HungaryHungary (Magyarország ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ) is a landlocked country in East-Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, Hungary is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west. It has a population of 9.7 million, mostly ethnic Hungarians and a significant Romani minority. Hungarian, the official language, is the world's most widely spoken Uralic language and among the few non-Indo-European languages widely spoken in Europe.
KazakhstanKazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental landlocked country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, known as Nur-Sultan from 2019 to 2022. Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, was the country's capital until 1997.
Black SeaThe Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia. The Black Sea is supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper and Don. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe.
Hungarian languageHungarian () is a Uralic language spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring countries that used to belong to it. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by Hungarian communities in southern Slovakia, western Ukraine (Subcarpathia), central and western Romania (Transylvania), northern Serbia (Vojvodina), northern Croatia, northeastern Slovenia (Prekmurje), and eastern Austria.
Proto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BC. Mainstream scholarship places them in the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone in Eurasia (present-day Ukraine and southern Russia).
Russian languageRussian (russkiy yazyk, ˈruskjɪi̯ jɪˈzɨk) is an East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union. Russian has remained an official language in independent Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel.
CrimeaCrimea (kraɪˈmiːə ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov.
RussiansThe Russians (russkiye) are an East Slavic ethnic group indigenous to Eastern Europe, who share a common Russian ancestry, culture, and history. Russian, the most spoken Slavic language, is the shared mother tongue of the Russians; Orthodox Christianity has been their majority religion since the formation of a Russian identity in the Middle Ages. They are the largest Slavic nation and the largest European nation. The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'.
Arable landArable land (from the arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops. Alternatively, for the purposes of agricultural statistics, the term often has a more precise definition: Arable land is the land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category.
GulagThe Gulag was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps which were set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word gulag in reference to each of the forced-labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including the camps that existed in the post-Lenin era. The full official name of the agency changed several times. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.
