From Russia with love

Wonderful map card from Pal :) .Thank you very much.

Founded in the 12th century, the Principality of Muscovy, was able to emerge from over 200 years of Mongol domination (13th-15th centuries) and to gradually conquer and absorb surrounding principalities. In the early 17th century, a new Romanov Dynasty continued this policy of expansion across Siberia to the Pacific. Under PETER I (ruled 1682-1725), hegemony was extended to the Baltic Sea and the country was renamed the Russian Empire. During the 19th century, more territorial acquisitions were made in Europe and Asia. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 contributed to the Revolution of 1905, which resulted in the formation of a parliament and other reforms. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the imperial household. The Communists under Vladimir LENIN seized power soon after and formed the USSR. The brutal rule of Iosif STALIN (1928-53) strengthened Communist rule and Russian dominance of the Soviet Union at a cost of tens of millions of lives. The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into Russia and 14 other independent republics. Since then, Russia has shifted its post-Soviet democratic ambitions in favor of a centralized semi-authoritarian state whose legitimacy is buttressed, in part, by carefully managed national elections, former President PUTIN's genuine popularity, and the prudent management of Russia's windfall energy wealth. Russia has severely disabled a Chechen rebel movement, although violence still occurs throughout the North Caucasus.

 

 My roots are also in Russia ,my dad is near from Yekaterinburg . Russia is worth visiting and russian people are kind :)

Lake Baikal

Wonderful Unesco card from Siberia(it is very special to me ,my dad was born in Siberia)

We visited Siberia in 1990 or 1991 ..I guess.I remeber it was really hot but I loved it.

Lake Baikal is the world's oldest and deepest lake; it is the second most voluminous lake, after the Caspian Sea. As the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world, with an average depth of 744.4 m (2,442 ft), Lake Baikal contains roughly 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and is located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia (between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, near the city of Irkutsk).
At 1,642 metres (5,387 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest, and among the clearest of all lakes in the world. At more than 25 million years old, Baikal is also the world's oldest lake. Like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km2/12,248 sq mi, less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria. Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is also home to Buryat tribes who reside on the eastern side of Lake Baikal, rearing goats, camels, cattle and sheep, where the regional temperature varies from a minimum of −19 °C (−2 °F) in winter to maximum of 14 °C (57 °F) in summer.

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov) (18 May [6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918) was the last Tsar of Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, and claimed the title of King of Poland. His official title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is currently regarded as Saint Nicholas the Passion Bearer by the Russian Orthodaox Church

Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until his abdtication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to an economic and military disaster.

Nicholas II abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 during which he and his family were imprisoned first in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, then later in the Governor's Mansion in Tobolsk, and finally at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Nicholas II, his wife, his son, his four daughters, the family's medical doctor, the Tsar's Valet, the Empress' Lady in Waiting and the family's cook were all killed in the same room by the Bolsheviks on the night of 17 July 1918. This has led to the late Nicholas II, his wife the Empress and their children to be canonized as martyrs by various groups tied to the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia and, prominently, by the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia.