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Scherbo, Vitaly

(Encyclopedia)Scherbo, Vitaly, 1972–, Belarussian gymnast. Often considered to be the best male gymnast of all time, he had won at least one world title on each apparatus by the time he retired in 1997. He won hi...

Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

(Encyclopedia)Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich mēkhəyĕlˈ əlyĭksänˈdrəvĭch shôˈləkhŏf [key], 1905–84, Russian novelist. Sholokhov won international fame for an epic novel of his native land, The Sil...

Cominform

(Encyclopedia)Cominform kŏmˈĭnfôrm [key] [acronym for Communist Information Bureau], information agency organized in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. Its members were the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovaki...

Qazvin

(Encyclopedia)Qazvin käzvēnˈ [key], city (1991 278,826), Tehran prov., NW Iran. A road and rail-transport center, the city has textile and flour mills, and wineries. Qazvin was probably founded by Shapur II, kin...

Hodeida

(Encyclopedia)Hodeida äl ho͞odāˈdä [key], city, W Yemen, on the Red Sea. An important port, it exported ...

Khabarovsk

(Encyclopedia)Khabarovsk khəbäˈrəfsk, khəbərôfskˈ [key], city (1989 pop. 601,000), capital of Khabarovsk Territory and the administrative center of the Far Eastern federal district, Russian Far East, on the...

Brazauskas, Algirdas Mykolas

(Encyclopedia)Brazauskas, Algirdas Mykolas, 1932–2010, Lithuanian political leader. A civil engineer and economist, he rose in the Soviet Communist party bureaucracy and Lithuanian SSR government, and in 1988 bec...

Salyut

(Encyclopedia)Salyut, Soviet space station: see space exploration; space station. ...

Kosygin, Alexei Nikolayevich

(Encyclopedia)Kosygin, Alexei Nikolayevich əlyĭksyāˈ nyĭkə līˈəvĭch kəsēˈgĭn [key], 1904–80, Soviet political leader. A member of the Communist party from 1927, he joined its central committee in 19...

Baikonur Cosmodrome

(Encyclopedia)Baikonur or Baykonur Cosmodrome both: bīˌkəno͞orˈ [key], formerly secret aerospace launch complex, Qyzylorda prov., S central Kazakhstan, near Baikonur (originally, 1958–95, Leninsk) but c.200 ...