Word: empress
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...explain why Soviet central planners are unable to meet their goals. In the case of the factory that wasn't, Russians were inevitably reminded of the ruse employed by the 18th century courtier Grigori Potemkin, who erected false fronts on poverty-stricken villages in order to persuade Empress Catherine the Great that her realm was truly prosperous...
...strikes, his followers shut down the banks, the postal service, the factories, the food stores and, most important, the oil wells, bringing the country close to paralysis. The Shah imposed martial law, but to no avail. On Jan. 16, after weeks of daily protest parades, the Shah and his Empress flew off to exile, leaving a "regency council" that included Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar, a moderate who had spent time in the Shah's prisons. But Khomeini announced that no one ruling in the Shah's name would be acceptable, and Iran was torn by the largest riots...
...monarchies, there traditionally has been little distinction drawn between the treasures of the ruler and those of the nation. A lawsuit filed in New York last week on behalf of the revolutionary government accuses the Shah of diverting $20 billion in national assets to his own use, and charges Empress Farah with taking $5 billion. But it offers no evidence and indeed admits that the sums are pretty much a guess. The Shah's own figure for the size of his fortune, given to Barbara Walters of ABC, is $50 million to $100 million. Even that would represent...
...last week, disc jockeys were spinning the group's recording of Rasputin, which has been issued by the government record company Melodiya. At the same time, curiously, the sellout novel of the year depicts Grigori Rasputin's sexual escapades, including boudoir frolics with Russia's last empress, the Tsarina Alexandra...
Author Pikul's suggestion that the empress slept with Rasputin, for which there is no basis in fact, seems designed merely to appeal to the prurient interests of the proletariat. So do passages alluding to Rasputin's vast sexual appetite and his zest for orgies-which have been amply documented by historians. But the book seemingly has other and more unsavory functions. One is to encourage the xenophobia that still has a strong hold on the many Russian chauvinists in the elite, who believe that alien forces have caused their homeland's troubles down through the ages...