Sergei Kirov by Leonid Nikolaev in 1934, Joseph Stalin launched a series of show trials known as the Moscow trials to remove suspected party dissenters from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, especially those aligned with the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik party. The term "great purge" was popularized by the historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book ''The Great Terror (book), The Great Terror'', whose title was an allusion to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. The purges were largely conducted by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which functioned as the Ministry of home affairs, interior ministry and secret police of the USSR. Starting in 1936, the NKVD under chief Genrikh Yagoda began the removal of the central pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulag
The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in English literature the term is popularly used for the system of forced labor throughout the Soviet era. The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й" (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps), but the full official name of the agency #Etymology, changed several times. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed both ordinary criminals and political prisoners, a large number of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas or other instruments of extra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Political Jokes
Russian political jokes are a part of Russian humour and can be grouped into the major time periods: Imperial Russia, Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. In the Soviet period political jokes were a form of social protest, mocking and criticising leaders, the system and its ideology, myths and rites. Quite a few political themes can be found among other standard categories of Russian joke, most notably Russian joke#Rabinovich, Rabinovich jokes and Radio Yerevan jokes, Radio Yerevan. Russian Empire In Imperial Russia, most political jokes were of the polite variety that circulated in educated society. Few of the political jokes of the time are recorded, but some were printed in a 1904 German anthology. *A man was reported to have said: "Nicholas II of Russia, Nikolay is a moron!" and was arrested by a policeman. "No, sir, I meant not our respected Tsar, but another Nikolay!" – "Don't try to trick me: if you say 'moron', you are obviously referring to our Tsar!" * A respected m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
