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155-502: Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia ( Russian : Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович , romanized :  Mikhail Aleksandrovich ; 4 December [ O.S. 22 November] 1878 – 13 June 1918) was the youngest son and fifth child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and youngest brother of Nicholas II . He was de jure Emperor of Russia after his brother Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 and proclaimed his brother "Emperor Michael II", but Michael declined to take power

310-506: A Don Cossack division. The slights against him by the Tsar's retinue continued, though. When he was promoted to lieutenant-general in July 1916, unlike all other Grand Dukes who attained that rank, he was not appointed as an aide-de-camp to the Tsar with the rank of adjutant-general . Michael admitted that he "always despised Petrograd high society ... no people are more devious than they are; with

465-649: 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

620-633: 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 , 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

775-510: 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

930-806: A coach without windows or heat, took eight days at an average speed of 5 miles per hour. At first, Michael was billeted in a hotel but two days after his arrival he was jailed by the local Soviet. Natalia lobbied the Commissars in Petrograd for his release and, on 9 April 1918, he was set at liberty within Perm. He moved into the best room in the best hotel in Perm, along with Johnson and two manservants, valet Vasily Chelyshev and former chauffeur Borunov. Natalia feared for George's safety, and in March 1918, she arranged for him to be smuggled out of Russia by his governess, Margaret Neame, with

1085-682: A collection of motor vehicles, and country estates at Otrovo in Russian Poland and Brasovo near Orel . Michael was heir presumptive until 12 August 1904, when the birth of Tsarevich Alexei to Nicholas and Alexandra provided an heir apparent . Michael again became second-in-line to the throne, but was named as co-regent for the boy, along with Alexandra, in the event of Nicholas's death. In 1902, Michael met Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . They fell in love and began to correspond in her native English. Michael spoke both French and English fluently. At first it seemed they would marry; however,

1240-501: A day later. Michael was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Alexander II . He was then fourth in line to the throne after his father and elder brothers Nicholas and George . After the assassination of his grandfather in 1881, he became third in line and, in 1894, after the death of his father, second in line. George died in 1899, leaving Michael as heir presumptive to Nicholas II. The birth of Nicholas's son Alexei in 1904 moved Michael back to second in line, but Alexei

1395-497: A delegation from the Duma would visit him at Putyatina's apartment in a few hours' time. The meeting with Duma President Rodzianko, the new Prime Minister Prince Lvov and other ministers, including Pavel Milyukov and Alexander Kerensky , lasted all morning. Putyatina laid on a lunch, and in the afternoon two lawyers (Baron Nolde and Vladimir Nabokov ) were called to the apartment to draft a manifesto for Michael to sign. The legal position

1550-469: A denial. Nevertheless, two years later, in October 1908, Michael visited London, and he and Patricia were "paired" at social engagements. It seems likely that Michael's mother was plotting to get him married to a more suitable bride and the originator of the false report, Reuters correspondent Guy Beringer, read too much into the plans. Michael and Dina were planning to elope, but their plans were stymied as Dina

1705-506: A few exceptions, they are all scum." Michael made no public political statements, but it was assumed that he was a liberal, like his wife, and British consul Bruce Lockhart thought he "would have made an excellent constitutional monarch". Throughout the summer of 1916, Michael's corps was involved in the Brusilov Offensive . The Guards Army suffered heavy losses under the incompetent leadership of Michael's uncle, Grand Duke Paul , who

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1860-758: 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) Peterhof Palace The end of the Great Northern War resulted in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, ceding much of the Swedish Empire's claim to the Baltic Sea to the rising Tsardom of Russia . Peter the Great already began construction of his new capital St Petersburg in 1703 after successfully capturing Swedish provinces on

2015-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which 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

2170-479: 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

2325-572: 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

2480-607: 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

2635-400: A month to see Natalia. Their only child, George (named after Michael's dead brother) was born in July 1910, before her divorce from her second husband was finalised. To ensure that the child could be recognised as his, rather than Wulfert's, Michael had the date of the divorce back-dated. Nicholas issued a decree giving the boy the surname "Brasov", taken from Michael's estate at Brasovo, which

2790-503: A negative public reaction in Britain, where there was little sympathy for the Romanovs. On 1 September 1917, Kerensky declared Russia a republic. Michael wrote in his diary: "We woke up this morning to hear Russia declared a Republic. What does it matter which form the government will be as long as there is order and justice?" Two weeks later, Michael's house arrest was lifted. Kerensky had armed

2945-595: A newly formed division: the Caucasian Native Cavalry , which became known as the "Savage Division". The appointment was perceived as a demotion because the division mostly comprised new Muslim recruits rather than the elite troops that Michael had commanded previously. The six regiments in the division were each composed of a different ethnic group: Chechens , Dagestanis , Kabardin , Tatars , Circassians and Ingush , commanded by ethnic Russian officers. The men were all volunteers, as conscription did not apply to

3100-449: A one-year lease on Knebworth House , a staffed and furnished stately home 20 miles north of London. Michael's finances were stretched as he had to rely on remittances sent from Russia at Nicholas's command, and Nicholas still controlled all his estates and assets. Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Michael telegraphed the Emperor, requesting permission to return to Russia to serve in

3255-505: A part of his goal to modernize and westernize Russia. In 1714, Peter began construction of the Monplaisir Palace (French: "my delight") based on his own sketches. He "сhalked out not only the site but also the inside layout, some elements of the decorative finish, etc". Based in a Dutch style, this was Peter's summer retreat (not to be confused with his Summer Palace ) that he would use on his way coming and going from Europe through

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3410-483: A portion of the treasures of the palaces and fountains. An attempt was made to dismantle and bury the fountain sculptures, but three quarters, including all of the largest ones, remained in place. On 23 September 1941 German troops captured Peterhof. Two weeks later, on 5 October 1941, Soviet troops tried to recapture the town and block the highway by naval landing. 510 marines of the Soviet Baltic Fleet landed on

3565-516: 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

3720-480: A semicircular pool, the terminus of the fountain-lined Sea Channel. In the 1730s, the large Samson Fountain was placed in this pool. It depicts the moment when Samson tears open the jaws of a lion, representing Russia's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War , and is doubly symbolic. The lion is an element of the Swedish coat of arms, and one of the great victories of the war was won on St Sampson's Day . From

3875-530: A team of four men who, like him, were all former prisoners of the Tsarist regime: Vasily Ivanchenko, Ivan Kolpashchikov, Andrei Markov and Nikolai Zhuzhgov. Using a forged order, the four men gained entry to Michael's hotel at 11.45 p.m. At first, Michael refused to accompany the men until he spoke with the local chairman of the secret police, Pavel Malkov, and then because he was ill. His protestations were futile and he got dressed. Johnson insisted on accompanying him and

4030-461: A vaster royal château of palaces and gardens further inland, on the model of Versailles which would become Peterhof Palace. The initial design of the palace and its garden was done by the French architect Jean-Baptiste Le Blond . The dominant natural feature of Peterhof is a 16-m-high bluff lying less than 100 m from the shore. The so-called Lower Gardens ( Nizhny Sad ), at 1.02 km comprising

4185-527: 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,

4340-475: 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

4495-401: 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

4650-593: 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

4805-466: Is also responsible, for one is placed so high and yet has failed to prevent all that from happening and protect one's country from this disaster." At the start of the war, Michael wrote to Nicholas asking him to legitimise his son in order that the boy would be provided for in the event of Michael's death at the front. Eventually Nicholas agreed to make George legitimate and granted him the style of "Count Brasov" by decree on 26 March 1915. By June 1915,

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4960-485: 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

5115-613: 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

5270-519: Is modelled on one constructed for Louis XIV at his Château de Marly , which is likewise memorialised in one of the park's outbuildings. At the centre of the cascade is an artificial grotto with two stories, faced inside and out with hewn brown stone. It currently contains a modest museum of the fountains' history. The fountains of the Grand Cascade are located below the grotto and on either side of it. There are 64 fountains. Their waters flow into

5425-563: 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

5580-564: 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

5735-402: 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

5890-569: 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

6045-576: 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

6200-517: Is supplied from natural springs and collects in reservoirs in the Upper Gardens. The elevation difference creates the pressure that drives most of the fountains of the Lower Gardens, including the Grand Cascade. The expanse of the Lower Gardens is designed in the formal style of French formal gardens of the 17th century. Although many trees are overgrown, in recent years the formal clipping along

6355-518: 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

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6510-461: 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

6665-966: 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

6820-631: 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 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

6975-656: The Battle of Chesma , a stunning naval victory of the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 . These were painted between 1771 and 1773 by the German artist Jacob Philipp Hackert . His first renderings of the great battle scenes were criticised by witnesses as not showing realistically the effect of exploding ships — the flying timbers, great flames, smoke, and fireballs. The East and West Chinese Cabinets were decorated between 1766 and 1769 to exhibit objects of decorative art imported from

7130-734: The Bolsheviks after a power struggle with the commander-in-chief and in October there was a second revolution as the Bolsheviks seized power from Kerensky. With a permit to travel issued by Peter Polotsov, a former colleague of Michael from the Savage Division who was now a commander in Petrograd, Michael planned to move his family to the greater safety of Finland. They packed valuables and prepared to move, but their preparations were seen by Bolshevik sympathisers and they were placed once more under house arrest. The last of Michael's cars were seized by

7285-662: The Caucasus . Although it was difficult to maintain discipline, they formed an effective fighting force. For his actions commanding his troops in the Carpathian mountains in January 1915 Michael earned the military's highest honour, the Order of St. George , 4th Class. Unlike his brother the Emperor, he proved a popular military leader. By January 1915 the horrific nature of the war had become apparent. Michael felt "greatly embittered towards people in general and most of all towards those who are at

7440-413: 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

7595-460: The Crimea . Before leaving for his sister Xenia's estate at Ai-Todor, 12 miles from Yalta , he wrote a candid letter to his brother warning him that the political situation was tense: I am deeply concerned and worried by what is happening around us. There has been a shocking alteration in the mood of the most loyal people ... which fills me with a most serious apprehension not only for you and for

7750-519: The Eastern Orthodox Church prohibited the marriage of first cousins, and Michael's father and Beatrice's mother were siblings. Nicholas refused to permit the marriage and, to Michael's and Beatrice's mutual dismay, their romance ended. Michael's attention turned to Alexandra Kossikovskaya (September 1875, Orel region – 1923, Berlin), known affectionately as "Dina", who was his sister Olga's lady-in-waiting . Dina's father, Vladimir Kossikovsky,

7905-793: The Ottoman Empire . On 7 March 1918, Michael and his secretary Johnson were re-arrested on the orders of Moisei Uritsky , the Head of the Petrograd secret police , and imprisoned at the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute . On 11 March 1918, Uritsky sent Michael and Johnson to Perm , a thousand miles to the east, on the order of the Council of the People's Commissars , which included both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin . The journey, by freight train in

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8060-591: The Trans-Siberian Railway on their way to Vladivostok , where they were due to take ship. The Czechs, though, were not going home to fight for the Austrian empire but to fight for a separate homeland independent of Austria. The Germans demanded that the Bolsheviks disarm the Czechs, who fought back, seized the railway, joined forces with Russians fighting against the Bolsheviks and advanced westwards toward Perm. With

8215-527: 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

8370-694: 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

8525-517: The army – providing his wife and son could come too. Nicholas agreed, and Michael travelled back to Saint Petersburg via Newcastle upon Tyne , Norway, Sweden and Finland. Michael had already leased Paddockhurst in Sussex, an estate larger than Knebworth, and had planned to move there on the expiry of the Knebworth lease. He moved his furniture and furnishings there. The war was not expected to last long and

8680-508: 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

8835-465: 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

8990-579: The Bolsheviks. The house arrest was lifted again in November, and the Constituent Assembly was elected and met in January 1918. Despite being the minority party, the Bolsheviks dissolved it. On 3 March 1918 (N.S.), the Bolshevik government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , which effectively ceded vast areas of the former Russian Empire to the Central Powers of Germany , Austria-Hungary and

9145-439: The East. The walls were decorated with imitation Oriental patterns by Russian craftsmen, and hung with Chinese landscape paintings in yellow and black lacquer . Another room, positioned at the centre of the palace, bears the name of the Picture Hall. The Grand Palace is not the only historic royal building in Peterhof. The palaces of Monplaisir and Marli, as well as the pavilion known as the ' Hermitage ', were all raised during

9300-433: The Grand Cascade. To the east is the Chess Mountain ( Шахматная Гора ), a broad chute whose surface is tiled black and white like a chessboard . The most prominently positioned fountains of Peterhof are 'Adam' and 'Eve'. The largest of Peterhof's palaces looks imposing when seen from the Lower or Upper Gardens, but in fact it is quite narrow and not overly large. The Chesma Hall is decorated with twelve large paintings of

9455-586: The Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich and Bless Him on his accession to the Throne. By early morning, Michael was proclaimed as "Emperor Michael II" to Russian troops and in cities throughout Russia, but his accession was not universally welcomed. While some units cheered and swore allegiance to the new emperor, others remained indifferent. The newly formed Provisional Government had not agreed to Michael's succession. When Michael awoke that morning, he discovered not only that his brother had abdicated in his favour, as Nicholas had not informed him previously, but also that

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9610-435: The Grand Palace ( Bolshoi Dvorets ). Behind (south) of it are the comparatively small Upper Gardens ( Verhnyy Sad ). Upon the bluff's face below the palace is the Grand Cascade ( Bolshoi Kaskad ). This and the Grand Palace are the centrepiece of the entire complex. At its foot begins the Sea Channel ( Morskoi Kanal ), one of the most extensive waterworks of the Baroque period, which bisects the Lower Gardens. The Grand Cascade

9765-409: 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,

9920-468: 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

10075-411: 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

10230-509: The Okhrana, Michael was transferred back to Saint Petersburg to command the Chevalier Gardes. He took Natalia to the capital with him and set her up in an apartment, but she was shunned by society and, within a few months, he had moved her to a villa in Gatchina. In September 1912, Michael and Natalia spent a holiday abroad and, as usual, they were trailed by the Okhrana. In Berlin , Michael announced that he and Natalia would drive to Cannes and instructed his staff to follow by train. The Okhrana

10385-414: The Provisional Government as the de facto executive, but neither abdicated nor refused to accept the throne. He wrote: Inspired, in common with the whole people, by the belief that the welfare of our country must be set above everything else, I have taken the firm decision to assume the supreme power only if and when our great people, having elected by universal suffrage a Constituent Assembly to determine

10540-807: 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

10695-458: 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

10850-491: The Russians were in retreat. When Grand Duke Constantine died that month, Michael was the only member of the imperial family absent from the funeral in Petrograd. Natalia chided him for his absence and Michael retorted that it was simply wrong for his relatives to abandon their units to attend Constantine's funeral at such a time. The American war correspondent, Stanley Washburn , reported that Michael wore "a simple uniform with nothing to indicate his rank but shoulder straps of

11005-409: The Sea Channel, and the channel itself was used as a grand marine entrance into the complex. Perhaps the most important change augmenting Peter's design was the elevation of the Grand Palace to central status and prominence. The Grand Palace was originally called simply 'Upper', and was hardly larger than any of the other structures of the complex. The addition of wings, undertaken between 1745 and 1755,

11160-454: 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

11315-460: 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

11470-404: The approach of the Czechs, Michael and Natalia feared that she would become trapped there, possibly in a dangerous situation and so, on 18 May, she left unhappily. By early June, Michael was again ill with stomach trouble. On 12 June 1918, the leader of the local secret police , Gavril Myasnikov , with the connivance of other local Bolsheviks, hatched a plan to murder Michael. Myasnikov assembled

11625-474: The assassins were using home-made bullets, their guns jammed. Michael, who may or may not have been injured, moved towards the wounded Johnson with arms outstretched, when he was shot at point-blank range in the head. Both Zhuzhgov and Markov claimed to have fired the fatal shot. Johnson was shot dead by Ivanchenko. The bodies were stripped and buried. Anything of value was stolen and the clothes were taken back to Perm. After they were shown to Myasnikov as proof of

11780-532: The beach of the neighboring park of Alexandria but faced a heavy fire from the Germans. The commander of the operation was killed, all landing troops became disorganised, one landing craft was sunk and another one missed. Despite Soviet attempts to cover the landing forces by coastal artillery from Kronstadt, they were quickly suspended because of lack of connection with the landing troops. Evacuation attempts also failed due to heavy German artillery shelling (only one marine

11935-525: The better part of Peterhof's land area, are confined between this bluff and the shore, stretching east and west for roughly 200 m. The majority of Peterhof's fountains are contained here, as are several small palaces and outbuildings. East of the Lower Gardens lies the Alexandria Park with 19th-century Gothic Revival structures such as the Kapella . Atop the bluff, near the middle of the Lower Gardens, stands

12090-403: 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

12245-562: 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

12400-603: The couple assumed they would be moving back to England at its conclusion. In the meantime, Michael offered its use to the British military. At Saint Petersburg, renamed Petrograd in September ;[ O.S. August] 1914, they moved into a villa at 24 Nikolaevskaya street, Gatchina, that Michael had bought for Natalia. Natalia was not permitted to live in any of the imperial palaces. The Grand Duke, promoted from his previous rank of colonel to major-general, received command of

12555-456: The creation of a constitutional monarchy . The newly formed Petrograd Soviet rejected the document, which became irrelevant. Calls for the Tsar's abdication had superseded it. On the afternoon of 15 March [ O.S. 2 March] 1917, Emperor Nicholas II, under pressure from generals and Duma representatives, abdicated in favour of his son, Alexei, with Michael as Regent. Later that evening, though, he reconsidered his decision. Alexei

12710-636: The eastern coast. This strategic location allowed Russian access to the Baltic Sea through the Neva River that flowed to the Gulf of Finland . The island of Kotlin and its fortress Kronstadt west of St Petersburg provided a gateway and commercial harbor access owing to the shallowness of water closer to the city. Throughout the early 18th century, Peter the Great built and expanded the Peterhof Palace complex as

12865-462: The election of the Constituent Assembly were overtaken by events. His renunciation of the throne, though conditional, marked the end of the Tsarist regime in Russia. The Provisional Government had little effective power; real power was held by the Petrograd Soviet. Michael returned to Gatchina and was not permitted to return to his unit or to travel beyond the Petrograd area. On 5 April 1917, he

13020-408: The event of Nicholas's death, but the government disagreed and determined that Michael would succeed regardless of the unborn child's gender. She was delivered of a fourth daughter the following year. Michael was perceived as unremarkable, quiet and good-natured. He performed the usual public duties expected of an heir to the throne. In 1901, he represented Russia at the funeral of Queen Victoria and

13175-413: 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,

13330-511: The fate of our family, but even for the integrity of the state order. The public hatred for certain people who allegedly are close to you and who are forming part of the present government has, to my amazement, brought together the right, the left and the moderate; and this hatred, along with the demands for changes are already openly expressed. Michael and other members of the imperial family, including Grand Dukes Alexander , George , Nicholas and Dmitri and Grand Duchess Elizabeth , warned of

13485-451: 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

13640-404: The following month Nicholas appointed himself Supreme Commander of the Russian forces. The move was not welcomed. Nicholas's bad decisions included instructing Michael to authorise a payment to a friend of Rasputin , an army engineer called Bratolyubov, who claimed to have invented a devastating flame-thrower. The claim was bogus and Bratolyubov was arrested for fraud, but Rasputin intervened and he

13795-643: The form of government and lay down the fundamental law of the new Russian State, invest me with such power. Calling upon them the blessing of God, I therefore request all the citizens of the Russian Empire to submit to the Provisional Government, established and invested with full authority by the Duma, until such time as the Constituent Assembly, elected within the shortest possible time by universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage, shall manifest

13950-436: The four men plus their two prisoners climbed into two horse-drawn three-seater traps. They drove out of the town into the forest near Motovilikha . When Michael queried their destination, he was told they were going to a remote railway crossing to catch a train. By now it was the early hours of 13 June. They all alighted from the carriages in the middle of the wood, and both Michael and Johnson were fired upon, once each, but as

14105-472: The front to hand over command of his corps; from 29 January he was Inspector-General of Cavalry stationed at Gatchina . General Aleksei Brusilov , Michael's commander on the south-eastern front , begged him to tell the Tsar of "the need for immediate and drastic reforms", but Michael warned him, "I have no influence ... My brother has time and time again had warnings and entreaties of this kind from every quarter." Brusilov recorded in his memoirs, "[Michael]

14260-672: 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

14415-480: 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

14570-411: The growing public unrest, and of the perception that Nicholas was governed by his German-born wife Alexandra and the self-styled holy man Rasputin . Nicholas and Alexandra refused to listen. In December 1916, Dmitri and four of his friends killed Rasputin. Michael learned of the murder at Brasovo, where he was spending Christmas with his family. On 28 December, according to the French ambassador, there

14725-408: The harbour at Kronstadt. On the walls of this seacoast palace hung hundreds of paintings that Peter brought from Europe and allowed to weather Russian winters and the dampness of the sea without heat. In the seaward corner of his Monplaisir Palace, Peter made his Maritime Study, from which he could see Kronstadt Island to the left and St. Petersburg to the right. Later, he expanded his plans to include

14880-674: The help of Danish diplomats and the Putyatins. In May, Natalia was granted a travel permit to join Michael. Accompanied by family friends Prince Putyatin and Margaret Abakanovich, she arrived at Perm before the Orthodox Easter and they spent about a week together. Meanwhile, as part of the truce between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers, prisoners-of-war from Austria-Hungary were being shipped out of Russia. Czech troops were strung out along

15035-456: The initial construction of Peterhof during the reign of Peter the Great. In the early 1700s, the original Peterhof appeared quite different from today. Many of the fountains had not yet been installed and the entire Alexandrine Park and Upper Gardens did not exist. What is now the Upper Gardens was used to grow vegetables, and its ponds, then numbering only three, for fish. The Samson Fountain and its massive pedestal had not yet been installed in

15190-479: The intervention of British ambassador Buchanan and foreign minister Mikhail Tereshchenko , they were moved back to Gatchina in the first week of September. Tereshchenko told Buchanan that the Dowager Empress would be allowed to leave the country, for Britain if she wished, and that Michael would follow in due course. The British, however, were not prepared to accept any Russian Grand Duke for fear it would provoke

15345-514: The line of succession early and preclude losing Natalia. In a series of decrees over December 1912 and January 1913, Nicholas relieved Michael of his command, banished him from Russia, froze all his assets in Russia, seized control of his estates and removed him from the Regency. Society in Russia was shocked at the severity of Nicholas's reprisal, but there was little sympathy for Natalia. She was not entitled to be known as Grand Duchess ; she instead used

15500-471: The lion's mouth shoots a 20-metre (66 ft)-high vertical jet of water, the highest in all of Peterhof. This masterpiece by Mikhail Kozlovsky was looted by the invading Germans during the Second World War ; see History below. A replica of the statue was installed in 1947. Perhaps the greatest technological achievement of Peterhof is that all of the fountains operate without the use of pumps . Water

15655-526: The many allees has resumed in order to restore the original appearance of the garden. The many fountains located here exhibit an unusual degree of creativity. The same bluff that provides a setting for the Grand Cascade houses two other, very different cascades. West of the Grand Palace is the Golden Mountain ( Золотая Гора ), decorated with marble statuary that contrasts with the riotous gilded figures of

15810-609: The marriage, Michael wrote to his mother and brother to inform them. They were both horrified by Michael's action. His mother said it was "unspeakably awful in every way", and his brother was shocked that his brother had "broken his word ... that he would not marry her". Nicholas was particularly upset because his heir, Alexei, was gravely ill with haemophilia , which Michael cited as one of his reasons for marrying Natalia. Michael feared that he would become heir presumptive again on Alexei's death and would never be able to marry Natalia. By marrying her beforehand, he would be removed from

15965-576: The meeting and the brothers exchanged awkward pleasantries "fidgeting all the while, and sometimes one would take hold of the other's hand or the buttons of his uniform". It was the last time they saw each other. On 21 August 1917, guards surrounded the villa on Nikolaevskaya street where Michael was living with Natalia. On the orders of Kerensky, they were both under house arrest, along with Nicholas Johnson, who had been Michael's secretary since December 1912. A week later, they were moved to an apartment in Petrograd. Michael's stomach problems worsened and, with

16120-419: The middle brother, George , was killed in a motorcycle accident. George's death and the subsequent change in the line of succession highlighted that Nicholas lacked a son. As the succession was limited to males, his three daughters were ineligible. When Nicholas's wife, Alexandra , became pregnant in 1900 she hoped that the child would be male. She manoeuvred to get herself declared regent for her unborn child in

16275-532: The military mutinied and prisoners were freed. Nicholas, who was at army headquarters in Mogilev , prorogued the Duma, but the deputies refused to leave and instead set up their own rival government. After consulting Rodzianko at the Mariinsky Palace in Petrograd, Michael advised Nicholas to dismiss his ministers and set up a new government led by the leader of the majority party in the Duma, Georgy Lvov . His advice

16430-462: The murders, the clothes were burned. The Ural Regional Soviet, headed by Alexander Beloborodov , approved the killing, either retrospectively or beforehand, as did Lenin. Michael was the first of the Romanovs to be killed by the Bolsheviks , but he was not the last . Neither Michael's nor Johnson's remains have been found. Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to

16585-579: The neighbouring apartments, the Tsar's Chamberlain Nikolai Stolypin and the Procurator of the Holy Synod were detained by revolutionaries and in the house next door General Baron Staekelberg was killed when his house was stormed by a mob. On 1 March, Rodzianko sent guards to Putyatina's apartment to ensure Michael's safety, and Michael signed a document drawn up by Rodzianko and Grand Duke Paul proposing

16740-516: 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

16895-502: The nursery were modest, even spartan. The children slept on hard camp beds, rose at dawn, washed in cold water and ate a simple porridge for breakfast. Michael, like his siblings, was taught by private tutors and was cared for by an English nanny, Mrs Elizabeth Franklin. Michael and Olga frequently went on hikes in the forests around Gatchina with their father, who took the opportunity to teach them woodsmanship . Physical activities such as equestrianism were also taught at an early age, as

17050-515: 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

17205-455: 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,

17360-446: 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

17515-453: 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

17670-455: 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

17825-418: 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

17980-475: 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

18135-466: 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 ,

18290-491: 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

18445-414: The same material as his uniform". Michael was "unaffected and democratic" and "living so simply in a dirty village". Natalia was appalled that Michael eschewed fancy uniforms and decorations for life at the front, but he was convinced "that at such a difficult time I must serve Russia and serve here at the front". In July 1915, Michael caught diphtheria but recovered. The war was going badly for Russia and

18600-510: The streets, rounding up people connected with the old regime. Michael managed to reach the Winter Palace , where he ordered the guards to withdraw to the Admiralty , because it afforded greater safety and a better tactical position, and because it was a less politically charged location. Michael himself took refuge in the apartment of an acquaintance, Princess Putyatina , on Millionnaya street. In

18755-576: The style "Madame or Countess Brasova". For six months, they stayed in hotels in France and Switzerland without any decrease in their standard of living. They were visited by Michael's sister Grand Duchess Xenia and cousin Grand Duke Andrew . In July 1913, they saw Michael's mother in London, who told Natalia "a few home truths", according to Xenia's diary. After another trip to continental Europe, Michael took

18910-468: The succession. Nicholas threatened to revoke Michael's army commission and exile him from Russia if he married without his permission. Marie had Dina dismissed as Olga's lady-in-waiting and took Michael to Denmark until mid-September. Shortly after his return to Russia, three British newspapers announced on 24 September 1906 that Michael was to marry Princess Patricia of Connaught , but neither he nor Patricia knew anything about it. Buckingham Palace issued

19065-675: 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

19220-459: 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

19375-412: The top, who hold power and allow all that horror to happen. If the question of war were decided by the people at large, I would not be so passionately averse to that great calamity." Michael confessed in a letter to his wife that he felt "ashamed to face the people, i.e. the soldiers and officers, particularly when visiting field hospitals, where so much suffering is to be seen, for they might think that one

19530-770: 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

19685-556: The untimely age of 49. Michael's eldest brother, Nicholas , became Tsar, and Michael's childhood was effectively over. Michael's mother, Dowager Empress Marie, moved back to Anichkov Palace with Michael and Olga. Like most male members of his family, Michael was enrolled in the military. He completed training at a gunnery school and joined the Horse Guards Artillery . In November 1898, he attained legal adulthood and, just eight months later, became heir presumptive to Nicholas as

19840-506: 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

19995-524: The wife of a fellow officer, and from 1908 they began a deep friendship. Natalia was a commoner who had a daughter from her first marriage. By August 1909, they were lovers, and, by November 1909, Natalia was living apart from her second husband in an apartment in Moscow paid for by Michael. In an attempt to prevent scandal, Nicholas transferred Michael to the Chernigov Hussars at Orel, 250 miles from Moscow, but Michael travelled from there several times

20150-404: The will of the people by deciding upon the new form of government. Commentators, ranging from Kerensky to French ambassador Maurice Paléologue , regarded Michael's action as noble and patriotic, but Nicholas was appalled that Michael had "kowtowed to the Constituent Assembly" and called the manifesto "rubbish". The hopes of the monarchists that Michael might be able to assume the throne following

20305-682: 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 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

20460-505: The wounded marines were mauled to death and several were captured. The occupying forces of the German Army largely destroyed Peterhof. Many of the fountains were destroyed, and the palace was partially exploded and left to burn. Restoration work began almost immediately after the end of the war and continues to this day. The Lower Park was reopened to the public in 1945. The name was changed to "Petrodvorets" ("Peter's Palace") in 1944 as

20615-421: Was a failed attempt to assassinate Alexandra; the lone assailant was caught and hanged the next day. The Duma President Mikhail Rodzianko , Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna and British ambassador Buchanan joined calls for Alexandra to be removed from influence, but Nicholas still refused to take their advice. Plots and gossip against Nicholas and Alexandra continued to build. In January 1917, Michael returned to

20770-411: Was a lawyer and Dina was a commoner . Michael rejected the notion, proposed by his friends, that he keep her as a mistress, and in July 1906, he wrote to Nicholas asking permission to marry her. Nicholas and Dowager Empress Marie were appalled. Both felt that royalty should marry royalty and, according to Russian house law , any children of a marriage between a royal and a commoner would be ineligible for

20925-419: Was a tacit acknowledgement that Michael was the father. In May 1911, Nicholas permitted Natalia to move from Moscow to Brasovo and granted her the surname "Brasova". In May 1912, Michael went to Copenhagen for the funeral of his uncle King Frederik VIII of Denmark , where he fell ill with a stomach ulcer that was to trouble him for years afterwards. After a holiday in France, where he and Natalia were trailed by

21080-522: Was an absolutely honourable and upright man, taking no sides and lending himself to no intrigues ... he shunned every kind of gossip, whether connected with the services or with family matters. As a soldier, he was an excellent leader and an unassuming and conscientious worker." Through February, Grand Duke Alexander, Duma President Rodzianko and Michael pressured Nicholas and Alexandra to yield to popular demands. Public unrest grew and, on 27 February, soldiers in Petrograd joined demonstrators, elements of

21235-592: Was assassinated on 1 March 1881 and, as a result, Michael's parents became Emperor and Empress of All the Russias before his third birthday. After the assassination, the new Tsar Alexander III moved his family, including Michael, to the greater safety of Gatchina Palace , which was 29 miles southwest of Saint Petersburg and surrounded by a moat. Michael was raised in the company of his younger sister, Olga , who nicknamed him "Floppy" because he "flopped" into chairs; his elder siblings and parents called him "Misha". Conditions in

21390-401: Was complicated, as the legitimacy of the government, whether Nicholas had the right to remove his son from the succession, and whether Michael actually was emperor, were all open to question. After further discussion, and several drafts, the meeting settled on a declaration of conditional acceptance as an appropriate form of words. In it, Michael deferred to the will of the people and acknowledged

21545-477: Was discharged from military service. By July, Prince Lvov had resigned as Prime Minister to be replaced by Alexander Kerensky , who ordered ex-Emperor Nicholas removed from Petrograd to Tobolsk in the Urals because it was "some remote place, some quiet corner, where they would attract less attention". On the eve of Nicholas's departure, Kerensky gave permission for Michael to visit him. Kerensky remained present during

21700-405: 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

21855-421: 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

22010-648: Was given the Order of the Bath . The following year he was made a Knight of the Garter in King Edward VII's coronation honours. In June 1902, Michael transferred to the Blue Cuirassier Regiment and moved to Gatchina , where the regiment was based. Since coming of age, Michael had assumed financial independence. His assets included the largest sugar refinery in the country, capital amounting to millions of roubles,

22165-630: Was gravely ill with haemophilia and Nicholas feared that if Alexei was emperor, he would be separated from his parents. In a second abdication document, signed at 11.40 p.m. but marked as having been issued at 3.00 p.m., the time of the earlier one, Nicholas II declared: We have judged it right to abdicate the Throne of the Russian State and to lay down the Supreme Power. Not wishing to be parted from Our Beloved Son, We hand over Our Succession to Our Brother

22320-459: Was gravely ill with hemophilia and Michael suspected the boy would die, leaving him as heir. Michael caused a commotion at the imperial court when he took Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert , a married woman, as a lover. Nicholas sent Michael to Orel to avoid scandal but this did not deter Michael, who travelled frequently to see his mistress. After the couple's only child, George , was born in 1910, Michael brought Natalia to Saint Petersburg , where she

22475-837: Was named as his successor instead of Alexei. Michael, however, deferred acceptance of the throne until ratification by an elected assembly. He was never confirmed as emperor and, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he was imprisoned and murdered. Michael was born at Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg as the youngest son and penultimate child of Tsesarevich Alexander of Russia and his wife, Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark) . His maternal grandparents were King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel . His paternal grandmother Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse) died before his second birthday. His paternal grandfather, Emperor Alexander II of Russia ,

22630-543: Was one of the many projects commissioned from the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli by Elizabeth of Russia . Likewise, the Grand Cascade was more sparsely decorated when initially built. Peterhof, like Tsarskoye Selo , was captured by German troops in 1941 and held until 1944. In the few months that elapsed between the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the appearance of the German Army, employees were only able to save

22785-400: Was picked up from the water). The Peterhof landing operation failed and all landing troops were cut off from the shore and surrounded. Some of them reached the Lower Gardens and fought until the bitter end, including hand-to-hand combat. The last pockets of resistance were destroyed on 7 October. Several dozen German Shepherd dogs were released into the gardens to find the hiding marines. Many of

22940-519: Was released. Michael appeared gullible and naïve; a friend of Natalia's said he "trusted everybody ... Had his wife not watched over him constantly, he would have been deceived at every step." In October 1915, Michael regained control of his estates and assets from Nicholas and, in February 1916, was given command of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, which included the Savage Division, a Cossack division and

23095-487: Was religious observance. Though Christmas and Easter were times of celebration and extravagance, Lent was strictly observed—meat, dairy products and any form of entertainment were avoided. Family holidays were taken in the summer at Peterhof Palace and with Michael's grandparents in Denmark. Michael was almost 16 when his father fell fatally ill; the annual trip to Denmark was cancelled. On 1 November 1894, Alexander III died at

23250-415: Was removed from command. In contrast, Michael was awarded a second gallantry medal, the Order of St. Vladimir with Swords, for his part in actions against the enemy and was belatedly made an adjutant-general. The poor progress of the war and their almost constant separation depressed both Michael and Natalia. Michael was still suffering from stomach ulcers and, in October 1916, he was ordered to take leave in

23405-427: Was shunned by society. In 1912, Michael shocked Nicholas by marrying Natalia in the hope that he would be removed from the line of succession. Michael and Natalia left Russia to live in exile abroad in France, Switzerland and England. After the outbreak of World War I , Michael returned to Russia, assuming command of a cavalry division. When Nicholas abdicated on 15 March [ O.S. 2 March] 1917, Michael

23560-470: Was supported by General Mikhail Alekseyev , Nicholas's chief of staff . Nicholas rejected the suggestion and issued futile orders for troops to move on Petrograd. On the night of 27–28 February 1917, Michael attempted to return to Gatchina from Petrograd, where he had been in conference with Rodzianko and Nikolai Golitsyn and from where he had telegraphed the Tsar, but revolutionary patrols and sporadic fire prevented his progress. Revolutionaries patrolled

23715-402: 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

23870-579: Was under instructions to follow by train rather than car, so Michael and Natalia would be unaccompanied on their journey south. Michael's journey was a deliberate ruse. On the way to Cannes, the couple diverted to Vienna , where they were married on 16 October 1912 by Father Misitsch at the Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Sava . A few days later, after travelling through Venice and Milan , they arrived at Cannes, where George and Natalia's daughter from her first marriage joined them. Two weeks after

24025-464: Was under surveillance by the Okhrana , Nicholas's secret police, and she was prevented from travelling. Under family pressure and unable to see Dina, by August 1907 Michael appeared to be losing interest. Dina went to live abroad. She never married and believed herself to be Michael's rightful fiancée, but their romance was over. In early December 1907, Michael was introduced to Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert ,

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