In 988 A.D. Russia was baptized by the famous count Vladimir. During those times Russia did not exist as a country, instead there were dozens of small principalities with their own leaders, their own small armies, and the territory that they lived in was known by Europeans as Slavic Rus’.
Count Vladimir was one of the most powerful counts and the most crucial for the history of Russia. He understood that as long as the country remained divided and as long as counts and principalities fought against one another, the country would remain vulnerable to outside conquerors. This is why Vladimir decided to find a motivation for people to unite. What thing could unite people with different lifestyles, incomes and occupations? Religion of course! This answer lead to one more question: which religion? Vladimir had a choice from the most powerful religions of the world: Islam, Judaism and Orthodox Christianity, he didn’t consider Catholicism because Europeans always tried to invade Russian Slavs, take their lands, and baptizing people in the enemies’ religion meant surrender. Followers of Judaism are not allowed to work on Saturday and had to eat kosher food, which was too restrictive for peasant he thought. In Islam, followers are required to pray many times a day, eat foot that is halal, and are forbidden from drinking alcohol, which also seemed to Vladimir like it would have been troublesome. Followers of Orthodox Christianity were allowed to eat and drink without restriction, what is more, there were many trade roots to the Byzantine Empire and it was really close. “Bingo!” So Orthodox Christianity was chosen. When Vladimir decided to baptize people, he did so deceptively by persuading them to step into a river. After, a priest brought from Byzantium baptised the water and all of the people in it and no one understood what had happened. At the mean time he ordered to burn and destroy totems of all pagan gods. During those times, people living in the Russian territory believed in their own gods. There was a god or a ghost for everything: sky, thunder, rain, soil, sun, trees, wind, swamps and so on. Everyone believed in pagan gods and each principality had their main pagan god. Day by day, the idea of having one God was grew to be more accepted. After a couple dozen years the masses were followers of Orthodox Christianity; despite this, the idea having many gods, ghosts, strange creatures, witches and talking beasts is still alive in the minds and folk culture of Russians.
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Today, on the 27th January we celebrate one of the most important days for locals. This day , 72 years ago, the siege of Leningrad* was fully lifted. City and suburban areas were freed from Nazi occupation. The siege of Leningrad is one of the longest, most destructive and costliest sieges in the history. Economic destruction and human losses in Leningrad exceeded those of the Battle of Stalingrad or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The siege of Leningrad is the most lethal siege in our world history, and some historians speak of the siege operations in terms of genocide, as a "racially motivated starvation policy" that became an integral part of the unprecedented German war of extermination against populations of the Soviet Union generally. The defeat of Leningrad was one of three main strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. The strategy was motivated by Leningrad's political status - the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and its industrial strength. In 1941 Nazi troops got close to Leningrad and started to form a ring around the city and on the 8th of September, 1941, when the last road leading to Leningrad was blocked, the hell started. People were completely not ready for the war, they didn't have any food supplies, factories were not ready for producing enough weapons and tanks. The siege caused extreme famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. During the 900 days of the siege about 1.5 million people died, this comes up to 45% of the population of the city! Corpses of adults and children were everywhere, people were not strong enough to move bodies away and bury them. Civilians in the city suffered from extreme starvation, especially in the winter of 1941–42. From November 1941 to February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 grams of bread, of which 50–60% consisted of sawdust and other inedible admixtures. 97% of all deaths in the city were caused not by bombardments but by the terrible starvation. In conditions of extreme temperatures, down to −30 °C (−22 °F), and city transport being out of service, even a distance of a few kilometers to a food distributing kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens. Deaths peaked in January–February 1942 at 100,000 per month. Cases of the severe muscle atrophy started to be called Leningrad illness. The only way to bring supplies to the city and to evacuate women and children was to use the Ladoga lake as a road. In winter 1941, when the water froze, the lake route was opened. There was the risk of vehicles becoming stuck in the snow or sinking through broken ice caused by the constant German bombardment. This route was called The Road of Life. This road helped Leningrad to survive and according to data, 700 000 people were evacuated by Ladoga lake. Not only Leningrad was facing losses: all suburban towns and villages, Czar's palaces and mansions, everything was destroyed. Such famous places as the Czars Village, Peterhof palace, Gatchina and Pavlovsk were blown up. People living in villages were taken to Germany and occupied regions as a cheap labor. When my grandmother was 5, she and ger mother as well as many other people from the village were taken to Lithuania where they were working on a farm of one of the nazis. Even though the situation was terrible, people tried to believe in future. Some schools, museums, concert halls kept working even though 40% of the employees disappeared forever. On 9 August 1942, the Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" by Dmitri Shostakovich was performed by the Leningrad Radio Orchestra. The concert was broadcast on loudspeakers placed in all the city and also aimed towards the enemy lines. The same day had been previously designated by Hitler to celebrate the fall of the city with a lavish banquet at Leningrad's Astoria Hotel.
The siege continued until 27 January 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. This day, day of liberation of the city we celebrate every year. In may, 1945 Leningrad was given a special honorary title of the Hero City awarded for outstanding heroism during World War II. People never gave up. And today we celebrate the spirit of the brave citizens and we remember all those victims: soldiers fighting for their country, women and children, working 14 hours at factories, doctors and policemen, all of them, who gave their lives for our bright future. Siege of Leningrad will always stay in minds of locals, their families and all Russians. We, living people are in charge of the future of the world, not only our country and not only our nation, but the whole world. And I hope that lessons of the past will help us to prevent the same mistakes and avoid the same victims. * (St. Petersburg was called Leningrad after the death of Lenin in 1924, up to 1991) For the Russian Empire, the beginning of the 20th century marked a time of revolutions, uprisings, hunger, patriotic decay and overall pessimism with no hope for the future. When the First World War had started, everybody understood that it was the beginning of the end, soldiers didn’t know what they were fighting for and most men weren’t willing to join the army. At that very moment, The Russian Provisional government (formed after the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II), together with some army officials decided to use an extraordinary method to inspire motivation of soldiers, and created troops of only women and girls. Troops called “Female Death Battalions” were first created on the 21st of June 1917, with the help of the most famous and one of the few female soldiers in those times, Mariya Bochkaryova (she was personally allowed to serve in the army by the personal permission of Emperor Nicholas the II). They each wore a skull and crossbones on their shoulder straps, symbolising an unwillingness to live after the fall of Russia. The creation of Death battalions gave way to a patriotic rise of the whole country and resulted in not only men willing to fight for Russia, but inspired many women to join the army too. The Russian army added 25 thousand women to its ranks! The members of Female Death Battalions were diverse and included wives and daughters of deceased soldiers, students, teachers, workers, servants, peasants, as well as girls from rich and famous families. One 25-year old Death Battalion soldier spoke five languages and was actually a daughter of a famous general, while another soldier was the first female pilot in the world and had the title of countess. Usual soldiers didn’t like the idea of women on the same battlefield because it was humiliating for them and they referred to members of these women-only battalions as “prostitutes”. In those times, the idea of the equal rights for men and women was unheard of.
In June 1917, The First Female Battalion was sent to the Western front, near Belorussia. At a sudden attack of Germans, they were the first to react and assume the offensive. In the three days that followed, the women repelled 14 German attacks which lead to the enemies retreating. These ladies were an example of brave and courageous soldiers, ready to give their lives for the victory. Out of the 200 female soldiers 30 died at the battlefield and 70 were wounded. Mariya Bochkaryova was awarded a medal for her heroism during the war. Despite all of this, following those famous battles of the Death Battalion, the General signed a document, forbidding the creation of new female battalions and ordering existing female soldiers to discontinue participation in future military operations. The officials were afraid of loss and didn’t want women to die in the battlefield. In October of 1917, one of the Death Battalions was sent to the residence of the provisional government’s Winter Palace, where they had to defend it from Bolsheviks and other revolutionists. The attempt to defend The Winter Palace failed and revolutionists ran into the building and arrested everybody. All of the women from The Death battalions were sent to barracks where many of them were raped and one committed suicide. After the October Revolution of 1917 the newly founded Soviet Government disbanded all female battalions and sent the women home. A lot of women kept fighting for Russia and the Imperial government and participated in the Civil war, fighting against newly formed Communist government. Mariya Bochkaryova, the leader of Female Death Battalions movement by the order of the main anti-Bolshevik general, was sent to The United States for propaganda work and collecting money for the war with communists. She visited San Francisco, New York and even got the attention of President Woodrow Wilson. She had also visited London and met King George V and was given money and a pledge of support to help with war against the Bolsheviks. Soon after, she returned to Russia and kept serving in the Imperial army. One day she was caught by The Bolsheviks and sent to prison for “anti-communistic behaviour” and was executed after four months of imprisonment without any official verdict. The Soviet government tried to make people forget about the hundreds of courageous women fighting for Russia and emperor and only after the fall of Soviet Union, officials started to open secret files and documents, publishing more and more about Female Death Battalions. Ex-soldiers of those battalions never mentioned anything about their past and tried to forget about it. Since being related to pro-Imperialism in any way was dangerous in 1920’s-1940’s. During the years under Stalin’s oppression, about 700 thousand people were shot and roughly 2.5 million people were imprisoned after accusation in political crimes. In the end, the women who were served their country, fought with enemies and sacrificed their lives for the bright future of the nation, were forgotten and their names and reputation were thrown into the pile of Imperial garbage, burnt by Bolsheviks. Nowadays, the Russian government recognizes all of the madness, crimes and horror that happened in the country during the period after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. More and more information regarding the history of the revolutions, wars and oppressions appear these days. People are not afraid of learning about and discussing these historical events that were carefully hidden by the communist party and its officials. In 2014, to commemorate 100 years since the start of the First World War, a famous Russian director filmed an interesting movie about the Female Death Battalion. Prince Alexis, the only son of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, together with his sister princess Maria will be soon be buried in St. Petersburg. For many years, the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church disagreed about what should be done with prince Alexis and Maria's remains and finally, after much scandal, they decided to bury all members of the last Royal family together in the same place. This saga began when the missing remains of Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and three of their four daughters: Anastasia, Tatiana and Olga were discovered in 1993 at an unmarked roadside mass grave. Their bodies were then properly buried in 1997 in Peter and Paul’s cathedral in St. Petersburg. However, the prince Alexis and Maria's remains were nowhere to be found. It wasn't until 10 years later, in 2007, that remains were discovered that were believed to those of prince Alexis and Maria. In 2008, the remains were tested from previously acquired DNA samples and were confirmed to be relatives of the royal family though they were not absolutely certain to be that of the two missing children. For many years, these unidentified remains were held in storage in Moscow, awaiting final DNA testing. In order to be able to confirm the identity of these remains with certainty, DNA samples from Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra were needed. Remains of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his wife, Empress Alexandra were exhumed on September 24th 2015, at the request of Russian Orthodox Church in order to conduct these final DNA tests. Russian officials announced that all remains of the royal family will be buried together in Peter and Paul’s cathedral at a date to be announced. Hopefully, the children will be given a proper burial with their parents and will finally find their rest soon. After all of this the Russian Orthodox Church, still does not officially recognize any found remains as remains of the last Russian Royal family since the final DNA tests have a .01% margin of error (99.99% certainty) and consequently is not 100% certain. If You are interested in keeping up to date news from St. Petersburg, its history and tours, please like ExperienceRussia on Facebook. |
AuthorHi there! My name is Mila, I have been working as a local guide for six years and I've decided to share with you essential information about St. Petersburg, life in Russia and Russian culture. I hope you will enjoy! Archives
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