Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
16
Calendar Confusion
Russia used the Julian calendar until February 1918, well after the rest of Europe
switched to the Gregorian calendar, which at that point was 13 days ahead.
When the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace, it was still October 1917 in Rus-
sia but was already November in the rest of Europe; hence, for the next 7
decades, the Soviets celebrated “Great October Revolution Day” on November 7.
The Russian Orthodox calendar ignored the switch, and Russians still celebrate
Christmas on January 7 instead of December 25. Some also celebrate the “Old”
New Year on January 13 and 14, as well as the traditional New Year's bash on
December 31 and January 1.
increasingly conservative and suspicious
of opposition in his later years; he was
assassinated in 1881 by anarchists. The
next 2 decades were marred by a series of
pogroms against Russia's substantial and
influential Jewish population; Jews were
massacred and their property was seized.
Since Catherine the Great's time, Jews
other than select professionals were ban-
ished from St. Petersburg and elsewhere in
the empire to the Pale of Settlement, a
swath of land in what is now Poland,
Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and western
Russia.
Alexander II's grandson Nicholas II—
the last of the Romanov czars—assumed
the throne in 1894 with few plans for
reform. From 1904 to 1905, Russia fought
a war with Japan over territory in the Far
East, which left the czarist navies humili-
ated and laid bare the weaknesses of the
imperial government. Nicholas stifled an
uprising of striking workers in January
1905 on what is known as Russia's Bloody
Sunday. Under increasing pressure from
the population and his court, the czar
allowed the creation of a limited parlia-
ment, Russia's first ever, elected in 1906.
All this was setting the stage for 1917.
Fighting the Germans in World War I had
further weakened Nicholas's shaky hold on
the country, and with revolution in the air,
he abdicated in February 1917. An aristo-
crat-led provisional government jockeyed
for power with the revolutionary parties of
Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Lenin's
more extremist Bolshevik Party, claiming
support among exploited workers and
2
■
1999
Russian army reenters
Chechnya and remains there
today.
■
Dec. 31, 1999
Yeltsin unex-
pectedly resigns, appointing
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
his successor.
■
2000
Putin easily wins elec-
tion.
■
2004
Putin easily wins
reelection.
■
2006
Critical journalist Anna
Politkovskaya and former
spy Alexander Litvinenko
killed, casting shadow on
Putin's Kremlin.
■
2008
Elections for successor
to Putin.
