121-494: A Fabergé egg ( Russian : яйцо Фаберже , romanized : yaytso Faberzhe ) is a jewelled egg created by the jewellery firm House of Fabergé , in Saint Petersburg , Russia. As many as 69 were created, of which 57 survive today. Virtually all were manufactured under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé between 1885 and 1917. The most famous are his 52 "Imperial" eggs, 46 of which survive. These eggs were made for
242-649: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
363-510: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
484-551: A Fabergé egg to both his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, and his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Records have shown that of the 50 imperial Easter eggs, 20 were given to the former and 30 to the latter. Eggs were made each year except 1904 and 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War . The imperial eggs enjoyed great fame. Fabergé was commissioned to make similar eggs for a few private clients, including
605-494: A bid to acquire more foreign currency, Joseph Stalin had many of the eggs sold in 1927, after their value had been appraised by Agathon Carl Theodor Fabergé . Between 1930 and 1933, 14 imperial eggs left Russia. Many of the eggs were sold to Armand Hammer (president of Occidental Petroleum and a personal friend of Lenin, whose father was founder of the United States Communist Party ) and to Emanuel Snowman of
726-748: A contributing factor to his death at a premature age. Nobel was Lutheran and, during his years living in Paris, he regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad led by pastor Nathan Söderblom who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. He was an agnostic in youth and became an atheist later in life, though he still donated generously to the Church. Nobel remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression . He never married, although his biographers note that he had at least three loves. His first love
847-407: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Alfred Nobel Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( / n oʊ ˈ b ɛ l / noh- BEL , Swedish: [ˈǎlfrɛd nʊˈbɛlː] ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist , inventor, engineer and businessman. He
968-517: A foundation to fund Nobel Prizes , which annually recognize those who "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". The synthetic element nobelium was named after him, and his name and legacy also survive in companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel , which descend from mergers with companies he founded. Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , which, pursuant to his will, would be responsible for choosing
1089-820: A house in the Avenue Malakoff in Paris . In 1891, after being accused of high treason against France for selling Ballistite to Italy, he moved from Paris to Sanremo , Italy, acquiring Villa Nobel , overlooking the Mediterranean Sea , where he died in 1896. In 1894, when he acquired Bofors-Gullspång, the Björkborn Manor was included, where he stayed during the summers. It is now a museum. The Monument to Alfred Nobel ( Russian : Памятник Альфреду Нобелю , 59°57′39″N 30°20′06″E / 59.960787°N 30.334905°E / 59.960787; 30.334905 )
1210-521: A jeweled egg. This type of egg is believed to have been inspired by an ivory hen egg made for the Danish Royal Collection in the 18th century. Known as the Hen Egg , it has a 2.5-inch outer enamel shell and a golden band around the middle. The egg opens to reveal a golden " yolk " within, which opened to reveal a golden hen sitting on golden straw . Inside the hen lay a miniature diamond replica of
1331-587: A journey to discover how the tiara came into her mother's possession and if her father, a Fabergé workman, was involved. Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of
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#17328525788481452-479: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
1573-768: A large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation to be used to set up a sixth prize in the field of economics in honor of Alfred Nobel. In 2001, Alfred Nobel's great-great-nephew, Peter Nobel (born 1931), asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
1694-572: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
1815-571: A luxury cruise ship from Regent Seven Seas Cruises . The egg will remain on the cruise ship, making it the first ever Fabergé to live at sea. Below is a chronology of the 52 eggs made for the imperial family. The dating of the eggs has evolved. An earlier chronology dated the Blue Serpent Clock Egg to 1887 and identified the egg of 1895 as the Twelve Monograms Egg. The discovery of the previously lost Third Imperial Easter Egg confirms
1936-607: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
2057-508: A more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. Gelignite , or blasting gelatin, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, powerful, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than
2178-610: A museum that will display the eggs in his collection, which was built as a private Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia on 19 November 2013. In November 2007, a Fabergé clock, named by Christie's auction house as the Rothschild Egg , sold at auction for £8.9 million ($ 16.5 million) (including commission). The price achieved by the egg set three auction records: it is the most expensive timepiece , Russian object, and Fabergé object ever sold at auction, surpassing
2299-512: A noble family. The 2011 digital card game Cabals: Magic & Battle Cards features Fabergé egg as a collectible card. In 2017, visual artist Jonathan Monaghan exhibited a series of digital prints re-interpreting Fabergé eggs in humorous and surreal ways at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. In M. J. Rose 's 2021 novel The Last Tiara , the main character discovers a Fabergé tiara in her late mother's apartment. This discovery sets her off on
2420-488: A predecessor of cordite . Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893. Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert founded the oil company Branobel and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through
2541-516: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
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#17328525788482662-463: A reason not to give the prize to important but less romantic authors, such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy . This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example, Dario Fo and José Saramago , who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism. There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making
2783-527: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
2904-475: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
3025-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
3146-593: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
3267-566: Is a prose tragedy in four acts about the Italian noblewoman Beatrice Cenci . It was printed while he was dying, but the entire stock was destroyed immediately after his death except for three copies, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous . It was published in Sweden in 2003 and has been translated into Slovenian , French , Italian , and Spanish. As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin ; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further
3388-513: Is actually a legitimate "Nobel Prize". In his letters to his mistress, Hess, Nobel described constant pain, debilitating migraines, and "paralyzing" fatigue, leading some to believe that he suffered from fibromyalgia . However, his concerns at the time were dismissed as hypochondria , leading to further depression . By 1895, Nobel had developed angina pectoris . On 27 November 1895, he finalized his will and testament , leaving most of his wealth in trust, unbeknownst to his family, to fund
3509-485: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
3630-613: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
3751-496: Is in Saint Petersburg along the Bolshaya Nevka River on Petrogradskaya Embankment, the street where Nobel's family lived until 1859. It was dedicated in 1991 to mark the 90th anniversary of the first Nobel Prize presentation. Diplomat Thomas Bertelman and Professor Arkady Melua were initiators of the creation of the monument in 1989 and they provided funds for the establishment of the monument. The abstract metal sculpture
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3872-473: Is known for inventing dynamite as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes . He also made several other important contributions to science, holding 355 patents in his lifetime. A member of the prominent Nobel family , Nobel displayed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at
3993-563: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
4114-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
4235-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
4356-445: Is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death. The obituary stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead"), and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." Nobel read the obituary and was appalled at the idea that he would be remembered in this way. His decision to posthumously donate
4477-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
4598-576: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
4719-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
4840-464: Is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
4961-592: The American Dad! episode "A Jones for a Smith" (2010), The Intouchables (2011), Hustle episode "Eat Yourself Slender" (2012), many episodes of "Riverdale" belonging to Veronica Lodge, Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated episode "The House of the Nightmare Witch" (2012), Person of Interest episode "Search and Destroy" (2015), Imperial Eight (2015), the British crime drama series Peaky Blinders ("Lilies of
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5082-461: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
5203-966: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
5324-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
5445-468: The Crimean War (1853–1856), but had difficulty switching back to regular domestic production when the fighting ended and they filed for bankruptcy . In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel (1831–1888), who greatly improved the business. Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia and Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives , and especially to
5566-557: The Duchess of Marlborough , the Rothschild family , and the Yusupovs . Fabergé was also commissioned to make twelve eggs for the industrialist Alexander Kelch , though only seven appear to have been completed. Another notable patron was the oil baron Emanuel Nobel , nephew of Alfred Nobel . In 1913, he commissioned an 'Ice Egg' from Fabergé. Following the revolution and the nationalization of
5687-552: The Nobel Prize awards. On 10 December 1896, he suffered a stroke / intracerebral hemorrhage and was first partially paralyzed and then died, aged 63. He is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm. Based on his experimentation with explosives, his strenuous work habit, and the decline in his health at the end of the 1870s, some hypothesize that nitroglycerine poisoning was
5808-531: The Nobel laureates in physics and in chemistry . Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm , Sweden on 21 October 1833. He was the third son of Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, and Andriette Nobel ( née Ahlsell 1805–1889). The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished and only Alfred and his three brothers survived beyond childhood. Through his father, Alfred Nobel
5929-575: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
6050-694: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
6171-550: The fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which
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#17328525788486292-420: The oligarch Viktor Vekselberg . In a 2013 BBC Four documentary, Vekselberg revealed he had spent just over $ 100 million purchasing the nine Fabergé eggs. He claims never to have displayed them in his home, saying he bought them as they are important to Russian history and culture, and he believed them to be the best jewelry art in the world. In the same BBC documentary, Vekselberg revealed he plans to open
6413-822: The $ 9.6 million sale of the 1913 Winter Egg in 2002. In 1989, as part of the San Diego Arts Festival, 26 Fabergé eggs were loaned for display at the San Diego Museum of Art, the largest exhibition of Fabergé eggs anywhere since the Russian Revolution. The eggs included eight from the Kremlin, nine from the Forbes collection, three from the New Orleans Museum of Art, two from the Royal Collection one from
6534-508: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
6655-555: The 52 known Fabergé eggs, 46 have survived to the present day. Ten of the imperial Easter eggs are displayed at Moscow's Kremlin Armory Museum . Of the 50 delivered imperial eggs, 44 have survived, and there are photographs of three of the six lost eggs: the 1903 Royal Danish Egg, the 1909 Alexander III Commemorative Egg, and the Nécessaire Egg of 1889. The previously lost Third Imperial Easter Egg of 1887 has since been found in
6776-465: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
6897-423: The Century (1999), The Order (2001), Relic Hunter episode "M.I.A." (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004), The Simpsons episode " The Last of the Red Hat Mamas " (2005), SpongeBob SquarePants episode " What Ever Happened to SpongeBob? " (2008), Thick as Thieves (2009), multiple episodes of White Collar (TV series) (2009 - 2014), a 2010 episode of the TV series Leverage ("The Zanzibar Marketplace Job"),
7018-454: The Cleveland Museum of Art and three from private collections. Fabergé eggs have acquired a cult status in the art world and popular culture. Featured in exhibitions, films, TV series, documentaries, cartoons, publications, and the news, they continue to intrigue. They have become symbols of the splendor, power and wealth of the Romanov dynasty and the Russian Empire , priceless treasures to hunt, steal, etc. As such, they have been part of
7139-519: The Fabergé workshop in St. Petersburg by the Bolsheviks in 1918, the Fabergé family left Russia. The Fabergé trademark has since been sold several times, and several companies have retailed egg-related merchandise using the Fabergé name. From 1998 to 2009, the Victor Mayer jewelry company produced limited-edition Fabergé eggs authorized under Unilever 's license. The trademark is now owned by Fabergé Limited, which makes egg-themed jewelry. In 2023, Fabergé debuted Journey in Jewels on Seven Seas Grandeur,
7260-409: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
7381-437: The Imperial crown and a ruby pendant , though these two elements have been lost. It was given to the tsarina on 1 May 1885. The egg cost 4,151 rubles. Six weeks later, the emperor made Fabergé the supplier to the Imperial Court. Maria was so delighted by the gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a "goldsmith by special appointment to the Imperial Crown" and commissioned another egg the next year. After that, Peter Carl Fabergé
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#17328525788487502-468: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
7623-429: The London antique dealers Wartski. After the collection in the Kremlin Armoury, the largest gathering of Fabergé eggs was assembled by Malcolm Forbes , and displayed in New York City. Totaling nine eggs, and approximately 180 other Fabergé objects, the collection was to be put up for auction at Sotheby's in February 2004 by Forbes' heirs. However, before the auction began, the collection was purchased in its entirety by
7744-411: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
7865-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
7986-412: The Russian emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II as Easter gifts for Alexander's wife and Nicholas's mother Empress Maria Feodorovna , and Nicholas's wife Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna . Fabergé eggs are worth millions of pounds and have become symbols of opulence. The House of Fabergé was founded by Gustav Fabergé in 1842 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Fabergé egg was a later addition to
8107-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
8228-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
8349-430: The US and bought by Wartski for a private collector. All six of the missing Imperial Eggs belonged to Maria Feodorovna . After the Russian Revolution , the Bolsheviks nationalized the House of Fabergé , and the Fabergé family fled to Switzerland, where Peter Carl Fabergé died in 1920. The imperial family 's palaces were ransacked and their treasures moved to the Kremlin Armoury on order of Vladimir Lenin . In
8470-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
8591-400: The United States for one year to study, working for a short period under Swedish-American inventor John Ericsson , who designed the American Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor . Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for a gas meter , in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on "ways to prepare gunpowder". The family factory produced armaments for
8712-575: The Valley" egg, season 3, episode 6, 2016) and s3e5, Hooten & the Lady episode "Moscow" (2016), Game Night (2018), Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019), Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020), Lupin (2021), Bhamakalapam (2022). and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (2023) In Danielle Steele's 1988 novel Zoya , a Fabergé egg is a keepsake of the last two remaining members of
8833-641: The accident, Nobel founded the company Nitroglycerin AB in Vinterviken so that he could continue to work in a more isolated area. Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin . Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally. In 1875, Nobel invented gelignite , more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887, patented ballistite ,
8954-448: The age of 24. He embarked on many business ventures with his family, most notably owning the company Bofors , which was an iron and steel producer that he had developed into a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments. Nobel's most famous invention, dynamite, was an explosive using nitroglycerin that was patented in 1867. He further invented gelignite in 1875 and ballistite in 1887. Upon his death, Nobel donated his fortune to
9075-677: The boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English, French , German , and Russian . For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel attended the Jacobs Apologistic School in Stockholm, his only schooling; he never attended university. Nobel gained proficiency in Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English . His Nemesis
9196-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
9317-540: The cause of international fraternity , in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses. The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" ( i idealisk riktning in Swedish), is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" ( idealistisk ) and used it as
9438-528: The chronology below. Displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Faberge was also commissioned to make eggs for Alexander Ferdinandovich Kelch , a Siberian gold mine industrialist, as gifts for his wife Barbara (Varvara) Kelch-Bazanova. Though still "Fabergé eggs" by virtue of having been produced by his workshop, these seven eggs were not as elaborate as the imperial eggs, and were not unique in design. Most are copies of other eggs. Of
9559-562: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
9680-681: The development of these new oil regions. It operated mainly in Baku , Azerbaijan , but also in Cheleken , Turkmenistan . During his life, Nobel was issued 355 patents internationally, and by his death, his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his apparently pacifist character. Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr ( diatomaceous earth ) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as "dynamite". Nobel demonstrated his explosive for
9801-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
9922-451: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
10043-646: The first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill , Surrey , England. In order to help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", which is the text used in his patent, but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to the Greek word for "power" ( δύναμις ). Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion , but settled on
10164-407: The five Nobel Prizes. By 2022, the foundation had approximately 6 billion Swedish Kronor of invested capital. The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science , in chemistry and in medical science or physiology ; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to
10285-691: The former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe ,
10406-672: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
10527-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
10648-503: The letters writing to Hess: "You neither work, nor write, nor read, nor think" and guilted her, writing "I have for years now sacrificed out of purely noble motives my time, my duties, my intellectual life, my reputation". Nobel traveled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in Europe and America. From 1865 to 1873, Nobel lived in Krümmel (now in the municipality of Geesthacht , near Hamburg ). From 1873 to 1891, he lived in
10769-632: The majority of his wealth to found the Nobel Prize has been credited to him wanting to leave behind a better legacy. However, it has been questioned whether or not the obituary in question actually existed. On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish - Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes , to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94% of his total assets, 31,225,000 Swedish kronor , to establish
10890-471: The most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as
11011-516: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
11132-487: The origin of the Nobel Prize, although historians have been unable to verify it and some dismiss the story as a myth. In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig supposedly caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. One French newspaper condemned him for his invention of military explosives—in many versions of the story, dynamite is quoted, although this was mainly used for civilian applications—and this
11253-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
11374-455: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
11495-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
11616-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
11737-401: The plot in several films and television series, including Octopussy (1983), Mr. Belvedere ( "Strike" episode , 1985), Love Among Thieves (1987), Murder She Wrote episode "An Egg to Die For" (1994), The Simpsons episode " 'Round Springfield " (1995) (in which jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy talks about his addiction to buying Fabergé eggs), Case Closed: The Last Wizard of
11858-455: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
11979-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
12100-405: The previously used compounds. It was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the "Age of Engineering", bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a cost to his health. An offshoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention of ballistite , the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant. There is a well known story about
12221-553: The product line by his son, Peter Carl Fabergé . Prior to 1885, Emperor Alexander III gave his wife Empress Maria Feodorovna jeweled Easter eggs . For Easter in 1883, before his coronation, Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna were given eggs, one of which contained a silver dagger and two skulls . The egg came with messages including "Christ is risen" and "You may crush us—but we Nihilists shall rise again!" Before Easter 1885, Alexander III's brother Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich suggested that Peter Carl Fabergé create
12342-475: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
12463-466: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
12584-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
12705-502: The safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerin. Nobel invented a detonator in 1863, and in 1865 designed the blasting cap . He also got honored with an element with his name, Nobelium . On 3 September 1864, a shed used for preparation of nitroglycerin exploded at the factory in Heleneborg , Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brother Emil . He was then deprived of his license to produce explosives. Fazed by
12826-675: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
12947-508: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
13068-478: The time that they met, Nobel was 43 years old, while Hess was 26. Their relationship, which was not merely platonic, ended when she became pregnant from another man, although Nobel continued to support her financially until Hess married her child's father to avoid being ostracized as a whore. Hess was a Jewish woman who converted to Christianity and the letters include remarks by Nobel characterized as antisemitism . Nobel also displayed characteristics of chauvinism in
13189-770: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
13310-506: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
13431-581: The will. In his one-page testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians or other inventors. Sweden's central bank Sveriges Riksbank celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1968 by donating
13552-416: The work. There he met Ascanio Sobrero , who had invented nitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin because it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to variable heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and use nitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive; it had much more power than gunpowder . In 1851 at age 18, he went to
13673-431: Was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630–1702). Nobel's father was an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was an engineer and inventor who built bridges and buildings and experimented with different ways of blasting rocks. He encouraged and taught Nobel from a young age. Following various business failures caused by the loss of some barges of building material, Immanuel Nobel
13794-536: Was apparently given complete freedom to design future imperial Easter eggs, and their designs became more elaborate. According to Fabergé family lore, not even the emperor knew what form they would take—the only requirements were that each contain a surprise, and that each be unique. Once Fabergé had approved an initial design, the work was carried out by a team of craftsmen, among them Michael Perkhin , Henrik Wigström , and Erik August Kollin . After Alexander III's death on 1 November 1894, his son, Nicholas II, presented
13915-461: Was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize "for her sincere peace activities". Nobel's longest-lasting relationship was an 18-year relationship with Sofija Hess from Celje whom he met in 1876 in Baden bei Wien , where she worked as an employee in a flower shop that catered to wealthy clientele. The extent of their relationship was revealed by a collection of 221 letters sent by Nobel to Hess over 15 years. At
14036-518: Was designed by local artists Sergey Alipov and Pavel Shevchenko, and appears to be an explosion or branches of a tree. Criticism of Nobel focuses on his leading role in weapons manufacturing and sales. Some people question his motives in creating his prizes, suggesting they are intended to improve his reputation. Nobel has also been criticized for displays of antisemitism . In his letters to Hess, he wrote "In my experience, Jews never do anything out of good will. They act merely out of selfishness or
14157-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
14278-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
14399-407: Was forced into bankruptcy, Nobel's father moved to Saint Petersburg , Russia , and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented the veneer lathe , which made possible the production of modern plywood , and started work on the naval mine . In 1842, the family joined him in the city. Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors, and
14520-438: Was in Russia with a girl named Alexandra who rejected his marriage proposal . In 1876, Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha von Suttner became his secretary, but she left him after a brief stay to marry her previous lover Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Her contact with Nobel was brief, yet she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and probably influenced his decision to include the Nobel Peace Prize in his will. She
14641-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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