Monument to the border guards of the Arctic in Murmansk [CC]
The monument is located in the city of Murmansk, Russia.
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Audio: Facile by Kevin MacLeod
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Soviet Norway: Lenin rocks the Arctic
Russia's vast territory extends over both land and sea, even reaching into foreign lands. A tiny part of the Spitzbergen Archipelago, officially belonging to Norway, is governed by Russian law. RT took a trip to Russia's remote and icy outpost. Russia took over coal-mining interests on the territory of the Spitsbergen Archipelago from the Dutch authorities during the Soviet period. And since the collapse of the USSR, the area has become even more important for Russia.
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A Memorial to Soviet and British Pilots was Opened on the Rybachiy Peninsula
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In the Murmansk region, a monument to Soviet and British pilots who died in the Arctic during the WWII was opened. The monument was installed on the Arctic Rybachiy peninsula. The ceremony was attended by servicemen of the Northern Fleet and a delegation from UK. Andrey Zaitsev reporting.
How Dare You!? Italian Courts Sentence Ukrainian Killers! Radicals Vow Vendetta!
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The order is to capture Italian tourists. The nationalist Yarosh promises to avenge his ally Vitaly Markiv, who was imprisoned. The Italian court has sentenced the latter to 24 years in prison for the murder of journalists Andrea Rocchelli and Andrey Mironov. Kiev's reaction is also illustrative. The minister of the interior promised to personally appeal the verdict.
RUSSIA: AIRBORNE DIVISION STAGE MILITARY EXERCISES
Eng/Russ/Nat
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov is due to arrive in Washington later on Tuesday for what is seen as a crucial visit for the Russian government.
As well as meeting President Clinton to discuss differences in opinion over the Kosovo crisis, Primakov will hold talks with I-M-F leaders in an effort to agree new loans for Russia.
But the visit comes at a time when US-Russian relations are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.
Russia's elite airborne division took to the skies last week.
Over a thousand men from the parachute regiment took part in the military exercises outside Moscow.
Under the watchful eye of Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev, they made a series of jumps.
It was the first such exercises in almost a year but they made for an impressive sight.
Coming just days after NATO had formally welcomed three former Soviet allies into its ranks, it was a chance for Russia's military to show the world it was still a force to be reckoned with.
The cash-strapped Russian army proved it can still talk a good fight.
SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
I think our Russian army is the strongest in the world and will always win whatever the task.
CAPTION: Captain Vladislav Sklyarov, Russian airborne division
But the reality is very different.
Morale among the ranks is at a low ebb with soldiers and officers unpaid for months at a time.
And even Sergeyev had to admit the crack airborne division had barely enough fuel to hold these exercises.
SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
Because of a shortage of resources, primarily fuel, we have for the first time added operation and strategic to tactical exercises.
SUPER CAPTION: Marshal Igor Sergeyev, Russian Defence Minister
With the economy in tatters and its reform programme stalled, Russia has lost much of its ability to influence the world.
Its protests, both official and unofficial, have been ignored repeatedly by the West and the U-S in particular.
America has bombed Iraq, threatened Serbia and helped NATO expand to Russia's very borders.
The two countries find themselves a long way from the strategic partnership envisaged at the beginning of the decade.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
But now we are enemies. We're enemies on many issues and there is no, I don't see any serious attempt to overcome it or to find a solution.
SUPER CAPTION: Viktor Kremenyuk, Deputy Director US/Canada Institute
An atmosphere of complete mistrust exists even when the two countries cooperate.
U-S humanitarian aid has just begun arriving in Russia.
But its unloading and ultimate delivery will be heavily supervised by the U-S government which is deeply suspicious that the aid will be stolen or misappropriated.
That attitude of mistrust pervades the Russian Duma.
The lower house of parliament was on the verge of ratifying the START 2 treaty when America bombed Iraq.
And just when it is about to debate ratification, the U-S announced it was restarting the Star Wars programme.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
I become more and more inclined to think that some very important forces in the United States are simply not interested in the ratification of START 2 agreement.
SUPER CAPTION: Vladimir Lukin, Chairman Duma Foreign Affairs Committee
Russia's potential to influence the world community is now mostly negative.
It can scare the world with the consequences of its collapse and still remain defiant.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
We are not a defeated power. We are a big nation still important for the world community, for the international security, capable of damaging the world. My God! If anything goes wrong.
SUPERCAPTION: Viktor Kremenyuk, Deputy Director US/Canada Institute
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Marx - Eisenstein - Das Kapital Part 3 (2008)
With English Subtitles
Nicholas II of Russia | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Nicholas II of Russia
00:03:16 1 Family background
00:06:34 2 Tsarevich
00:09:51 3 Engagement, accession and marriage
00:13:43 4 Reign
00:13:52 4.1 Coronation
00:17:55 4.2 Initiatives in foreign affairs
00:18:52 4.3 Ecclesiastical affairs
00:19:40 4.4 Russo-Japanese War
00:22:47 4.5 Anti-Jewish pogroms of 1903–1906
00:23:48 4.6 Bloody Sunday (1905)
00:28:08 4.7 1905 Revolution
00:31:49 4.8 Relationship with the Duma
00:41:58 4.9 Tsarevich Alexei's illness and Rasputin
00:44:33 4.10 European affairs
00:46:48 4.11 Tercentenary
00:47:26 4.12 First World War
00:56:40 4.13 Collapse
01:01:25 4.13.1 Abdication (1917)
01:04:41 4.14 Imprisonment
01:08:10 4.15 Execution
01:11:32 5 Identification
01:13:22 6 Funeral
01:14:12 7 Sainthood
01:16:19 8 Assessment
01:19:54 9 Ancestry
01:20:03 10 Titles, styles, honours and arms
01:20:14 10.1 Titles and styles
01:21:29 10.2 Honours
01:22:12 10.2.1 National
01:22:39 10.2.2 Foreign
01:23:30 10.3 Arms
01:23:38 11 Children
01:23:47 12 Wealth
01:25:01 13 Documentaries and films
01:25:37 14 See also
01:25:53 15 Note
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Nicholas II or Nikolai II (Russian: Николай II Алекса́ндрович, tr. Nikolai II Aleksandrovich; 18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918), known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer in the Russian Orthodox Church, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 2 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody or Vile Nicholas by his political adversaries due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the execution of political opponents, and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Soviet historians portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects.Russia was defeated in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War which saw the annihilation of the reinforcing Russian Baltic Fleet after being sent on its round-the-world cruise at the naval Battle of Tsushima, off the coasts of Korea and Japan, the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea, and the Japanese annexation to the north of South Sakhalin Island. The Anglo-Russian Entente was designed to counter the German Empire's attempts to gain influence in the Middle East, but it also ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the United Kingdom. When all Russian diplomatic efforts to prevent the First World War (1914–1918) failed, Nicholas approved the Imperial Russian Army mobilization on 30 July 1914 which gave Imperial Germany formal grounds to declare war on Russia on 1 August 1914. An estimated 3.3 million Russians were killed in the First World War. The Imperial Russian Army's severe losses, the High Command's incompetent management of the war efforts, and lack of food and supplies on the home front were all leading causes of the fall of the House of Romanov.
Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son and heir, the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. He and his family were imprisoned and transferred to Tobolsk in late summer 1917. On 30 April 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, and their daughter Maria were handed over to the local Ural Soviet council in Ekaterinburg (renamed Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era); the rest of the captives followed on 23 May. Nicholas and his family were executed by their Bolshevik guards on the night of 16/17 July 1918. The remains of the imperial family were later found, exhumed, identified and re-interred with elaborate State and Church ceremony in St. Petersburg on 17 July 1998 – 80 years later.
In 1981, Nicholas, his wife, and their children were recognized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outsid ...
Siege of Leningrad | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Siege of Leningrad
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The Siege of Leningrad (Блокада Ленинграда) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken from the south by the Army Group North of Nazi Germany against the Russian city of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) on the Eastern Front in World War II. The Finnish army invaded from the north, co-operating with the Germans until they had recaptured territory lost in the recent Winter War, but refused to make further approaches to the city.
The siege started on 8 September 1941, when the last road to the city was severed. Although the Soviet forces managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the siege was not lifted until 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and possibly the costliest in casualties suffered. Some historians classify it as genocide.