Belgorod

Belgorod (Russian: Бе́лгород) is a city in western Russia, situated on the Seversky Donets river just 40 km north from the Ukrainian border, at 50°37′N, 36°35′E. It is the administrative center of Belgorod Oblast. Population: 337,030 (2002 Census). Belgorod is served by Belgorod International Airport (EGO).

The name Belgorod (like Belgrade in Serbia) is the Slavic for "white city", the vicinity being rich in limestone. The settlement is first mentioned in 1237, when it was ravaged by the hordes of Batu Khan. In 1596 it was refounded by the order of Boris Godunov as one of numerous forts set up to defend Southern borders from the Crimean Tatars.

After the Russian border was moved further south, the fortress fell in disrepair and the town was assigned to the Government of Kursk. Peter the Great visited it on the eve of the Battle of Poltava, and a dragoon regiment was stationed in the town until 1917.

During the great Battle of Kursk, the village of Prokhorovka in Belgorod Oblast was a stage of the largest tank battle in history (July 12, 1943). The World War II monuments include the Belgorod Diorama and a huge cathedral in Prokhorovka.

Belgorod is an administrative, industrial and cultural centre of Belgorod Oblast, established in 1954. The main educational centres are the Belgorod Shukhov State Technological University, the Belgorod State University, the Belgorod Agricultural Academy and Financial Academy. The Belgorod Academic Theatre is named in honour of the famous 19th-century actor Mikhail Shchepkin who was born in the vicinity. The city is served by Belgorod Airport.

POKROVKA

A bell-tower commemorating the Soviet victory on the Field of Prokhorovka.

Prokhorovka's temple of the glory of the dead russian soldiers. Prokhorovka (Про́хоровка in Russian) is an urban type settlement in Belgorod Oblast, located along the Psyol River southwest of the city of Kursk. Prokhorovka was the site of the Battle of Prokhorovka, a major armoured confrontation during the Battle of Kursk of the great patrioytoc War.
Population: 10,007

Boris Fyodorovich Godunov (: Бори́с Фёдорович Годуно́в in Russian) (1550 / c. 1551–April 13/23, 1605) was de facto regent of Russia from 1584 to 1598 and then the first non-Rurilkid Tsar from 1598 to 1605. The end of his reign saw Russia descending into the Time of Troubles.

Early Years
Boris Godunov was the most famous member of an ancient, now extinct, Russian family of Tatar origin, which migrated from the Horde to Kostroma in the early 14th century, through the Tatarian Prince Chet, who emigrated from the Golden Horde to Russia and founded the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, son of Fyodor Ivanovich Godunov "Krivoy" (d. c. 1568-1570) and wife Stepanida N. His older brother Vasily died young and without issue of his wife Pelageya N. Godunov's career of service began at the court of Ivan The Terrible. He is mentioned in 1570 as taking part in the Serpeisk campaign as one of the archers of the guard. The following year, he became a member of the feared Oprichnina.
In 1570/1571 Godunov strengthened his position at court by his marriage to Maria Grigorievna Skuratova-Belskaya, the daughter of Ivan's abominable favorite Malyuta Skuratov Belskiy. In 1580 the Tsar chose Irina (Alexandra) Feodorovna Godunova (1557 – October – 26 November 23, 1603), the sister of Godunov, to be the wife of his son and heir, the fourteen year old Tsarevich Feodor Ivanovich (1557–1598); on this occasion Godunov was promoted to the rank of Boyar. On his deathbed Ivan appointed a council consisting of Godunov, Feodor Nikitich Romanov, and Vasili Shuiski along with others, to guide his son and successor; for Feodor was feeble both in mind and in health; "he took refuge from the dangers of the palace in devotion to religion; and though his people called him a saint, they recognized that he lacked the iron to govern men."
Upon his death Ivan also left behind the three year old Dmitri Ivanovich (1581–1591), born from his seventh and last marriage. As the Orthodox Church recognized only the initial three marriages, and any offspring thereof, as legitimate, Dmitri (and his mother's family) technically had no real claim to the throne.
Still, taking no chances, the Council, shortly after Ivan's death, had both Dmitri and his mother Maria Nagaya moved to Uglich some 120 miles north of Moscow. It was there that Dmitri died a few years later at the age of ten (1591). An official commission, headed by Vasilii Shuiski, was sent to determine the cause of death; the official verdict was that the boy had cut his throat during an epileptic seizure. Ivan's widow claimed that her son had been murdered by Godunov's agents. Godunov's guilt was never established and shortly thereafter Dmitri's mother was forced to take the veil. As for Dmitri Ivanovich he was laid to rest and promptly, though temporarily, forgotten.

Years of Regency
On the occasion of the Tsar's coronation (3st May, 1584), Boris was given honors and riches as part of a five man regency council, yet he held the second place during the lifetime of the Tsar's uncle Nikita Romanovich, on whose death, in August, he was left without any serious rival.
A conspiracy against him of all the other great boyars and the Metropolitan Dionysius, which sought to break Boris's power by divorcing the Tsar from Godunov's childless sister, only ended in the banishment or tonsuring of the malcontents. Henceforth Godunov was omnipotent. The direction of affairs passed entirely into his hands, and he corresponded with foreign princes as their equal.
His policy was generally pacific, but always most prudent. In 1595 he recovered from Sweden the towns lost during the former reign. Five years previously he had defeated a Tatar raid upon Moscow, for which service he received the title of Konyushy (or in 1584), an obsolete dignity even higher than that of Boyar. Towards Turkey he maintained an independent attitude, supporting an anti-Turkish faction in the Crimea, and furnishing the emperor with subsidies in his war against the sultan.
Godunov encouraged English merchants to trade with Russia by exempting them from tolls. He civilized the north-eastern and south-eastern borders of Russia by building numerous towns and fortresses to keep the Tatar and Finnic tribes in order. These towns included Samara, Saratov, Voronezh, Tsaritsyn, and a whole series of lesser towns. He also re-colonized Siberia, which had been slipping from the grasp of Russia, and formed scores of new settlements, including Tobolsk and other large centres.
It was during his government that the Russian Orthodox Church received its patriarchate, which placed it on an equal footing with the ancient Eastern churches and emancipated it from the influence of the Patriarch of Constantinople. This reform was meant to please the ruling monarch, as Feodor took extraordinary interest in church affairs.
Boris's most important domestic reform was the 1587 decree forbidding the peasantry to transfer themselves from one landowner to another, thus binding them to the soil. The object of this ordinance was to secure revenue, but it led to the institution of serfdom in its most grinding form.

Years of Tsardom
On the death of the childless tsar Feodor (th January, 1598), self-preservation quite as much as ambition forced Boris to seize the throne. Had he not done so, lifelong seclusion in a monastery would have been his lightest fate. His election was proposed by the Patriarch Job of Moscow, who acted on the conviction that Boris was the one man capable of coping with the extraordinary difficulties of an unexampled situation. Boris, however, would only accept the throne from a Zemsky Sobor, or national assembly, which met on 1 February, and unanimously elected him on 21st February.. On 1st September he was solemnly crowned Tsar.
During the first years of his reign he was both popular and prosperous, and ruled excellently. He fully recognized the need for Russia to catch up to the intellectual progress of the West, and did his utmost to bring about educational and social reforms. He was the first tsar to import foreign teachers on a great scale, the first to send young Russians abroad to be educated, the first to allow Lutheran churches to be built in Russia. Having won the Russo-Swedish War (1590 – 1595), he felt the necessity of a Baltic seaboard, and attempted to obtain Livonia by diplomatic means. He cultivated friendly relations with the Scandinavians, in order to intermarry if possible with foreign royal houses, so as to increase the dignity of his own dynasty.
Undoubtedly Boris was one of the greatest of the Russian tsars. But his great qualities were overshadowed by an incurable suspiciousness, which made it impossible for him to act cordially with those about him. His fear of possible pretenders induced him to go so far as to forbid the greatest of the boyars to marry. He also encouraged informers and persecuted suspects on their unsupported statements. The Romanov family especially suffered severely from this behaviour. He also declined the personal union proposed to him in 1600 by the diplomatic mission led by Lew Sapieha from the Polish-Luthuanian Commonweath . Boris died after a lengthy illness and a stroke on 12 the April, 1605, leaving one son, Feodor 11, who succeeded him for a few months and then was murdered by the enemies of the Godunovs as was his widow, both murdered in Moscow on 10th June, 1605. Their first son Ivan was born in 1587 and died in 1588, and their daughter Xenia, born in 1582/1591, was engaged to Johann of Schleswig-Holstein, born on 9th Juky, 1583 but he died shortly before announced marriage on 28th October, 1602 and she died unmarried and without issue on 30 May, 1622 and was buried at St. Trinity Monastery.

Arts Based on Boris Godunov
Boris's life was fictionalized by Alexander Pushkin in the famous play inspired by Shakespeare`s Macbeth. Modest Mussorgsky named his great opera Boris Godunov upon Pushkin's play. Sergei Prokofiev later wrote incidental music to the play.

Batu Khan (: Бат Хаан Mongolian,: Баты́й) in Russian (c. 1205–1255) was a Mongol ruler and the founder of the Blue Horde. Batu was a son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. His Blue Horde became the Golden Horde (or Kipchak Khanate), which ruled Rus and the Caucasis for around 250 years, after also destroying the armies of Poland and Hungary.

Bloodline of the Kipchak Khans
Although Genghis Khan recognized Jochi as his son, his parentage was always in question, as his mother Borte, Genghis Khan's wife, had been captured and he was born shortly after her return. During the lifetime of Genghis, this issue was public knowledge but it was taboo to publicly discuss it. Still, it drove a wedge between Jochi and his father; just before Jochi's death, he and Genghis almost fought a civil war because of Jochi's sullen refusal to join in military campaigns. Jochi also was given only 4,000 Mongol soldiers to carve out his own Khanate. Jochi's son Batu got most of his soldiers by recruiting amongst the Turkic people he defeated, mostly Kipchak Turks. Batu was later instrumental in setting the house of his uncle Igedei aside in favor of the house of Tolui, his other uncle.
After Jochi and Genghis died, Jochi's lands were divided between Batu and his older brother Orda. Orda's White Horde ruled the lands roughly between the Volga river and Lake Balkhash, while Batu's Golden Horde ruled the lands west of the Volga.
When Batu and his son Sartak died, Batu's brother Berke inherited the Golden Horde. Berke was not inclined to unity with his cousins in the Mongol family, making war on Hulagu Khan, though Berke officially recognized the Khanate of China as his overlord—in theory only. In fact, Berke was an independent ruler by then. Fortunately for Europe, Berke did not share Batu's interest in conquering it.
Batu had at least two children .

Batu Khan then decided to "reach the ultimate sea", where the Mongols could proceed no further. Some modern historians speculate that Batu Khan intended primarily to assure his flanks were safe for the future from possible interference from the Europeans, and partially as a precursor to further conquest. Most believe he intended the conquest of all Europe, as soon as his flanks were safe, and his forces ready.

Aftermath
The Mongols invaded central Europe in three groups. One group conquered Poland, defeating a combined force under Henry the Pious, Duke of Silesia and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order at Legnica. A second crossed the carpathians and a third followed the Danube. The armies re-grouped and crushed Hungary in 1241, defeating the army led by Bela iv of Hungary at the Battle of Mohi on April 11. The armies swept the plains of Hungary over the summer and in the spring of 1242 regained impetus and extended their control into Austria and Dalmatia as well as invading Bohemia.
This attack on Europe was planned and carried out by Subutai, under the nominal command of Batu. Subutai achieved perhaps his most lasting fame with his victories there. Having devastated the various Rus principalities, he sent spies into Poland, Hungary, and as far as Austria, in preparation for an attack into the heartland of Europe. Having gotten a clear picture of the European kingdoms, he brilliantly prepared an attack nominally commanded by Batu Khan and two other princes of the blood. Batu Khan, son of Jochi, was the overall leader, but Subutai was the actual commander in the field, and as such was present in both the northern and southern campaigns against Rus. While Kaidu's northern force won the battle of Legnica and Kadan's army
triumphed in Transylvania, Subutai was waiting for them on the Hungarian plain. The newly reunited army then withdrew to the Sajo river where they inflicted the tremendous defeat on King Béla IV at the Battle of Mohi.

By late 1241, Batu and Subutai were finishing plans to invade Austria, Italy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy> and Germany, when the news came of the death of Odegei Khan(died in December, 1241), and the Mongols withdrew in the late spring of 1242, as the Princes of the blood, and Subutai, were recalled to Karakorum where the kurultai was held. Batu was a potential Great Khan and when he failed to win this he turned to consolidate his conquests in Asia and the Uralss <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urals> . He did not have Subutai with him when he returned—Subutai had remained in Mongolia where he died in 1248—and Batu's animosity toGuyuk Khan made any further European invasion impossible. He had to keep his troops ready in the event of attack from the East, as the deterioration of relations between the grandsons of Genghis Khan ultimately brought about the end of the Mongol Empire. After his return, Batu Khan established the capital of his khanate at Sarai on the lower Volga in 1242. He was planning new campaigns after Guyuk's death, (he was intent on carrying out Subutai's original plans to invade Europe) but he died in 1255 and the khanate passed to Sarfaq. He decided against the invasion of Europe. The Kipchak Khanate ruled Russia through local princes for the next 230 years.

Berke did not share Batu's interest in conquering Europe. He was more interested in fighting his cousins, especially Hulagu, whom he loathed for destroying Baghdad. For Berke, a devout Muslim, what Hulagu had done was despicable, and in 1262, when Hulagu prepared to move on Egypt to avenge the defeat of his army (during his absence) at the Battle of Ain Jalut, Berke Khan had Kipchak raiding parties despoil lands considered part of the Il-Khanate. Enraged, Hulagu gathered his armies and marched north, and suffering severe defeat in an attempted invasion north of the Caucasus in 1263, after Berke Khan had lured him north, and away from the Holy Land.
The Kipchak Khanate was known in Rus and Europe as the Golden Horde (Zolotaya Orda) some think because of the Golden colour of the Khan's tent. "Horde" comes from the Mongol word "orda/ordu" or camp. "Golden" is thought to have had a similar meaning to "royal" (Royal Camp). Of all the Khanates, the Golden Horde ruled longest. Long after the Yuan Dynasty had been driven out of China, and 11 Khanate of the Middle East had fallen, the descendants of Batu Khan continued to rule the Russian steppes.

About Belgorod State Technological University named after V.G. Shukhov
Belgorod State Technological University named after V.G. Shukhov (BSTU) was founded in 1957. According to the number of specialities, faculty staff, departments and laboratories BSTU is the only higher educational institution in such field not only in our country but also in Europe. BSTU is considered to be one of the best higher educational institutions in Russia according to the quality of education, teaching staff, level of scientific and research work and material supplies.

BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov is a highly developed modern educational, scientific, industrial and training complex. It includes laboratory buildings, training industrial bases, libraries containing scientific literature, hostels, residential blocks of flats for the staff, canteens, Cultural Student Centre, gyms and sport grounds. The best sport structure in the Black Soil Zone, the stadium, has been constructed, a swimming pool is being under construction.

The structure of the University includes Institutes of Economy and Management, Institute of Building Materials, Institute of Technological Equipment and Complexes, Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Institute of Information Technologies and Operating Systems, Institute of Road Construction, and also Institute of Refresher Courses, Scientific and Research Institute of Global Changes and Steady Development, postgraduate school, doctoral studies, a number of technical schools, gymnasiums and technical lyceums. The structure of the University also includes 47 chairs and 3 departments (faculties).

In November 2004 we signed the agreement on cooperation between BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov and Moscow State University of Engineering Ecology and opened the branch of the International department of UNESCO "The technique of ecologically pure productions" on the basis of the BSTU.

The branches in Gubkin, in the North Caucasus, Dyatkov, Novorossiysk, the representation in Volsk carry out the successful activity. Belgorod institution of Engineering and Economics which has a range of branches in different regions of Russia makes part of the system of educational institutions of the university.

The university carries out the important work on the expansion of trends and specialities of engineering staff training. In such a way the university increases its competitive capacity on the educational market, takes into account the changes in economics and society. On the initiative of the regional authorities and the governor Y.S. Savchenko new specialities "Organization and traffic safety", "Electric drive and automation of industrial installations and technological complexes", "Emergency protection", "Electricity supply" were introduced in the curriculum. BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov is the only educational institution providing with specialists the enterprises of glass industry of Russia.

Three specialities of the university: Civil engineering, Automobile roads and aerodromes, Production of building materials and constructions passed the international accreditation that had been carried on by British institution of civil engineers.

Considering the forth-coming conversion to two-stage training of specialists the university will carry out the training of Bachelors and Masters on 3 curriculums since 2005-2006 onwards.

The university graduates make up to 60% from the number of leading specialists of the branch and they head many large industrial enterprises. For the further development and perfection of educational system of the university the Centre of continuous professional training was created on the basis of the university. One of the important directions of its activity is the development of correspondence technologies of study.

Scientific laboratories are fitted with modern equipment; the computer base of the university is one of the best among the higher educational institutions of Russia, the local net with the Internet access is created. The number of computers in the university is equal to the number of computers in the leading higher educational institutions of European countries.

The training process and researches are carried out by more than 100 doctors and professors, more than 350 candidates of science and assistant professors, 19 members of the State and Public Academies, over 20 laureates of honoured degrees, 5 distinguished inventors.

The training of engineering staff is carried out on 33 specialities and 22 directions which encompass almost all specialities necessary for building industry and industry of building materials. More than 15 thousand students study at the university, among them the foreign students of 12 countries of Europe, Asia and Africa.

BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov is the leading scientific centre of the branch carrying out fundamental applied researches. Over 75 % of all research work of the university is carried out by the orders of industry. Large scientific schools function on the basis of the university in the sphere of building materials, there are 6 dissertation councils, among them 3 doctoral. About 400 post-graduate students take a post-graduate course on 23 scientific specialities.

The university has educational and scientific contacts with the state Russian Academy of Architecture and Building Sciences, branches of research institutions and enterprises. The university cooperates with foreign firms and higher educational institutions of the USA, Great Britain, Germany, China, Egypt, Poland, and Israel.