Kuntsevo Dacha
The Kuntsevo Dacha () was Joseph Stalin's personal residence between Moscow and Davydkovo (on the road leading to the former town of Kuntsevo) (then in Moscow Oblast, now part of Moscow's Fili district), where he lived for the last two decades of his life and died on 5 March 1953. Stalin also spent much time inside the Kremlin, where he possessed living quarters next to his offices. The dacha is located in a forest not far from the modern-day Victory Park. Also called the "nearer dacha" (, as distinct from the "far dachas"), it was built in 1933–34 to Miron Merzhanov's designs. A second floor was added to the original building in 1943. Stalin lived in the Kuntsevo dacha (which incorporated a bunker/bomb-shelter) during World War II. There, he played host to such high-profile guests as Winston Churchill (in August 1942) and Mao Zedong (in December 1949). Description The dacha is located at the heart of a densely wooded birch forest; its defenses included a double-perimet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kuntsevo
Kúntsevo () is a district in Western Administrative Okrug of the federal city of Moscow, Russia. Population: History In the 18th century, a palace and a park were built; they were often visited by the Empress Catherine II. Kuntsevo is the site of the Church of Theotokos Orans. In the 19th century, Kuntsevo became a summer resort for the Muscovites. A summer theater was opened in 1890. Artists and writers lived and worked in Kuntsevo; among them Nikolay Karamzin, Ivan Turgenev, Vasily Perov, and Ivan Kramskoy. Kuntsevo became a town in its own right in 1926. In 1960, it became a part of Moscow. Now a district of Moscow, it contains many factories, residential areas, and has a well-connected infrastructure. Kuntsevo is reported to be the location of the Strategic Missile Command center. Transport The district has two metro stations: Molodyozhnaya on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line and Kuntsevskaya on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya and the Filevskaya Line. Strogino metro stati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) secret police organization, and thus had a monopoly on intelligence and state security functions. The NKVD is known for carrying out political repression and the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin, as well as counterintelligence and other operations on the Eastern Front of World War II. The head of the NKVD was Genrikh Yagoda from 1934 to 1936, Nikolai Yezhov from 1936 to 1938, Lavrentiy Beria from 1938 to 1946, and Sergei Kruglov in 1946. First established in 1917 as the NKVD of the Russian SFSR, the ministry was tasked with regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. It was disbanded in 1930, and its functions dispersed among other agencies before being reinstated as a commissariat of the Soviet Union ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Datcha 1
A dacha (Belarusian, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of former Soviet Union, post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbuilding, is not considered a dacha, although some dachas recently have been converted to year-round residences and vice versa. The noun "dacha", coming from verb "davat" (''to give''), originally referred to land allotted by the tsar to his nobles; and indeed the dacha in Soviet times is similar to the Allotment (gardening), allotment in some Western countries – a piece of land allotted, normally free, to citizens by the local government for gardening or growing vegetables for personal consumption. With time the name for the land was applied to the building on it. In some cases, owners occupy their dachas for part of the year and rent them to urban residents as summer retrea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reply Of The Zaporozhian Cossacks
''Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks'' is a painting by Ilya Repin. It is also known as ''Cossacks of Saporog Are Drafting a Manifesto'' and ''Cossacks are Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan''. Repin began painting the canvas in 1880 and finished in 1891. His study drawings he made in stanitsa Pashkovskaya (today within Krasnodar), Yekaterinoslav (today Dnipro), and Kachanivka. He recorded the years of work along the lower edge of the canvas. Alexander III bought the painting for 35,000 rubles. Since then, the canvas has been exhibited in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg with another version by Repin in the Kharkiv Art Museum in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Context Historicity ''Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks'' depicts a supposedly historical tableau, set in 1676, and based on the legend of Cossacks sending an insulting reply to an ultimatum from the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV. According to the story, the Zaporozhian Cossacks (from "beyond the rapids" ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1958 to 1964. During his tenure, he stunned the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin and embarked on a campaign of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan. Khrushchev sponsored the early Soviet space program and presided over various domestic reforms. After some false starts, and a Cuban Missile Crisis, narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964, the Kremlin circle Nikita Khrushchev#Removal, stripped him of power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as the First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as the Premier. Khrushchev was born in a village in western Russia. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute
The Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute (, ), established in Moscow in 1919 as the Marx–Engels Institute (, ), was a Soviet library and archive attached to the Communist Academy. The institute was later attached to the governing Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and served as a research center and publishing house for officially published works of Marxist thought. From 1956 to 1991, the institute was named the Institute of Marxism–Leninism (, ; IML, ). The Marx–Engels Institute gathered unpublished manuscripts by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and other leading Marxist theoreticians as well as collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals related to the socialist and organized labor movements. By 1930, the facility's holdings included more than 400,000 books and journals and more than 55,000 original and photocopy documents by Marx and Engels alone, making it one of the largest holdings of socialist-related material in the world. In Febr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Svetlana Alliluyeva
Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva (née Stalina; 28 February 1926 – 22 November 2011), later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. In 1967, she became an international sensation when she defected to the United States and, in 1978, became a naturalized citizen. From 1984 to 1986, she briefly returned to the Soviet Union and had her Soviet citizenship reinstated. She was Stalin's last surviving child. Early life Svetlana Stalina was born on 28 February 1926. As her mother was interested in pursuing a professional career, Alexandra Bychokova was hired as a nanny to look after Alliluyeva and her older brother Vasily (born 1921). Alliluyeva and Bychokova became quite close, and remained friends for 30 years, until Bychokova died in 1956. On 9 November 1932, Alliluyeva's mother shot herself. To conceal the suicide, the children were told that she had died of peritonitis, a complicatio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Veranda
A veranda (also spelled verandah in Australian and New Zealand English) is a roofed, open-air hallway or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''verandah'' is correct and very common, some authorities prefer the version without an "h" (the ''Concise Oxford English Dictionary'' gives the "h" version as a variant and '' The Guardian Style Guide'' says "veranda not verandah"). Australia's ''Macquarie Dictionary'' prefers ''verandah''. Etymology ''Veranda'', as used in the United Kingdom and France, was brought by the British from India (, ). While the exact origin of the word is unknown, scholars suggest that the word may have originated in India or may have been adopted from the Portuguese and spread further to the British and French colonists. Ancient and medieval Indian texts on domestic architecture like Vastu shastra uses the word ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Couch
A couch, also known as a sofa, settee, chesterfield, or davenport, is a cushioned piece of furniture that can seat multiple people. It is commonly found in the form of a bench with upholstered armrests and is often fitted with springs and tailored cushion and pillows. Although a couch is used primarily for seating, it may be used for sleeping. In homes, couches are normally put in the family room, living room, den, or lounge. They are sometimes also found in non-residential settings such as hotels, lobbies of commercial offices, waiting rooms, and bars. Couches can also vary in size, color, and design. Etymology The term ''couch'' originally denoted an item of furniture for lying or sleeping on. ''Couch'' is predominantly used in North America, Australia, South Africa, and Ireland, whereas the terms ''sofa'' and ''settee'' ( U and non-U) are most commonly used in the United Kingdom and India. The word ''couch'' originated in Middle English from the Old French nou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Politburo Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated as Politburo, was the de facto highest executive authority in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). While elected by and formally accountable to the Central Committee, in practice the Politburo operated as the ruling body of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union from its creation in 1919 until the party's dissolution in 1991. Full members and candidate (non-voting) members held among the most powerful positions in the Soviet hierarchy, often overlapping with top state roles. Its duties, typically carried out at weekly meetings, included formulating state policy, issuing directives, and ratifying appointments. The Politburo was originally established as a small group of senior Bolsheviks shortly before the October Revolution of 1917, and was re-established in 1919 to decide on urgent matters during the Russian Civil War. It operated on the principles of democratic cent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an author, he travelled widely across the Russian Empire, changing jobs frequently; these experiences would later influence his writing. He associated with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, both mentioned by Gorky in his memoirs. Gorky was active in the emerging Marxist socialist movement and later supported the Bolsheviks. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During World War I, Gorky supported pacifism and internationalism and anti-war protests. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union, being critical both of Tsarism and of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin, his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. As the founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin led the October Revolution which established the world's first socialist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism. Born into a middle-class family in Simbirsk in the Russian Empire, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics after Aleksandr Ulyanov, his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Alexander III of Russia, the tsar. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in student prote ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |