title: Hermitage Museum

text: The collection of classical antiquities features Greek artifacts from the third millennium – fifth century BC, ancient Greek pottery, items from the Greek cities of the North Pontic Greek colonies, Hellenistic sculpture and jewellery, including engraved gems and cameos, such as the famous Gonzaga Cameo, Italic art from the 9th to second century BC, Roman marble and bronze sculpture and applied art from the first century BC - fourth century AD, including copies of Classical and Hellenistic Greek sculptures. One of the highlights of the collection is the Tauride Venus, which, according to latest research, is an original Hellenistic Greek sculpture rather than a Roman copy as it was thought before. There are, however, only a few pieces of authentic Classical Greek sculpture and sepulchral monuments.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: On the ground floor in the western wing of the Winter Palace the collections of prehistoric artifacts and the culture and art of the Caucasus are located, as well as the second treasure gallery. The prehistoric artifacts date from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age and were excavated all over Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire. Among them is a renowned collection of the art and culture of nomadic tribes of the Altai from Pazyryk and Bashadar sites, including the world's oldest surviving knotted-pile carpet and a well-preserved wooden chariot, both from the 4th–3rd centuries BC. The Caucasian exhibition includes a collection of Urartu artifacts from Armenia and Western Armenia. Many of them were excavated at Teishebaini under the supervision of Boris Piotrovsky, former director of the Hermitage Museum.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Four small rooms on the ground floor, enclosed in the middle of the New Hermitage between the room displaying Classical Antiquities, comprise the first treasure gallery, featuring western jewellery from the 4th millennium BC to the early 20th century AD. The second treasure gallery, located on the ground floor in the southwest corner of the Winter Palace, features jewellery from the Pontic steppes, Caucasus and Asia, in particular Scythian and Sarmatian gold. Visitors may only visit the treasure galleries as part of a guided tour.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Pavilion Hall, designed by Andrei Stackenschneider in 1858, occupies the first floor of the Northern Pavilion in the Small Hermitage. It features the 18th-century golden Peacock Clock by James Cox and a collection of mosaics. The floor of the hall is adorned with a 19th-century imitation of an ancient Roman mosaic.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Two galleries spanning the west side of the Small Hermitage from the Northern to Southern Pavilion house an exhibition of Western European decorative and applied art from the 12th to 15th century and the fine art of the Low Countries from the 15th and 16th centuries.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The rooms on the first floor of the Old Hermitage were designed by Andrei Stakenschneider in revival styles in between 1851 and 1860, although the design survives only in some of them. They feature works of Italian Renaissance artists, including Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, as well as "Benois Madonna" and "Madonna Litta" attributed to Leonardo da Vinci or his school.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Italian Renaissance galleries continues in the eastern wing of the New Hermitage with paintings, sculpture, majolica and tapestry from Italy of the 15th–16th centuries, including "Conestabile Madonna" and "Madonna with Beardless St. Joseph" by Raphael. The gallery known as the Raphael Loggias, designed by Giacomo Quarenghi and painted by Cristopher Unterberger and his workshop in the 1780s as a replication of the loggia in the Apostolic Palace in Rome frescoed by Raphael, runs along the eastern facade.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The first floor of New Hermitage contains three large interior spaces in the center of the museum complex with red walls and lit from above by skylights. These are adorned with 19th-century Russian lapidary works and feature Italian and Spanish canvases of the 16th-18th centuries, including Veronese, Giambattista Pittoni, Tintoretto, Velázquez and Murillo. In the enfilade of smaller rooms alongside the skylight rooms the Italian and Spanish fine art of the 15th-17th centuries, including Michelangelo's "Crouching Boy" and paintings by El Greco.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The museum also houses paintings by Luis Tristán, Francisco de Zurbarán, Alonso Cano, José de Ribera and Goya.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Knights' Hall, a large room in the eastern part of the New Hermitage originally designed in the Greek revival style for the display of coins, now hosts a collection of Western European arms and armour from the 15th-17th centuries, part of the Hermitage Arsenal collection. The Hall of Twelve Columns, in the southeast corner of the New Hermitage, is adorned with columns of grey Serdobol granite and was also designed in the Greek revival style for the display of coins, is now used for temporary exhibitions.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Gallery of the History of Ancient Painting adjoins the Knights' Hall and also flanks the skylight rooms. It was designed by Leo von Klenze in the Greek revival style as a prelude to the museum and features neoclassical marble sculptures by Antonio Canova and his followers. In the middle, the gallery opens to the main staircase of the New Hermitage, which served as the entrance to the museum before the October Revolution of 1917, but is now closed. The upper gallery of the staircase is adorned with twenty grey Serdobol granite columns and feature 19th-century European sculpture and Russian lapidary works.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The rooms and galleries along the southern facade and in the western wing of the New Hermitage are now entirely devoted to Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque painting of the 17th century, including the large collections of Van Dyck, Rubens and Rembrandt. They also contain several paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder (Velvet period), Frans Snyders (for example, "The Fish Market"), Gerard ter Borch, Paulus Potter, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan van Goyen, Ferdinand Bol and Gerard van Honthorst.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The first floor rooms on the southern facade of the Winter Palace are occupied by the collections of German fine art of the 16th century and French fine art of the 15th–18th centuries, including paintings by Poussin, Lorrain, Watteau.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The collections of French decorative and applied art from the 17th–18th centuries and British applied and fine art from the 16th–19th century, including Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, are on display in nearby rooms facing the courtyard. This area also holds paintings by German artists, including Hans Wertinger, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Barthel Bruyn the Elder, Caspar David Friedrich ("Moonrise by the Sea"), Anton Mengs, Hans Thoma, Anselm Feuerbach, Franz Stuck ("Two Men Fighting Over a Woman") and Heinrich Campendonk as well as paintings by Swiss painters Angelica Kauffman, Alexandre Calame, Arnold Böcklin and Ferdinand Hodler.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The richly decorated interiors of the first floor of the Winter Palace on its eastern, northern and western sides are part of the Russian culture collection and host the exhibitions of Russian art from the 11th-19th centuries. Temporary exhibitions are usually held in the Nicholas Hall.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: French Neoclassical, Impressionist and post-Impressionist art, including works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh and Gauguin, are displayed on the fourth floor of the Eastern Wing of the General Staff Building. Also displayed are paintings by Camille Pissarro (Boulevard Montmartre, Paris), Paul Cézanne (Mount Sainte-Victoire), Alfred Sisley, Henri Morel, and Degas.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Modern art is displayed in the General Staff Building (Saint Petersburg). It features Matisse, Derain and other fauvists, Picasso, Malevich, Petrocelli, Kandinsky, Giacomo Manzù, Giorgio Morandi and Rockwell Kent. A large room is devoted to the German Romantic art of the 19th century, including several paintings by Caspar David Friedrich. The second floor of the Western wing features collections of the Oriental art (from China, India, Mongolia, Tibet, Central Asia, Byzantium and Near East).


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Catherine the Great started her art collection in 1764 by purchasing paintings from Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. He assembled the collection for Frederick II of Prussia, who ultimately refused to purchase it. Thus, Gotzkowsky provided 225 or 317 paintings (conflicting accounts list both numbers), mainly Flemish and Dutch, as well as others, including 90 not precisely identified, to the Russian crown. The collection consisted of Rembrandt (13 paintings), Rubens (11 paintings), Jacob Jordaens (7 paintings), Anthony van Dyck (5 paintings), Paolo Veronese (5 paintings), Frans Hals (3 paintings, including "Portrait of a Young Man with a Glove"), Raphael (2 paintings), Holbein (2 paintings), Titian (1 painting), Jan Steen ("The Idlers"), Hendrik Goltzius, Dirck van Baburen, Hendrick van Balen and Gerrit van Honthorst. Perhaps some of the most famous and notable artworks that were a part of Catherine's original purchase from Gotzkowsky were "Danae", painted by Rembrandt in 1636; "Descent from the Cross", painted by Rembrandt in 1624; and "Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Glove", painted by Frans Hals in 1650. These paintings remain in the Hermitage collection today.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1764, Catherine commissioned Yury Felten to build an extension on the east of the Winter Palace which he completed in 1766. Later it became the Southern Pavilion of the Small Hermitage. From 1767 to 1769, French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe built the Northern Pavilion on the Neva embankment. Between 1767 and 1775, the extensions were connected by galleries, where Catherine put her collections. The entire neoclassical building is now known as the Small Hermitage. During the time of Catherine, the Hermitage was not a public museum and few people were allowed to view its holdings. Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe also rebuilt rooms in the second story of the south-east corner block that was originally built for Elizabeth and later occupied by Peter III. The largest room in this particular apartment was the Audience Chamber (also called the Throne Hall) which consisted of 227 square meters.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Hermitage buildings served as a home and workplace for nearly a thousand people, including the Imperial family. In addition to this, they also served as an extravagant showplace for all kinds of Russian relics and displays of wealth prior to the art collections. Many events were held in these buildings including masquerades for the nobility, grand receptions and ceremonies for state and government officials. The "Hermitage complex" was a creation of Catherine's that allowed all kinds of festivities to take place in the palace, the theatre and even the museum of the Hermitage. This helped solidify the Hermitage as not only a dwelling place for the Imperial family, but also as an important symbol and memorial to the imperial Russian state. Today, the palace and the museum are one and the same. In Catherine's day, the Winter Palace served as a central part of what was called the Palace Square. The Palace Square served as St. Petersburg's nerve center by linking it to all the city's most important buildings. The presence of the Palace Square was extremely significant to the urban development of St. Petersburg, and while it became less of a nerve center later into the 20th century, its symbolic value was still very much preserved.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Catherine acquired the best collections offered for sale by the heirs of prominent collectors. In 1769, she purchased Brühl's collection, consisting of over 600 paintings and a vast number of prints and drawings, in Saxony. Three years later, she bought Crozat's collection of paintings in France with the assistance of Denis Diderot. Next, in 1779, she acquired the collection of 198 paintings that once belonged to Robert Walpole in London followed by a collection of 119 paintings in Paris from Count Baudouin in 1781. Catherine's favorite items to collect were believed to be engraved gems and cameos. At the inaugural exhibit of the Hermitage, opened by Charles, Prince of Wales in November 2000, there was an entire gallery devoted to representing and displaying Catherine's favorite items. In this gallery her cameos are displayed along with cabinet made by David Roentgen, which holds her engraved gems. As the symbol of Minerva was frequently used and favored by Catherine to represent her patronage of the arts, a cameo of Catherine as Minerva is also displayed here. This particular cameo was created for her by her daughter-in-law, the Grand Duchess Maria Fyodorovna. This is only a small representation of Catherine's vast collection of many antique and contemporary engraved gems and cameos.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The collection soon overgrew the building. In her lifetime, Catherine acquired 4,000 paintings from the old masters, 38,000 books, 10,000 engraved gems, 10,000 drawings, 16,000 coins and medals and a natural history collection filling two galleries, so in 1771 she commissioned Yury Felten to build another major extension. The neoclassical building was completed in 1787 and has come to be known as the Large Hermitage or Old Hermitage. Catherine also gave the name of the Hermitage to her private theatre, built nearby between 1783 and 1787 by the Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi. In London in 1787, Catherine acquired the collection of sculpture that belonged to Lyde Browne, mostly Ancient Roman marbles. Catherine used them to adorn the Catherine Palace and park in Tsarskoye Selo, but later they became the core of the Classical Antiquities collection of the Hermitage. From 1787 to 1792, Quarenghi designed and built a wing along the Winter Canal with the Raphael Loggias to replicate the loggia in the Apostolic Palace in Rome designed by Donato Bramante and frescoed by Raphael. The loggias in Saint Petersburg were adorned with copies of Vatican frescoes painted by Cristopher Unterberger and his workshop in the 1780s.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Catherine's collection of at least 4,000 paintings came to rival the older and more prestigious museums of Western Europe. Catherine took great pride in her collection and actively participated in extensive competitive art gathering and collecting that was prevalent in European royal court culture. Through her art collection she gained European acknowledgment and acceptance and portrayed Russia as an enlightened society. Catherine went on to invest much of her identity in being a patron of the arts. She was particularly fond of the Roman deity Minerva, whose characteristics according to classical tradition are military prowess, wisdom, and patronage of the arts. Using the title Catherine the Minerva, she created new institutions of literature and culture and also participated in many projects of her own, mostly play writing. The representation of Catherine alongside Minerva would come to be a tradition of enlightened patronage in Russia.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1815, Alexander I of Russia purchased 38 pictures from the heirs of Joséphine de Beauharnais, most of which had been looted by the French in Kassel during the war. The Hermitage collection of Rembrandts was then considered the largest in the world. Also among Alexander's purchases from Josephine's estate were the first four sculptures by the neoclassical Italian sculptor Antonio Canova to enter the Hermitage collection.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Eventually the imperial collections were enriched by Greek and Scythian artifacts excavated within the Russian Empire.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Between 1840 and 1843, Vasily Stasov redesigned the interiors of the Southern Pavilion of the Small Hermitage. In 1838, Nicholas I commissioned the neoclassical German architect Leo von Klenze to design a building for the public museum. Space for the museum was made next to the Small Hermitage by the demolition of the Shepelev Palace and royal stables. The construction was overseen by the Russian architects Vasily Stasov and Nikolai Yefimov from 1842 to 1851 and incorporated Quarenghi's wing with the Raphael Loggias.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1851, in Venice the museum acquired the collection of Cristoforo Barbarigo, including five more canvases by Titian. Today, all of the paintings but one ("Danaë") by Titian in the Hermitage Museum came to St. Petersburg from the Barbarigo collection.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The New Hermitage was opened to the public on 5 February 1852. In the same year the Egyptian Collection of the Hermitage Museum emerged and was particularly enriched by items given by the Duke of Leuchtenberg, Nicholas I's son-in-law. Meanwhile, from 1851 to 1860, the interiors of the Old Hermitage were redesigned by Andrei Stackensneider to accommodate the State Assembly, Cabinet of Ministers and state apartments. Stakenschneider created the Pavilion Hall in the Northern Pavilion of the Small Hermitage from 1851 to 1858.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Until the 1920s, the museum's entrance was under the portico supported by five-metre high atlantes of grey Serdobol granite from Finland in the middle of the southern facade of the New Hermitage building.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1861, the Hermitage purchased from the Papal government part of the Giampietro Campana collection, which consisted mostly classical antiquities. These included over 500 vases, 200 bronzes and a number of marble statues. The Hermitage acquired "Madonna Litta", which was then attributed to Leonardo, in 1865, and Raphael's "Connestabile Madonna" in 1870. In 1884 in Paris, Alexander III of Russia acquired the collection of Alexander Basilewski, featuring European medieval and Renaissance artifacts. In 1885, the Arsenal collection of arms and armour, founded by Alexander I of Russia, was transferred from the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo to the Hermitage. In 1914, Leonardo's "Benois Madonna" was added to the collection.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Immediately after the Revolution of 1917 the Imperial Hermitage and the Winter Palace, the former Imperial residence, were proclaimed state museums and eventually merged.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The range of the Hermitage's exhibits was further expanded when private art collections from several palaces of the Russian Tsars and numerous private mansions were nationalized and redistributed among major Soviet state museums. Particularly notable was the influx of old masters from the Catherine Palace, the Alexander Palace, the Stroganov Palace and the Yusupov Palace as well as from other palaces of Saint Petersburg and suburbs.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1922, an important collection of 19th-century European paintings was transferred to the Hermitage from the Academy of Arts. In turn, in 1927 about 500 important paintings were transferred to the Central Museum of old Western art in Moscow at the insistence of the Soviet authorities. In the early 1930s, 70 more paintings were sent there. After 1932, a number of less significant works of art were transferred to new museums all over the Soviet Union.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1928, the Soviet government ordered the Hermitage to compile a list of valuable works of art for export. From 1930 to 1934, over two thousand works of art from the Hermitage collection were sold at auctions abroad or directly to foreign officials and businesspeople . The sold items included Raphael's "Alba Madonna", Titian's "Venus with a Mirror", and Jan van Eyck's "Annunciation", among other world known masterpieces by Botticelli, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and others. In 1931, after a series of negotiations, Andrew W. Mellon acquired 21 works of art from the Hermitage and later donated them to form a nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (see also Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings).


title: Hermitage Museum

text: With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, before the Siege of Leningrad started, two trains with a considerable part of the collections were evacuated to Sverdlovsk. Two bombs and a number of shells hit the museum buildings during the siege. The museum opened an exhibition in November 1944. In October 1945 the evacuated collections were brought back, and in November 1945 the museum reopened.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1948, 316 works of Impressionist, post-Impressionist, and modern art from the collection of the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow, originating mostly from the nationalized collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov and disestablished before the war, were transferred to the Hermitage, including works by Matisse and Picasso. Beginning in 1967, a number of works by Matisse were donated to the museum by his muse Lydia Delectorskaya.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1981, the restored Menshikov Palace became a new branch of the Hermitage museum, displaying Russian culture of the early 18th century.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: On 15 June 1985, a man later judged insane attacked Rembrandt's painting "Danaë", displayed in the museum. He threw sulfuric acid on the canvas and cut it twice with a knife. The restoration of the painting had been accomplished by Hermitage conservationists by 1997, and "Danaë" is now on display behind armoured glass.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1991, it became known that some paintings looted by the Red Army in Germany in 1945 were held in the Hermitage. But only in October 1994 did the Hermitage officially announce that it had secretly been holding a major trove of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from German private collections. The exhibition "Hidden Treasures Revealed", where 74 of the paintings were displayed for the first time, was opened on 30 March 1995 in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace and lasted a year. Of the paintings, all but one originated from private rather than state German collections, including 56 paintings from the Otto Krebs collection, as well as the collection of Bernhard Koehler and paintings previously belonging to Otto Gerstenberg and his daughter Margarete Scharf, including the world-famous "Place de la Concorde" by Degas, "In the Garden" by Renoir, and "White House at Night" by Van Gogh. Some of the paintings are now on permanent display in several small rooms in the northeastern corner of the Winter Palace on the first floor.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 1993, the Russian government gave the eastern wing of the nearby General Staff Building across the Palace Square to the Hermitage and the new exhibition rooms in 1999. Since 2003, the Great Courtyard of the Winter Palace has been open to the public providing another entrance to the museum. Also in 2003, the Museum of Porcelain opened as a part of the Hermitage on the grounds of the Imperial Porcelain Factory.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In December 2001, the Hermitage was the setting for Russian Ark, a film by Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov, in which he elaboratively chronicles 300 years of the history of the building and the city in one uninterrupted, single-take shot, a first in world cinema.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In 2003, the Hermitage loaned 142 pieces to the University of Michigan Museum of Art for an exhibition titled "".


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In December 2004, the museum discovered another looted work of art: "Venus Disarming Mars" by Rubens was once in the collection of the Rheinsberg Palace near Berlin, and was apparently looted by Soviet troops from the Königsberg Castle in East Prussia in 1945. At the time, Mikhail Piotrovsky said the painting would be cleaned and displayed.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The museum announced in July 2006 that 221 minor items, including jewelry, Orthodox icons, silverware and richly enameled objects, had been stolen. The value of the stolen items was estimated to be approximately $543,000. By the end of 2006 several of the stolen items had been recovered.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In March 2020, Apple released a continuous 5 hour and 19 minute one shot film recorded entirely on an iPhone 11 Pro detailing many rooms of the museum which highlighted not only the artwork, but also the architecture, and live movement pieces interspersed throughout.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The dependency of the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam is known as the Hermitage Amsterdam, and is located in the former Amstelhof building. It opened on 24 February 2004 in a small building on the Nieuwe Herengracht in Amsterdam, awaiting the closing of the retirement home which still occupied the Amstelhof building until 2007. Between 2007 and 2009, the Amstelhof was renovated and made suitable for the housing of the Amsterdam Hermitage. The Amsterdam Hermitage was opened on 19 June 2009 by President Dmitry Medvedev and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Hermitage dependency in Kazan (Tatarstan, Russia), opened in 2005. It was created with support from President of the Republic of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev and is a subdivision of the Kazan Kremlin State Historical and Architectural Museum-Park. The museum is situated in the Kazan Kremlin in an edifice previously occupied by the Junker School built in the beginning of the 19th century.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Following the prior experiences in London, Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Kazan, the Hermitage foundation decided to create a further branch in Italy with the launch of a national bid. Several northern Italian cities expressed interest such as Verona, Mantua, Ferrara and Turin. In 2007, the honor was awarded to the city of Ferrara which proposed its Castle Estense as the base. Since then, the new institution called "Ermitage Italia" started a research and scientific collaboration with the Hermitage foundation.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: A Hermitage branch is due to open in Vladivostok by 2016, and the regional government has allocated more than Rb17.7 million ($558,000) for preliminary reconstruction work on a mansion in Vladivostok's historic downtown district to house the satellite.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: In recent years, there have been proposals to open a Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in the capital city of Lithuania. Like the former Las Vegas dependency, the museum is to combine artworks from the Saint Petersburg Hermitage with works from the New York Guggenheim Museum.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas opened on 7 October 2001 and closed on 11 May 2008. The Hermitage Rooms in London's Somerset House opened on 25 November 2000. The exhibition was closed permanently in November 2007 due to poor visitor numbers.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: The Hermitage Volunteer Service offers all those interested a unique opportunity to involve themselves in running this world-renowned museum. The program not only aids the Hermitage with its external and internal activities but also serves as an informal link between the museum staff and the public, bringing the specific knowledge of the museum's experts to the community. Volunteers may also develop projects reflecting their own personal goals and interests: communicate a feeling of responsibility to the youth so as to help them understand the value of tradition and the necessity of its preservation.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: Russia-K, a Russian national television channel, has been presenting the various art collections of the Hermitage to the general public for years. There are a series of programs that have aired entitled ‘My Hermitage’ that have been particularly successful. All of these programs are organized by the Director of the Hermitage, Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, and are quite similar to the broadcasts created by Academician Boris Piotrovsky, who is Mikhail's father. These programs were first broadcast through the Soviet Union's ‘First’ channel, airing at the height of the museum's boom. During this time, this channel recorded more than three million visitors every year, mostly from the Soviet Union. Another program created by the Hermitage was called ‘The Treasures of St. Petersburg,’ and was broadcast on the St. Petersburg regional television. This program gave insight into what exhibitions were being displayed at the Hermitage.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: "Treasures of St Petersburg & The Hermitage", (2003) a three-part documentary series for Channel 5 in the UK, directed by Graham Addicott and produced by Pille Runk.


title: Hermitage Museum

text: 'Hermitage Revealed' (2014) is a BBC documentary from Margy Kinmonth. The film tells the story of its journey from imperial palace to state museum, investigating remarkable tales of dedication, devotion, ownership and ultimate sacrifice, showing how the collection came about, how it survived tumultuous revolutionary times and what makes the Hermitage unique today.


title: Avril Haines

text: Avril Danica Haines (born August 27, 1969) is an American lawyer and senior government official who serves as the director of national intelligence in the Biden administration. She is the first woman to serve in this role. Haines previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Obama administration. Prior to her appointment to the CIA, she served as Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs in the Office of White House Counsel.


title: Avril Haines

text: Haines was born in New York City on August 27, 1969, to Adrian Rappin (née Adrienne Rappaport) and Thomas H. Haines. She grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Haines' mother, a painter, was Jewish. When Haines was 10, her mother developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and contracted avian tuberculosis; Haines and her father nursed Adrian in a home ICU until her death when Haines was 15 years old. Her father, Thomas H. Haines, is a biochemist who graduated with a PhD from Rutgers University and helped in the formation of the CUNY School of Medicine, where he served as the chair of the biochemistry department.


title: Avril Haines

text: After graduating from Hunter College High School, Haines moved to Japan for a year, where she enrolled at the Kodokan, an elite judo institute in Tokyo. In 1988, Haines enrolled in the University of Chicago where she studied physics. While attending the University of Chicago, Haines worked repairing car engines at a mechanic shop in Hyde Park. In 1991 Haines took up flying lessons in New Jersey, where she met her future husband, David Davighi. She later graduated with her B.A. in physics in 1992.


title: Avril Haines

text: In 1992, Haines moved to Baltimore, and enrolled as a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University. However, later that year, Haines dropped out and with her future husband purchased a bar in Fell's Point, Baltimore, which had been seized in a drug raid; they turned the location into an independent bookstore and café. She named the store Adrian's Book Cafe, after her late mother; Adrian's realistic oil paintings filled the store. The bookstore won "City Paper"s "Best Independent Bookstore" in 1997 and was known for having an unusual collection of literary offerings, local writers, and small press publications. Adrian's hosted a number of literary readings, including erotica readings, which became a media focus when she was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the deputy director of the CIA. She served as the president of the Fell's Point Business Association until 1998.


title: Avril Haines

text: In 2001, Haines became a legal officer at the Hague Conference on Private International Law. In 2002, she became a law clerk for United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Judge Danny Julian Boggs. From 2003 until 2006, Haines worked in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, first in the Office of Treaty Affairs and then in the Office of Political Military Affairs. From 2007 until 2008, Haines worked for the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Majority Senate Democrats (under then-chairman Joe Biden).


title: Avril Haines

text: Haines worked for the State Department as the assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs from 2008 to 2010, when she was appointed to serve in the office of the White House counsel as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs at the White House.


title: Avril Haines

text: On April 18, 2013, Obama nominated Haines to serve as Legal Adviser of the Department of State, to fill the position vacated after Harold Hongju Koh resigned to return to teaching at Yale Law School. However, on June 13, 2013, Obama withdrew Haines's nomination to be Legal Adviser of the Department of State, choosing instead to select her as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Haines was nominated to replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy and former acting director. The office of the deputy director is not subject to Senate confirmation, with Haines subsequently taking office on August 9, 2013, the final day of Morrell's tenure. Haines was the first woman ever to hold the office of the deputy director, while Gina Haspel was the first female career intelligence officer to be named director.


title: Avril Haines

text: In 2015, Haines, then deputy director of the CIA, was tasked with determining whether CIA personnel should be disciplined for hacking computers of Senate staffers authoring the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture. Haines chose not to discipline them, overruling the CIA Inspector General.


title: Avril Haines

text: During the Democratic National Committee email leak in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign, Haines as DNSA convened a series of meetings to discuss ways to respond to the hacking and leaks. Subsequently, she was involved in the CIA project of redacting the Senate report for release. In the end, only 525 pages of the 6,700 page CIA torture report were released.


title: Avril Haines

text: After serving as deputy director of the CIA, Haines was tapped as Deputy National Security Advisor (DNSA), the first woman to hold that position.


title: Avril Haines

text: During her years in the Obama administration, Haines worked closely with John Brennan in determining administration policy on extra-judicial "targeted killings" by drones. "Newsweek" reported Haines was sometimes called in the middle of the night to evaluate whether a suspected terrorist could be "lawfully incinerated" by a drone strike.


title: Avril Haines

text: The ACLU criticized the Obama policy on drone killings as failing to meet international human rights norms. Haines was instrumental in establishing the legal framework and policy guidelines for the drone strikes, which targeted suspected terrorists in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, but also resulted, according to human rights groups, in killing innocent civilians. An editor for "In These Times" said the policy guidelines "made targeted killings all over the world a normal part of US policy".


title: Avril Haines

text: Critics of Haines' drone policy guidelines said that, although the guidelines stipulate "direct action must be conducted lawfully and taken against lawful targets," they do not reference any international or domestic law that might permit extrajudicial killings outside an active war zone. Opponents of US drone warfare have noted that Haines redacted the minimum criteria for an individual to be "nominated" for lethal action, that the term "nominated" is a deceptive euphemism for targeting people for assassination, and that the drone guidelines allow for the assassination of US citizens without due process.


title: Avril Haines

text: After leaving the White House, Haines was appointed to multiple posts at Columbia University. She is a senior research scholar and deputy director for the Columbia World Projects, a program designed to bring to bear academic scholarship on some of the most basic and fundamental challenges the world is facing, and was designated the program's next director in May 2020, replacing Nicholas Lemann. Haines is also a fellow at the Human Rights Institute and National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School.


title: Avril Haines

text: Haines has been a member of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. She is also a distinguished fellow at the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University.


title: Avril Haines

text: Haines has consulted for Palantir Technologies, a data processing and analytics software solutions company accused of assisting the Trump administration with immigrant detention programs, and was an employee of WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm with a secretive client list that includes high-tech start-ups seeking Pentagon contracts. The firm was founded by Antony Blinken, Biden's secretary of state, and Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon adviser.


title: Avril Haines

text: In late June 2020, shortly after taking on the role of overseeing foreign policy and national security considerations for the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign transition team, references to Palantir and other corporations for which Haines had worked were removed from her fellowship resumé posted on the website of the Brookings Institution.


title: Avril Haines

text: In July 2020, an article in "The American Prospect" discussed Haines in their analysis of the connections between WestExec and the Biden administration.


title: Avril Haines

text: On November 23, 2020, Joe Biden, then the president-elect, announced his nomination of Haines for the position of Director of National Intelligence; she became the first woman to hold the position.


title: Avril Haines

text: Prior to her confirmation hearings, Daniel J. Jones, chief investigator and author of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture in 2009–2012, criticized Haines for determining that several CIA employees should not be disciplined for hacking computers of Senate staffers authoring the report in 2015. Haines, then-Deputy Director, made the decision against the CIA inspector general's conclusion.


title: Avril Haines

text: During her Senate confirmation hearing on January 19, 2021, Haines told Ron Wyden (D-OR) that she would comply with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 requiring the intelligence community to share the report on who was responsible for Jamal Kashoggi's murder if confirmed. The Trump administration had refused to release the report.


title: Avril Haines

text: Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) asked Haines if she agreed with the conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2012 report on torture which said that the practice was ineffective for collecting intelligence because those tortured would say anything to make it stop. Haines said there were "better" techniques than torture, and that it was inhumane, degrading, and unlawful.


title: Avril Haines

text: Wyden also asked if Haines agreed with the CIA Inspector General's conclusion that it was wrong for CIA agents to hack the computers of Senate staffers investigating the use of CIA torture during the Bush administration. Haines said she agreed with the Inspector General's apology for the hack.


title: Avril Haines

text: Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mark Warner (D-VA) questioned Haines about U.S.–China relations and, specifically, whether she shared their opinion that China was an adversary. Haines said, "China is adversarial and an adversary on some issues and on other issues, we try to cooperate with them." Haines promised an "aggressive response" to China and to counter its "illegal and unfair practices", but also said the US would seek China's cooperation in addressing the climate crisis.


title: Avril Haines

text: When questioned about the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol building, Haines said it was the primary responsibility of the FBI, not the intelligence community, to investigate domestic threats, though she also committed to collaborating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to evaluate the public threat of QAnon, a conspiracy theory promoted by some supporters of President Donald Trump.


title: Avril Haines

text: On January 20, 2021, Haines was confirmed by the Senate in an 84–10 vote. She was the first nominee to be confirmed by the Senate, and was sworn in the next day by Vice President Kamala Harris.


title: Avril Haines

text: In May 2022, she warned against Russia and China's efforts to "try to make inroads with partners of ours across the world," mentioning Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as examples.


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Kevin Joseph Zegers (born September 19, 1984) is a Canadian actor and model. He is known for his roles as Josh Framm in the "Air Bud" film series, Toby Osbourne in "Transamerica" (2005), Damien Dalgaard in the CW teen drama "Gossip Girl", and as rookie FBI Agent Brendon Acres on the ABC crime drama "". He has also starred in the films "Dawn of the Dead" (2004), "It's a Boy Girl Thing" (2006), "The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007), "Fifty Dead Men Walking" (2008), "Frozen" (2010), "", and "Nighthawks" (2019).


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Zegers was born in Woodstock, Ontario, the son of Mary-Ellen (née Veldman), a teacher, and Jim Zegers, a quarry worker. He has two sisters, Krista and Katie. (The latter is also an actress; she appeared with him in John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness".) He is of Dutch descent; all four of his grandparents were born in the Netherlands. He attended St Mary's Catholic High School in Woodstock.


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Zegers is active in sports, especially basketball, ice hockey, and golf. He played on the Hollywood Knights celebrity basketball team, raising money for local Los Angeles schools.


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Zegers began his performing career at the age of six, appearing in about 30 TV commercials. His first film role was at the age of seven, in a small part in the Michael J. Fox comedy "Life with Mikey" (1993), playing a younger version of Fox's character. Subsequently, he made a guest appearance on the acclaimed science fiction series "The X-Files", playing a stigmatic child, Kevin Kryder, in the 1995 episode "Revelations," and had a recurring role on the Canadian TV series "Traders" (1996). During this time, he appeared in several made-for-television films, including "", "The Silence of Adultery", and "Rose Hill", and as Noah Thompson in the "Let's Get Invisible!" episode of "Goosebumps".


title: Kevin Zegers

text: His career received a major boost when he won the role of Josh Framm in "Air Bud" (1997), a film about a lonely boy who befriends a basketball-playing dog. "Air Bud" launched a franchise, with four sequels. Zegers appeared in four of the films, as well as a similar title, "" (2000), which featured a hockey-playing chimp.


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Around that time, he starred in other family-friendly fare, including "A Call To Remember" (1997) with Joe Mantegna, "Nico the Unicorn" (1998) with Elisha Cuthbert, "Treasure Island" (1999) with Jack Palance, and "Time Share" (2000) with Nastassja Kinski. He also played a boy who discovers he is a clone in the TV series "So Weird" (1999). While also headlining numerous family/animal films, between 1997 and 2004, Zegers had starring or costarring roles in many low-budget horror films, often Canadian, including "Shadow Builder", "Komodo" (1999), "Wrong Turn" (2003), and "Fear of the Dark" and "The Hollow" (both 2004).


title: Kevin Zegers

text: In "Four Days" (1999), Zegers played a nameless boy devoted to his bank-robber father. He also appeared in the short-lived American television series "Titans" (2000), opposite Yasmine Bleeth, for which he was chosen by producer Aaron Spelling. It was his first regular television series role. Zegers had previously worked with Bleeth in the 1999 film "It Came from the Sky", where he played a mentally disabled child visited by an angel-like couple. He co-starred with Harry Hamlin in "Sex, Lies & Obsession" (2001), a Lifetime Network film about sex addiction, and with Gena Rowlands and James Caan in "The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie" (2003), a television film drama that won three Daytime Emmy awards: Outstanding Children/Youth/Family Special, Outstanding Performer (Rowlands), and Outstanding Writing.


title: Kevin Zegers

text: In the summer of 2003, he filmed the drama "Some Things That Stay" at the same time as the remake of "Dawn of the Dead", shuttling across Canada between sets. Around this time, he also continued his television work, appearing on "Smallville" in 2003 and "House" in 2004.


title: Kevin Zegers

text: In 2005, he had a major role in the Academy Award-nominated independent film "Transamerica", co-starring Felicity Huffman. Zegers' performance as Toby Osbourne, the street-hustling bisexual son of a trans woman (Huffman) was praised by several critics, and he won the Trophée Chopard for Male Revelation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Director Duncan Tucker said he had to overcome his initial wariness over Zegers' good looks before casting him for the role. "Variety"s reviewer wrote that "Zegers... finds multiple dimensions in pic's potentially most clichéd character...," and "The Hollywood Reporter"s critic said, "As a boy who considers sex his chief talent, Zegers... conveys Toby's essential sweetness and hunger for real affection, making him much more than just a vain or damaged kid."


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Also in 2005, he appeared with Shailene Woodley in "", a television film set in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1775, based on the "American Girl" book series. He played 15-year-old Benjamin "Ben" Davidson, an apprentice at a shop owned by Felicity's father. In 2006, Zegers played supervillain Concussion in the comedy "Zoom", with Tim Allen, and had the lead role opposite Samaire Armstrong in the romantic comedy "It's a Boy Girl Thing". He guest-starred as Damien Dalgaard in "Gossip Girl" from 2009 until 2010, and returned again in late 2010 for multiple episodes throughout season 4. He appeared in Rock Mafia's 2010 music video "The Big Bang", and in 2012, played the male protagonist in the television series "".


title: Kevin Zegers

text: Zegers portrayed Alec Lightwood in "" (2013). He joined the cast of "Fear the Walking Dead" for the series' fourth season.


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: Mr Jones (; ) is a 2019 biographical thriller film directed by Agnieszka Holland. It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival. The film loosely tells the story of Gareth Jones, a journalist from Wales, who in 1933 travels to the Soviet Union and uncovers the truth about the Holodomor, the devastating famine in Ukraine in which millions died.


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: In 1933, Gareth Jones is an ambitious young journalist who has gained some renown for his interview with Adolf Hitler. Thanks to his connections to Lloyd George, the former British prime minister, he is able to get official permission to travel to the Soviet Union. Jones intends to try to interview Stalin and to find out more about the Soviet Union's economic expansion and its apparently-successful five-year development plan.


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: Jones is restricted to Moscow but jumps his train and travels unofficially to Ukraine to discover evidence of the Holodomor, including empty villages, starving people, cannibalism and the enforced collection of grain. On his return to Britain, he struggles to get his story taken seriously. The film ends by recording that Jones died while reporting in Inner Mongolia with a guide who was secretly connected to the Soviet secret service.


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival. Distribution rights for North America were acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films in August 2019, and was released in the United Kingdom on 7 February 2020. It was scheduled to be released in the United States on 3 April 2020.


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Flawed yet fundamentally worthy, "Mr. Jones" peers into the past to tell a fact-based story that remains troublingly relevant today." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: Kevin Maher of "The Times" gave the film two out of five, calling it a "bungled biopic of Stalin whistle-blower". Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" gave the film four out of five, calling it "a bold and heartfelt movie with a real Lean-ian sweep". Tim Robey of "The Daily Telegraph" gave it three out of five, praising Sarsgaard for his performance and for raising the "sadly untapped" potential of the film. Robey criticised the script and concluded, "There's enough in "Mr Jones" to make you want a good deal more". David Ehrlich at Indiewire gave the film a grade C. Kyle Smith of "National Review" gave the film a favourable review, noting "To this day, Mr. Jones is all but unknown and his courage is unsung by his inky heirs, whereas Duranty's Pulitzer Prize remains on the books even after a thousand other things have been canceled. Meanwhile, "Mr. Jones" joins the unconscionably brief list of brutally honest films about Communism."


title: Mr Jones (2019 film)

text: The film was received poorly by members of Gareth Jones's family, who drew attention to its various distortions and historical inaccuracies, but acknowledged the overall quality of the film. They also accused the filmmakers of having taken advantage of their research, assistance and goodwill. On 20 January 2020, a news story appeared in "The Sunday Times" entitled "Family fury as film turns daring reporter Gareth Jones into accidental cannibal". This was based on an article written by Jones's great-nephew, Philip Colley, "The True Story behind the 'True Story' of "Mr Jones"".


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Demonic is a 2021 supernatural horror film written, co-produced and directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film stars Carly Pope, Chris William Martin, Michael J. Rogers, Nathalie Boltt, Terry Chen and Kandyse McClure. Filmed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it was released on August 20, 2021, receiving generally negative reviews from critics.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Carly (Carly Pope) is a young woman who has fallen out of contact with her mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt). Angela is convicted of killing more than 20 people in a killing spree where she burned down a care home she worked at and poisoned a church. Carly is supported by her best friend Sam (Kandyse McClure). The pair cut off their other childhood friend Martin (Chris William Martin) after he began to espouse strange theories about Angela.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: One day, Carly receives a text from Martin who wants to meet up and talk. Martin tells Carly that he was invited to be part of a focus group test for a company called Therapol which involved real medical patients, one of which was a comatose Angela. Carly is later contacted by Therapol, who ask her to visit their facility to discuss Angela.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: She meets scientists Daniel (Terry Chen) and Michael (Michael J. Rogers) who explain Angela fell into a coma following a series of violent episodes in prison and is "locked-in" inside her body. They tell Carly that Angela is highly active inside a simulation, calling for Carly and Martin. They ask Carly if she is willing to enter Angela's mind to talk to her, which she reluctantly agrees to do. In the simulation, Carly enters a copy of her childhood home and angrily confronts Angela about her crimes. Angela, fully able to speak in the simulation, demands that Carly leaves. That night, Carly has a nightmare where she finds a strange symbol made of a raven carcass.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Carly arrives at Therapol for another trip inside the simulation. This time she enters through a new tunnel into a field outside an old sanatorium which Angela had worked at. She meets with Angela, who claims that she was not the person who called for Carly and Martin. Angela's body in the simulation starts to glitch out and the scientists ignore a terrified Carly's demands to be removed from the simulation.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Entering the sanatorium, she finds Sam's body before being attacked by an avian-like Demon which slashes its arm open, creating the same cut on Carly's real-life body. Carly exits the simulation and tells Daniel and Michael how years ago, she and Martin found Angela in the sanatorium with the same cut on her arm. Carly refuses to participate in another simulation.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Carly visits Martin and tells him about her experience. He shows her his theories about demonic possession, showing Carly a sketch of the creature she saw in the simulation. Martin claims to have suffered similar nightmares to Carly's and explains how the demon manipulates its target through their family and friends. He also tells Carly of his theory that the Vatican is funding special black ops groups consisting of priests. The Vatican buys companies like Therapol to detect genuinely possessed people who seemingly suffer from medical conditions before the squad eliminates the demon by bringing it to its entry point from hell. In the case of the supposed demon taking over Angela, this is the sanatorium. A bewildered Carly refuses to believe this theory; Martin begins to suspect the demon has latched onto Carly.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: That night, a concerned Sam pays Carly a visit and Carly sends her away. Sam returns later into the night this time with a bird mask and telling Carly "to look for me in the woods". Sam puts on the bird mask and suddenly contorts her body, chasing Carly around the house. Carly barricades herself in her bedroom where she is attacked by the demon. Carly wakes up; the events are seemingly a dream and she rushes to Sam's house. It is revealed that Daniel and Michael are watching her and that Martin's theory is correct: they are priests and plan to eliminate the demon at the sanatorium. The demon has become obsessed with Carly while trapped in Angela's comatose body and wants to possess her to commit the same crimes it made Angela do. Carly finds Sam missing from her house and recruits Martin to help rescue her. They travel to the woods and retrieve a traumatized Sam, who claims a group of men took Angela into the nearby sanatorium. They leave Sam in Martin's car and head out to find Angela.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: At the sanatorium, they find the black ops team has been massacred and stumble upon a dying Daniel. Daniel explains the demon has entered Michael, who killed the squad, and gives Carly a holy lance that will kill the demon. In the sanatorium, Carly enters the simulation to rescue Angela. She finds Angela, who is finally free of the demon and makes amends with her daughter before dying peacefully. Carly escapes the simulation and looks for Martin. She stumbles across his car which is now in flames as well as Sam's burnt corpse. Carly finds Martin being tortured by Michael, who pursues Carly. Carly stabs Michael with the lance, killing him and accidentally sending the demon into herself. Carly wrestles with the possession before stabbing herself with the lance, killing the demon.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Sometime later, Carly awakens in a hospital and makes amends with Martin. She leaves flowers at Angela's grave.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: IFC Midnight bought rights to the film in the United States, where it was released in theaters on August 20, 2021, a week before being made available on video on demand. In its opening weekend, the film made $36,500 in 85 theaters.


title: Demonic (2021 film)

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 15% based on 82 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Neill Blomkamp's return to low-budget, high-concept filmmaking bungles some interesting ideas, adding up to another "Demonic" waste of the writer-director's once-promising talent." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 36 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Sodium thiopental, also known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories), thiopental, thiopentone, or Trapanal (also a trademark), is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic. It is the thiobarbiturate analog of pentobarbital, and an analog of thiobarbital. Sodium thiopental was a core medicine in the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, but was supplanted by propofol. Despite this, thiopental is listed as an acceptable alternative to propofol, depending on local availability and cost of these agents. It was previously the first of three drugs administered during most lethal injections in the United States, but the US manufacturer Hospira stopped manufacturing the drug in 2011 and the European Union banned the export of the drug for this purpose. Although thiopental abuse carries a dependency risk, its recreational use is rare.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Sodium thiopental is an ultra-short-acting barbiturate and has been used commonly in the induction phase of general anesthesia. Its use has been largely replaced with that of propofol, but may retain some popularity as an induction agent for rapid-sequence induction and intubation, such as in obstetrics. Following intravenous injection, the drug rapidly reaches the brain and causes unconsciousness within 30–45 seconds. At one minute, the drug attains a peak concentration of about 60% of the total dose in the brain. Thereafter, the drug distributes to the rest of the body, and in about 5–10 minutes the concentration is low enough in the brain that consciousness returns.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: A normal dose of sodium thiopental (usually 4–6 mg/kg) given to a pregnant woman for operative delivery (caesarean section) rapidly makes her unconscious, but the baby in her uterus remains conscious. However, larger or repeated doses can depress the baby's consciousness.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Sodium thiopental is not used to maintain anesthesia in surgical procedures because, in infusion, it displays zero-order elimination pharmacokinetics, leading to a long period before consciousness is regained. Instead, anesthesia is usually maintained with an inhaled anesthetic (gas) agent. Inhaled anesthetics are eliminated relatively quickly, so that stopping the inhaled anesthetic will allow rapid return of consciousness. Sodium thiopental would have to be given in large amounts to maintain unconsciousness during anaesthesia due to its rapid redistribution throughout the body (as it has a high volume of distribution). Since its half-life of 5.5 to 26 hours is quite long, consciousness would take a long time to return.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: In veterinary medicine, sodium thiopental is used to induce anesthesia in animals. Since it is redistributed to fat, certain lean breeds of dogs such as sighthounds will have prolonged recoveries from sodium thiopental due to their lack of body fat and their lean body mass. Conversely, obese animals will have rapid recoveries, but it will take much longer for the drug to be entirely removed (metabolized) from their bodies. Sodium thiopental is always administered intravenously, as it can be fairly irritating to tissue and a vesicant; severe tissue necrosis and sloughing can occur if it is injected incorrectly into the tissue around a vein.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: In addition to anesthesia induction, sodium thiopental was historically used to induce medical comas. It has now been superseded by drugs such as propofol because their effects wear off more quickly than thiopental.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Patients with brain swelling, causing elevation of intracranial pressure, either secondary to trauma or following surgery, may benefit from this drug. Sodium thiopental, and the barbiturate class of drugs, decrease neuronal activity thereby decreasing cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen consumption (CMRO), decrease the cerebrovascular response to carbon dioxide, which in turn decreases intracranial pressure. Patients with refractory elevated intracranial pressure (RICH) due to traumatic brain injury (TBI) may have improved long term outcome when barbiturate coma is added to their neurointensive care treatment. Reportedly, thiopental has been shown to be superior to pentobarbital in reducing intracranial pressure. This phenomenon is also called an inverse steal or Robin Hood effect as cerebral perfusion to all parts of the brain is reduced (due to the decreased cerebrovascular response to carbon dioxide) allowing optimal perfusion to ischaemic areas of the brain which have higher metabolic demands, since vessels supplying ischaemic areas of the brain would already be maximally dilated because of the metabolic demand.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Sodium thiopental is used intravenously for the purposes of euthanasia. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, where active euthanasia is allowed by law, the standard protocol recommends sodium thiopental as the ideal agent to induce coma, followed by pancuronium bromide to paralyze muscles and stop breathing.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Intravenous administration is the most reliable and rapid way to accomplish euthanasia. Death is quick. A coma is first induced by intravenous administration of 20 mg/kg thiopental sodium (Nesdonal) in a small volume (10 ml physiological saline). Then, a triple dose of a non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking drug is given, such as 20 mg pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) or 20 mg vecuronium bromide (Norcuron). The muscle relaxant should be given intravenously to ensure optimal bioavailability but pancuronium bromide may be administered intramuscularly at an increased dosage level of 40 mg.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Along with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, thiopental is used in 34 states of the US to execute prisoners by lethal injection. A very large dose is given to ensure rapid loss of consciousness. Although death usually occurs within ten minutes of the beginning of the injection process, some have been known to take longer. The use of sodium thiopental in execution protocols was challenged in court after a study in the medical journal "The Lancet" reported autopsies of executed inmates showed the level of thiopental in their bloodstream was insufficient to cause unconsciousness although this is dependent on different factors and not just on the drug itself.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: On December 8, 2009, Ohio became the first state to use a single dose of sodium thiopental for its capital execution, following the failed use of the standard three-drug cocktail during a recent execution, due to inability to locate suitable veins. Kenneth Biros was executed using the single-drug method.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Washington State became the second state in the US to use the single-dose sodium thiopental injections for executions. On September 10, 2010, the execution of Cal Coburn Brown was the first in the state to use a single-dose, single-drug injection. His death was pronounced approximately one and a half minutes after the intravenous administration of five grams of the drug.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: After its use for the execution of Jeffrey Landrigan in the US, the United Kingdom introduced a ban on the export of sodium thiopental in December 2010, after it was established that no European supplies to the US were being used for any other purpose. The restrictions were based on "the European Union Torture Regulation (including licensing of drugs used in execution by lethal injection)". From 21 December 2011, the EU extended trade restrictions to prevent the export of certain medicinal products for capital punishment, stating that "the Union disapproves of capital punishment in all circumstances and works towards its universal abolition".


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Thiopental is still used in places such as India as a truth serum to weaken the resolve of a subject and make the individual more compliant to pressure. Barbiturates decrease both higher cortical brain function and inhibition. It is hypothesized that because lying is a more mentally involving process than telling the truth, suppression of the higher cortical functions may lead to the uncovering of the truth. The drug tends to make subjects verbose and cooperative with interrogators; however, the reliability of confessions made under thiopental is questionable.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Psychiatrists have used thiopental to desensitize patients with phobias and to "facilitate the recall of painful repressed memories." One psychiatrist who worked with thiopental is Jan Bastiaans, who used this procedure to help relieve trauma in surviving victims of the Holocaust.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Sodium thiopental is a member of the barbiturate class of drugs, which are relatively non-selective compounds that bind to an entire superfamily of ligand-gated ion channels, of which the GABA receptor channel is one of several representatives. This superfamily of ion channels includes the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), the 5-HT3 receptor, the glycine receptor and others. Surprisingly, while GABA receptor currents are increased by barbiturates (and other general anesthetics), ligand-gated ion channels that are predominantly permeable for cationic ions are blocked by these compounds. For example, neuronal nAChR are blocked by clinically relevant anesthetic concentrations of both sodium thiopental and pentobarbital. Such findings implicate (non-GABAergic) ligand-gated ion channels, e.g. the neuronal nAChR, in mediating some of the (side) effects of barbiturates. The GABA receptor is an inhibitory channel that decreases neuronal activity, and barbiturates enhance the inhibitory action of the GABA receptor.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Following a shortage that led a court to delay an execution in California, a company spokesman for Hospira, the sole American manufacturer of the drug, objected to the use of thiopental in lethal injection. "Hospira manufactures this product because it improves or saves lives, and the company markets it solely for use as indicated on the product labeling. The drug is not indicated for capital punishment and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure." On January 21, 2011, the company announced that it would stop production of sodium thiopental from its plant in Italy, because it could not provide Italian authorities with guarantees that exported doses would not be used in executions. According to a company spokesperson, Italy was the only viable place where it could produce the drug, leaving the US without a supplier.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: In October 2015 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration confiscated an overseas shipment of thiopental destined for the states of Arizona and Texas. FDA spokesman Jeff Ventura said in a statement, "Courts have concluded that sodium thiopental for the injection in humans is an unapproved drug and may not be imported into the country".


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Thiopental rapidly and easily crosses the blood–brain barrier as it is a lipophilic molecule. As with all lipid-soluble anaesthetic drugs, the short duration of action of sodium thiopental is due almost entirely to its redistribution away from central circulation into muscle and fatty tissue, due to its very high lipid–water partition coefficient (approximately 10), leading to sequestration in fatty tissue. Once redistributed, the free fraction in the blood is metabolized in the liver by zero-order kinetics. Sodium thiopental is mainly metabolized to pentobarbital, 5-ethyl-5-(1'-methyl-3'-hydroxybutyl)-2-thiobarbituric acid, and 5-ethyl-5-(1'-methyl-3'-carboxypropyl)-2-thiobarbituric acid.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: The usual dose range for induction of anesthesia using thiopental is from 3 to 6 mg/kg; however, there are many factors that can alter this. Premedication with sedatives such as benzodiazepines or clonidine will reduce requirements due to drug synergy, as do specific disease states and other patient factors. Among patient factors are: age, sex, and lean body mass. Specific disease conditions that can alter the dose requirements of thiopentone and for that matter any other intravenous anaesthetic are: hypovolemia, burns, azotemia, liver failure, hypoproteinemia, etc.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: As with nearly all anesthetic drugs, thiopental causes cardiovascular and respiratory depression resulting in hypotension, apnea, and airway obstruction. For these reasons, only suitably trained medical personnel should give thiopental in an environment suitably equipped to deal with these effects. Side effects include headache, agitated emergence, prolonged somnolence, and nausea. Intravenous administration of sodium thiopental is followed instantly by an odor and/or taste sensation, sometimes described as being similar to rotting onions, or to garlic. The hangover from the side effects may last up to 36 hours.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Although each molecule of thiopental contains one sulfur atom, it is not a sulfonamide, and does not show the allergic reactions of sulfa/sulpha drugs.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Thiopental should be used with caution in cases of liver disease, Addison's disease, myxedema, severe heart disease, severe hypotension, a severe breathing disorder, or a family history of porphyria.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Co-administration of pentoxifylline and thiopental causes death by acute pulmonary edema in rats. This pulmonary edema was not mediated by cardiac failure or by pulmonary hypertension but was due to increased pulmonary vascular permeability.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Sodium thiopental was discovered in the early 1930s by Ernest H. Volwiler and Donalee L. Tabern, working for Abbott Laboratories. It was first used in human beings on March 8, 1934, by Dr. Ralph M. Waters in an investigation of its properties, which were short-term anesthesia and surprisingly little analgesia. Three months later, Dr. John S. Lundy started a clinical trial of thiopental at the Mayo Clinic at the request of Abbott. Abbott continued to make the drug until 2004, when it spun off its hospital-products division as Hospira.


title: Sodium thiopental

text: Thiopental is famously associated with a number of anesthetic deaths in victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor. These deaths, relatively soon after the drug's introduction, were said to be due to excessive doses given to shocked trauma patients. However, recent evidence available through freedom of information legislation was reviewed in the "British Journal of Anaesthesia", which has suggested that this story was grossly exaggerated. Of the 344 wounded that were admitted to the Tripler Army Hospital, only 13 did not survive, and it is unlikely that thiopentone overdose was responsible for more than a few of these.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturer, headquartered in Chennai. It is owned by the Hinduja Group. It was founded in 1948 as Ashok Motors and became Ashok Leyland in the year 1955. Ashok Leyland is the second-most successful manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India (with a market share of 32.1% in 2016), the third-most successful manufacturer of buses in the world, and the tenth-most successful manufacturer of trucks.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: With the corporate office located in Chennai, its manufacturing facilities are in Ennore, Bhandara, two in Hosur, Alwar and Pantnagar. Ashok Leyland also has overseas manufacturing units with a bus manufacturing facility in Ras Al Khaimah (UAE), one at Leeds, United Kingdom and a joint venture with the Alteams Group for the manufacture of high-press die-casting extruded Aluminium components for the automotive and telecommunications sectors. Operating nine plants, Ashok Leyland also makes spare parts and engines for industrial and marine applications.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland has a product range from 1T GVW (Overall Vehicle Weight) to 55T GTW (Overall Trailer Weight) in trucks, 9 to 80-seater buses, vehicles for defence and special applications, and diesel engines for industrial, genset and marine applications. In 2019, Ashok Leyland claimed to be in the top 10 global commercial vehicle makers. It sold approximately 140,000 vehicles (M&HCV and LCV) in 2016. The company has passenger transportation options ranging from 10 seaters to 74 seaters (M&HCV = LCV). In the trucks segment Ashok Leyland primarily concentrates on the 16 to 25-ton range and has a presence in the 7.5 to 49 ton range.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Motors was founded in 1948 by Raghunandan Saran, an Indian freedom fighter from Punjab. After Independence, he was persuaded by India's first Prime Minister Nehru to invest in a modern industrial venture. Ashok Motors was incorporated in 1948 as a company to assemble and manufacture Austin cars from England, and the company was named after the founder's only son, Ashok Saran. The company had its headquarters in Chennai, with the manufacturing plant in Chennai. The company was engaged in the assembly and distribution of Austin A40 passenger cars in India.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The collaboration ended sometime in 1975 but the holding of British Leyland, now a major British auto conglomerate as a result of several mergers, agreed to assist in technology, which continued until the 1980s. After 1975, changes in management structures saw the company launch various vehicles in the Indian market, with many of these models continuing to this day with numerous upgrades over the years.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 1987, the overseas holding by Land Rover Leyland International Holdings Limited (LRLIH) was taken over by a joint venture between the Hinduja Group, the Non-Resident Indian transnational group and Iveco, part of the Fiat Group.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2007, the Hinduja Group also bought out Iveco's indirect stake in Ashok Leyland. The promoter shareholding now stands at 51%. Today the company is the flagship of the Hinduja Group, a British-based and Indian originated trans-national conglomerate.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In September 2020, Ashok Leyland launched the Bada Dost based on its indigenously developed LCV platform called Phoenix.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: During the early 1980s Ashok Leyland entered into a collaboration with Japanese company Hino Motors from whom technology for the H-series engines was sourced. Many indigenous versions of the H-series engine were developed with 4 and 6 cylinders, and also conforming to BS2, BS3 & BS4 emission standards in India. Most current models of Ashok Leyland come with H-series engines. Japan entered into a Mutual Cooperation Agreement (MCA) on 27 November 2017 renewing their cooperative agreement that had started in 1986. According to the agreement Ashok Leyland will use Hino's engine technology for its Euro 6 development and will support in the development of Hino's engine parts purchasing in India for global operation.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland Defence Systems (ALDS), Russia's Rosoboronexport and ELCOM Group have signed a cooperation agreement in defence business to provide tracked vehicles to Indian Armed Forces. The agreement was signed on the side lines of the International Military Technical Forum Army – 2017 held at Kubinka, near Moscow, on 25 August 2017.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) signed a memorandum of understanding, on 19 August 2017, for Ashok Leyland to sponsor the Centre of Battery Engineering (CoBE) at IIT Madras. As part of the agreement Ashok Leyland partnered with IIT Madras to carry out research and development (R&D) activities for strengthening battery engineering and related sub-parts, especially for electric vehicles.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: On 18 July 2017 Ashok Leyland announced the formation of an alliance with SUN Mobility, The global partnership aims to develop electric vehicles.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In the late 1980s Iveco investment and partnership resulted in Ashok Leyland launching the 'Cargo' range of trucks based on European Ford Cargo trucks. The Cargo entered production in 1994, at Ashok Leyland's new plant in Hosur. These vehicles used Iveco engines and for the first time had factory-fitted cabs. Though the Cargo trucks are no longer in production and the use of Iveco engine was discontinued, the cab continues to be used on the Ecomet range of trucks as well as for several of Ashok Leyland's military vehicles.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The Cargo was originally introduced in versions; later, heavier-duty models from were progressively introduced.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: On 26 May 2022, Ashok Leyland has announced partnership with ETG Group to strengthen its partnership in Africa. As part of the tie-up, ETG Logistics (ETGL) will operate dealerships for Ashok Leyland in six key southern African countries.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland MiTR (or MiTR) is a Minibus manufactured by Ashok Leyland in Joint venture with Nissan. The vehicle was unveiled in January 2014 during the 12th Auto Expo 2014 and was launched in July 2014.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 1968, production of the Leyland Titan ceased in Britain, but was restarted by Ashok Leyland in India. The Titan PD3 chassis was modified, and a five-speed heavy duty constant-mesh gearbox was used together with the Ashok Leyland version of the O.680 engine. The Ashok Leyland Titan continued in production for many years.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Early products included the Leyland Comet bus which was a passenger body built on a truck chassis sold in large numbers to many operators in India. By 1963, the Comet was operated by every state transport undertaking in India, and over 8,000 were in service. It was soon joined in production by a version of the Leyland Tiger.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Boss is an intermediate commercial vehicle launched by Ashok Leyland. It is available in the range of 11T to 18.5T. The presently available models are:


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The Dost is a 1.25 ton light commercial vehicle (LCV) that is the first product to be launched by the Indian-Japanese commercial vehicle joint venture Ashok Leyland Nissan Vehicles. Dost is powered by a 58 hp high-torque, 3-cylinder, turbo-charged common rail diesel engine and has a payload capacity of 1.25 tonnes. It is available in both BS3 and BS4 versions. The bodywork and some of the underpinnings relate to Nissan's C22 Vanette of the 1980s; this is most visible in the door design. The LCV is produced in Ashok Leyland's Hosur plant in Tamil Nadu. The LCV is available in three versions. With the launch of Dost Ashok Leyland has now entered the Light Commercial Vehicle segment in India


title: Ashok Leyland

text: STiLE is a multi-purpose vehicle which was manufactured by Ashok Leyland. The vehicle was unveiled during the 2012 Auto Expo and was launched in July 2013. STiLE was marketed as a "multi-purpose vehicle" for use as a hotel shuttle, taxi, ambulance, and panel van, and in courier service. In May 2015, Ashok Leyland stopped production due to low demand.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland offers Diesel Generators manufactured with Ashok Leyland engines and Leypower alternators. Currently they manufacture 5 to 2250 kVA Silent DG Sets.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In June 2009 the company expanded into construction equipment segment, with a 50:50 joint venture with John Deere. It was floated as a separate entity under the name of Leyland – Deere Limited.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland Defence Systems (ALDS) is a newly floated company by the Hinduja Group. Ashok Leyland holds 26 percent in Ashok Leyland Defence Systems (ALDS). The company designs and develops defence logistics and tactical vehicles, defence communication and other systems. Ashok Leyland is the largest supplier of logistics vehicles to the Indian Army. It has supplied over 60,000 of its Stallion vehicles, all manufactured at the Vehicle Factory Jabalpur (VFJ).


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Exports of commercial vehicles contribute to a seven percent share of Ashok Leyland's total revenues.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The company has a presence in SAARC countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, and in the Middle East countries where it exports 3600–4000 units a year. The company has an assembly unit, mainly for buses, in Ras Al Khaimah in UAE to cater to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. This unit currently assembles 4000 units, which the company plans to increase to 6000 units.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland exports medium and heavy commercial vehicles to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Member States like Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries like Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, East And West Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia. Every year Ashok Leyland exports about 12000 trucks to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: On 11 June 2012, Ashok Leyland supplied 100 Falcon buses to Ghana for $7.6 million (about 420 million). Ashok Leyland was awarded the first overseas order worth $6 million for its vestibule buses from Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC).


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Lanka Ashok Leyland (LAL) in Sri Lanka was formed in 1982 and started its operations in 1983 as a joint venture between Lanka Leyland Ltd (a wholly owned company of the Government of Sri Lanka) and Ashok Leyland Ltd India. LAL imports commercial vehicles in both knock down kits and fully built, and carries out assembly operations, repair and service, and body building on chassis.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In October 2006, Ashok Leyland bought a large stake in the Czech-based Avia, later renaming as Avia Ashok Leyland Motors s.r.o., to gain entry into the European market. However, the prolonged recession in Europe forced them to shut down the Czech operations in 2013.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2010 Ashok Leyland acquired a 26% stake in the British bus manufacturer Optare, a company that was originally based on the premises of a former British Leyland subsidiary Charles H Roe before moving to the new purpose-built factory in 2011 in Sherburn-in-Elmet. In 2017, Ashok Leyland acquired a further 72.31% stake in Optare increasing its overall stake to 98.31%.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: It was the first in India to introduce multi-axled trucks, full air brakes and innovations like the rear engine and articulated buses. In 1997, the company launched the country's first CNG bus, and in 2002 developed the first hybrid electric vehicle.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In the 1980s and 1990s, Ashok Leyland with various Tamil Nadu Transport Corporation, notably Cholan Roadways Corporation based in Trichripally, experimented with low pollutant emission based on the CNG technology. In 2002 it developed the first hybrid electric vehicle. Ashok Leyland has also launched a mobile emission clinic that operates on highways and at entry points to New Delhi. The clinic checks vehicles for emission levels, recommends remedies and offers tips on maintenance and care.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland has also developed hythane engines in association with the Australian company Eden Energy. Ashok Leyland developed a 6-cylinder, BS-4 engine which uses hythane (H-CNG,) which is a blend of natural gas and around 20% of hydrogen. A 4-cylinder engine is also being developed for H-CNG blend in a joint R&D program with MNRE (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy) and Indian Oil Corporation.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The CNG concept is operational, with more than 5,500 of the technology's vehicles running around Delhi. The company is also already discussing the wide-scale use of hythane engines with the Indian government.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In the Auto Expo 2010 at Delhi, Ashok Leyland launched India's first plug-in CNG hybrid bus, HYBUS. The hybrid bus offered 20–30% fuel saving over conventional buses powered by internal combustion engine, and were more eco-friendly than regular CNG buses, as a result of its hybrid technology that combined conventional CNG engine with electric propulsion system. The propulsion system was powered by lithium-ion battery.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The other useful features of the bus included ultra-low entry at 390mm with kneeling option, noise-free rear engine, front and rear air suspensions and retractable ramp for wheel-chair entry. Some innovative pedestrian safety concepts were also introduced in the bus, like the sound and light alerts while the bus moves, a camera-assisted reversing aid for the driver and night time highlighters near the tail lights.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: At the Delhi Auto Expo 2016, Ashok Leyland introduced an advanced non-plugin version of HYBUS. It is claimed to be India's first non-plugin series hybrid bus. The bus uses ultra-capacitors to store energy, a feature that improves power density and fuel efficiency, because energy is stored electrostatically and does not involve chemical reactions. The ultra-capacitors are claimed to be 4–5 times more durable than conventional lithium-ion batteries.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: HYBUS is powered by an H-Series 6-cylinder diesel (BS IV compliant) engine that is not used to drive the vehicle ahead, but to charge the ultra-capacitors that powers the 150 kW electric motor. Automatic start-stop is used to decrease the overall engine idling time. The bus can restart using the stored energy when the engine is off. The fuel-efficiency of the engine thus increases and NVH (Noise-vibration-harshness) levels decrease.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The buses and trucks are set to feature a new electronic shift-by-wire transmission technology as well as electronic-controlled engine management for greater fuel efficiency. Ashok Leyland focuses on improving fuel efficiency without affecting automotive power, and the vehicles will have a 5% improvement on fuel efficiency. Ashok Leyland is also developing electric batteries and bio-fuel modes.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2016 the company launched the country's first indigenously produced fully electric bus, called Circuit. The bus is a zero-emission vehicle that can run 120 km on a single charge, and has an alert system that can signal if the bus is low on power. The bus will be introduced under the National Electric Mobility Plan with an aim of 20% penetration of electric or hybrid vehicles by 2020.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: AT the Delhi Auto Expo 2016, the company showcased its first indigenously produced Euro VI truck 4940. The truck is powered by the company's flagship range of engine, Neptune, which is an 8l engine that produces 400 hp and 1600Nm of torque. The truck is designed to meet Euro VI norms.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2017, the company showcased iEGR (intelligent exhaust gas recirculation) technology for its trucks and buses to meet BS-IV emission standards. The technology also promises other advantages like better fuel efficiency than BS-III trucks, and power transmission up to 400 HP.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland announced iBUS in the beginning of 2008, as part of the future for the country's increasingly traffic-clogged major cities. Its Rs 60-lakh iBus is a feature-filled, low-floor concept bus for the metros revealed during the Auto Expo 2008 in India. This low-floored iBus will have the first of its kind features, including anti-lock braking system, electronic engine management and passenger infotainment. The executive class has an airline like ambiance with wide LCD screens, reading lights, audio speakers and, for the first time, Internet on the move. A GPS system enables vehicle tracking and display of dynamic route information on LCD screens, which can also support infotainment packages including live data and news. The bus will probably be equipped with an engine from the new Neptune family, which Ashok Leyland also introduced at this exhibition, which is ready for the BS4/Euro 4 emission regulations and can be upgraded to Euro 5. The ibus of Ashok leyland have hybrid technology


title: Ashok Leyland

text: The company has maintained its profitable track record for 60 years. The annual revenue of the company was US$3.2 billion in 2016–17. Selling 140,457 light, medium, heavy vehicles in 2016–17, Ashok Leyland was one of India's largest exporters of medium and heavy duty trucks. It is also one of the largest private sector employers in India, with about 12,000 employees working in 9 factories and offices spread across the globe.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2013–14, the company posted a very modest profit after tax of which was made possible after the selling of real estate and other surplus land and related assets. The company did not declare any dividends for the financial year 2013–14, which is also a first in its 60-year history.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland's Technical Centre, at Vellivoyalchavadi (VVC) in the outskirts of North Chennai near Minjur, is a state-of-the-art product development facility, that apart from modern test tracks and component test labs, also houses India's one and only eight poster testing equipment.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: Ashok Leyland, flagship of the Hinduja Group, has CSR programs in environment, health, education and infrastructure. In 2015–16, Ashok Leyland partnered with Learning Links Foundation, an NGO, to develop and provide a holistic program, consisting of educational and health improvements, to the children in India who drop out of school due to lack of infrastructure, poor financial and living conditions that make it difficult for them to pursue education and improve their standard of living. The Road to School program began with 36 schools in Shoolagiri and Anchetty in Krishnagiri district, Tamil Nadu, and has now reached 714 schools impacting more than 55,000 students in government primary and upper primary schools.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2019, in partnership with the Akshaya Patra Foundation, Ashok Leyland launched the Breakfast Program that benefitted 7,800 students in 70 Government schools in Shoolagiri and Thally Block. The program was aimed to provide hot and nutritious breakfast to the school children. The program is also aimed at bringing social equality among the children belonging to remote villages.


title: Ashok Leyland

text: In 2020, in wake of the pandemic, COVID-19, Hinduja Foundation launched the ‘iCare: Volunteer from Home’ initiative which was aimed at reaching out to the underprivileged children across the nation and provide online education. Under this initiative, employees of the Hinduja Group Companies, including Ashok Leyland and others, interacted with the students and their families to engage them in a range of activities through technology based online and offline interactive modes. The iCare initiative spanned over the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana.


title: Crassula ovata

text: Crassula ovata, commonly known as jade plant, lucky plant, money plant or money tree, is a succulent plant with small pink or white flowers that is native to the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa, and Mozambique; it is common as a houseplant worldwide. Much of its popularity stems from the low levels of care needed; the jade plant requires little water and can survive in most indoor conditions. It is sometimes referred to as the money tree; however, "Pachira aquatica" also has this nickname.


title: Crassula ovata

text: The jade plant is an evergreen with thick branches. It has thick, shiny, smooth leaves that grow in opposing pairs along the branches. Leaves are a rich jade green, although some may appear to be more of a yellow-green. Some varieties may develop a red tinge on the edges of leaves when exposed to high levels of sunlight. New stem growth is the same colour and texture as the leaves, becoming woody and brown with age.


title: Crassula ovata

text: It grows as an upright, rounded, thick-stemmed, strongly branched shrub and reaches stature heights of up to 2.5 metres. The base is usually sparsely branched. Sometimes a single main trunk of up to 9 centimetres in diameter is formed. The succulent shoots are gray-green. The bark of older branches peels off in horizontal, brownish stripes. Although becoming brown and appearing woody with age, stems never become true lignified tissue, remaining succulent and fleshy throughout the plant's life.


title: Crassula ovata

text: The oppositely arranged, ascending to spreading, green leaves are stalked with up to 5 millimetres short. The fleshy, bare, obovate, wedge-shaped leaf blade is 3 to 9 centimetres long and 1.8 to 4 centimetres wide. The sharp-edged leaf margins are often reddish.


title: Crassula ovata

text: Numerous varieties and cultivars have been selected, of which "C. ovata" 'Hummel's Sunset' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


title: Crassula ovata

text: When it matures, it produces small white or pink, star-like shaped flowers in winter. The terminal inflorescence is a top round thyrsus with numerous dichasia. It has a length and a diameter of about 5 centimetres. The inflorescence stem has a length of 15 to 18 millimetres and a diameter of 2 millimetres. The flower stalks are 5 millimetres long.


title: Crassula ovata

text: The sweet-scented, hermaphroditic flowers have radial symmetry and double perianths. The five sepals, each about 2 millimetres long, are fused to one another at the base. The pink or white flower crown is star-shaped and has a diameter of about 15 millimetres. Its lanceolate petals are 7 millimetres long and 2.5 millimetres wide. The stamens have a length of 5 millimetres. The combination of shorter days, cold nights and lack of water for several weeks will produce flowering around the beginning of winter.


title: Crassula ovata

text: As a succulent, "Crassula ovata" requires little water in the summer and even less in the winter. It is susceptible to overwatering, especially during the cold season. Watering excessively can cause leaf fall and root rot. However, a lack of water can also damage it. It should be grown in a porous substrate with good drainage, which will vary depending on the climate it is grown in. It requires about 4–6 hours of direct sun or medium shade exposures with bright light. In regions of mild weather it can withstand some light frost, provided that the substrate is kept dry.


title: Crassula ovata

text: "C. ovata" may display a red tinge around its leaves when grown with bright sunlight. In more extreme cases, the green colour of the plant is lost and can be replaced by yellow. This is caused by the jade plant making pigments such as carotenoids to protect from harsh sunlight and ultraviolet rays. The plant also flowers in the wintertime, particularly during a cooler, darker, dry spell. "C. ovata" is sometimes attacked by mealybugs, a common nuisance of the succulents.


title: Crassula ovata

text: The jade plant is well known for its bonsai capabilities, since it forms a bonsai very easily when pruning is done correctly. Many who learn bonsai begin with a jade plant, since they are durable, easy to put through the bonsai process, and attractive.


title: Crassula ovata

text: The jade plant is also known for its ease of propagation, which can be carried out with clippings or even stray leaves which fall from the plant. Jade plants may readily be propagated from both with success rates higher than with cuttings. In the wild, vegetative propagation is the jade plant's main method of reproduction. Branches regularly fall off wild jade plants, and these branches may root and form new plants.


title: Crassula ovata

text: Like many succulents, jade plants can be propagated from just the swollen leaves which grow in pairs on the stems. While propagation methods may vary, most follow similar steps. Typically, the wounds on the leaves are left to dry and callus over. Then, the leaves are placed in or on soil. Roots begin to grow on severed leaves about four weeks after being removed from the stem. Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity affect the speed at which the roots and new plants develop. Foliage usually appears soon after new roots have formed.


title: Crassula ovata

text: Scale insects are common pests of "Crassula ovata" and can cause deformation of the plant during growth. An infestation can be eliminated by killing each insect with a cotton bud or brush that has been soaked in rubbing alcohol. This process is repeated daily until all mealybugs have been killed, as well as new insects that may still hatch after the mealybugs living on the plant have been killed. Aphids are also common pests, but they tend to infest the stems of flowers. Spider mites can also cause problems. Exposure to sap or leaves can cause dermatitis in humans.


title: Crassula ovata

text: Like many species from the Crassulaceae family, the jade plant is toxic to horses, and dogs and cats, as well as mildly toxic to humans, in some cases, with skin contact. In this respect it differs greatly, possibly dangerously, from Portulacaria, which is edible to humans and other animals.


title: Sydney Tamiia Poitier

text: Born in Los Angeles on November 15, 1973, Poitier is the daughter of the late Bahamian-American actor Sidney Poitier and Canadian actress Joanna Shimkus. Her mother is of Lithuanian Jewish and Irish Catholic descent. She has an older sister, Anika. She also has four older half-sisters, Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, and Gina, from her father's first marriage.


title: Sydney Tamiia Poitier

text: Poitier attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where she earned a bachelor's degree in acting. She also studied at Stella Adler Studio of Acting.