Top 10 Soviet Union facts

Bank robbery. Before the Russian Revolution, Communist paramilitaries were often raising money through robberies and ransom kidnappings. Particularly notable was the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, in which Stalin participated (playing minor role). The robbery resulted in 40 deaths and the theft of 341,000 rubles (equivalent to around US $3.4 million today).

0. In response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, 14 Eastern Bloc countries including the Soviet Union boycotted the Games. The IOC awarded Los Angeles the Games by default, as no other city was interested.

In Kazakhstan. Baikonur Cosmodrome is located in the center of Kazakhstan on the right bank of the Syr Darya river. Both the space launch facility and the neighboring city of Baikonur are rented and administered by the Russian Federation.

Commander of the Air Force. As an officer of the Red Air Force during WW2, Vasily received rapid promotion. On 5 March 1942 he shot down an FW-190 and claimed another German aircraft soon after. He became Commander of the Air Force in the Moscow Military District in 1948. After the death of his father, he was considered a dangerous person and was judged in a behind-closed-doors trial. After 8 years of imprisonment, he was released in 1960, but died soon due to chronic alcoholism.

Mikhail Gorbachev is a Russian politician, author of perestroika (recreating), glasnost (publicity), uskorenie (acceleration) which purpose was to abolish communism in the USSR and to finish a Cold War. He left his post 25 Dec 1991 what symbolised the end of the almost 70 years of this country's tradition. In Russia, Gorbachev is remembered to have been responsible for destroying an empire. He got the Nobel Prize in 1990. Nowadays he is still active in public life but not taking part in Russian politics.

KGB is a civilian intelligence and counterintelligence agency. In 1995, it changed its name to FSB. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was an officer of KGB in 1975-1990. In 1985-1990 he had served in the territory of Eastern Germany (GDR), where he'd take care of recruiting spies.

Radar. Duga was a Soviet over-the-horizon radar system used as part of the Soviet anti-ballistic missile early-warning network. The system operated from July 1976 to December 1989. Two operational Duga radars were deployed, one near Chernobyl in the Ukraine and the other in eastern Siberia.

Georgian. Stalin's original Georgian name was "Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili". The surname means son of Juga, and is derived from Georgian djuga, meaning "steel". This later became the root of his adopted name "Stalin", from the Russian word for "steel".

Ukraine. The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SR in 1932-1933. It was caused mostly by bad economic policies. Many believe that the destruction of the Ukrainian peasantry was premeditated on the part of Joseph Stalin and consider Holodomor a genocide comparable to the Holocaust. Between 2 and 5 million people starved to death despite the fact that Ukrainian lands are among the most fertile in the World.

In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The demonstration called The Baltic Way marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany (which divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence and led to the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940). The chain connected the three Baltic capitals – Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn. Video footage taken from airplanes and helicopters showed an almost continuous line of people across the countryside. Few months later all three republics declared independence.