Planet Russia

Planet Rus

Welcome to Planet Rus!

There are over 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples in Russia. Ethnic Russians with their Slavic Orthodox culture, Tatars and Bashkirs with their Turkic Muslim culture, Buddhist nomadic Buryats and Kalmyks, Shamanistic peoples of the Far North and Siberia, highlanders of the Northern Caucasus, Finno-Ugric peoples of the Russian North West and Volga Region all contribute to diverse and rich culture of Russia. The ethnic culture is preserved in various museums and ethno-parks, reproduced in cuisine, architecture, cinema and arts, and developed by folk bands, dance ensembles and choirs.

  Space Race

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched 'Sputnik 1 into space, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, thus beginning the Space Race and making the USSR the first space power. Sputnik 1 was the size of a large beachball, weighed more than 80 kg and orbited the Earth for more than two months.


A month later in 1957, the USSR successfully orbited Sputnik 2, with the first living passenger, a dog named Laika. The success of Sputnik created the "Sputnik Crisis" in the USA. Fruit flies launched by the United States on captured German V-2 rockets in 1946 became the first reported animals sent into space.

In the Soviet Union, a country recovering from a devastating war, the launch of Sputnik and the following program of space exploration were met with great encouragement for Soviet citizens to see their technical prowess in the new era.

 
 

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space when he entered orbit in the Soviet Union's Vostok on April 12, 1961. He orbited the Earth for 108 minutes. The lead architects behind the Vostok 1 mission were the Soviet rocket scientists Sergey Korolyov and Kerim Kerimov.

Twenty-three days later, on sub-orbital mission Freedom 7, Alan Shepard entered space for the United States.
On 20 February 1962 John Glenn became the first American to successfully orbit Earth, completing three orbits in Friendship 7. The first dual-manned flights also originated in the Soviet Union, on 11 August - 15 August 1962. Soviet Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on 16 June 1963 in Vostok 6. Sergei Korolev, the Soviet Space Agency's chief designer, had initially scheduled further Vostok missions of longer duration, but following the announcement of the Apollo program, Premier Khrushchev demanded more firsts. The first flight with more than one crew member was the Soviet Union's Voskhod 1, a modified version of the Vostok craft, took off on 12 October 1964 carrying Komarov, Feoktistov, and Yegorov. This flight also marked the first occasion on which a crew did not wear spacesuits. Alexey Leonov, from Voskhod 2, launched by the Soviet Union on 18 March 1965, carried out the first spacewalk. This mission nearly ended in disaster; Leonov had difficulty reentering the capsule, and because of a poor retrorocket fire, the ship landed 1,600 kilometers (1,000 mi) off target. By this time Khrushchev had left office, and the new Soviet leadership would not commit to an all-out lunar landing effort. In December 1968, the United States became the front runner in the Space Race when James Lovell, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders orbited the moon. In doing so, they also became the first humans to celebrate Christmas in space, and a few days later they safely splashed down.

While unmanned Soviet probes had reached the Moon before any U.S. craft, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the lunar surface on 21 July 1969, after landing the previous day. Commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong received backup from command-module pilot Michael Collins and lunar-module pilot Buzz Aldrin in an event watched by over 500 million people around the world. Social commentators widely recognize the lunar landing as one of the defining moments of the 20th century, and Armstrong's words on his first touching the Moon's surface became similarly memorable:
“ That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. ”

  Traditions- New and Old

Ever since Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, in a symbolic way, we have lived on Planet Russia. We live on a finite planet were walls only exist in our minds.

Traditional Cuisine

Preparation of pelmeni, a common Russian dish of Tatar origin (the word itself is from Komi and Mansi languages). Khokhloma handicraft is seen on the background.

Russian cuisine widely uses fish, poultry, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provide the ingredients for a plethora of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer, and vodka. Black bread is relatively more popular in Russia if compared with the rest of the world. Flavourful soups and stews include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka and okroshka.

Smetana (a heavy sour cream) is often added to soups and salads. Pirozhki, blini and syrniki are native types of pankakes. Cutlets (like Chicken Kiev), pelmeni and shashlyk are popular meat dishes, the last two being of Tatar and Caucasus origin respectively. Popular salads include Russian salad, vinaigrette and Dressed Herring.

Traditions

Russians have many traditions, most prominent being the washing in banya, a hot steam bath somewhat similar to sauna. Old Russian folklore takes its roots in the pagan beliefs of ancient Slavs and now is represented in the Russian fairy tales. Epic Russian bylinas are another important part of Slavic mythology. The oldest bylinas of Kievan cycle were actually recorded mostly in the Russian North, especially in Karelia, where most of the Finnish national epic Kalevala was recorded as well.
Russian Venus by Boris Kustodiev, shows a girl with birch twigs in a rural banya.
Bogatyrs by Viktor Vasnetsov. The three epic heroes of Russian mythology: (l-r) Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets and Alyosha Popovich.

Folk Music

Russia's large number of ethnic groups have distinctive traditions of folk music. Typical ethnic Russian musical instruments are gusli, balalaika, zhaleika and garmoshka. Folk music had great influence on the Russian classical composers, and in modern times it is a source of inspiration for a number of popular folk bands, most prominent being Melnitsa. Russian folk songs, as well as patriotic songs of the Soviet era, constitute the bulk of repertoire of the world-renown Red Army choir and other popular Russian ensembles.

Architecture

Traditional Russian architecture, primarily from wood, is at best represented in wooden churches and country homes (daschas). Russian traditional wooden dwelling is izba, while the early type of fortified settlements is known as kremlin. Usually constructed with thick walls of brick or stone. .