Grodno Region

Grodno/Hrodna Region (Belarusian: Гродзенская вобласць, Hrodzienskaja vobłasć; Russian: Гродненская область, Grodnenskaya oblast; Polish: Obwód grodzieński) is one of the regions of Belarus. It is located in the northwestern part of the country.

The capital Grodno, is the biggest city of the region. It lies on the Neman River. Grodno's existence is attested to from 1127. Two castles dating from the 14th - 18th centuries are located here on the steep right bank of the Nemen. Many consider this city one of the most beautiful in Belarus: one of its masterpieces survived through the centuries, Orthodox St Boris & St Gleb (Kalozhskaya) Church dating back to the 12th century, is the second oldest in Belarus.

History

This region was the westernmost "borderlands" of the Early East Slavs (tribal union Dregovichs?) on the lands of the Balts in the 6th-9th centuries. In the 12th-14th centuries it was part of the area sometimes known as Black Ruthenia, that was fully incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) by the rulers of Lithuania in the 13th century.

Top Five

Top Five is a 2014 American comedy film written and directed by Chris Rock. The film, which stars Rock, Rosario Dawson, and Gabrielle Union, was screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie follows New York City comedian and film star Andre Allen (Rock), who has to confront his past and comedic career while doing an interview with journalist Chelsea Brown (Dawson). The film was released on December 12, 2014, by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

New York Times reporter Chelsea Brown is spending a day interviewing comedian and recovering alcoholic Andre Allen, star of the hit film franchise Hammy The Bear, about a cop in a bear suit. He is attempting a foray into serious films with Uprize, in which he portrays Haitian Revolution figure Dutty Boukman, and sensitive to criticism, particularly by Times critic James Nielson, whose previous reviews of Andre's work have been negative and insulting. As the interview begins in his limousine, Andre recalls his lowest point, when he was in Houston in 2003 and met Jazzy Dee, who supplied him with drugs, alcohol and women. Yet after Jazzy refused to pay the women, they contended they were raped, leading to Andre's arrest.

Belarus

Coordinates: 53°N 23°E / 53°N 23°E / 53; 23

Belarus (ⁱ/bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOSS; Belarusian: Белару́сь, tr. Bielaruś, IPA: [bʲɛlaˈrusʲ]; Russian: Белоруссия, tr. Byelorussiya; IPA: [bʲɪloˈrussɪʲɐ]), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Hrodna (Grodno), Homiel (Gomel), Mahilioŭ (Mogilev) and Vitsebsk (Vitebsk). Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested. Its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing.

Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus: for example: the Principality of Polotsk (11th to 14th centuries), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian People's Republic, succeeded by the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Byelorussian SSR). Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939 when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland and were finalized after World War II. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 Belarus became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.

Poland

Coordinates: 52°N 20°E / 52°N 20°E / 52; 20

Poland (Polish: Polska [ˈpɔlska]), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska, listen ), is a country in Central Europe,bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 71st largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, as well as the most populous post-communist member of the European Union. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.

The establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe. The Commonwealth ceased to exist in the years 1772–1795, when its territory was partitioned among Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence (as the Second Polish Republic) at the end of World War I, in 1918.

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus as to the precise area it refers to, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct". One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural (and econo-cultural) entity: the region lying in Europe with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox, and some Turco-Islamic influences. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists increasingly view such definitions as outdated or relegating, but they are still heard in everyday speech and used for statistical purposes.