THE BATTLE OF BORODINO

On September 7, 1812, the Russian forces led by Mikhail Kutuzov and the French army commanded by Napoleon lined up for a crucial engagement on a vast field near the village of Borodino 124 km west of Moscow. 135-thousand strong French army was confronted by 126 thousand Russians.

On the eve of the battle Napoleon had a sleepless night. Now and then he would walk out of his tent to see weather fires were burning in V.Vereschagin. "Napoleon at Borodino Hights"the Russian camp. The emperor could barely hold back his emotion and even his aides noticed that. He instructed them in an absent-minded manner, as if deep in his own thoughts. At dawn he gave a signal to attack. A large body of French infantry led a charge against the Russians on the left flank near the village of Semyonovskaya where three redoubts, called fleches, had been put up. A Russian unit under the gallant General Pyotr Bagration stood there to protect the redoubts. We have already mentioned this outstanding man, a “Russian lion” and a brilliant commander. Bagration descended from a noble Georgian family of dukes and was born to be a warrior. He spent all his short life out in the army.

Fighting raged the hottest at the “Bagration fleches”, as historians would later call them. The French assaulted vigorously but the Russians offered stubborn resistance and repulsed enemy attacks. Eye-witness reports say “soldiers on every side dropped their arms and pounced on each other, tearing off each other’s mouths and clenching their hands on each other’s throats. Guns rolled on corpses as if on a wood-paved street, pressing them into the blood-soaked earth. … Shouts of commanders and howls of despair in ten languages mixed with the deafening sounds of gunfire and drum-roll. The battlefield was a horrible sight…”

The French stormed the redoubts eight times, and each time the Russians drove them back. Finally, at the cost of enormous casualties, the enemy took the fleches. General Bagration was mortally wounded by a shell-splinter: his shin-bone was crushed. Unable to move, he was taken off his horse, and continued commanding until he lost consciousness. Bagration’s death was a shock to his soldiers. There was a brief moment of confusion after which they threw themselves into fight eager to avenge their beloved commander.

Kutuzov, who was watching the battle from one of the heights and saw the fall of the redoubts, decided to build a new defense line. To gain time for fresh troops to move in and to sidetrack the French, he ordered to strike in the enemy’s flank. The attack worked a havoc in the enemy ranks. Kutuzov took advantage of the moment to pull up reserves. The French then massed their artillery fire on another “fatal redoubt” — General Rayevsky’s battery. They lost a great number of men there, among them two generals – Montbrun and Caulaincourt. When Napoleon ordered him to crush Rayevsky’s battery, General Caulaincourt promptly replied: “I will be there alive or dead”. The Russians put up fierce resistance, the artillerymen preferring to die at their guns than step back. The redoubt held heroically but finally fell. The victory had been dearly bought. August Caulaincourt was killed at the gorge of the redoubt as he led the charge. “He died a hero’s death and decided the outcome of the battle. France lost one of its best officers”, Napoleon said. Caulaincourt was barely 34 and happily married just before the Russian campaign. He carried the portrait of his wife on his chest under the uniform.



Despite the capture of Rayevsky’s redoubt, the French failed to mount the offensive. Napoleon’s marshals urged him to sent his whole Guard to complete the victory, as yet only begun, but the emperor, having examined the new positions taken by the Russians and seeing that they would fight to the end, said: “I cannot risk my last reserve 3000 miles away from Paris” and ordered to pull his troops to the initial position. The battle of Borodino was over…

Source:The Voice of Russia

10 years on from blasts that triggered second Chechen Campaign

Moscow Guryanova str.

Ten years ago, in September 1999, a series of powerful explosions shook Russia. Four apartment buildings were blown up, killing innocent people in their homes, many sleeping peacefully.

It is remembered as Bloody September. Over a period of two weeks, a string of terrorist attacks rocked Russia. Peaceful life was buried under the rubble of exploded apartment buildings.

More than 300 people died in a succession of blasts throughout the country, almost 2 thousand were injured and lost their homes.

“They were gone so suddenly – my mom and dad – both on that night,” remembers Maxim Mishirin. A decade ago, Maxim’s life changed dramatically – he lost most of his family in September 1999, when their apartment building in Moscow was blown up. Ten years on, Maxim is still heartbroken. “I regret so much that I didn’t phone them more often, didn’t come to see them more often. My life is so empty without them.”


It is believed that both the reasons and the consequences of the tragedy were rooted in the North Caucasus, in turn sparking more violence in Russia’s Caucasian republics, the Chechen republic first of all.


Volgodonsk

Military operations in the Caucasus had ended three years before the terrorist attacks, but by setting off bombs, the Chechen terrorists seemed to be sending a clear message – they were not ready for peace. Nevertheless, the responsibility for some lay elsewhere.

Leonid Ivashov from Academy of Geopolitical Studies believes that “Boris Yeltsin was largely inadequate as a president at that time and he was losing grip on the country. That’s why the authorities knew that militants in the Caucasus were re-arming, but they had no order from the president to contain them.”

After the whole country succumbed to fear, someone had to act. It was then that Russia’s prime-minister Vladimir Putin delivered a memorable phrase.

“We’ll pursue terrorists everywhere. If we catch them in a toilet – we’ll waste them right there,” Putin said.

These words are now associated with the start of the second military campaign in the Caucasus. However, some came up with a theory claiming it was the Russian security service, the FSB, which masterminded the bombing campaign in order to justify another Chechen war and to establish Putin in power.

They have suggested that the two men that carried out the blasts were employed by the organization. However, even the lawyer defending the victims’ families believes this theory is pure nonsense.

Lawyer Igor Trunov interrogated the two men detained following the blasts and he believes their connection with Islamic extremists has been proved 100%.

“I saw footage of these two cutting throats of wounded Russian soldiers during the Caucasian war. So there’s no doubt to me that they belonged to terrorist organizations from Chechnya,” states Trunov. “Even if they were intimidated by someone to confess to committing these horrible crimes, witnesses’ reports and the results of expert reports prove they were acting on behalf of Chechen terrorists.”


Blasts in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk were the last straw. Several more years of intense fighting against terrorists in Chechnya followed, which were accompanied by more terrorist attacks on the civilian population.


Moscow

A decade on, those who lost loved ones in the initial bombing campaign still gather once a year to commemorate the dead. They say they will never feel safe.

Source:RT,NEWSru.com

Queen Victoria's granddaughter returns to Russia

The relics of Grand Duchess Elizabeth, one of the most respected saints in the Orthodox Church, have arrived at Moscow's Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, which she set up in 1909, after 90 years overseas.

Elizabeth Romanova, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England, married into the last tsar's family when she was nineteen.

She converted to Orthodoxy and devoted her life to charity by trying to improve healthcare and education. She became a nun after her husband, Grand Duke Sergey Aleksandrovich, was shot dead by a terrorist.

After she and other members of the tsar's family were killed by the Bolsheviks during the Communist Revolution in 1917, her relics were taken abroad and have been kept in Jerusalem since 1921.


Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill has held a liturgy to mark the return of the relics to where they belong. Among those assisting the event are relatives of Grand Duchess Elizabeth and descendants of Russia’s most prominent noble families.

Documents and personal belongings of the Romanov family members have also been brought to the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy for a temporary exhibition. It is timed to coincide with its 100th anniversary.

Sources:RT,www.otechestvo.org.ua

The Boldino autumn (a milestone in life of A.S. Pushkin)

Посмотреть на Яндекс.Фотках

The Boldino autumn was the most fruitful period in the life of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

…The wedding of Alexander Pushkin and Natalia Goncharova, his fiancee he had been courting for three years, was scheduled for September 1830.


«Болдино, музей» на Яндекс.Фотках

The sudden death of Pushkin's uncle and the ensuing period of mourning forced the poet to postpone the wedding ceremony. Hating to lose time, he headed for his Boldino family estate near Nizhny Novgorod to make preparations for the upcoming wedding. A cholera epidemic advancing from the south made the trip a risky business, but, ignoring his friends’ warnings Pushkin hit the road only to find Boldino ringed by a sanitary cordon. As a result, Pushkin was forced to stay there for a whole three months which proved the most fruitful in his whole life…

It was autumn, a season Pushkin loved most because of the physical and creative upsurge it always gave him. Pushkin was on seventh heaven in Boldino where nothing stood between him and his inspiration, as if Fate itself had hoisted him high above the earth so than he could look back on his past and better translate into artistic images the feelings and thoughts which had piled up throughout his tempestuous and passion-filled life. In Boldino, Pushkin's genius came to its full flowering with a constellation of wonderful stories that were more than enough to earn him the fame of an excellent lyricist, dramatist and novelist even if they were the only thing he had ever written in his life…


«Б.Болдино» на Яндекс.Фотках
Alexander Pushkin wrote his first story when he was already 30 years old and he openly admitted that "prose made him sick". In Boldino he apparently changed his mind writing the five short stories collected as “Tales by I.P.Belkin" and loving it. When the “Tales” had already been published, someone asked Pushkin who this I.P.Belkin really was. "Whoever he may be," Pushkin laughed, "this is the right way to write things, short and clear…"

Apart from the "Tales", Pushkin also wrote the four "Little Tragedies" — “The Covetous Knight”, “The Stone Guest”, “Mozart and Salieri” and “Feast in Time of Plague” — all giving credit to the author's deep understanding of the human soul, gripped by avarice, envy and sensuousness.

Busy as he was writing and managing the estate, Pushkin also worried about his fiancée because people were saying the cholera epidemic had reached Moscow. In his letters to Natalie, Pushkin complained about his forced seclusion calling himself "a wretched animal", trying unsuccessfully to break free and marry his beloved one. Still, deep in his soul, he was so happy savoring every moment of his God-given inspiration.

There, working in the seclusion of his empty country house, Pushkin finally finished his novel in verse, “Yevgeny Onegin” which he had been writing for seven long years. “Yevgeny Onegin” unfolds an encyclopedia of Russian life showing it in all its actuality, a book admired by many generations of Russians. It is the ‘most Russian’ novel this country has ever had, offering an eye-opening picture of Russian history.

Finishing his work on “Yevgeny Onegin”, Pushkin closed a chapter on his past life of hard work and loving affection. Who knows, maybe he already sensed the coming of a life that was so new and unknown to him…

Source:The Voice of Russia

Unique International Project on the Kola Peninsula

In the newest nature reserve of the Kola Peninsula, called “Pasvik”, an international project “Varlam Island Open-air Museum” is being launched. It is part of a tripartite project between Russia, Norway and Finland on creating the most northern Europark in the world.


The Pasvik reserve is spread over the border area between Russia, Norway and Finland. It is the place, where unique virgin pine forests, dozens of clear lakes and rivers have been preserved, thousands of birds nest and hundreds of wild plants grow. The reserve has a rich history and nature value. In olden times, Norwegians and the Sami people used to live there. During WWII fierce fighting took place on the reserve’s territory and a lot of trench shelters have survived. All these objects have recently been registered, as the international open-air museum will open here soon, says the Director of the Reserve, Vladimir Chizhov.

Today the reserve has a EUROPARC Federation Certificate, as it meets the European environment quality standards. Within this global project, we are working on our own one “Varlam Island Open-Air Museum” and believe that it should be part of our common park.

Varlam Island is situated in the reserve’s area which is the most populated with birds. 212 bird species dwell here: including whooping swans, ducks, sandpipers, seagulls. Maybe, that is why this small island (2,5 km long and 500m wide)is called “Birds’ Paradise”. The area is suggested to be included on the list of the most valuable water-swamp lands of the world.

The tiny Varlam Island has an important international significance. Its history reflects relationships of neighboring countries, lives of people, living on the border between three countries, and evolution of nature that can not be separated by the borders.

Source:The Voice of Russia

Siberian fairy-tale (by Pavel Bazhov with video)

Pavel Bazhov is best known for his collection of fairy-tale stories The Malachite Casket (“Малахитовая Шкатулка”), based on the Urals folklore and published in the Soviet Union in 1939. In 1944, the translation of the collection into English was published in New York and London. Later Sergei Prokofiev created a ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower based on this book

Silver Hoof

A long time ago, there was an old widowed hunter named Kokovanya. He was lonely so he adopted Daryonka, a poor little orphan girl. When he took Daryonka into his home with him, he also let her bring her scrawny kitten.

Kokovanya, Daryonka, and the kitten were not rich but they had a good life. While the old man hunted, Daryonka would clean the cottage and cook soup. Her cat kept her company. At night, Kokovanya told wonderful tales, but the girl’s favorite was the one about Silver Hoof, the magical goat. Legend had it that Silver Hoof was a very special goat. Where most goats have two horns, Silver Hoof has antlers with five tines. On his right forefoot he had a silver hoof. When he stamped his foot, a gem would be left there. If he stamped it twice there would be two, but if he pawed the ground there would be a whole pile of gems.

Kokovanya told Daryonka that he had been trying for years to find Silver Hoof and that when Autumn came he would be going into the woods to find him. Daryonka begged the old man to let her go with him, since she would be so lonely in the cottage and because she truly wanted to see Silver Hoof also.

So the old man, the young girl, and the cat headed deep into the woods. By now the cat was a very healthy and hearty cat and could offer them protection. They stayed in a cabin that the old man had there. The hunter hunted many goats, but he never found Silver Hoof. Towards the end of winter, he told Daryonka that he had so many goat skins and meat that he would have to go into town to get a horse to help bring it all home. It would take him several days.

On the 2nd day that Daryonka was by herself in the cabin, she heard a pitter patter outside. It was Silver Hoof! She opened the door and called out to him, but he ran away. On the 3rd day the cat went out to play but did not return. Daryonka was worried so she went outside to find him. There he was in the glade with Silver Hoof. Both were nodding their heads as if they were talking to each other. Then they began to run about in the snow. The goat would run and stamp all around the cabin. Then he jumped upon the roof and stamped some more. Precious stones flashed out like sparks -- red, green, light blue, dark blue, and many other colors.

It was then that Kokovanya returned, but he did not recognize his hut. It was covered in gems and sparkled in the moonlight. Suddenly, Silver Hoof and the cat just disappeared from the roof. They were gone. The old man gathered some of the stones in his hat and then he and Daryonka went in to sleep. They had such wonderful dreams. When they awoke they ran outside to look at the wonder, but all the gems were gone. All they had left were the ones the old man had put in his hat. But that was enough to let them live happily ever after. No one ever saw Silver Hoof or the cat again, but sometimes people still find stones in the glade where the goat played that night.

Source:www.russian-crafts.com

Valenki-traditional Russian winter footwear

Image from www.livemaster.ru/NatAliska

Valenki are traditional Russian winter footwear . Made of sheep's wool, these warm felt boots have been worn by generations of Russians. For centuries they shod the feet of peasants and tsars. Valenki literally means, “made by felting”.

Valenki are not water-resistant, therefore they are often worn with a strip of leather on their sole or rubber galoshes to protect the felt. Galoshes also protect the valenki's soles from wear and tear.



Russian Valenki date back to the 18th century when the first pair was produced. It is supposed that the prototype of Valenki were the felt boots of Asian nomads, which they had been wearing for more than 1,500 years. Mass production of Valenki started in the end of the 19th century when factories were opened. Before that Valenki were too expensive and only well-off people could afford to possess a pair of them.

In the 20th century, an improvement in technology allowed manufacturers to vulcanize rubber overshoe-style protection right onto valenki to provide better water and piercing protection while retaining the advantages of the felt. Valenki are 100% natural, and environmentally friendly, but a little difficult to walk in. Traditional valenki are black, grey or white.

The manufacturing of the Valenki themselves hasn't changed for the last 200 years. The Valenki-maker puts a piece of combed wool on the table, and with additional strands on top he starts to create a template. He doesn't cut it out, or use scissors, needles or thread, just strand over strand. Handmade valenki are reputed to be of the highest quality.

Valenki were the footwear of choice for many Russians, especially for those in rural areas and those who couldn't afford to buy good leather boots. In valenki, the Russian army stood its ground to victory over Hitler's forces. But nowadays Valenki are still part of the winter uniform in some parts of Russia.

Since the second half of the 20th century, valenki have lost most of their appeal in cities, due to their association with rustic style of dress and milder winters of the last years.

However, for some valenki are still the warmest and the most comfortable winter footwear. Valenki should be several sizes bigger so that you could feel comfortable even having woolen socks on.


Sergey Ivanov. Russian Tsar in XVI

Valenki are said to have healing effects, through their warmth and natural material. The Russian Tsar Peter the Great wore them to get over hangovers and urged his subjects to do the same.

However this Russian classic is not part of the country's history yet -about 4 and a half millions of Valenki pairs are produced annually in Russia. And traditional footwear is making a comeback in the world of fashion. Elegant modern design has helped Valenki to find their place in the wardrobe of present-day sharp dressers. When you go somewhere in Valenki, you get noticed. Valenki are finding their place in the high life. Even fashionistas seem unwilling to give this woolen piece of history the boot. In many Russian towns, like Myshkin valenki are an important craft worth of display in a museum.


Image from www.textilemarket.ru

Few young ladies know that a Valenok (sg from Valenki) can also help to find a husband. The boot is used for fortune-telling. On the Christmas eve Russian girls of the past went out on the street and threw a valenok up in the skies. As the boot lands, the position of its leg shows in which direction a girl should be seeking a husband. This tradition is still popular with some and considered to be one of the most effective methods of finding a boyfriend or even a husband.

In the Caucasian Pyatigorsk a championship for the best Valenki thrower takes place every year. The number of people wishing to throw valenki increases every year. And results improve, though it should be mentioned that valenki often fly the opposite direction to where it has been thrown. The difficulty lies in specific aerodynamic peculiarities of the footwear – or rather full absence of such - as a result valenki not always fly along the set trajectory. Moreover, powerful snowfall worsens the preciseness of the footwear's flight.

The word “Valenok” has one more meaning. If somebody calls you a “Valenok”, don't be flattered. Despite all the wonderful qualities of this boot in Russia, Valenok means unsophisticated, dumb person, as the foorwear itself seems to be very simple and coarse compared to more elegant shoes.

Source:RT