Grad (Cyrillic: град) is an Old Slavic word meaning "town", "city", "castle" or "fortified settlement". Initially present in all related languages as Gord, it can still be found as grad, gradić, horod or gorod in many placenames today.
The city of Moscow gradually grew around the Moscow Kremlin, beginning in the 14th century. It was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow (or Muscovy), from 1340 to 1547 and in 1713 renamed as the Tsardom of Russia by Peter I "the Great" (when the capital was moved to Saint Petersburg).
It was Leningrad, not Stalingrad that was the Eastern Front's real World War II humanitarian disaster. Nazi Germany sent hundreds of thousands of civilians to their deaths through starvation and hypothermia.
Following the rejection of his Continental System by Czar Alexander I, French Emperor Napoleon I invaded Russia with his Grande Armée on June 24, 1812. On September 14, Napoleon arrived in Moscow intending to find supplies but instead found almost the entire population evacuated, and the Russian army retreated again.
n a city in the European part of Russia on the Volga; site of German defeat in World War II in the winter of 1942-43. Synonyms: Tsaritsyn, Volgograd Example of: city, metropolis, urban center. a large and densely populated urban area; may include several independent administrative districts.
Army Group North would have completed its most crucial objective. The capture of Leningrad would free up at least 16 German and 5 Finnish divisions for action elsewhere. And once the port is in operation, it would allow more trains to be diverted to Army Group Center and South (strengthening their logistics).
Well, the decision to rename the city was done at the beginning of WWI, when Russia was at war with Germany, so then at the time Germany was an enemy of Russia, so the Russians decided they don't like the German name of the city any more, so they renamed it to Petrograd.
The last German troops in the Soviet city of Stalingrad surrender to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II. With the assistance of troops from their Axis allies, the Germans conquered vast territory, and by mid-October the great Russian cities of Leningrad and Moscow were under siege.
Following the success of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin, fearing possible foreign invasion, moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow on March 12, 1918. The Kremlin once again became the seat of power and the political centre of the new state.
One of the most important reasons for this was poor strategic planning. The Germans had no satisfactory long-term plan for the invasion. They mistakenly assumed that the campaign would be a short one, and that the Soviets would give in after suffering the shock of massive initial defeats.
Since the war, the city has been completely rebuilt, and in 1961 was renamed Volgograd, an effort to erase Stalin's legacy. But memories of the fighting, 75 years ago this year, are strong. Once, when visiting Homs, Syria, in 2014, I found myself comparing the destruction I saw with that of Stalingrad.
On January 26, 1924, the city was renamed Leningrad to commemorate the recently departed leader of the Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1991, with the Soviet Union on life-support, the citizens of Leningrad were allowed to vote on whether to return the city to its original name.
Saint Petersburg is rightly called the world's cultural capital. The city boasts world-famous museums, theatres, galleries, architectural monuments, cultural and educational institutions: the Hermitage, St. Isaac's Cathedral, Russian National Library, and the Russian Museum are just four of them. Many people visit St.
The battle of Stalingrad began in August 1942, when German troops tried to take control of the city. Stalingrad was felt to be an important city in Germany's effort to take control of the south of Russia and the oilfields in that region.
Weakened by disease, starvation and lack of medical care during the encirclement, many died of wounds, disease (particularly typhus caused by parasites), malnutrition and maltreatment in the months following capture at Stalingrad: only approximately 6,000 of them lived to be repatriated after the war.
During the Russian Civil War, Tsaritsyn came under Soviet control. On April 10, 1925, the city was renamed Stalingrad in honor of Joseph Stalin.
The Battle of Stalingrad is considered by many historians to have been the turning point in World War Two in Europe. The battle at Stalingrad bled the German army dry in Russia and after this defeat, the Germany Army was in full retreat. The Battle for Stalingrad was fought during the winter of 1942 to 1943.
Stalingrad was a key strategic target. It was an important industrial centre, communications hub, and sat astride the Volga River. Capturing Stalingrad would cut this waterway – the principal supply route from south to central and northern Russia.
As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler vaguely declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union, asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ("living space") to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come.
