Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (Russian: Михаи́л Бори́сович Ходорко́вский,IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil xədɐˈrkofskʲɪj]; born 26 June 1963) is a former Russian oligarch^[1] and businessman. In 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia and one of the richest people in the world, ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires.

Khodorkovsky worked his way up the Communist apparatus during the Soviet years, and began several businesses during the era of glasnost and perestroika. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he accumulated wealth through the development of Siberian oil fields as the head of Yukos, one of the largest Russian companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets during the 1990s.

He was arrested on 25 October 2003, to appear before investigators as a witness, but within hours of being taken into custody he was charged with fraud. The government underVladimir Putin then froze shares of Yukos shortly thereafter on tax charges. The state took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse of the company's share price and the evaporation of much of Khodorkovsky's wealth. He was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison in May 2005. While still serving his sentence, Khodorkovsky and business partner Platon Lebedev were further charged and found guilty of embezzlementand money laundering in December 2010, extending his prison sentence to 2017.

There is on-going debate about whether the trials and sentencing were politically motivated.^[2][3] The trial process has received criticism from abroad for its lack of due process. Khodorkovsky has lodged several applications to the European Court of Human Rights, seeking redress for alleged violations by Russia of his human rights. In response to his first application, which concerned events from 2003 to 2005, the court found that several violations were committed by the Russian authorities in their treatment of Khodorkovsky.^[4] In particular, the court ruled that Khodorkovsky's arrest was "unlawful as it had been made with a purpose different from the one expressed."^[5] Despite these findings, the court ultimately ruled that the trial was not politically motivated,^[6][7][8] but rather "that the charges against him were grounded in 'reasonable suspicion'".^[7]

He is considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky

Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood, original name Natalie Zackharenko, also known as Natasha Gurdin   (born July 20, 1938, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died November 29, 1981, off Santa Catalina Island, California), American film actress who transitioned from child stardom to a successful movie career as an adult. She was best known for ingenue roles that traded on her youthful appeal.

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Zackharenko was born to Russian immigrant parents. She began appearing in movies at age five and received her first credit, as Natalie Wood, in the drama Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). She won particular acclaim for her role as a precocious Santa Claus skeptic in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) when she was only nine. Emerging as a dark-haired beauty in her teenage years, Wood moved into leading roles withRebel Without a Cause (1955), in which she earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of atroubled youth. She married actor Robert Wagner in 1957 (divorced 1962; remarried 1972) and the following year starred opposite Gene Kelly in Marjorie Morningstar.

In 1961 Wood cemented her reputation as one of Hollywood’s most likeable and sought-after stars with appearances in two high-profile films. In Splendor in the Grass, she portrayed a small-town young woman distraught over a romantic relationship; for the emotional role, she was again nominated for an Oscar. She then starred as Maria in the hit film adaptation of the musical West Side Story. After another musical film, Gypsy (1962), Wood landed roles in the modern romances Love with the Proper Stranger(1963), for which she scored a third Oscar nomination, and Sex and the Single Girl (1964), in which she portrayed writer Helen Gurley Brown. Several box-office disappointments followed, however—including the show-business drama Inside Daisy Clover (1965)—and she spent three years away from the camera.

Wood staged a comeback with the popular sex comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), but she acted only sporadically thereafter, with the television movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) and the miniseriesFrom Here to Eternity (1979) providing her most notable performances. In 1981, while vacationing with Wagner on a yacht off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, California, Wood drowned under mysterious circumstances. For years the cause of her death was classified on her death certificate as an accident, but in 2012 it was formally changed to “undetermined” following a renewed investigation into the case.
For further information:
References:
 .http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/715865/Natalie-Wood

Vyacheslav BUTUSOV

Born:   15 October 1961 Russian rock musician, leader of the bands Nautilus Pompilius and U-Piter

Vyacheslav Gennadievich Butusov (born on 15 October 1961) is a Russian rock musician, leader of the bands Nautilus Pompilius and U-Piter. Vyacheslav Butusov was born on 15 October 1961 in Bugach Settlement of the Krasnoyarsk Region). When a first-year student of Sverdlovsk Architectural Institute he got acquainted with musician Dmitry Umetsky. Both were very keen on music and often gathered to play together. This resulted in recording of Nautilus Pompilius’s first and not quite successful album “Pereyezd” (Removal) (1982-1983). In the same year Butusov met the poet Ilya Kormiltsev. Together with him Vyacheslav Butusov recorded his first mature album “Nevidimka” (An Invisible) in 1985. Next year their tandem released the record “Razluka” (Separation), which evoked terrific popularity of Nautilus Pompilius. The band’s last album “Yablokitai” recorded by Butusov and Kormiltsev in 1996 in England with participation of Boris Grebenshikov and English musician Bill Nelson who became its producer. In 2007 Vyacheslav Butusov started his solo career and in 2001 he founded U-Piter band.

- See more at: http://russia-ic.com/people/general/b/148#sthash.NhvztIn7.dpuf

VIKTOR TSOI

Viktor Zoi Viktor Robertovich Tsoi (June 21, 1962 – August 15, 1990) was a famous Soviet artist and leader of the rock group Kino. Tsoi was born to a Korean father and Russian mother on June 21, 1962 in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia). Tsoi's mother, Valentina Vasilyevna, was a teacher and his father, Robert Maximovich, was an engineer. He married Marianna Tsoi in 1985 and had a son with her--Alexander (Sasha). He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Russian rock and has a huge following in the countries of the former Soviet Union even today, as of 2008. Few musicians in the history of Russian music have been more popular or have had more impact on their genre than Victor Tsoi and his rock band Kino. After contributing a plethora of musical and artistic works, including ten albums, he died in a car accidentwhen he fell asleep at the wheel on August 15, 1990. In 1982, Kino released their first album titled "45". This album first showed Tsoi's willingness to approach political topics in his music, something not too many other artists were willing to do. In his song Suburban Electric Train (Russian: Электричка/Elektrichka) he discussed a man stuck in a train that was taking him where he didn't wish to go; this was clearly a metaphor for life in the Soviet Union, and the band was quickly banned from performing this song live. Regardless, the political message of the song made it popular among the youth of the anti-establishment movement that now began to look to Victor Tsoi and "Kino" as their idols. "Kino" was still not getting much mainstream attention due to the lack of government support, that would all change with the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev came to power in 1985. His social and economic reforms, Glasnost and Perestroika, began exposing the social and economic problems of the Soviet Union and allowed open discussion of them in the media. People were beginning to realize that the Communist experiment was not working out and that things needed to change. Glasnost loosened the restrictions on the media and allowed rock bands to be written about and shown on television. In 1986 Tsoi used the open atmosphere and public sentiment to release a song titled [We're waiting for] Changes! (Russian: Перемен!/Peremen!). The song called on the young generation to demand changes within the current system and spread "Kino"'s name all over the nation. However, in an interview, aired on soviet TV shortly after his death, Tsoi claims that his songs often have been misinterpreted in the public and that he usually avoids political intentions in his poetry. In particular, Changes!, which was used widely for the perestroika movements, has nothing to do with it, he said. While in Latvia, on 14 August 1990, Tsoi finished recording the vocals for Kino's next album. He was supposed to travel back to Leningrad so that his band mates could record its musical score. Early in the morning of August 15th, Victor Tsoi was killed when he lost control of his Aleko car and slammed into a bus outside of Riga. The car was completely demolished to the point that one of its tires was never found. This all happened on the way back from a fishing trip. On August 17th, the Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the main Soviet newspapers, had this to say about Tsoi and his meaning to the youth of the nation, Tsoi means more to the young people of our nation than any politician, celebrity or writer. This is because Tsoi never lied and never sold out. He was and remains himself. You can't not believe him... Tsoi is the only rocker who has no difference between his image and his real life, he lived the way he sang... Tsoi is the last hero of rock. http://intelectclub.at.ua/index/0-14

Nikita Mikhalkov

Nikita Mikhalkov is the son of the famous communist poet Sergei Mikhalkov, who wrote the lyrics of the Soviet national anthem and had strong connections to the Communist Party. Nikita Mikhalkov's mother, Natalya Petrovna Konchalovskaya, was also a poet and daughter of famous painter Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky and his wife Olga Vasilievna Surikova, and by her the great granddaughter of another great painter Vasily Surikov. And then last, but not least, Nikita Mikhalkov is the brother of Andrey Konchalovskiy, also a distinguished film director who, unlike Nikita, has worked in the USA.

Not only did Mikhalkov direct the Academy Award-winning film "Burnt by the Sun" but he is also well-known as a versatile actor, having appeared in over 40 films, including the role of the Russian Tsar Alexander III in his own "The Barber of Siberia" (1998).

Mikhalkov has an impressively long list of wins at the most prestigious film festivals, like Cannes, Venice, Moscow or Karlovy Vary.

Following his movie's Oscar win for Best Foreign Language Film, Nikita Mikhalkov won a parliamentary seat in the then Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin's party.

He is always in the spotlight, especially in Moscow, where he resides.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous 

Mini Biography

Russian film-maker and actor Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov was born on October, 21, 1945, a son of a well-known Russian poet Sergei Mikhalkov, who provided lyrics for the Russian anthem, and Natalya Petrovna Konchalovskaya, also a poet. As a child he was exposed to genuine literary talk at home, which was a fulcrum for a Russian art community. Mikhalkov was educated at the state film school VGIK and graduated in 1971 with a short film Quiet Day at War's End as his degree project. He quickly established himself as one of the most promising Russian directors with a vision of his own. Fame and recognition came with At Home among Strangers (1974) - a crime story set against the backdrop of a civil war. A biopic about a silent movie star Slave of Love (1976), An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (1977), and A Few Days in the Life of I.I.Oblomov (1979) - the latter two inspired by the themes from the Russian classical literature - were praised for technical brilliance.

Mikhalkov often starred in his films and occasionally appeared in other directors' movies. Five Evenings (1979) and Kinfolk (1981) combined comedy and drama in consideration of important issues of the day. As his fame and international audience grew, his films never went unnoticed at prestigious European film festivals and earned him numerous awards. Dark Eyes (1987) - a love story loosely based on Chekhov's novel, Hitch-hiking (1990), and Close to Eden (1991) enjoyed popularity with cinema-goers and got widespread critical acclaim.

Mikhalkov's personal ambition was to repeat a success of The Cranes Are Flying - the only Russian film to have won the Palme d"Or at the Cannes Festival. In 1994, his Stalin era drama Burnt by the Sun (1994) was overshadowed by Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) at Cannes and, upon returning home, he made some unpleasant remarks about "those people in France neglecting masterpieces" and vowed never to take part in any film festival, again. So far, he has kept his promise. Burnt by the Sun, however, became a hit of its own and won an Academy Award(Oscar) for the Best Foreign Film. Because of his controversial political views, he fell from public favor in the late 1990s, although his The Barber of Siberia (1998) (aka "The Barber of Siberia" (1998)) - a grandiose, big budget romance set in the 19th century Russia - became a runaway box office success. Opinions on his directing polarize. Some view him as the greatest living Russian film-maker. The others say that he is a typical old school director who fails to produce new ideas in his films.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Mike (hfhfdfse@rol.ru) 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0586482/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Vasily Zaitsev

This Hero of the Soviet Union killed more than 300 Nazi soldiers in the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II and taught scores of other snipers. 

Vasily Zaitsev was born into a family of peasants in the village of Yelenovsk in the Chelyabinsk Region in the Urals.

His grandfather taught him to hunt at a very early age – as a child, Vasily would spend days in the taiga together with his younger brother, tracking wolves, setting traps and sleeping in the snow. He brought home his first trophy at the age of twelve: a wolf that he shot with a single bullet from his first personal weapon, a large single-barreled Berdan rifle, which he was just barely able to carry behind his back at the time. As bullets were scarce, Vasily learnt to pull the trigger just once per animal. This is how he grew up to become a sharpshooter.

In 1937 Vasily was recruited into the Red Army. Despite his small frame, he was sent to serve in the Soviet Navy in the Pacific, near Vladivostok. But when Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union, Zaitsev, like many of his comrades, volunteered to be transferred to the frontline. At the time he had already reached the rank of Sergeant Major.

/On the eve of 22 September 1942 Zaitsev crossed the Volga River and joined the 1047th Rifle Regiment of the 284th Rifle Division of the 62nd Army. He made a name for himself during the first encounters with the enemy in the flame-lit city. Then one day, Zaitsev’s commanding officer called him up and pointed at an enemy officer in a window 800 meters away. Vasily took aim from his standard-issue Mossin-Nagant rifle, and with one shot, the officer was down. In less than a few moments, two other Nazi soldiers appeared in the window, checking their fallen officer. Vasily fired two more shots, and they were killed. For this, together with the Medal for Valor, Vasily was also awarded a sniper rifle.

Image from www.romantiki.ru On the eve of 22 September 1942 Zaitsev crossed the Volga River and joined the 1047th Rifle Regiment of the 284th Rifle Division of the 62nd Army. He made a name for himself during the first encounters with the enemy in the flame-lit city. Then one day, Zaitsev’s commanding officer called him up and pointed at an enemy officer in a window 800 meters away. Vasily took aim from his standard-issue Mossin-Nagant rifle, and with one shot, the officer was down. In less than a few moments, two other Nazi soldiers appeared in the window, checking their fallen officer. Vasily fired two more shots, and they were killed. For this, together with the Medal for Valor, Vasily was also awarded a sniper rifle.

Image from www.exler.ru

Vasily Zaitsev’s name quickly became known across the Soviet Union; between 10 November and 17 December he was credited with 225 verified kills, 11 of them snipers. The Soviets soon organized a school of snipers based in a metal hardware factory, marking the beginning of the sniper movement in the Red Army.

“For us there was no land beyond the Volga,” Zaitsev once said in a famous quote, revealing his fervent loyalty to the Motherland.

Zaitsev would hide in all sorts of locations – on high ground, under rubble, in water pipes. After a few kills he would change his position. Together with his partner Nikolay Kulikov, Zaitsev would hide and sting. One of Zaitsev’s common tactics was to cover one large area from three positions with two men at each point – a sniper and scout. This tactic, known as the “sixes,” is still in use today and was implemented during the war in Chechnya.

In his memoirs, Vasily recalls a certain sly Nazi sniper he tracked for a week – they called him the

Image from www.nnm.ru

“Supersniper.” He was allegedly Heinz Thorvald, aka Erwin König, a high-ranking Werhmacht officer and head of the Berlin sniper school. There is little known about König’s identify. He reportedly came to Stalingrad to kill Zaitsev, who had already caused much havoc and drained Nazi morale. Zaitsev writes that the sniper was highly skilled and was very hard to find. But when two of Vasily’s comrades were injured by a sniper, Zaitsev and Kulikov began searching the area, and Vasily noticed a glimpse of light under a piece of metal. When Kulikov lifted a helmet on a stick from a window, Erwin König fired and revealed himself as he peeked to see whether his target was dead. It was then that Zaitsev shot him in the head.

Image from www.reibert.info

The sniper duel is loosely depicted in the feature film “Enemy at the Gates,” directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Jude Law as Zaitsev and Ed Harris as Major König.

Vasily continued teaching Soviet soldiers while sniping Nazi troops until January 1943 when he was severely wounded and blinded by a mortar. He was taken to Moscow, where he was operated on by Professor Filatov, the famous Russian ophthalmologist. While he was in hospital, his rifle was given to the best snipers in his school. His students, the “zaichata,” were credited with more than 6,000 kills during World War II.

With his sense of sight restored, Zaitsev returned to the frontline, where he continued teaching snipers, commandeered a mortar platoon and became a Regiment Commander. He fought in Ukraine, at the Dnepr and in Odessa, sniping the enemy at the Dniestr River. But during the victorious day of 9 May 1945, he was in hospital again. He ended the war with the rank of Captain.

After the war, Zaitsev lived in Kiev, where he studied at a textile university and then worked as an engineer before becoming the director of a textile plant. Vasily Zaitsev died in 1991 and was buried in Kiev, although his final request was to be buried in the land he fought so hard to defend – Stalingrad. His wish came true on the 63rd anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, when Vasily Zaitsev was reburied with full military honors at Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, a monument in honor of the millions of victims of the battle. His rifle is on display in the Museum for the Defense of Stalingrad.

Vasily Zaitsev’s highest awards include: Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner (twice), Order of the Patriotic War (First Class), Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad and the Medal for the Victory Over Germany.

Reference:

http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/military/vasily-zaitsev

Who Are the Russians?

Russia is the largest country in the world in terms of sheer geographic space. But who are the people who live in this huge country? As it turns out, the question is not an easy one to answer.

The citizens of Russia are termed Rossiiane. However, not all Russian citizens are ethnic Russians - russkiye. It is true that ethnic Russians are in the majority, an estimated 82% of the population today. But there are significant numbers of other ethnic or national groups in Russia too: Tatars, Chechens, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Armenians, Finns, Germans, Jews, Buriats, Bashkirs, and many others. Currently there are over 100 different ethnic or national groups in Russia. Russia is thus a land of great ethnic diversity. Complicating matters further is the fact that, in past generations, large numbers of people from these various minority groups have assimilated, that is, they have taken on ethnic Russian identity. For example, in late tsarist times it was possible for Jews to become ethnic Russians by being baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church. Some non-ethnic Russians married ethnic Russians and brought their children up as ethnic Russians. Some non-ethnic Russians simply russified their names. And so on. All this means that many people who call themselves ethnic Russians today have mixed ethnic ancestry. As a southern Russian proverb has it: Papa turok, Mama grek, a ya russky chelovek(Papa is a Turk, Mama is a Greek, but I'm a Russian).

Many famous Russians are of mixed ethnic background. Poet Aleksandr Pushkin descended from a German on his father's side and an Ethiopian on his mother's side. General Mikhail Kutuzov was of German ancestry. Historian Nikolai Karamzin was of Tatar background. The Tatar connection is especially frequent. "Scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tatar," says the proverb. Consider some fairly well-known "Russian" names of Tatar/Turkic origin: Arakcheev, Artsybashev, Berdiaev, Kochubei, Muratov, Musin, Saltykov, Tiutchev, Sheremet'evÖ. The list could be extended.

In Russia today there are some Russian nationalists who are disturbed by the great ethnic diversity of their country. They proclaim slogans such as "Russia for the Russians!" (Rossiya dlya russkikh!) or "Beat the Yids, Save Russia!" (Bei zhidov, spasay Rossiyu!). There is a fear in some circles that the ethnic Russians will become outnumbered by the "aliens" (inorodtsy). Some of these people understand that ethnic Russians are not defined "by blood," and they accept the fact that one can "become" a Russian. They even encourage assimilation. Evgeny Troitsky writes, for example: "Russians do not give birth much, one has to become one. A Russian is one who loves the Fatherland and who really wishes for its prosperity and glory."

Other nationalists, however, such as members of the Russian National Union Party, insist that one is a Russian "by blood." They worry about ethnically-mixed marriages, and they are concerned about "the purity of the gene pool of the Russian Nation." However, there is no such thing as an ethnic Russian "by blood," and Russians do not have any definable "purity of the gene pool." Modern genetics has not found any gene or genes that define Russians. In fact, no ethnic, national, or racial group on this earth can be defined genetically. Genetic differences between individuals tend to be much greater than genetic differences between psycho-socially constructed ethnic, national, and racial groups. Racism is both morally and biologically unfounded.

Who, then, are the Russians (in the ethnic sense of russkiye)? Given the history of assimilationism in Russia, and given the biological impossibility of defining Russians, I would like to suggest an answer that works in at least 99% of the cases: Russians are people who identify themselves as Russians.

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere is Professor of Russian at the University of California, Davis, and author of Russian Nationalism from an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Imagining Russia (2000, available fromMellenpress.com).

Reference:

 http://www.russianlife.com/blog/who-are-the-russians/