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🔗 Russia 🔗 Architecture 🔗 Russia/politics and law of Russia 🔗 Russia/history of Russia 🔗 Russia/visual arts in Russia

The Amber Room (Russian: Янтарная комната, romanized: Yantarnaya Komnata, German: Bernsteinzimmer) was a chamber decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors, located in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg.

Constructed in the 18th century in Prussia, the room was dismantled and eventually disappeared during World War II. Before its loss, it was considered an "Eighth Wonder of the World". A reconstruction was made, starting in 1979 and completed and installed in the Catherine Palace in 2003.

The Amber Room was intended in 1701 for the Charlottenburg Palace, in Berlin, Prussia, but was eventually installed at the Berlin City Palace. It was designed by German baroque sculptor Andreas Schlüter and Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram. Schlüter and Wolfram worked on the room until 1707, when work was continued by amber masters Gottfried Turau and Ernst Schacht from Danzig (Gdańsk).

It remained in Berlin until 1716, when it was given by the Prussian King Frederick William I to his ally Tsar Peter the Great of the Russian Empire. In Russia, the room was installed in the Catherine Palace. After expansion and several renovations, it covered more than 55 square metres (590 ft²) and contained over 6 tonnes (13,000 lb) of amber.

The Amber Room was looted during World War II by the Army Group North of Nazi Germany, and taken to Königsberg for reconstruction and display. Some time in early 1944, with Allied forces closing in on Germany, the room was disassembled and crated for storage in the Castle basement. Königsberg was destroyed by Allied bombers in August 1944 and documentation of the room location ends there. Its eventual fate and current whereabouts, if it survives, remain a mystery. In 1979, the decision was taken to create a reconstructed Amber Room at the Catherine Palace in Pushkin. After decades of work by Russian craftsmen and donations from Germany, it was completed and inaugurated in 2003.

🔗 History of Science 🔗 Sweden

Ytterby (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈʏ̂tːɛrˌbyː]) is a village on the Swedish island of Resarö, in Vaxholm Municipality in the Stockholm archipelago. Today the residential area is dominated by suburban homes.

The Swedish name of the village translates literally into "outer village". Ytterby is the single richest source of elemental discoveries in the world; the chemical elements yttrium (Y), terbium (Tb), erbium (Er), and ytterbium (Yb) are all named after Ytterby, and the elements holmium (Ho), scandium (Sc), thulium (Tm), tantalum (Ta), and gadolinium (Gd) were also first discovered there.

Local roads connect Ytterby to county road 274 and hence the mainland. Except for the winter months, passenger ships of the Waxholmsbolaget call at a pier in Ytterby, providing a connection to Vaxholm town and Stockholm. Ytterby is as well served by several local bus lines of the north east SL district, connecting the area directly to Stockholms Östra station.

🔗 Human rights 🔗 Russia 🔗 Death 🔗 Iran 🔗 Discrimination 🔗 Turkey 🔗 Ethnic groups 🔗 Russia/politics and law of Russia 🔗 Russia/history of Russia 🔗 Caucasia 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography 🔗 Abkhazia

The Circassian genocide, or Tsitsekun, was the systematic mass killing, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement of between 95% and 97% of the Circassian people during the final stages of the Russian invasion of Circassia in the 19th century. It resulted in the deaths of between 1,000,000 and 1.5 million and the destruction of Circassia, which was then annexed by the Russian Empire. Those planned for extermination were mainly the Circassians, who are predominantly Muslims, but other ethnic groups in the Caucasus were also affected, as part of the Caucasian War. The Imperial Russian Army also impaled their victims and tore open the bellies of pregnant women to intimidate the Circassians and devastate their morale. Many Russian generals, such as Grigory Zass, described the Circassians as a "lowly race" to justify and glorify their wholesale slaughter and their use as human test subjects in unethical scientific experiments. Russian soldiers were also permitted to rape Circassian women.

The native Circassian population was largely decimated or expelled to the Ottoman Empire. Only those who accepted Russification and made agreements with Russian troops, were spared. Starvation was used as a tool of war against Circassian villages, many of which were subsequently burned down. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy reported that Russian soldiers attacked village houses at night. British diplomat Gifford Palgrave, stated that "their only crime was not being Russian." Seeking military intervention against Russia, Circassian officials sent "A Petition from Circassian leaders to Her Majesty Queen Victoria" in 1864, but were unsuccessful in their attempt to solicit aid from the British Empire. That same year, the Imperial Russian Army launched a campaign of mass deportation of Circassia's surviving population. By 1867, a large portion of the Circassians were expelled. Many died from epidemics or starvation. Some were reportedly eaten by dogs after their death, while others died when their ships sank during storms of black sea.

Most sources state that as little as 3% of Circassia's population remained after the genocide and that as many as 1.5 million people were forced to flee in total, though only around half of them survived the journey. Ottoman archives show the intake of more than a million immigrants from the Caucasus by 1879, with nearly half of them having been found dying on the shores of the Black Sea as a result of disease. Presuming that these statistics are accurate, Russia's military campaign in Circassia constitutes the single largest genocide of the 19th century. Russian records, in confirmation of the Ottoman archives, documented the presence of only 106,798 Circassians in the Caucasus on the approach to the 20th century. Other estimates by Russian historiographers are even lower, ranging from 40,400 to 65,900. The Russian Empire census, conducted in 1897, reported the presence of 150,000 Circassians in the conquered region.

Classified Russian Imperial archives in Georgia were opened to historians by the Georgian government, which revealed previously unknown information regarding Russian actions. Following this, on May 20, 2011, Georgia formally recognized the Circassian genocide. Ukraine recognized the Circassian genocide on 9 January 2025, following Circassian appeals in June 2024. The city of Wayne, New Jersey in the United States and the East Turkistan Exile Government have also officially recognized the Circassian genocide. On February 7, 1992, the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic decided to condemn the Circassian Genocide. On May 12, 1994, the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria and on April 29, 1996, the Republic of Adygea submitted applications to the State Duma of the Russian Federation for the recognition of the Circassian Genocide. In October 2006, 20+ Circassian associations appealed to the European Parliament to recognize the Circassian Genocide. In November 2006, Circassian associations in the Republics of Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia appealed to Russian president Vladimir Putin to recognize the Circassian Genocide. The Russian Federation classifies the events in Circassia as a mass migration (Russian: Черкесское мухаджирство, lit. 'Circassian migrationism') and denies that a genocide took place. 21 May is observed annually as the Circassian Day of Mourning, which consists of ceremonies and marches in memory of the victims and, sometimes, protests against the Russian government. Today, the Circassian diaspora is primarily concentrated in Turkey and Jordan, with some 750,000 living in Russia's North Caucasus Economic Region.

🔗 Sweden

The Old Stockholm telephone tower (Swedish: Telefontornet) was a metallic structure built to connect approximately 5,500 telephone lines in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Constructed in 1887, the tower was used until 1913. It was damaged by a fire in 1952 and demolished the following year.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Greece 🔗 Philosophy/Ancient philosophy

A sophist (Greek: σοφιστής, romanized: sophistēs) was a professional travelling teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, mathematics, and arete: "virtue" or "excellence". The sophists sold their tutoring expertise predominantly to young statesmen and nobility. Certain sophists are regarded as philosophers in their own right. The first credited sophist, Protagoras, argued that "man is the measure of all things", and he controversially would strive to "make the weaker argument the stronger".

The arts of the sophists were known as sophistry and gained a negative reputation as arbitrary, inauthentic, or deceptive styles of reasoning, beginning with the notable philosophers of Classical Athens who criticized sophists for valuing artistic speech or cleverness in debate over a genuine pursuit of truth and knowledge. Thus, in modern usage, sophism, sophist, and sophistry are used disparagingly. Sophistry, or a sophism, is a fallacious argument, especially one used deliberately to deceive. Today, a sophist is a person who reasons with clever but deceptive or intellectually dishonest arguments.

 submit these nine theses to Wikipedia’s community and to the world. I do this, as Martin Luther said when he posted his famous 95 theses, “Out of love for the truth and the desire to elucidate it.”

A quarter of a century ago, Jimmy Wales’ company Bomis hired me to start a free encyclopedia. The first draft, from which we learned much, was Nupedia—it made slow progress. So, a year later, on January 2, 2001, when a friend told me about wikis, I immediately began imagining a wiki encyclopedia. I proposed it to Jimmy, then CEO of Bomis. He agreed and installed the software, and I went to work getting things ready. After I named it, we launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001, and just nine days later, I was able to write, “Wikipedia has definitely taken on a life of its own; new people are arriving every day and the project seems to be getting only more popular. Long live Wikipedia!”

The title I claimed at the time was “chief instigator.” My daily leadership for the 14 months after that was essential to transforming a completely empty, blank wiki into what would soon become the largest written resource in the history of the world. I was responsible for several policies that were and are fundamental to the project: the exclusive focus on an encyclopedia; neutrality; “no original research”; “be bold”; aspects of the verifiability policy; and other things. I even proposed the tongue-in-cheek “rule” to “ignore all rules.” For more, see this page on my role in Wikipedia, my Slashdot memoir, and my book, Essays on Free Knowledge. I say these things not to brag but to show why my proposals deserve a careful hearing.

I carefully chose and worded the following nine theses to appeal to the universal concern for truth and justice. I have worked for many months on this project. I am confident that every thesis stands on solid ground. Some Wikipedians, wedded to the current system, might be inclined to reject them; but many others, as well as the broader world, will be able to see that they are quite reasonable. I hope that the Wikipedia community will do the necessary introspection and find ways to make these proposals a reality. I also hope the broader world will join the discussion on each point and press Wikipedia’s leadership as well as rank-and-file editors to adopt them, for the good of all.

Please note that there are nine lengthy essays to go with the nine theses.

🔗 Fungi 🔗 Plants

A mycorrhizal network (also known as a common mycorrhizal network or CMN) is an underground network found in forests and other plant communities, created by the hyphae of mycorrhizal fungi joining with plant roots. This network connects individual plants together. Mycorrhizal relationships are most commonly mutualistic, with both partners benefiting, but can be commensal or parasitic, and a single partnership may change between any of the three types of symbiosis at different times. Mycorrhizal networks were discovered in 1997 by Suzanne Simard, professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Simard grew up in Canadian forests where her family had made a living as foresters for generations. Her field studies revealed that trees are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain. In one study, Simard watched as a Douglas fir that had been injured by insects appeared to send chemical warning signals to a ponderosa pine growing nearby. The pine tree then produced defense enzymes to protect against the insect.

The formation and nature of these networks is context-dependent, and can be influenced by factors such as soil fertility, resource availability, host or mycosymbiont genotype, disturbance and seasonal variation. Some plant species, such as buckhorn plantain, a common lawn and agricultural weed, benefit from mycorrhizal relationships in conditions of low soil fertility, but are harmed in higher soil fertility. Both plants and fungi associate with multiple symbiotic partners at once, and both plants and fungi are capable of preferentially allocating resources to one partner over another.

Mycorrhizal associations have profoundly impacted the evolution of plant life on Earth ever since the initial adaptation of plant life to land. In evolutionary biology, mycorrhizal symbiosis has prompted inquiries into the possibility that symbiosis, not competition, is the main driver of evolution.

Referencing an analogous function served by the World Wide Web in human communities, the many roles that mycorrhizal networks appear to play in woodland have earned them a colloquial nickname: the "Wood Wide Web". Many of the claims made about common mycorrhizal networks, including that they are ubiquitous in forests, that resources are transferred between plants through them, and that they are used to transfer warnings between trees, have been criticised as being not strongly supported by evidence.

🔗 Books 🔗 Skepticism

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1995 book by the astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan. (Four of the 25 chapters were written with Ann Druyan.) In it, Sagan aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking. He explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking and should stand up to rigorous questioning.

🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Cold War 🔗 Cold War 🔗 Military history/Russian, Soviet and CIS military history

On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early-warning radar of the Soviet Union reported the launch of one intercontinental ballistic missile with four more missiles behind it, from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were suspected to be false alarms by Stanislav Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces on duty at the command center of the early-warning system. He decided to wait for corroborating evidence—of which none arrived—rather than immediately relaying the warning up the chain-of-command. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack against the United States and its NATO allies, which would likely have resulted in an escalation to a full-scale nuclear war. Investigation of the satellite warning system later determined that the system had indeed malfunctioned.

🔗 Languages 🔗 Argentina 🔗 Wales

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh: Cymraeg y Wladfa) is a variety of the Welsh language spoken in the Patagonia region's Y Wladfa, Welsh settlements located in Chubut Province, Argentina. Though Patagonian Welsh is distinct from the several dialects used in Wales itself, the dialects have a high degree of mutual intelligibility, and speakers from Wales and Patagonia are able to communicate readily. Numerous toponyms throughout the Chubut Valley are of Welsh origin.

Teachers are sent from Wales to teach the language and to train local tutors in the Welsh language. There is some prestige in knowing the language, even among those not of Welsh descent. Welsh education and projects are mainly funded by the Welsh Government, British Council, Cardiff University and the Welsh–Argentine Association. In 2005, there were 62 Welsh classes in the area and Welsh was taught as a subject in two primary schools and two colleges in the region of Gaiman. There is also a bilingual Welsh–Spanish language school called Ysgol yr Hendre situated in Trelew, and a college located in Esquel. In 2016, there were three bilingual Welsh–Spanish primary schools in Patagonia.

In 2024–25, the number of registered learners—encompassing students in schools and adult programs—reached 1106, a significant increase from 623 in 2020.

The formal Eisteddfod poetry competitions have been revived, and are now bilingual in Welsh and Spanish.