Word: novgorod
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Novgorod, one of the oldest Russian cities, was settled by Slavic tribes about A.D. 100. Over the centuries it was attacked by Swedes, Livonians, Lithuanians and Norwegians. Still, few other cities preserved so many ancient churches and frescoes. Its architecture, dating from the llth to 15th centuries, is simple and even severe, characterized by perpendicular lines, lack of ornament and few windows. In World War II, Novgorod was once again attacked by foreign forces, this time the Germans, whose destruction was perhaps greater than any before. The Soviet government commissioned Shchusev, the architect who designed the Lenin Mausoleum, to plan...
...tough kid from the Volga town of Nizhni Novgorod-it now bears his name-Gorky worked the river steamboats, reading Tom Jones even as he learned to steal. He hung out with gypsies, slung bales with stevedores, worked with men who toiled "like blind worms" in a basement bakery. "I saw that life was crisscrossed with theft," he wrote, "like an old coat with grey threads." Nothing worked right: even when he tried suicide, he succeeded only in shooting himself through the lung...