Portal:Soviet Union/Did you know/Archive


 * ... that Joseph Stalin deported the Balkar people from the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on suspicions that they collaborated with Nazi Germany?
 * ... that the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic lasted for only nine months as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which turned it into the Altai Republic?
 * ... that the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, first formed in 1920, has since been renamed three times, most recently as the Udmurt Republic in 1991?
 * ... that tickets bought for the ceremonial opening of Kiev Republican Stadium scheduled for June 22, 1941 were still valid 7 years later, as the event was "postponed until after the Victory" due to the Nazi invasion to the USSR?
 * ... that because Leonid Brezhnev had more than 200 decorations, it was decided to break the Soviet custom of featuring only one decoration on cushions during his funeral?
 * ... that the February 9, 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Central Powers that helped clear Bolshevik forces from Ukraine?
 * ... that in the Ukrainian-Soviet War (1917-1922) the Ukrainians fought for their independence first from the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union?
 * ... that the strength of the Ukrainian People's Army fell from 30,000 to just 15,000 after five months of war with Soviet Russia?
 * ... that the Soviet 383rd Rifle Division was originally comprised completely of miners, from the Ukrainian Donets Basin?
 * ... that the massacre in Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD in the purges of 1937-1938 was investigated in 1943 during the German invasion of Ukraine and used in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union?
 * ... that members of Sub-Carpathian Reformed Church were persecuted by communists in the Soviet Union and were sent to Gulag labour camps in Siberia?
 * ... that the Poltava Bandurist Capella, directed by Hnat Khotkevych, was the first Soviet ensemble to be invited to tour North America?
 * ... that the proposals for a new Crimean flag after the collapse of the Soviet Union included a white flag with seven rainbow colors at the top and a blue-white-red tricolor design, which was officially adopted in 1999?
 * ... that collective leadership was seen as the ideal form of governance by Soviet ideologists during the rules of Georgy Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev?
 * ... that the 1973 Soviet economic reform initiated by Alexei Kosygin, the Premier of the Soviet Union, tried to reduce the powers of the central Ministries?
 * ... that Valentin Pavlov, the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union and de facto Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, was involved in the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev?