Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) rue, common name for various members of the family Rutaceae, a large group of plants distributed throughout temperate and tropical regions and most abundant in S Africa and Australia. Most species are...

(Encyclopedia) Gulag, system of forced-labor prison camps in the USSR, from the Russian acronym [GULag] for the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps, a department of the Soviet secret police (originally the Ch...

(Encyclopedia) exile, removal of a national from his or her country, or the civilized parts of it, for a long period of time or for life. Exile may be a forceful expulsion by the government or a voluntary removal by...

(Encyclopedia) Russian Far East, formerly Soviet Far East, federal district (1989 est. pop. 7,941,000), c.2,400,000 sq mi (6,216,000 sq km), encompassing the entire northeast coast of Asia and including the Sakha Re...

(Encyclopedia) Trotsky, Leon trŏtˈskē, Rus. lāˈən trôtˈskē [key], 1879–1940, Russian Communist revolutionary, one of the principal leaders in the establishment of the USSR; his original name was Lev David...

(Encyclopedia) Cossacks kŏsˈăks, –əks [key], Rus. Kazaki, Ukr. Kozaky, peasant-soldiers in Ukraine and in several regions of Russia who, until 1918, held certain privileges in return for rendering military ser...

(Encyclopedia) Bering Sea, c.878,000 sq mi (2,274,020 sq km), northward extension of the Pacific Ocean between Siberia and Alaska. It is screened from the Pacific proper by the Aleutian Islands. The Bering Strait co...

(Encyclopedia) Ordovician period ôrdəvĭshˈən [key] [from the Ordovices, ancient tribe of N Wales], second period of the Paleozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table) fr...

(Encyclopedia) Volgograd vôlgəgrätˈ [key], formerly Stalingrad, city (1989 pop. 999,000), capital of Volgograd region, SE European Russia, a port on the Volga River and the eastern terminus of the Volga-Don Cana...

(Encyclopedia) Uralic and Altaic languages yo͝orălˈĭk, ăltāˈĭk [key], two groups of related languages thought by many scholars to form a single Ural-Altaic linguistic family. However, other authorities hold ...