1. The Russian title Czar or Tsar is derived from which title for Roman emperors?
2. The Trans-Siberian railway is a network connecting Western Russia to the far east and is by far the longest railway line in the world with a length of over 9,829km. What are the two cities it connects at each end?
3. In 1698, on which specific item did Peter the Great levy a tax, ostensibly to bring Russian society closer to that of the Western European kingdoms?
4. Which Russian statesman, subject of an opera by Mussorgsky, was chief advisor to Tsar Fyodor and was himself elected Tsar of Muscovy between 1584 and 1598
5. What was the Turkish word for ‘adventurer’ or ‘free man’ which gave its name to a people dwelling near the Caspian Sea who received privileges from the government in return for military service?
6. He was regarded as the greatest Russian poet, who tragically passed away in 1837 after a duel with French soldier George-Charles D’Anthes. Name him?
7. By what name do we remember Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst, born in Stettin in the Kingdom of Pomerania in Prussia in 1729?
8. Which member of the Russian royal family did Rasputin treat for haemophilia which helped establish himself in the royal court?
9. Which city, founded in May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress was the capital of the Russian empire between 1713 and 1918, though it was briefly replaced by Moscow between 1728 and 1730?
10. Which ballet, premiered in Moscow in 1877 tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a bird by an evil sorcerer’s curse?
Answers
1. Caesar
2. Moscow and Vladivostok
3. Beards, in 1772 the tax was formally repealed.
4. Boris Godunov
5. Cossack
6. Alexander Pushkin, he was just 37 at the time
7. Catherine the Great, who ruled for 36 years after the death of her husband Peter III
8. Prince Alexei whose mother Empress Alexandra was hugely impressed by his powers
9. St Petersburg, named by Peter the Great after St. Peter
10. Swan Lake, composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky