On this day in Russian history...

25 September ... 1906

Yesterday we talked about the birth of statesman Potemkin.
Today we remember the birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich, a quite brilliant Soviet composer and one of the most celebrated ones of the 20th century.

Shostakovich 1906 - 1975

Dmitri was born in Saint Petersburg. One of his most well known symphonies came during the Leningrad siege (1941-1944) and was titled after the city. It raised the spirits of many people nearing starvation and death by frostbite. Shostakovich's orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti. His music is complex and requires large scale orchestras to fully achieve the desired effect.

Life was not easy for Soviet artists. Art was, certainly during the period of Stalin (1922 - 1953), stricly regulated and could only serve the Socialist/ Communist cause. It is true that poets and other writers were under stricter scrutiny (a sentence should leave no room for interpretation contrary to socialist purpose). In music, composers managed to introduce certain elements of opposition which could not have been possible in written or printed art.

Shostakovich was denunciated twice but in the end won many prizes issued by the Soviet leadership, including the Order of Lenin and Hero of Socialist Labor.

On this day in Russian history...

24 September ... 1793


218 years ago Grigory Potemkin was born. He is well known as the lover of Catherine the Great but he was also a military leader, statesman and nobleman.

Catherine the Great with her lover, G. Potemkin

In Imperial Russia he was born as the son of a diplomat. The same fate awaited him and he is well known as an 'anglophile', negotiating deals between Russia and England. Climbing the ladder of aristocracy, he was noted by Catherine the Great. The latter, Empress of All the Russias, appointed him commander-in-chief.

The notion of Potemkin villages.
A village where fake settlements are being erected to impress someone is called a Potemkin village. A historical myth suggests such villages were erected to fool Empress Catherine II to her visit to the Crimea. In her trips around Russia, Catherine II wanted to observe and inspect the welfare of the Russian people.
Knowing that all was not well in Russia and to improve his standing with the Empress, Potemkin is alleged to have given orders to erect fake façades, in order to impress as opposed to disappoint Catherine.

On this day in Russian history...

18 September ... 1911


Today, 100 years ago, the Russian Premier Pyotr Stolypin died after being shot at the Kiev Opera House.

Stolypin was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II. He exercised this function from 1906 to 1911. He aimed to repress revolutionary groups, a continuing threat to Imperial Russia and its Tsar. He also aimed to reform the agrarian sector by creating a class of market-oriented smallholding landowners. With this aim he hoped to amicably settle the continuing peasant unrest.

His political agenda and vision were never truely implemented. He travelled to Kiev to attend an opera with the Tsar and his family. Eventhough he was aware of assassination plots he refused to wear his bullet-proof vest. On 14 September he was shot in the chest twice while attending the opera. He was very brave in his last concious moments and allegedly claimed he was 'happy to die for the Tsar'. Today, 100 years ago, Stolypin died of his injuries.

In 2008, Pyotr Stolypin came second in the polls for 'greatest Russian', with Alexander Nevsky taking first place.

The Kiev Opera House where Stolypin was assassinated

On this day in Russian history...

17 September ... 1943


The Russian city of Bryansk is liberated from the nazi's.

During the Second World War (Great Patriotic War), Bryansk was occupied by the Germans. Before this war claims were made on the city by both the Belarusian People's Republic and the Bolshevik forces with the latter eventually gaining control. The city is located some 400 kilometers south-west of Moscow. The Germans occupied Bryansk from 6 October 1941 to 17 September 1943, nearly 2 years. The city was heavily damaged by fighting. About 60,000 Soviet partisans were active in and around Bryansk, inflicting heavy losses on the German army. Soon after its liberation, Bryansk became the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast. Today approximately 415,000 people are inhabitant of Bryansk.

Bryansk is located near the Belarussian and Ukrainian border

Monument for the victims of the War

a Russian nuclear submarine of the type Delta IV also carries the name Bryansk.

On this day in Russian history...

16 September ... 1990


The railroad between the People's Republic of China and Kazakhstan gets completed at Dostyk, adding a sizeable link to the concept of the Eurasian Land Bridge.

Dostyk, Kazakhstan

This Eurasian Land Bridge currently comprises the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs through Russia and is sometimes called the Northern East-West Corridor, and the New Eurasian Land Bridge or Second Eurasian Continental Bridge, running through China and Kazakhstan. As of November 2007, about 1% of the $600 billion in goods shipped from Asia to Europe each year were delivered by inland transport routes.

On this day in Russian history...

15 September... 1812

The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.
Occupation would last only a bit more than a month though. Moscow was a deserted city, it was difficult to supply the troops, and eventually fires forced Napoleon out.
The French emperor ordered the Kremlin be blown up. Fortunately this decision was hardly implemented. Where explosions and fires did threaten invaluable buildings, the weather gave a helping hand by extuingishing the fires through rains. Weather would again play a key role for the Russian people some 129 years later in a similar, yet so different, combat situation...

After Napoleon had to flee from Moscow, the Russian and Prussian troops hunted him down all the way back to Paris in France. They also freed the Dutch and Belgian territories from French occupation. After this, in 1813 and under the Treaty of London, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was founded. This 'Union' comprised the Dutch and Belgian territories. In 1830 Belgium split from this United Kingdom after increasing tension with the ruler Willem. Belgium thus became an independent state.

On this day in Russian history...

14 September... 1959


The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.


Luna 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna Programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. It successfully impacted with the lunar surface east of Mare Serenitatis near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus.

Luna 2 was similar in design to Luna 1, a spherical spacecraft with protruding antennae and instrument parts. The instrumentation was also similar, including scintillation counters, geiger counters, a magnetometer, Cherenkov detectors, and micrometeorite detectors. There were no propulsion systems on Luna 2 itself.