RUS375 Final questions

False

Similar to the U.S., all of today's Russian oil companies are privately owned.

2 consecutive terms of 6 years

Since 2012, the term of service of the President is...

False

Soviet authorities immediately released accurate and up-to-date information about the Chernobyl accident and immediately began evacuating people from the contaminated areas.

True

119 people from the hostages at the "Nord-Ost" musical died in the hospital AFTER they had been liberated. The actions of the Russian authorities were never investigated; noone brought to account the inability of Russian intelligence services to prevent the attack. In fact, Vladimir Putin awarded FSB deputy director (who managed the operation) the "Hero of Russia" title.

true

According to Peter Baker's article "Project Putin," during World War II, the city of Leningrad (Vladimir Putin's hometown) was under a German siege for 900 days, leaving hundreds of thousands of its citizens dead.

before he became Russia's president; after the infamous apartment bombings in Moscow

According to many scholars (in this module explicitly expressed by David Satter in the PBS documentary), Vladimir Putin became "the most popular politician in Russia"...

10 days

According to the documentary Babushkas of Chernobyl, how long did the fire that resulted from the Nuclear Plant's explosion last?

entered the Soviet Union with Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980

Advertising...

yes

After 70 years of being subjected to state propaganda that capitalism and market are "bad," most Russians did not understand the value or importance of vouchers.

True

After his two terms in office ended in May 2008, 86% of Russians expressed approval of Vladimir Putin as president.

More than 20

Altogether, how many countries were subject to fallout from Chernobyl?

Yabloko

CNN news clip that opens up the Khodorkovsky documentary states that Khodorkovsky was a "patron to Russian political parties." Which of the parties listed below did Khodorkovsky support (financially)?

True

Chechen is a language that is indigenous to Chechnya and is NOT spoken anywhere else in the world.

4

Apart from Chernobyl, how many more Nuclear Power Plants are there in Ukraine?

True

As a student majoring in chemistry and specializing in explosives, Khodorkovsky was very active in Komsomol (Communist Youth League in the Soviet Union).

high-income economy

As per one of your assigned readings, based on Russia's per capita GDP, the World Bank classifies Russia as ...

yes

As you learned in this week's readings, Vladimir Putin's (one could argue, successful) approach to keeping Chechnya free from terrorism, is appointing a representative from native elite, empowering them with political authority and hoping that they could deliver a quiescent countryside. Has this approach been practiced any time earlier in the history of Russian-Chechen relations?

Easter

Babushkas of Chernobyl is set during what holiday?

True

Before Chernobyl, there had been other (albeit less serious) nuclear accidents, including the 1979 incident in the U.S. (near Harrisburg, PA)

140 different ethnic identities

Before its ultimate collapse, Soviet Union was considered to have one of the most diverse and heterogenous populations in the world. How many different ethnic identities populated the USSR?

Chechenization

Beginning with the Second Chechen War to the present, the Kremlin has adopted an approach whereby Moscow cedes much of the responsibility for restoring order in Chechnya to local, pro-Kremlin officials. (Interestingly enough, these officials would always be "winners" of allegedly fair elections orchestrated by Moscow). Bottom line is: Moscow's handpicked Chechens are in charge of maintaining order in Chechnya. What did this approach come to be known as?

did not build a single major modern highway

Between 2005 and 2010, the Russian government...

True

Between 2008 and 2012, Putin served as a prime minister of the Russian Federation.

False

Chechnya is a federal subdivision of Russia, located in the country's far north.

New Jersey

Chechnya is about the size of...

no

Chechnya was one of the 15 Soviet republics.

no

Did a Muscovite traveling to Kiev (Ukraine) or Minsk (Belarus) need a visa before the collapse of the USSR?

True

During most of the Soviet rule (and certainly after 1934), any form of experimental art was considered dissident and, therefore, could only exist as a part of underground culture.

politically-favored Russian businessmen

During the Soviet era the Soviet government "owned" large oil companies. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1995 - 96 the government sold these key oil companies to...

yes

During the Soviet era, citizens of the USSR did not need to file an income tax form (or send in individual tax payments): the tax was automatically deducted from each salary before it was given to the workers.

during the era of the Thaw

Famous work by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (a story of a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp) was first published...

True

For most of the Soviet regime, members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were above the law. In other words, Party members caught in illegal acts were NOT subject to the civil law, but only to Party discipline.

yes

From what you can tell from the documentary Chechnya: War Without Trace, is Islam a powerful source of identity for today's Chechens?

2,600 square kilometers (approximately 1,000 square miles)

How large is the radioactive "Exclusion Zone" that was declared uninhabitalble?

approximately 100

How many people (mostly "illegal" returnees from forced evacuation) currently reside inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (i.e. one of the most toxic spots on the planet)?

15

How many republics comprised the USSR?

False

If you visit the city of Moscow, you can see Putin's childhood apartment that has now been turned into a museum.

Approximately 60 times higher than the norm

If you were to visit Chernobyl Nuclear Plant's Reactor №4, what is the level of radiation near this facility?

False

In 1943 and 1944, Stalin deported nearly half a million people from the North Caucasus (including the Chechens) to Central Asia for allegedly assisting the Nazis during World War. II. It was not until Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika that the deportees were allowed to return to their homelands. Perhaps not surprisingly, this forced expulsion produced what would become one of the region's epic stories of oppression under Russian rule.

True

In 1958, Soviet authorities forced Boris Pasternak to reject the Nobel Prize that he won for his novel Dr. Zhivago (the novel was banned in the USSR and had to be published in Italy).

Loan for Shares

In 1995, facing severe fiscal difficulties, Yeltsin's government adopted a program under which the state would borrow money from the oligarchs in exchange for select state assets (including state-owned shares in oil companies). The catch was: if the state couldn't pay the load on time, the oligarchs would be entitled to buy the properties outright. This deal that many economists call "rigged" became known as...

Joseph Stalin

In 2003 Mikhail Khodorkovsky bought Moscow News, a venerable liberal weekly that was one of the first Soviet newspapers to experiment with the freedom of glasnost (the paper disappeared from print and online sources in 2014, apparently by "order from the authorities"). What Soviet leader founded this newspaper?

Georgia

In 2008 Russia had a brief war with...

False

In October 2002, 40 Chechen militants took hostages at a theater in Moscow, where the popular musical "Nord-Ost" was showing. Of the 912 hostages, 130 died at the hands of the Chechen gunmen and women.

10,000 rubles

In an effort to transition the top-down, centrally planned economy to market forces, Boris Yeltsin ultimately decided to transfer everything that the state owned (factories, stores, etc.) to private owners. To make sure that EVERY Russian had a vested interest in the success of the new market system, the state also issued every citizen of Russia a voucher (shares in formerly state-owned enterprises). What was the value of these shares that each Russian citizen received?

bananas

In the "City 40" documentary, one of the characters reminisces about his childhood friends who lived in the so-called City 40. He remembers his friends from this closed city would bring him...

True

In the late 1920s Stalin introduced an extreme system where the economy became a central function of the Soviet government. Under this system, numerous governmental committees decided what salaries should be paid in all jobs across the USSR, what prices all products and commodities should have, how to distribute good across the USSR, etc. To put it simply: the Soviet government determined and controlled prices for all items you could purchase in the store (bread, shoes, television sets, you name it!); the Soviet government also determined what sort of salary one would get as an engineer, teacher, doctor, etc.

False

Judging by the documentary Babushkas from Chernobyl, if you were to go to the radioactive "Exclusion Zone," you will not see anyone using a cell phone

False

Just like most Russians, many Chechens profess Christianity as their cultural and religious identity.

True

Khodorkovsky founded one of the first private banks in Russia.

a poet, who - at the time of the Chernobyl accident - lived in the Pripyat neighborhood closest to the reactor

Lyubov Sirota, whose texts you read in this module's reading selection, is...

True

Mikhail Gorbachev was the first and only elected president of the Soviet Union.

False

Most Russians generally want to disassociate themselves from the Soviet times, therefore no advertisement campaigns today draw on the Soviet experience.

Because, for better or for worse, the state provided the population with "cradle-to-grave" welfarism in the form of free education, health and basic social security The state consistently followed a policy of full employment. Because the state heavily subsidized the prices of necessities: the cost of rents, utilities (gas, electricity), public transport, and most basic food items were kept artificially low.

Most political economists agree that the majority of the Soviet population generally benefited from the Soviet system. Given all the negatives one can point out about the Soviet system, why would an average Soviet citizen actually had a lot to lose with the collapse of the Soviet Union?

True

Political motivations and anti-Russian sentiment of many Chechens (including Jokhar Dudaev, who led the rebels in the First Chechen War) were largely shaped by the experience of deportation and return, especially among those born in Kazakh exile.

False

Removal of Nikita Khrushchev from the office in 1964 and the Coup of 1993 are the two successful coups in Soviet history.

True

Russia is the largest country (in terms of land mass) on Earth.

True

The 10 km "Exclusion Zone" remains an active burial place for Ukraine's nuclear waste

a failed safety experiment on one of the reactors

The Chernobyl disaster happened due to...

1917 - 1991

The Soviet system was in place during...

educating today's Russian youth in the communist spirit and mobilizing it for active participation in the construction a new socialist society

The agenda of the Nashi youth group does NOT include...

False

The director and narrator of Chechnya: War Without Trace notes that more Chechen women wore veils before the wars than in the wars' aftermath (including today).

He publicly spoke about Stalin era deportations of Chechens, a topic not currently allowed to be discussed

The documentary Chechnya: War Without Trace talks about the arrest by the Chechen authorities of Ruslan Kutaev. According to the documentary, what did Mr. Kutaev do to provoke this arrest?

significantly more radioactivity than the Hiroshima bomb

The explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power station released...

Pepsi Cola

The first ad to appear on Russian television advertised...

False

The majority of Russian artists did NOT support the Revolution of 1917 and actively opposed the Bolshevik regime.

True

The only type of cancer that has been positively connected to Chernobyl is thyroid cancer.

False

The policies of glasnost and perestroika were introduced after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

increase political transparency of Soviet institutions and allow greater freedom of information

The policy of glasnost introduced in the mid-1980s was intended to...

Georgia

The uprising dubbed "The Rose Revolution" happened in...

True

There is a Putin avenue in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

True

There were no nuclear power stations in the Soviet republic of Belarus.

the Beslan massacre

Today, the Kremlin appoints governors of all 89 Russian regions, large provinces, as well as most mayors, regional police chiefs, and prosecutors. These positions used to be elected by a democratic vote, but Putin put an end to this after...

True

Under the Russian Constitution, the president can serve two consecutive terms, sit out a term, serve two more consecutive terms, sit out a term, ... etc. In other words, a former Russian president can constitutionally seek re-election after sitting out a term.

Boris Yeltsin

Under what Russian / Soviet leader did Russia's First Chechen War begin?

True

Up until 1991, prices for consumer goods in Russia and the Soviet Union were "fixed" and determined by the state.

law

Vladimir Putin has a degree in...

True

Vladimir Putin will constitutionally remain in power until 2024.

Non-governmental human rights group focused on protecting rights of prisoners organized by the women from the Pussy Riot group

What is "Justice Zone" (or Зона Права for those of you who speak Russian or care to see the name spelled out in Cyrillic)?

late teens - 20s

What is the average age of Nashi members?

Lithuania

What was the first Soviet republic to declare independence from the Soviet Union in 1990?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya attempted to follow the example of Soviet republics (such as Ukraine, the Baltic states, etc.) and declared independence. Boris Yeltsin, however justifiably, move to prevent Chechen secession with military force.

What was the main reason for the eruption of the First Chechen War?

Yukos Oil

What was the name of the oil company that Mikhail Khodorkovsky acquired from the Russian government?

False

When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he was convinced that the Communist Party had to be banned on the territory of the USSR.

In the 1990s

When did Russia introduce trials by jury into its legal system?

1987

When did it become legal to establish private commercial banks in Russia?

1991

When did the Soviet Union collapse and all of the former Soviet republics declared independence?

1917

When did the bolsheviks seize power from the Tsars? (event that became known in history as the October Revolution)

False

When he first came to power in 2005, Putin was a virtual unknown. However, in less than a year, media was talking about Putin's "cult of personality."

East Germany

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Putin was on an assignment as a KGB officer in...

Vladimir Putin

Which Russian leader launched the Second War in Chechnya?

Nikita Khrushchev

Which Soviet leader was overthrown by his opponents in the first and only successful coup in Soviet history?

Belarus

Which former Soviet republic has the greatest percentage of affected land and people due the Chernobyl accident (in relation to this republic's total national territory and population)?

Sweden

Which of the countries listed below was the first to notice elevated radiation levels and to initiate inquiries about its origin?

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Which of the following oligarchs founded Open Russia, a charitable group modeled after George Soros's Open Society Institute, with projects ranging from educational initiatives for young people to the support of human rights NGOs?

Russian economy grew at a rate of 7% annually Russia's stock market skyrocketed, increasing 20-fold Cell phone penetration went from zero to 100%

Which of the following statements correctly characterize Russia's state of affairs during Vladimir Putin's first two terms (1999 - 2008)? (note that more than one answer might be correct; you must select ALL the options that are correct in order to get full credit).

Poland

Which of these countries never was a Soviet republic? (for a comprehensive list of Soviet republics, see My Perestroika study guide, p.8)

no

Will the 10 km "Exclusion Zone" ever be open to the general public?

142

Writing in 2015, Prof. Kotkin states that Russia's population is _________ million people (fyi: according to the U.S. census, U.S. current population is 324.7 million)

yes

You now know that Boris Yeltsin replaced the top-down command economy with free market forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Were free market policies ever introduced in Russia or the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1991