Category Archive: Politics

Sergei Yulyevich Witte, the future Russian reformer, graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the age of 21. And later he took the post of head of the Odessa Railway movement. At 40, he became director of the Department of Railways under the Ministry of Finance, three years later – Minister of Railways and Finance.
Witte introduced the “state monopoly of the trade in drinks” in the country. The state began to live not from the labor and talent of its subjects, but from alcoholism. So, the drunken revenue filled the budget for a quarter. Excise taxes on matches, tobacco, kerosene, sugar, tea, etc. were growing. Taxes grew, and the people, naturally, became poor.
Witte built the Trans-Siberian Railway Network so that, in his words, “Europe got a gate to the Asian East,” but Russia should be a gatekeeper at that gate. For this reason, he chose the road through Chinese Manchuria to the Pacific Ocean as the most interesting for western merchants.
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If you believe the chroniclers, Vasily II (or Basil II) was under the patronage of higher powers from the early days. According to legend, at the time of his birth, the Moscow priest heard the voice of heaven, which announced to him: “Go and give name to Grand Duke Vasily!” He went to Grand Duchess Sofia and was surprised to learn that she had just given birth to a son. When Vasily headed the state and his uncle Yuri tried to take power from him, a pestilence began in the city of the latter, and stopped only after he abandoned his claims to the throne. Once, during the reign of Vasily, the Lithuanian army attempted to invade Russia, but suddenly a storm began. Frightened Lithuanians immediately concluded peace with the prince. And yet, despite the intervention of higher powers, the fate of Vasily II was very tragic. After all, a third of his life he was blind.
The boy ascended the Muscovite throne at the age of ten. All his childhood and youth Vasily fought with his uncle, Yuri Dmitrievich, who tried to take the throne from his nephew. In 1434, Yuri succeeded. He defeated the army of 19-year-old Vasily and occupied the Russian throne. But Yuri ruled for only about two months and then he suddenly died.
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Raisa Gorbacheva is remembered not only as the first lady of the country and the wife of the only president of the Soviet Union. This woman was engaged in serious charitable work, and her own career and family life, which was completely on her shoulders.
Throughout Mikhail Gorbachev’s presidency and even later, her actions were discussed and condemned, but it can be confidently asserted that this woman with a difficult biography was distinguished by an enviable force of character and endurance.
The future wife of the President was born on January 5, 1932 in Rubtsovsk (Altai Krai). Raisa Maksimovna’s father was from Chernigov province, and her mother was a native Siberian woman. There were three children in the family. Her sister Lyudmila worked as an oculist and her brother Evgeni Titarenko became a writer.
Because of their father’s profession (he worked as an engineer on the railway), Titarenko’s family – this is the maiden name of Raisa – often moved. They weren’t rich, so Raisa understood that it was necessary to study well and get a profession to help the family. These thoughts were supported by her mother, who in her youth had no opportunity to get an education.
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Peter III was a very unordinary emperor. He did not know the Russian language, he liked to play soldiers and wanted to baptize Russia according to the Protestant rite. His mysterious death led to the emergence of a whole galaxy of impostors.
The boy was named Karl Peter Ulrich, as the future Russian ruler was born in the port city Kiel, located in the north of the modern German state. To tell the truth, his rule lasted only six months, after which he was the victim of a palace coup, arranged by his wife Catherine II.
The boy was born into the family of Duke Charles Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, the nephew of the Swedish King Charles XII, and his wife Anna Petrovna, the daughter of Tsar Peter the Great. The child became the heir to the Swedish throne, and besides, in theory he could claim the Russian throne, although according to the idea of his grandfather Peter I this should not have happened. To tell the truth, his childhood was not royal at all. He lost his mother very early, and the father brought up his son like a soldier. At the age of 10 little Karl Peter was awarded the rank of second lieutenant, and a year later the boy was completely orphaned.
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Nina Kukharchuk was a wife of Nikita Khrushchev, who became the head of state largely thanks to this woman. To tell the truth, she became the first wife of the head of state to travel abroad.
Nina Kukharchuk was born on April 14, 1900 in the Russian Empire. Her parents were poor farmers with many children. 12-year-old Nina finished village school and the teacher persuaded her parents to send the girl to study in the city. The war began when she entered the Mariinsky School. The school was moved to Odessa, where Nina lived until 1920.
In 1919, in occupied Odessa Nina joined the Bolshevik Party and began clandestine activity. In particular, she was one of the leaders of the Odessa underground komsomol organization. You know, in June 1920, Nina was sent to the Polish front as she spoke Polish. The girl repeatedly had to risk her life. Later Nina came to Galichina where she became an activist of the Western Ukraine Communist Party.
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Boris Godunov was the Tsar of Russia from 1598 to 1605. He was one of the most famous (or infamous) rulers of early modern Russia. During the 7 years of Godunov’s rule, Russia strengthened its influence and its own borders, but internal conflicts provoked the ascension to the throne of the impostor False Dmitry.
Boris was born in 1552 into the family of a landowner who lived near Vyazma. The ancestors of Boris are Kostroma boyars, who eventually become landlords in Vyazma.
Being a provincial nobleman, the young man was educated, but did not get acquainted with the Holy Scripture. The study of church books was considered a fundamental component of study, so gaps in this area were not allowed.
After the death of the parents, the uncle took care of Boris and his sister Irina, and because of constant travel he had to give the orphans to the Kremlin. The children grew up with the royal heirs. Ivan the Terrible loved to talk with Boris and even ordered him to write down his own wise thoughts.
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Russian history is full of devotees ready to lay down their lives for their idea. Alexander Herzen (1812-1870) was the first Russian socialist to preach the ideas of equality and brotherhood. And although he did not take direct part in revolutionary activity, he was among those who prepared the ground for its development. One of the leaders of the Westernizers, later he became disillusioned with the ideals of the European way of development of Russia, moved to the opposite camp and became the founder of another movement, populism, significant for our history. The biography of Herzen is closely connected with such figures of the Russian and world revolution as Ogaryov, Belinsky, Proudhon, Garibaldi. Throughout his life he constantly tried to find the best way for equitable organization of society. To tell the truth, Alexander Ivanovich is respected for the passionate love for the people and the selfless service to the chosen ideals.
Alexander was an illegitimate son of the rich landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and 16-year-old German girl Henrietta. Due to the fact that officially the marriage was not registered, the father couldn’t give the boy his surname. So he named his son Herzen, which means “child of the heart” in German. The future publicist and writer was brought up in his uncle’s house on Tverskoi Boulevard (now the Gorky Literary Institute). The ideas of the Great French Revolution were constantly hovering in the air of Alexander’s study room. Already at that time, Herzen befriended Ogaryov.
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