121-1:

In December 1956, just a month after the Soviet Union had crushed a Hungarian revolt in Budapest, the two nations’ teams met in a brutal match at the Melbourne Games that came to be known as the “Blood on the Water” game. Officials ended it before time expired when a Soviet player punched Zador.

The Hungarians were leading, 4-0, with a minute left in the game when Zador heard a whistle. He looked at the other end of the pool, toward the referee, making the mistake of taking his eye off the man guarding him. In that instant, the Russian player rose out of the water and punched Zador in the eye. Irate Hungarian fans spilled out of the stands and crowded around the pool deck, haranguing and threatening the Russian players. The referee called the game to prevent a brawl. As police escorted the Russians to their locker room, Zador was sent to the first aid center, where he received eight stitches. His eye was so swollen he had to watch from the pool deck as Hungary defeated Yugoslavia, 2-1, in the championship game.
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14575260

121-1:

THERE WERE NO GAYS IN THE USSR:

In 1953 the East German government defended the traditional family and homosexuality was regarded as contrary to “healthy habits of workers.”

This agenda was pursued using the existing Article 175 of the penal code, which had been applied under the Nazis. While there had been no law against sodomy in the USSR, such a law was introduced in 1933, added to the penal code as Article 121, which condemned homosexual relations with penalties of imprisonment up to five years. With the fall of the Soviet regime and the repeal of the law against sex between consenting adult men, prisoners convicted under that part of the law were released very slowly.

(above: Yaroslavl, 1950’s)

Nicholas II in the gowns of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich at the 1903 Winter Palace Ball.

(Bron: relishinrussia, via easterneuropa-deactivated201303)

zolotoivek:

Viktor Deni & Nikolai Dolgorukov - The Metro is Complete!, 1935

Painting by Virgilius Eriksen

jaded-mandarin:

Catherine the Great in her Coronation Robe, 1778-1779 (detail).

(via artdetails)

Russian royal family, 1914

Photo shows members of the Romanovs, the last royal family of Russia including: seated (left to right) Marie, Queen Alexandra, Czar Nicholas II, Anastasia, Alexei (front), and standing (left to right), Olga and Tatiana.

Ilya Repin: Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday, November 16, 1581, 1870–1873 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

Anna of Russia or Anna Ivanovna (Russian: Анна Ивановна) (7 February [O.S. 28 January] 1693, Moscow – 28 October [O.S. 17 October] 1740) reigned as Duchess of Courland from 1711 to 1730 and as Empress of Russia from 1730 to 1740.

[…]

As one of her first acts to consolidate this power she restored the security police,which she used to intimidate and terrorize those who opposed her and her policies. Although she did not move the capital back to Moscow, she spent most of her time at that city in the company of her foolish and ignorant maids. Anna loved cruel jokes. She had fire bells rung throughout St Petersburg just to see the panic. She had Prince Nikita Volkonski feed her dog with cream; his wife fed lettuce to her rabbit with her teeth. Volkonski would be forced to ‘marry’ Prince Galitzine; they had to dress as birds, sit in a straw basket outside Anna’s bedroom, and squawk. Finding delight in humiliating old nobility, she arranged the marriage of old Prince Galitzine, who had incurred her displeasure by marrying an Italian Catholic, with one of her maids (after the death of his first wife), an elderly Kalmyk called Avdotaya Ivanovna. The couple were presented with a fleet of carriages, each carrying a member of one of the empires races, each pulled by a different farm animal. The couple had to ride an elephant. Anna dressed them as clowns, and had them spend their wedding night naked in a specially constructed ice palace during the exceptionally harsh winter of 1739–40. This palace was 80 feet long, 30 feet high and 23 feet deep. It even had a stove. It cost 30,000 roubles and came with a bed, clock, Cupid, elephant, dolphins, cannon trees and plants: all were made of ice. The dolphins squirted naptha and the elephant squirted water. Somehow the couple survived their wedding night.

[…]

Anna was famed for her big cheek, “which, as shown in her portraits”, Carlyle says, “was comparable to a Westphalian ham”