Volga River Details And about the music Wolgalied Wolgalied by Ivan Rebroff Es steht ein Soldat am Wolgastrand, (A soldier stands on the bank of the Volga) Hlt Wache fr sein Vaterland. In dunkler Nacht allein und fern, Es leuchtet ihm kein Mond, kein Stern. Regungslos die Steppe schweigt, Eine Trne ihn ins Auge steigt Und er fhlt, wie's im Herzen fri und nagt, Wenn ein Mensch verlassen ist, und er klagt, Und er fragt: Hast du dort oben vergessen auch mich? Es sehnt doch mein Herz nach Liebe sich. Du hast im Himmel viel Engel bei dir Schick doch einen davon auch zu mir. Du hast im Himmel viel Engel bei dir Schick doch einen davon auch zu mir.

Hungarian Composer Franz Lehar

(30 April 1870 24 October 1948) wrote the Operetta Der Zarewitsch (the Czarevitch or Tsarevich) The work received its first performance at the Deutsches Knstlertheater in Berlin on 21 February 1927, with Austrian Tenor Richard Tauber and Rita Georg soprano, in the leading roles. The Volgalied is from Act I of the Operetta. 1

Synopsis: The plot of Der Zarewitsch is loosely based on a true story: the self imposed exile of the son of Peter the Great, Alexei, who shirked his father's command by running away to Naples with his Finnish mistress disguised as a page. The couple spent two years gallivanting around until Alexei was compelled by his father to return. His father was paranoid that Alexei was conspiring against him and ultimately Alexei ended up being imprisoned and tortured. The Russian senate convicted him of conspiring against his father and he was sentenced to death. He died due to ill health before he could be executed, most likely resulting from the poor treatment he received while imprisoned. Reichert's libretto differs on several points from the life of Alexei. First, he changed the story so that the young girl, Sonja, is first seen disguised as a male Circassian dancer. When the Tsarevich runs away with Sonja he believes that she is a boy adding what Richard Traubner of Opera News called an "underlying homosexual frisson" to the operetta. Eventually the young prince discovers that Sonja is in fact a girl disguised as a boy. The two fall in love and escape to Naples. A further major difference is that the operetta does not have such a tragic ending, though it is not exactly happy either. Eventually the Zarewitsch learns that his father has died and he knows his relationship cannot continue with Sonja as he is now the Tsar. The operetta ends with a "bittersweet royalcommoner parting".

The Volga River of Russia is the longest river in Europe. It belongs to the closed basin of the Caspian Sea. Rising in the Valdai Hills 225 meters (738 ft) above sea level northwest of Moscow and about 320 kilometers (200 mi) southeast of Saint Petersburg, the Volga heads east past Lake Sterzh, Tver, Dubna, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan. From there it turns south, flows past Ulyanovsk, Tolyatti, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd, and discharges into the Caspian Sea below Astrakhan at 28 meters (92 ft) below sea level. At its most strategic point, it bends toward the Don ("the big bend"). Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is located there. The Volga has many tributaries, most importantly the Kama, the Oka, the Vetluga, and the Sura rivers. The Volga and its tributaries form the Volga river system, which drains an area of about 1.35 million square kilometers in the most heavily populated part of Russia. The Volga Delta has a length of about 160 kilometers and includes as many as 500 channels and smaller rivers. The largest estuary in Europe, it is the only place in Russia where pelicans, flamingos, and lotuses may be found. The Volga freezes for most of its length for three months each year. The Volga drains most of Western Russia. Its many large reservoirs provide irrigation and hydroelectric power. The Moscow Canal, the VolgaDon Canal, and the VolgaBaltic Waterway form navigable waterways connecting Moscow to the White Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. High levels of chemical pollution have adversely affected the river and its habitats. The fertile river valley provides large quantities of wheat, and also has many mineral riches. A substantial petroleum industry centers on the Volga valley. Other resources include natural gas, salt, and potash. The Volga Delta and the nearby Caspian Sea offer superb fishing grounds. Astrakhan, at the delta, is the center of the caviar industry.

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Black Sea

Caspian Sea

The unlabeled river on the left is the Dnieper river which dumps into the Black Sea. The Volga River to the right dumps into the Caspian Sea further east. The Dnieper is labeled on the map (next page) and just north of Keiv you can see Chernobyl marked. That is the site of the first nuclear catastrophe. Look for Kid of Speed further in this document. There is a canal between the Volga and the Don river at Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) that allows large ships to access both Seas and since the Black Sea connects via the Bosporus River to the Marmara Sea, then through the Straits of Dardenellas to the Agean Sea and the Mediterranean Ocean to the Atlantic. Istanbul lies on the banks of the Bosporus, so you can see the importance of this location in the various battles over the centuries.

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The Vikings from the Baltic had these rather smallish ships that could be dragged overland to get to the upper reaches of both the Dnieper and Volga Rivers. These boats could be sailed or rowed and since the rivers were relatively flat this gave the Vikings access to a very large segment of inland Europe. 5

St Petersburg (Between 1924 and 1991 the city was named Leningrad) was built in a swamp on the Neva River banks. The Neva River flows from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland.

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The Volgalied music on the DVD is presented by seven performers; 1. Andre Rieu 2. Freddy Quinn 3. Daniel Gabor 4. Monika Martin 5. Marino Van Wakeren 6. Rudi Schuricke 7. Rudi Giovannini Pavarotti

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This Statue is Titled Motherland Calls and is located near Volgograd When the memorial was dedicated in 1967 it was the tallest sculpture in the world, measuring 85 meters (279 feet) from the tip of its sword to the top of the plinth. The figure itself measures 52 meters (170 feet), and the sword 33 meters (108 feet). Two hundred steps, symbolizing the 200 days of the Battle of Stalingrad, lead from the bottom of the hill to the monument. The lead sculptor was Yevgeny Vuchetich, and the significant structural engineering challenges of the 7,900 tones (7,800 long tons; 8,700 short tons) of concrete sculpture were handled by Nikolai Nikitin. The statue appears on both the current flag and coat of arms of Volgograd Oblast.

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Mother Russia, KievMother Motherland is a monumental statue of the "Mother Motherland" in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The sculpture is a part of Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Kiev. Built by Yevgeny Vuchetich, the titanium statue stands 62 m (203 ft) tall upon the museum building with the overall structure measuring 102 m (335 ft) and weighing 560 tons. The sword in the statue's right hand is 16 m (52 ft) long weighing 9 tons, with the left hand holding up a 13 by 8 m (43 by 26 ft) shield with the State Emblem of the Soviet Union. The Memorial hall of the Museum displays marble plaques with carved names of more than 11,600 soldiers and over 200 workers of the home-front honored during the war with the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Hero of Socialist Labor. On the hill beneath the museum, traditional flower shows are held. The sword of the statue was cut because the tip of the sword was higher than the cross of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

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Shows the two forks of the Dnieper RiverThe north fork empties large portion of Belarus while the west fork was tied by canal to the Bug river which drains north and west through Poland to the Baltic Sea. Currently, hydroelectric dams together with no maintenance of the locks prevent navigation of this watercourse. That town labeled Tschernobyl is called by the west Chernobyl and is the site of the famous reactor explosion. On page 4 this town is called Chernobyl. To see a series of photos with some of high quality investigate The Kid Of Speed Elena Filatova.

http://www.theserpentswall.com/page17.html

Outside Kiev on the banks of the Dnieper River -- a WWII battle site. 10

Her sites: http://www.elenafilatova.com/ http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ and a series of youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0sJldE5TVIw High resolution photo albums: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/highres/highres.html Pretty nice roundup of German pictures from the guys who were there: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/occupation/occupation. html

Caption: My dowry. All cleaned, painted, restored, old shells are deactivated. Stuff mostly from war trenches, except for a couple of things of home storage. I traded them from old people, who kept relics from time of German occupation. http://www.theserpentswall.com/page32.html Occupation of Kiev lasted two years and two month. It began in September 1941. The same days when Soviet army was trapped in a marsh German army began occupying Kiev. Germans found town in chaos. On central market they saw how some people were selling human meat. Germans caught the human flesh sellers and strung up the enterprising gentlemen right on a spot. They left them for people to see that new authority call for order. 11