150-528: The Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order ( Russian : Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка , romanized : Otdelenie po okhraneniyu obshchestvennoy bezopadnosti i poryadka ), usually called the Guard Department (Russian: Охранное отделение , romanized : Okhrannoye otdelenie ) and commonly abbreviated in modern English sources as
300-674: 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
450-519: 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
600-793: A trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings' Dvina–Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium. A sheltered natural harbor 15 km (9.3 mi) upriver from the mouth of the Daugava—the site of today's Riga—has been recorded, as Duna Urbs , as early as the 2nd century. It was settled by the Livs , a Finnic tribe. Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages . Riga's inhabitants engaged mainly in fishing, animal husbandry , and trading, later developing crafts, including bone, wood, amber, and iron. The Livonian Chronicle of Henry testifies to Riga having long been
750-576: A campaign of forced Christianization . Berthold died soon afterwards and his forces were defeated. The Church mobilized to avenge this defeat. Pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians . Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede , Prince-Archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg in 1199. Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201, he transferred
900-592: A century earlier, and many Latvians had been baptized. Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Uexküll (now known as Ikšķile ), upstream from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livs, however, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Uexküll in 1196, having failed in his mission. In 1198, the Bishop Berthold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced
1050-579: A demonstration organized by Father Gapon .) and with the participation of Pyotr Rutenberg . Many historians, such as the German Konrad Heiden and the Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine maintain that Matvei Golovinski , a writer and Okhrana agent, fabricated the first edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903). The organization also fabricated documentation connected with
1200-578: A fire caused by the Wehrmacht (renovated in 1954). Another example is the House of the Blackheads , completely destroyed, its ruins subsequently demolished; a facsimile was constructed in 1995. In 1989, the percentage of Latvians in Riga had fallen to 36.5%. In 2004, the arrival of low-cost airlines resulted in cheaper flights from other European cities such as London and Berlin, and consequently
1350-550: A former Okhrana officer and relative of the director of the Russian police department Stepan Petrovich Beletsky , both Malinovsky and Joseph Stalin reported on Lenin as well as on each other although Stalin was unaware that Malinovosky was also a penetration agent. Malinovsky won the seat and led the Bolshevik delegation in the Fourth Duma until 1914, but even with the information Malinovsky and other informants provided to
1500-442: 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) Riga Riga ( / ˈ r iː ɡ ə / REE -gə ) is the capital, the primate , and the largest city of Latvia . Home to 605,273 inhabitants, the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga metropolitan area , which stretches beyond
1650-484: 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
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#17328009328831800-579: A leading Bolshevik and close associate of Vladimir Lenin ), Yevno Azef (1869–1918), Roman Malinovsky (1876–1918) and Dmitry Bogrov (1887–1911). The Okhrana tried to compromise the labour movement by setting up police-run trade unions , a practice known as zubatovshchina . The Communists blamed the Okhrana in part for the Bloody Sunday event of January 1905, when Tsarist troops killed hundreds of unarmed protesters who were marching during
1950-588: 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
2100-620: A liability than an asset. The Assembly of Working Men, a police-run union with about 6,000–8,000 members, formed by the alleged Okhrana agent Father Georgy Gapon , sparked the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1905, a milestone in the Revolution of 1905 when union members marched peacefully on the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and were fired upon by Imperial soldiers. The Okhrana complemented police socialism and other projects to prevent
2250-532: A member of the Hanseatic League . The Hansa was instrumental in giving Riga economic and political stability, thus providing the city with a strong foundation which endured the political conflagrations that were to come, down to modern times. As the influence of the Hanseatic League waned, Riga became the object of foreign military, political, religious and economic aspirations. Riga accepted
2400-563: 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
2550-526: 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
2700-461: A substantial increase in numbers of tourists. On 21 November 2013, the roof of a supermarket collapsed in Zolitūde , one of the neighbourhoods of the city, possibly as a result of the weight of materials used in the construction of a garden on the roof. Fifty-four people were killed. Latvian President Andris Bērziņš described the disaster as "a large-scale murder of many defenceless people". Riga
2850-498: A trading centre by the 12th century, referring to it as portus antiquus (ancient port), and describes dwellings and warehouses used to store mostly flax, and hides. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158. Along with German traders the monk Meinhard of Segeberg arrived to convert the Livonian pagans to Christianity. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had already arrived in Latvia more than
3000-490: A violent repression of the revolution, only to call off the effort for lack of manpower. Since these attempts at repression never reached fruition, they only served to aggravate the already enraged Russian populace and to deepen their distrust of the Imperial government. Trepov's replacement by P.N. Durnovo in late-October ushered in a period of even more vicious repression of the revolutionaries. Indicative of this new period
3150-476: Is humid continental (Köppen Dfb ). The coldest months are January and February, when the average temperature is −2.1 °C (28 °F ) but temperatures as low as −20 to −25 °C (−4 to −13 °F) can be observed almost every year on the coldest days. The proximity of the sea causes frequent autumn rains and fogs. Continuous snow cover may last eighty days. The summers in Riga are mild and rainy with an average temperature of 18 °C (64 °F), while
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#17328009328833300-539: 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,
3450-658: Is a UNESCO World Heritage Site , noted for its Art Nouveau /Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture in 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden. Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit , the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 , the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship , and the IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championships in 2006 , 2021 , and 2023 . It
3600-481: 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
3750-585: Is a democratically elected institution and is the final decision-making authority in the city. The Council consists of 60 members or deputies who are elected every four years. The Presidium of the Riga City Council consists of the Chairman of the Riga City Council and the representatives delegated by the political parties or party blocks elected to the City Council. From February to October 2020,
3900-401: 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
4050-610: 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
4200-488: 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
4350-624: 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
4500-611: Is further divided into a Champions Competition and an Open Competition to allow choirs from all backgrounds to enter. Choral workshops and festivals are also witnessed in the host cities and are usually open to the public. The radio and TV tower of Riga is the tallest structure in Latvia and the Baltic States, and one of the tallest in the European Union, reaching 368.5 m (1,209 ft). Riga centre also has many great examples of Gothic revival architecture, such as
4650-680: Is home to the European Union 's office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). In 2017, it was named as the European Region of Gastronomy . In 2019, Riga received over 1.4 million foreign visitors. The city is served by Riga International Airport , the largest and busiest airport in the Baltic States. Riga is a member of Eurocities , the Union of the Baltic Cities (UBC), and Union of Capitals of
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4800-573: 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
4950-564: 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
5100-700: Is one of the largest in the Baltics. It handled a record 34 million tons of cargo in 2011 and has potential for future growth with new port developments on Krievu Sala. Tourism is also a large industry in Riga and after a slowdown during the global economic recessions of the late 2000s , grew 22% in 2011 alone. Riga was intended to become the global financial centre in the former Soviet Union. One bank , which provided high levels of secrecy for its customers, promoted itself as "We are closer than Switzerland!" (Russian: «Мы ближе, чем Швейцария!» ). On 28 July 1995, twenty Latvian banks with assistance of persons from
5250-402: 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
5400-569: 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
5550-585: 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
5700-519: Is the head of the St. Petersburg Special Section, A.V. Gerasimov's, strike on the St. Petersburg Soviet. To Emperor Nicholas II 's delight, Gerasimov arrested delegates of the Soviet en masse on December 3, 1905. Along with this repression and the end of the Revolution of 1905 came a shift in the political police's mentality; gone were the days of Nicholas I 's white-gloved moral police : post-1905
5850-518: 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
6000-464: Is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
6150-470: 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
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6300-1000: 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
6450-413: 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
6600-697: The Great Northern War , the Crossing of the Düna took place nearby, resulting in a victory for king Charles XII of Sweden . Between November 1709 and June 1710, however, the Russians under Tsar Peter the Great besieged and captured Riga , which was at the time struck by a plague . Along with the other Livonian towns and gentry, Riga capitulated to Russia , but largely retained their privileges. Riga
6750-511: The Kalpaka Boulevard Library , and a bevy of Art Nouveau architecture, as well as a medieval old town. Riga has one of the largest collections of Art Nouveau buildings in the world, with at least 800 buildings. This is due to the fact that at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when Art Nouveau was at the height of its popularity, Riga experienced an unprecedented financial and demographic boom. In
6900-618: The Latgale , Vidzeme and Zemgale suburbs. Three entities were established on 1 September 1941, and the other three were established in October 1969. There are no official lower-level administrative units, but the Riga City Council Development Agency is working on a plan, which officially makes Riga consist of 58 neighbourhoods . The current names were confirmed on 28 December 1990. The climate of Riga
7050-745: The Livonian War , Riga for twenty years had the status of a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire before it came under the influence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Treaty of Drohiczyn , which ended the war for Riga in 1581. In 1621, during the Polish–Swedish War (1621–1625) , Riga and the outlying fortress of Daugavgrīva came under the rule of Gustavus Adolphus , King of Sweden , who intervened in
7200-679: The Neo-Latvians was followed by the socialist New Current during the city's rapid industrialisation, culminating in the 1905 Revolution led by the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party . The 20th century brought World War I and the impact of the Russian Revolution of 1917 to Riga. As a result of the battle of Jugla , the German army marched into Riga on 3 September 1917. On 3 March 1918,
7350-654: The Okhrana (Russian: Охрана , IPA: [ɐˈxranə] , lit. 'The Guard') was a secret police force of the Russian Empire and part of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century and early 20th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes . Formed to combat political terrorism and left-wing politics and revolutionary activity,
7500-655: The Paris Stock Exchange organised the Riga Stock Exchange which was the first Latvian stock exchange in Riga. The Mežaparks Great Bandstand (Latvian: Mežaparka Lielā estrāde) is a open-air bandstand in Mežaparks park . The Bandstand is the place where the Latvian Song and Dance Festival , one of the largest amateur choral and dancing events in the world and part of UNESCO Masterpieces of
7650-402: The Reformation in 1522, ending the power of the archbishops. In 1524, iconoclasts targeted a statue of the Virgin Mary in the cathedral to make a statement against religious icons. It was accused of being a witch, and given a trial by water in the Daugava river. The statue floated, so it was denounced as a witch and burnt at Kubsberg. With the demise of the Livonian Order (1561) during
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#17328009328837800-417: The Riga City Council also voted to demolish the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders . On 20 May, a rally called "Getting Rid of Soviet Heritage" took place in Riga to call for removing Soviet monuments in Latvia, it was attended by approximately 5,000 people. The demolition began 22 August 2022 and on 25 August 2022, the obelisk was toppled. In 2022, after
7950-470: The Russian invasion of Ukraine , the street on which the Embassy of the Russian Federation is located was renamed "Independent Ukraine Street." Riga is one of the largest city in the three Baltic states : (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). Riga is home to approximately one tenth of the three Baltic countries' combined population. Riga's administrative divisions consist of six administrative entities: Central , Kurzeme and Northern districts and
8100-412: The Thirty Years' War not only for political and economic gain but also in favour of German Lutheran Protestantism . During the Russo-Swedish War (1656–1658) , Riga withstood a siege by Russian forces. Riga remained one of the largest cities under the Swedish crown until 1710, a period during which the city retained a great deal of autonomous self-government. In July 1701, during the opening phase of
8250-468: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, giving the Baltic countries to Germany. Because of the armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918, Germany had to renounce that treaty, as did Russia, leaving Latvia and the other Baltic States in a position to claim independence. Latvia, with Riga as its capital city, thus declared its independence on 18 November 1918. Between World War I and World War II (1918–1940), Riga and Latvia shifted their focus from Russia to
8400-476: 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
8550-507: 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
8700-404: The antisemitic Beilis trial of 1913. Suspects captured by the Okhrana were passed to the judicial system of the Russian Empire . The Okhrana was perpetually underfunded and understaffed; before 1914 it had just 49 employees split between seven offices and never had more than 2,000 informants at any one time. It never received more than 10% of the total police budget. Despite the reforms in
8850-450: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 the KGB split into the FSK (later reorganized into the FSB in 1995) and the SVR . Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of
9000-401: The fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which
9150-405: 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
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#17328009328839300-399: The Baltic, and despite demographic changes, the Baltic Germans in Riga had maintained a dominant position. By 1867, Riga's population was 42.9% German. Riga employed German as its official language of administration until the installation of Russian in 1891 as the official language in the Baltic provinces , as part of the policy of Russification of the non-Russian-speaking territories of
9450-412: 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
9600-441: The Bolsheviks at the expense of other revolutionaries, the Okhrana helped Roman Malinovsky (a police spy who had managed to rise within the Bolshevik hierarchy and gain Lenin's trust) in his bid to become a Bolshevik delegate to the Duma in 1912. To this end, the Okhrana sequestered Malinovsky's criminal record and arrested other candidates for the seat. According to the transcribed recollections of Nikolay Vladimirovich Veselago,
9750-662: The Bolsheviks sought to exploit to start a revolution, Zubatov hoped the unions would mollify factory workers with improvements in working conditions and thus prevent workers from joining revolutionary movements that threatened the monarchy. To this end, Zubatov set up the Moscow Mechanical Production Workers' Mutual Aid Society in May 1901. After Zubatov became head of the Special Section in 1902, he expanded his trade unions from Moscow to St. Petersburg and to Southern Russia. Zubatovite trade unions achieved moderate success at channeling workers' political agitations away from revolutionary movements and toward labor improvements, especially in
9900-422: The Department of Police were organized in 1906. The centralized Security Section of the Department of Police was created on February 9, 1907; it was located at 16, Fontanka, St. Petersburg. The exposure of Yevno Azef (who had organized many assassinations, including that of Plehve ) and Dmitri Bogrov (who assassinated Stolypin in 1911) as Okhrana double agents put the agency's methods under great suspicion;
10050-703: The Department of State Police under Ministry of the Interior (MVD) and transferred part of the Special Corps of Gendarmes and the Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery to the new body. The position of Chief of Gendarmes was merged with that of the Minister, and Commander of the Corps was assigned as a Deputy of the Minister. Still, these measures did not prevent the assassination of Alexander II in March 1881. In an attempt to implement preventive security measures, Emperor Alexander III ( r. 1881–1894 ) immediately set up two more Security and Investigation (охранно-розыскные) secret-police stations, supervised by Gendarme officers, in Moscow and Warsaw ; they became
10200-462: The Dom Cathedral, built St. James's Church , (now a cathedral) and founded a parochial school at the Church of St. George. In 1227, Albert conquered Oesel and the city of Riga concluded a treaty with the Principality of Smolensk giving Polotsk to Riga. Albert died in January 1229. He failed in his aspiration to be anointed archbishop but the German hegemony he established over the Livonia would last for seven centuries. In 1282, Riga became
10350-430: The European Union (UCEU). The precise origin of the name is unknown, however there are numerous and speculative theories for the origin of the name Riga : However, the most reliably documented explanation is the affirmation by German historian Dionysius Fabricius (1610) that Riga's name comes from its already established role in trade: "Riga obtained its name from the buildings or warehouses found in great number along
10500-477: The General Staff and of the Army . Just as the Okhrana had once sponsored trade unions to divert activist energy from political causes, so too did the secret police attempt to promote the Bolshevik party, as the Bolsheviks seemed a relatively harmless alternative to more violent revolutionary groups. Indeed, to the Okhrana, Lenin seemed to actively hinder the revolutionary movement by denouncing other revolutionary groups and refusing to cooperate with them. To aid
10650-409: 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,
10800-590: 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
10950-741: The KGB located at 61 Brīvības iela , known as 'the corner house', is now a museum. Stalin's deportations also included thousands of Latvian Jews. The mass deportation totalled 131,500 across the Baltics. During the Nazi occupation, the Jewish community was forced into the Riga Ghetto and a Nazi concentration camp was constructed in Kaiserwald . On 25 October 1941, the Nazis relocated all Jews from Riga and
11100-526: 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
11250-754: The Okhrana as a Russian security service included the Secret Prikaz ( Taynyy Prikaz [ ru ] ) (1654–1676), the Preobrazhensky Prikaz [ ru ] (1686–1726), the Secret Chancellery [ ru ] (1731–1762), the Secret Expedition [ ru ] (1762–1801), and the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (1826–1880). The first special security department
11400-451: The Okhrana had focused on interfering with the activities of relatively small, and distinct, revolutionary groups. The Revolution of 1905, characterized by seemingly spontaneous marches and strikes, exposed the Okhrana's inefficacy at controlling mass popular movements. Not only did the Okhrana lack the capacity to prevent the mass movements of 1905, or even to contain them once they began, the Okhrana's misguided attempts may even have worsened
11550-864: The Okhrana operated offices throughout the Russian Empire, as well as satellite agencies in a number of foreign countries. It concentrated on monitoring the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad, including in Paris , where Okhrana agent Pyotr Rachkovsky (1853–1910) was based 1884–1902 before he returned to service in Saint Petersburg 1905–1906. The Okhrana deployed multiple methods, including covert operations , undercover agents , and "perlustration" —the reading of private correspondence. The Okhrana's Foreign Agency also monitored revolutionary activity. The Okhrana became notorious for its agents provocateurs , including Jacob Zhitomirsky (born 1880,
11700-518: The Okhrana quickly and quietly disappeared. Some Okhrana functionaries continued their activities in the civil-war period (1917–1923) within the White Armies , notably in the OSVAG [ ru ] ( Russian : ОСВАГ – ОСВедомительное АГентство , romanized : OSVAG – OSVedomitel'noe AGentsvo , lit. 'Information Agency'). After the 1917 October Revolution ,
11850-481: The Okhrana's activities even contributed to the wave of domestic unrest and revolutionary terror that they were intended to quell. Perhaps most paradoxical of all was the Okhrana's collaboration with revolutionary organizations. Early Okhrana agents to work alongside revolutionaries included Lieutenant-Colonel Georgy Sudeykin of the St. Petersburg Special Section, who, in 1882, set up an illegal printing operation to publish
12000-429: The Okhrana's persistent focus on revolutionary groups may have resulted in the secret police not fully appreciating the deep-seated popular unrest brewing in Russia. The revolutionaries identified the Okhrana as one of the main symbols of Tsarist repression , and its headquarters were sacked and burned on 27 February 1917. The newly formed Provisional Government then disbanded the whole organization and released most of
12150-592: The Okhrana, the police were unprepared for the rise of Bolshevism in 1917. Although the secret police had agents within the Bolshevik organization, other factors contributed to the Okhrana's inefficacy at averting the events of 1917. Among these factors was the ban on police spies within the military promulgated by the Deputy Minister of the Interior Vladimir Dzhunkovsky , who found the practice dishonorable and damaging to morale. While
12300-627: The Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity list, takes places every five years. Riga hosted the biannual 2014 World Choir Games from 9 to 19 July 2014 which coincided with the city being named European Capital of Culture for 2014. The event, organised by the choral foundation, Interkultur , takes place at various host cities every two years and was originally known as the "Choir Olympics". The event regularly sees over 15,000 choristers in over 300 choirs from over 60 nations compete for gold, silver and bronze medals in over 20 categories. The competition
12450-587: The Russian Empire, including Congress Poland , Finland and the Baltics, undertaken by Tsar Alexander III . More and more Latvians started moving to the city during the mid-19th century. The rise of a Latvian bourgeoisie made Riga a centre of the Latvian National Awakening with the founding of the Riga Latvian Association in 1868 and the organisation of the first national song festival in 1873. The nationalist movement of
12600-807: 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
12750-458: 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
12900-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
13050-502: The Soviet forces invaded Latvia occupying bridges, post/telephone, telegraph, and broadcasting offices. Three days later, Latvian president Kārlis Ulmanis was forced to approve a pro-Soviet government which had taken office. On 14–15 July, rigged elections were held in Latvia and the other Baltic states, The ballots held the following instructions: "Only the list of the Latvian Working People's Bloc must be deposited in
13200-467: 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
13350-419: The ballot box. The ballot must be deposited without any changes." The alleged voter activity index was 97.6%. Most notably, the complete election results were published in Moscow 12 hours before the election closed. Soviet electoral documents found later substantiated that the results were completely fabricated. The Soviet authorities, having regained control over Riga and Latvia imposed a regime of terror, opening
13500-1193: The banks of the Duna, which the Livs in their own language are accustomed to call Riae". The "j" in Latvian rīja hardened to a "g" in German. English geographer Richard Hakluyt (1589) corroborates this account, calling Riga as Rie , as pronounced in Old Latvian. This is further supported by the fact that Riga is called Riia in Estonian (a language closely related to Livonian ). [REDACTED] Terra Mariana ( condominium of Archbishops of Riga and Livonian Order ) 1201–1561 [REDACTED] Imperial Free City 1561–1582 [REDACTED] Poland–Lithuania 1582–1629 [REDACTED] Swedish Empire 1629–1721 [REDACTED] Russian Empire 1721–1917 [REDACTED] German Empire 1917–1918 [REDACTED] Republic of Latvia 1918–1940 [REDACTED] Latvian SSR 1940–1941 [REDACTED] Nazi Germany 1941–1944 [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Latvian SSR 1944–1990 [REDACTED] Republic of Latvia 1990–present The river Daugava has been
13650-590: The basis of the later Okhrana. The Imperial Gendarmerie still operated as security police in the rest of the country through their Gubernial and Uyezd Directorates. The Emperor also established the Special Conference under the MVD (1881), which had the right to declare a State of Emergency Security in various parts of the Empire (which was actively used in the time of 1905 Revolution ) and subordinated all of
13800-480: The beginning of World War I in 1914 moved the Okhrana's attentions initially from countering revolutionaries to countering German espionage, the focus quickly shifted back as it emerged that the Germans were heavily funding Russian revolutionary groups in order to destabilize the Russian Empire. Despite the renewed attention, the Russian Revolution of 1917 took the secret police, and the country, by surprise. Indeed,
13950-403: 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
14100-539: The cities of Minsk and Odessa , with one high-ranking official noting that many revolutionaries and workers were joining the unions. However, Zubatov, if not police socialism, became discredited in the summer of 1903 after the Okhrana officer in charge of the Odessa union allowed a strike to get out of hand, causing a mass movement which paralyzed the region. Although the police-run unions continued to operate after Zubatov's ousting, without Okhrana funding, they proved more
14250-565: The city limits, is estimated at 860,142 (as of 2023). The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Baltic Sea . Riga's territory covers 307.17 km (118.60 sq mi) and lies 1–10 m (3–33 ft) above sea level on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201, and is a former Hanseatic League member. Riga's historical centre
14400-546: The conditions in which revolutionary movements could take hold by pursuing initiatives to curtail the activities of existing organizations. Yevno Azef , the notorious Okhrana provocateur who became the head of the Socialist Revolutionary Fighting Organization (SRFO), epitomized the Okhrana's inscrutable practice of revolutionary-group infiltration. While the Okhrana managed to imbed many of its agents in revolutionary organizations,
14550-522: The cornerstone for the Riga Dom . Riga was not yet secure as an alliance of tribes failed to take Riga. In 1212, Albert led a campaign to compel Polotsk to grant German merchants free river passage. Polotsk conceded Kukenois ( Koknese ) and Jersika to Albert, also ending the Livs' tribute to Polotsk. Riga's merchant citizenry chafed and sought greater autonomy from the Church. In 1221, they acquired
14700-646: The countries of Western Europe. The United Kingdom and Germany replaced Russia as Latvia's major trade partners. The majority of the Baltic Germans were resettled in late 1939 , prior to the occupation of Estonia and Latvia by the Soviet Union in June 1940. During World War II , Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940 and then was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941–1944 . On 17 June 1940,
14850-572: 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
15000-404: The early 19th century, the practice of torture was never truly abolished. Possibly, the formation of the Okhrana led to increasing use of torture, due to the Okhrana using methods such as arbitrary arrest , detention and torture to gain information. Claims persisted the Okhrana had operated torture chambers in places like Warsaw , Riga , Odessa and most of the urban centres. Forerunners of
15150-413: 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,
15300-456: 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
15450-717: The former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe ,
15600-631: 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
15750-480: 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
15900-796: The government of the RSFSR under Vladimir Lenin replaced the Okhrana with a Soviet security organisation – the much larger and more efficient Cheka in December 1917, supplemented by the GRU (military intelligence) from October–November 1918. The Cheka and its successor organizations (notably the GPU and the OGPU ) eventually became the KGB (1954–1991) after the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in March 1953. After
16050-464: The headquarters of the KGB , massive deportations started. Hundreds of men were arrested, including leaders of the former Latvian government. The most notorious deportation, the June deportation took place on 13 and 14 June 1941, estimated at 15,600 men, women, and children, and including 20% of Latvia's last legal government. Similar deportations were repeated after the end of World War II. The building of
16200-771: The imperial police forces to the Commander of the Gendarmes (1882). The rise of the socialist movements led to the integration of security forces. From 1898 the Special Section (Особый отдел) of the Department of Police succeeded the Gendarmes in the role of gaining information from domestic and foreign agents and " perlustration ". Following the Socialist-Revolutionary Party's assassination of MVD Minister Dmitry Sipyagin on April 2, 1902,
16350-416: The innovations of one Okhrana bureau chief, Sergey Zubatov . While P.I. Rachkovsky , as head of the Okhrana's Foreign Agency, had long ordered Okhrana agents to infiltrate and influence revolutionary movements abroad, Zubatov brought these tactics to a new level by setting up Okhrana-controlled trade unions, the foundation of police socialism. Perhaps recognizing the same discontent among factory workers that
16500-426: The large multi-storied housing blocks were built to house immigrant workers. By the end of World War II, Riga's historical centre was heavily damaged from constant bombing. After the war, huge efforts were made to reconstruct and renovate most of the famous buildings that had been part of the skyline of the city before the war. Such buildings were, amongst others, St. Peter's Church which lost its wooden tower after
16650-494: The most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as
16800-606: The new Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve gradually relieved the Directorates of Gendarmes of their investigation power in favor of Security and Investigation Stations (Охранно-розыскное отделение) under respective Mayors and Governors (who as a matter of fact were subordinate to the MVD Minister). The Okhrana used many seemingly unorthodox methods in the pursuit of its mission to defend the Tsarist monarchy; indeed, some of
16950-524: 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
17100-593: The offices of the Mayor and Vice Mayors were suspended and the council itself had been dissolved and replaced by an interim administration of representatives from three governmental ministries until snap elections were held in 2020. With 605,270 inhabitants in 2024 as according to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, Riga was one of the largest cities in the Baltic states , though its population has decreased from just over 900,000 in 1991 and
17250-576: The old town. Riga has a rich basketball history. In 1937, as the defending champions, in hosted the second edition of the EuroBasket tournament. In the 1950s, Rīgas ASK became the best club in the Soviet Union and also in Europe, winning the first three editions of the European Cup for Men's Champions Clubs from 1958 to 1960. In 1960, ASK was not the only team from Riga to take the European crown. TTT Riga clinched their first title in
17400-528: The organisation was further compromised by the discovery of many similar double agents -provocateur. In Autumn 1913, all of the Security Stations except the original Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw ones were dismissed. The start of World War I in 1914 marked a shift from anti-revolutionary activities of the Department of Police to counter-intelligence ; however, the efforts of the department were poorly synchronised with counter-intelligence units of
17550-515: 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
17700-461: 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,
17850-446: 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
18000-453: 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
18150-566: The percentage of Russians fell from 47.3% to 35.7% in the same time period. In 2022 citizens of Latvia made up 79.0%, non-citizens 15.3% and citizens of other countries 5.6% of the population of Riga. Riga is one of the key economic and financial centres of the Baltic states . Roughly half of all the jobs in Latvia are in Riga and the city generates more than 50% of Latvia's GDP as well as around half of Latvia's exports. The biggest exporters are in wood products, IT, food and beverage manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, transport and metallurgy. Riga Port
18300-678: The period from 1857 its population grew from 282,000 (256,200 in Riga itself and another 26,200 inhabitants beyond the city limits in the patrimonial district and military town of Ust-Dvinsk ) to 472,100 in 1913. The middle class of Riga used their acquired wealth to build imposing apartment blocks outside the former city walls . Local architects, mostly graduates of Riga Technical University , adopted current European movements and in particular Art Nouveau. Between 1910 and 1913, between 300 and 500 new buildings were built each year in Riga, many of them in Art Nouveau style and most of them outside
18450-498: The police preferred to slowly gather intelligence and to attempt to interfere with revolutionary work surreptitiously rather than to arrest known revolutionaries immediately. This policy led to numerous dubious acts on the part of police spies, who needed to participate in revolutionary activities to avoid suspicion, as when Yevno Azef, as head of the SRFO, ordered the assassination of V. K. Plehve on July 15, 1904. For over twenty years,
18600-511: The political police feared that the Russian people were as eager to destroy them as to depose the Emperor. Following the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution and assassination of Plehve, Pyotr Stolypin , as the new MVD Minister and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, set up a nationwide net of Security Stations. By 1908 there were 31 Stations, and more than 60 by 1911. Two more Special Sections of
18750-408: The political prisoners held by the Tsarist regime. Revelations of the Okhrana's earlier abuses heightened public hostility towards the secret police after the 1917 February Revolution and made it very dangerous to be a political policeman. That fact, along with the St. Petersburg Soviet 's insistence on the dissolution of the regular Tsarist police force, as well as of the political police, meant that
18900-459: 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
19050-475: The population of Vilnius has just outnumbered that of Riga. Notable causes include emigration and low birth rates . According to the 2022 data, ethnic Latvians made up 47.4% of the population of Riga. Russians formed 35.7%, Belarusians 3.6%, Ukrainians 3.5%, Poles 1.7%, other ethnicities consisted 8.2%. By comparison, 63.0% of Latvia's total population was ethnically Latvian, 24.2% Russian, 3.1% Belarusian, 2.2% Ukrainian, 1.9% Polish, 1.1% are Lithuanian and
19200-418: 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
19350-479: 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
19500-472: 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 ,
19650-491: 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
19800-402: The rest of other origins. Upon the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991 , Soviet-era immigrants (and any of their offspring born before 1991) were not automatically granted Latvian citizenship because they had migrated to the territory of Latvia during the years of Soviet occupation . The proportion of ethnic Latvians in Riga increased from 36.5% in 1989 to 47.4% in 2022. In contrast,
19950-519: The revolutionary People's Will literature with Okhrana funds. Sudeykin and his colleague, a revolutionary-turned-police-informant named Sergey Degayev , passed drafts of the publication through Okhrana censors before printing. This episode marked the beginning of the Okhrana's efforts to surreptitiously observe, but also influence and undermine, revolutionary movements. This focus on infiltrating and influencing revolutionary groups, rather than merely identifying and arresting their members, intensified with
20100-657: The right to independently self-administer Riga and adopted a city constitution. That same year Albert was compelled to recognise Danish rule over lands they had conquered in Estonia and Livonia. Albert had sought the aid of King Valdemar of Denmark to protect Riga and Livonian lands against Liv insurrection when reinforcements could not reach Riga. The Danes landed in Livonia, built a fortress at Reval ( Tallinn ) and set about conquering Estonian and Livonian lands. The Germans attempted, but failed, to assassinate Valdemar. Albert
20250-656: The seat of the Livonian bishopric from Uexküll to Riga, extorting agreement to do this from the elders of Riga by force. The year 1201 also marked the first arrival of German merchants in Novgorod, via the Dvina. To defend territory and trade, Albert established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, which was open to nobles and merchants. The Christianisation of the Livs continued. In 1207, Albert started to fortify
20400-679: 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
20550-459: 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
20700-606: The temperature on the hottest days can exceed 30 °C (86 °F). The head of the city government in Riga is the mayor, or officially the Chairman of the Riga City Council. The mayor is elected by the city council. He or she is assisted by one or more Vice Mayors (deputy mayors). The current mayor is Vilnis Ķirsis , who was elected on 17 August 2023 from New Unity , with support from "Coalition for Cooperation", consisting of New Unity , National Alliance/Latvian Regional Alliance (NA/LRA) , Code for Riga, Honor to server Riga and For Latvia's Development factions. The city council
20850-633: The town. King Philip invested Albert with Livonia as a fief and principality of the Holy Roman Empire . To promote a permanent military presence, territorial ownership was divided between the Church and the Order , with the Church taking Riga and two-thirds of all lands conquered and granting the Order a third. Until then, it had been customary for crusaders to serve for a year and then return home. Albert had ensured Riga's commercial future by obtaining papal bulls which decreed that all German merchants had to carry on their Baltic trade through Riga. In 1211, Riga minted its first coinage, and Albert laid
21000-786: 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
21150-583: The unrest. D. F. Trepov , the Assistant Minister of the Interior in charge of police affairs, and P. I. Rachkovsky, now in charge of all domestic political-police operations, attempted to mount an aggressive offensive against those they believed to be responsible for the unrest, namely zemstvo employees, in May 1905, but backed down three months later. In October of that year, Trepov again attempted
21300-454: 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
21450-461: The vicinity to the ghetto. Most of Latvia's Jews (about 24,000) were killed on 30 November and 8 December 1941 in the Rumbula massacre . By the end of the war, the remaining Baltic Germans were expelled to Germany . The Soviet Red Army reconquered Riga on 13 October 1944. In the following years the massive influx of labourers, administrators, military personnel, and their dependents from Russia and other Soviet republics started. Microdistricts of
21600-448: Was able to reach an accommodation with them a year later, however, and in 1222 Valdemar returned all Livonian lands and possessions to Albert's control. Albert's difficulties with Riga's citizenry continued; with papal intervention, a settlement was reached in 1225 whereby they no longer had to pay tax to the Bishop of Riga, and Riga's citizens acquired the right to elect their magistrates and town councillors. In 1226, Albert consecrated
21750-405: 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
21900-421: 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
22050-443: Was made the capital of the Governorate of Riga (later, Livonia) . Sweden's northern dominance had ended, and Russia's emergence as the strongest Northern power was formalised through the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. At the beginning of the 20th century Riga was the largest timber export port in the Russian Empire and ranked the 3rd according to the external trade volume. During these many centuries of war and changes of power in
22200-411: Was the European Capital of Culture in 2014. During Latvia's Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2015, the 4th Eastern Partnership Summit took place in Riga. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , the Saeima voted to suspend the functioning of a section of an agreement between Latvia and Russia regarding the preservation of memorial structures on 12 May, in the next day
22350-427: Was the Department on Protecting the Order and Public Peace under the Head of St. Petersburg , set up in 1866 after a failed assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander II , with a staff of 12 investigators. Its street address, Fontanka , 16, was publicly known in the Russian Empire. After another failed assassination attempt, on August 6, 1880, the Emperor, acting on proposals made by Count Loris-Melikov , established
22500-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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