Russia

Coordinates: 60°N 90°E / 60°N 90°E / 60; 90

Russia (ⁱ/ˈrʌʃə/; Russian: Росси́я, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə]), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Росси́йская Федера́ция, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə]), is a sovereign state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic. At 17,125,200 square kilometres (6,612,100 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is the world's ninth most populous country with over 144 million people at the end of 2015.

Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait.

Tears in Heaven

"Tears in Heaven" is a song by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings, from the 1991 Rush film soundtrack. The song was written about the pain and loss Clapton felt following the death of his four-year-old son, Conor. In an interview with Sue Lawley in 1992, Clapton said of the song "There is a song that I’ve written for a movie, but in actual fact it was in the back of my head but it didn’t really have a reason for being until I was scoring this movie which I did a little while ago and then it sort of had a reason to be. And it is a little ambiguous because it could be taken to be about Conor but it also is meant to be part of the film." Conor fell from a window of a 53rd-floor New York apartment building owned by his mother's friend on March 20, 1991. Clapton arrived at the apartment shortly after the accident.

Writing and inspiration

The years following 1990 were extremely turbulent for Clapton. In August 1990, his manager and two of his roadies (along with fellow musician Stevie Ray Vaughan) were killed in a helicopter accident. Seven months later, on March 20, 1991, Clapton's four-year-old son Conor died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of his mother's friend's New York City apartment. He landed on the roof of an adjacent four-story building. After isolating himself for a period, Clapton began working again, writing music for a movie about drug addiction called Rush. Clapton dealt with the grief of his son's death by co-writing "Tears in Heaven" with Will Jennings. Shortly after his single was released, he went on to the MTV Unplugged series and recorded a new version of the song.Unplugged topped charts and was nominated for nine Grammy Awards the year it was released. Clapton made numerous public service announcements to raise awareness for childproofing windows and staircases.

In Heaven

"In Heaven" is a song originally part of the soundtrack to the David Lynch film Eraserhead, where it is sung by the Lady in the Radiator (Laurel Near). The song was written and performed for the film by Peter Ivers, and was included on the soundtrack album.

Covers

The song was sung by fans of English psychobilly band The Meteors at the start of their 1981 debut album The Case of The Meteors in Heaven on Lost Soul Records.

It was covered by The Pixies as part of the recording session for their initial demo tape; this version was released in 2002 on the Pixies EP. The band re-recorded the track for a session for John Peel's BBC radio show in May 1988, which was later released on the Pixies at the BBC album. The song was a regular part of the Pixies' setlist, and a live version by the band appeared as a B-side of the "Gigantic" single, and was also included on The Complete B-Sides album. A version of the song was recorded by the Joe Harvard Band for the Pixies tribute album Dig for Fire, although it was omitted from the final album track listing.

Heaven

Heaven, the heavens or seven heavens, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where heavenly beings such as gods, angels, jinn, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or to live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter Heaven alive.

Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a Heaven on Earth in a World to Come.

Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, Heaven is considered as Svarga loka, and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as otherworld.