Download or read book Kremlin Gold written by Joel A. Bartsch and published by . This book was released on 2000-04 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The companion volume to a major exhibition, this volume contains 120 spectacular objects from the Moscow-Kremlin State Armoury Museum. The pieces range from 11th-century icons to contemporay masterworks, from the buried gold of the Riazan hoard to objects created in the Kremlin's own workshops.

Download or read book The Grand Kremlin Palace written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Gentleman in Moscow written by Amor Towles and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers Soon to be a Showtime/Paramount+ series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov From the number one New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel 'A wonderful book' - Tana French 'This novel is astonishing, uplifting and wise. Don't miss it' - Chris Cleave 'No historical novel this year was more witty, insightful or original' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year '[A] supremely uplifting novel ... It's elegant, witty and delightful - much like the Count himself.' - Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year 'Charming ... shows that not all books about Russian aristocrats have to be full of doom and nihilism' - The Times, Books of the Year On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval. Can a life without luxury be the richest of all? A BOOK OF THE DECADE, 2010-2020 (INDEPENDENT) THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A MAIL ON SUNDAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 ONE OF BILL GATES'S SUMMER READS OF 2019 NOMINATED FOR THE 2018 INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS WEEK AWARD

Download or read book Stalin s Quest for Gold written by Elena Osokina and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stalin's Quest for Gold tells the story of Torgsin, a chain of retail shops established in 1930 with the aim of raising the hard currency needed to finance the USSR's ambitious industrialization program. At a time of desperate scarcity, Torgsin had access to the country's best foodstuffs and goods. Initially, only foreigners were allowed to shop in Torgsin, but the acute demand for hard-currency revenues forced Stalin to open Torgsin to Soviet citizens who could exchange tsarist gold coins and objects made of precious metals and gemstones, as well as foreign monies, for foods and goods in its shops. Through her analysis of the large-scale, state-run entrepreneurship represented by Torgsin, Elena Osokina highlights the complexity and contradictions of Stalinism. Driven by the state's hunger for gold and the people's starvation, Torgsin rejected Marxist postulates of the socialist political economy: the notorious class approach and the state hard-currency monopoly. In its pursuit for gold, Torgsin advertised in the capitalist West, encouraging foreigners to purchase goods for their relatives in the USSR; and its seaport shops and restaurants operated semilegally as brothels, inducing foreign sailors to spend hard currency for Soviet industrialization. Examining Torgsin from multiple perspectives—economic expediency, state and police surveillance, consumerism, even interior design and personnel—Stalin's Quest for Gold radically transforms the stereotypical view of the Soviet economy and enriches our understanding of everyday life in Stalin's Russia.

Download or read book Red Fortress written by Catherine Merridale and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magisterial, richly detailed history of the Kremlin, and of the centuries of Russian elites who have shaped it—and been shaped by it in turn The Moscow Kremlin is the heart of the Russian state, a fortress whose blood-red walls have witnessed more than eight hundred years of political drama and extraordinary violence. It has been the seat of a priestly monarchy, a worldly church and the Soviet Union; it has served as a crossroads for diplomacy, trade, and espionage; it has survived earthquakes, devastating fires, and at least three revolutions. Its very name is a byword for enduring power. From Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin, generations of Russian leaders have sought to use the Kremlin to legitimize their vision of statehood. Drawing on a dazzling array of sources from hitherto unseen archives and rare collections, renowned historian Catherine Merridale traces the full history of this enigmatic fortress. The Kremlin has inspired innumerable myths, but no invented tales could be more dramatic than the operatic successions and savage betrayals that took place within its vast compound of palaces and cathedrals. Today, its sumptuous golden crosses and huge electric red stars blaze side by side as the Kremlin fulfills its centuries-old role, linking the country's recent history to its distant past and proclaiming the eternal continuity of the Russian state. More than an absorbing history of Russia's most famous landmark, Red Fortress uses the Kremlin as a unique lens, bringing into focus the evolution of Russia's culture and the meaning of its politics.

Download or read book Negotiating the New START Treaty written by Rose Gottemoeller and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2021-05-15 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rose Gottemoeller, the US chief negotiator of the New START treaty-and the first woman to lead a major nuclear arms negotiation-delivers in this book an invaluable insider's account of the negotiations between the US and Russian delegations in Geneva in 2009 and 2010. It also examines the crucially important discussions about the treaty between President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev, and it describes the tough negotiations Gottemoeller and her team went through to gain the support of the Senate for the treaty. And importantly, at a time when the US Congress stands deeply divided, it tells the story of how, in a previous time of partisan division, Republicans and Democrats came together to ratify a treaty to safeguard the future of all Americans. Rose Gottemoeller is uniquely qualified to write this book, bringing to the task not only many years of high-level experience in creating and enacting US policy on arms control and compliance but also a profound understanding of the broader politico-military context from her time as NATO Deputy Secretary General. Thanks to her years working with Russians, including as Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, she provides rare insights into the actions of the Russian delegation-and the dynamics between Medvedev and then-Prime Minister Vladmir Putin. Her encyclopedic recall of the events and astute ability to analyze objectively, while laying out her own thoughts and feelings at the time, make this both an invaluable document of record-and a fascinating story. In conveying the sense of excitement and satisfaction in delivering an innovative arms control instrument for the American people and by laying out the lessons Gottemoeller and her colleagues learned, this book will serve as an inspiration for the next generation of negotiators, as a road map for them as they learn and practice their trade, and as a blueprint to inform the shaping and ratification of future treaties. This book is in the Rapid Communications in Conflict and Security (RCCS) Series (General Editor: Dr. Geoffrey R.H. Burn) and has received much praise, including: “As advances in technology usher in a new age of weaponry, future negotiators would benefit from reading Rose Gottemoeller’s memoir of the process leading to the most significant arms control agreement of recent decades.” —Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State “Rose Gottemoeller’s book on the New START negotiations is the definitive book on this treaty or indeed, any of the nuclear treaties with the Soviet Union or Russia. These treaties played a key role in keeping the hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union from breaking out into a civilization-ending war. But her story of the New START negotiation is no dry academic treatise. She tells with wit and charm the human story of the negotiators, as well as the critical issues involved. Rose’s book is an important and well-told story about the last nuclear treaty negotiated between the US and Russia.” —William J. Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense “This book is important, but not just because it tells you about a very significant past, but also because it helps you understand the future.” — George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State

Download or read book The New Nobility written by Andrei Soldatov and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The New Nobility, two courageous Russian investigative journalists open up the closed and murky world of the Russian Federal Security Service. While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse. The security services have played a central -- and often mysterious -- role at key turning points in Russia during these tumultuous years: from the Moscow apartment house bombings and theater siege, to the war in Chechnya and the Beslan massacre. The security services are not all-powerful; they have made clumsy and sometimes catastrophic blunders. But what is clear is that after the chaotic 1990s, when they were sidelined, they have made a remarkable return to power, abetted by their most famous alumnus, Putin.

Download or read book East West Trade Trends written by United States. Foreign Operations Administration and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-06-03 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "East-West Trade Trends" is a book by the United States Foreign Operations Administration on the mutual defense assistance control act of 1951 against the Soviet Union. The book contains strategies used by the United States and some other world power to tackle the Soviet bloc. A good book for strategic mindset and people interested in administration and politics of the United States of America.

Download or read book The Turquoise Table written by Kristin Schell and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Loneliness is an epidemic right now, but it doesn't have to be that way. The Turquoise Table is Kristin Schell's invitation to you to connect with your neighbors and build friendships. Featured in Southern Living, Good Housekeeping, and the TODAY Show, Kristin introduces a new way to look at hospitality. Desperate for a way to slow down and connect, Kristin put an ordinary picnic table in her front yard, painted it turquoise, and began inviting friends and neighbors to join her. Life changed in her community, and it can change in yours too. Alongside personal and heartwarming stories, Kristin gives you: Stress-free ideas for kick-starting your own Turquoise Table Simple recipes to take outside and share with others Stories from people using Turquoise Tables in their neighborhoods Encouragement to overcome barriers that keep you from connecting This gorgeous book, with vibrant photography, invites you to make a difference right where you live. The beautiful design makes it ideal to give to a friend or to keep for yourself. Community and friendship are waiting just outside your front door.

Download or read book Navalny written by Jan Matti Dollbaum and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating account of Russia's famous dissident and the politics he embodies. Who is Alexei Navalny? Poisoned in August 2020 and transported to Germany for treatment, the politician returned to Russia in January 2021 in the full glare of the world media. His immediate detention at passport control set the stage for an explosive showdown with Vladimir Putin. But Navalny means very different things to different people. To some, he is a democratic hero. To others, he is betraying the Motherland. To others still, he is a dangerous nationalist. This book explores the many dimensions of Navalny's political life, from his pioneering anti-corruption investigations to his ideas and leadership of a political movement. It also looks at how his activities and the Kremlin's strategies have shaped one another. Navalny makes sense of this divisive character, revealing the contradictions of a man who is the second most important political figure in Russia--even when behind bars. In order to understand modern Russia, you need to understand Alexei Navalny.

Download or read book East West Trade Trends written by Harold E. Stassen and published by U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. This book was released on 2015-01-13 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Example in this ebook Note on “Strategic” and “Nonstrategic” To help protect the security of the free world, the United States and certain other countries have been working together for more than four years to withhold strategic goods from the Soviet bloc. But how can you tell strategic goods from nonstrategic goods? A good many people have asked that question. It is a reasonable question and it deserves a nontechnical answer. The answer is that strategic goods, as understood in the day-to-day operations of the program, are those goods which would make a significant contribution to the warmaking power of the Soviet bloc. This is a practical guide to action. There is no rigid definition that holds good for all times, places, and circumstances. All strategic goods don’t have the same degree of strategicness. The free countries have embargoed some, merely limited others in quantity, and kept still other items under surveillance so that controls could be imposed if necessary. Even the same item may vary in strategic importance, depending on the destination, the changing supply situation behind the Iron Curtain, and other circumstances which may change from time to time. Whether an item includes advanced technology is an important consideration. In specific cases, two experts of equal competence may disagree on these things. Two agencies of government, differing in function, may bring different points of view to a given problem. The same is true of governments. Since there is no distinctly visible boundary between “strategic” and “nonstrategic,” some people insist there is no such thing as a nonstrategic item at all. It is true that even bicycles, typewriters, or ordinary hardware may help the other fellow by strengthening his general economy. And these people argue that anything that contributes to the general economy helps in a military way, too. That is a correct concept in actual warfare but it is not an acceptable concept of “strategic” in the present situation, for trade on certain terms can help the free nations too. They carry on two-way trade with the Soviet bloc for concrete commercial benefits. The problem is to gain those benefits without permitting the Kremlin to accelerate the growth of military power or to divide the free world. In rating items as strategic or nonstrategic, it is clear that there are innumerable commodities, used entirely or mainly for civilian purposes, which would not make a clearly significant contribution to war potential. No one would have trouble drawing a line between a jet plane and a suit of clothing, to take an extreme example. Few would have difficulty putting cobalt on one side of the line and butter on the other. As for the border area where it is less clear what contribution an item would make, the allied governments put their heads together, pool their facts, and try to arrive at mutually acceptable judgments. As President Eisenhower has said, “Unity among free nations is our only hope for survival in the face of the worldwide Soviet conspiracy backed by the weight of Soviet military power.” To be continue in this ebook

Download or read book The Ruble written by Ekaterina Pravilova and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking history of Russia, from empire to the Soviet era, viewed through the lens of its money. Money seems passive, a silent witness to the deeds and misdeeds of its holders, but through its history intimate dramas and grand historical processes can be told. So argues this sweeping narrative of the ruble's story from the time of Catherine the Great to Lenin. The Russian ruble did not enjoy a particularly reputable place among European currencies. Across two hundred years, long periods of financial turmoil were followed by energetic and pragmatic reforms that invariably ended with another collapse. Why did a country with an industrializing economy, solid private property rights, and (until 1918) a near perfect reputation as a rock-solid repayer of its debts stick for such a prolonged period with an inconvertible currency? Why did the Russian gold standard differ from the European model? In answering these questions, Ekaterina Pravilova argues that politics and culture must be considered alongside economic factors. The history of the Russian ruble offers an opportunity to explore the political reasons behind the preservation of a supposedly backward financial system and to show how politicians used monetary reforms to block or enact political transformations. The Ruble is a history of Russia written in the language of money. It shows how economists, landowners, merchants, and peasants understood, perceived, and used financial mechanisms. In her sweeping account, Pravilova interprets the well-known political events of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries--wars, attempts at constitutional transformations, revolutions--through the ideas and politics of currency reforms and offers a new history of Russia's imperial expansion and collapse.

Download or read book Bucking the Buck written by Daniel McDowell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-24 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US dollar is the world's indispensable currency. The dollar's preeminent status gives the United States enormous coercive powers which it flexes in the form of financial sanctions to punish its adversaries. Over the last twenty years, Washington has relied on financial sanctions with greater and greater frequency. Bucking the Buck argues that the more the United States wields the dollar as a weapon of foreign policy, the more its adversaries will move their international economic activities into other currencies to avoid Washington's coercive reach. Through a combination of case studies and statistical analysis, the book establishes a relationship between US financial sanctions and the rise of "anti-dollar" policies, which are designed to reduce an economy's reliance on the US currency. Though some anti-dollar policies fail to achieve this goal, McDowell's analysis indicates that in many cases they are successful. Patterns of "de-dollarization" following sanctions are clear. In some cases, the anticipation of future sanctions may provoke similar policy measures. Though McDowell does not conclude that sanctions threaten the dollar's status as the world's key currency, the potential consequences of sanctions overuse remain important. Most notably, the use of sanctions may, over time, weaken their effectiveness as US adversaries develop systems and methods to minimize costs associated with such measures. If the United States wishes to preserve the potency of financial sanctions and protect the dollar's dominant position in the world economy, Bucking the Buck argues that Washington's approach to sanctions use should become more discerning.

Download or read book The Battle of Bretton Woods written by Benn Steil and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-24 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the events of the Bretton Woods accords, presents portaits of the two men at the center of the drama, and reveals Harry White's admiration for Soviet economic planning and communications with intelligence officers.

Download or read book The Secret War Against Red Russia written by Brian Best and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2023-01-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Armistice of November 1918 ended four years of slaughter that left armies exhausted and populations weary of war – but the fighting was not over. In Russia, civil war and revolution had divided the nation and the Allies sought to intervene on behalf of the ‘White’ Russians against the Bolsheviks and this conflict continued long after the war had finished elsewhere in Europe. A vital source of information from inside the Bolshevik-held territory came from British secret agents in Petrograd, the main one being Paul Dukes. Known as the ‘Man of a Hundred Faces’, Dukes had managed to infiltrate both the Communist Party and the political police. The problem which faced the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, Maurice Smith-Cummings, was getting Dukes’ information back to London. Carrying information overland was proving far too problematical, so Smith-Cummings hit upon the idea of using one of the Royal Navy’s new fast Coastal Motor Boat which was revealed just before the end of the war. He recruited Lieutenant Augustus Agar and through him he found five men, all unmarried, who could handle the two CMBs. Using an inlet on the Finnish coast as a base, Agar slipped past a series of forts, submerged breakwaters and the Russian Baltic Fleet to reach Petrograd and made contact with Dukes. A frequent courier service was soon established, with Agar carrying couriers in and out of Petrograd under the very noses of the Russians. So confident did Agar become, he even torpedoed the Russian cruiser Oleg. He followed this with support from Admiral Sir Walter Cowan in an all-out raid upon the Russian ships with eight larger CMBs and a bombing raid by the RAF. The raid resulted in the sinking of two battleships and the submarine depot ship Pamiet Azova. Agar was quietly given the Victoria Cross but told not to publish his memoirs until 1963. As for Paul Dukes, his cover was eventually blown, and he had to escape via Latvia in a number of hair-raising escapades. In 1920 he was knighted by King George V, who called Dukes the ‘greatest of all soldiers’. To this day, Dukes is the only person knighted based entirely on his exploits in espionage. This is their remarkable story.

Download or read book Russia s Cold War written by Jonathan Haslam and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whereas the Western perspective on the Cold War has been well documented by journalists and historians, the Soviet side has remained for the most part shrouded in secrecy--until now. Drawing on a vast range of recently released archives in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and Eastern Europe, Russia's Cold War offers a thorough and fascinating analysis of East-West relations from 1917 to 1989.

Download or read book Federal Register written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: