The last week of the year is marked by two historical events of the twentieth century: the transformation of Imperial Russia in the Soviet Union and, years later, its dissolution and conversion into the Russian Federation. Also, in December there was one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, to liberate Ukraine from the Nazis. In this week of December one of the most mysterious figures in Russian history disappeared. In the scientific side of history, we will talk about the first Soviet nuclear reactor and the first supersonic airliner. Also, we will find out more about the book “Gulag Archipelago “and the dissident Sakharov, who returned to Moscow one day in December. 

The Soviet Union disappears 

December 26, 1991: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, no longer exists officially. Its successor will be the Russian Federation, bringing together all the republics that had not yet declared their independence. Internal problems, together with the independence of Ukraine, declared 25 days before earlier, contributed to the collapse of the USSR after 69 years of history. 

Birth of the USSR 

Coincidentally it was also in the same week in December, but in 1922, when the USSR was born. It was formed from the Soviet Socialist Republics of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Transcaucasia. At its greatest expansion, the USSR occupied a sixth of the planet’s surface, it was the third most populous country on Earth; it had 12 time zones and 16 languages were spoken there. 

The enigmatic Rasputin 

A few years earlier, in 1916, one of the most mysterious characters in Russian history disappears: Rasputin. In Petrograd, in the middle of the night, this monk, mystic and advisor to the Romanov family was murdered by a group of nobles. Rasputin had earned the enmity of the nobility because of his influence, especially in the Tsarina Alexandra. He was poisoned, shot, wrapped in a carpet and thrown to the Neva River. His autopsy revealed that he finally drowned.

Rasputin: monk, wizard, mystical

The Battle of the Dnieper 

The week of December in 1943, begins one of the greatest battles between the Soviet and German armies. The Battle of the Dnieper was part of the Soviet offensive to recover Ukraine. It is considered the bloodiest battle in World War II: it is estimated to have killed two million soldiers out of the four million who participated in it. The front stretched along 1,400 km before a three kilometers wide river, the Dnieper River, which the Russians had to cross to liberate Kiev. 

Dnieper battle

Kurchatov’s reactor 

Also at the end of the year there were scientific and cultural events of great importance in the history of Russia. We start in 1946, in Moscow, where the team of Igor Kurchatov launches the first nuclear reactor in Europe: F1. Kurchatov was also the leader in the development of the first Soviet atomic bomb. He also created the first civil nuclear ship: the icebreaker Lenin.

After his death, his name was given to the city where the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant was built. In addition, Soviet scientists called kurchatovium the chemical element with atomic number 104 when they discovered it in 1964. However, its official name today is rutherfordium. 

Tupolev 144: first supersonic passenger jet 

In 1968 the first test flight of the supersonic aircraft Tupolev 144 took place, two months before the tests carried out by the French team with their prototype of the Concorde. The Tupolev 144 entered into service in 1977, but before that, it beat Concorde in speed: it was the first to reach Mach 1 and 2. Tupolev 144 was also more effective, since it required 15% less runway to land and take off. 

Tupolev 144

Publication of “Gulag Archipelago" 

December 1973. In Paris, the book from Russian writer Solzhenitsyn “Gulag Archipelago” is published. Due to political problems, it was published in French and outside the Soviet Union. It is a historical and artistic work about the repression in the Soviet Union during the period from 1918 to 1956. It is based on witness accounts, documents, and personal experiences of the author. Readers in the USSR would have to wait until 1989 to see it published in its original language. 

Sakharov returns home 

In 1986 Andrei Sakharov returned to Moscow after six years of exile in the city of Gorky. Great fighter for freedom, the Russian physicist worked on the design of the first Soviet nuclear bomb and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Today the European Parliament awards the Sakahrov Prize to people and institutions that defend human rights.