title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza was involved in a bizarre incident during the 2000 World Series. Earlier in the season during interleague play, Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens hit Piazza in the head with a fastball. Piazza suffered a concussion and was forced to miss the 2000 MLB All-Star Game. Clemens was widely criticized by Mets fans for the incident, but Clemens maintained that the pitch was not intentional. Clemens and Piazza would go on to face each other again in the first inning of World Series Game 2. During the at-bat, Clemens threw a pitch that broke Piazza's bat as he fouled it off, sending the barrel and a sharp edge of the broken bat directly at Clemens on the mound just as he finished his delivery. Clemens caught the barrel, initially thinking it was the ball coming back at him, but upon realizing it was not the baseball, he threw it across the first base line towards the Yankees' dugout and just past Piazza who was running down to first. Piazza gave a long stare at Clemens and slowly started walking towards Clemens to confront him, and Clemens asked the umpire for a new ball as if nothing had happened. During replays, Clemens can be seen shouting "I thought it was the ball!" and asking the umpire for a new ball multiple times as the two benches cleared and met at the mound. Words were exchanged between the two players, but no punches were thrown from either team and nobody was ejected. Piazza later caught for Clemens when both were on the NL team in the 2004 All-Star Game. Clemens gave up six runs in the first inning.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza's game-winning 8th-inning home run in the first professional baseball game played in New York following the 9/11 attacks has been called iconic, therapeutic, and symbolic. The jersey he wore in that September 21, 2001 game was purchased in April 2016 for $365,000, the highest price ever paid for a modern-day jersey, and is displayed on a rotating basis among the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Citi Field, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.


title: Mike Piazza

text: To ease the stress on his deteriorating knees, Piazza began to split his time between catching and playing first base during the 2004 season, an experiment which was abandoned before the end of the season because of Piazza's defensive deficiencies. Although recognized as a great hitter, Piazza has had some notable defensive accomplishments. Among them, Piazza caught two no-hitters thrown by Ramón Martínez and Hideo Nomo while playing with the Dodgers. Nomo's was particularly impressive because it happened at Coors Field, notorious for being a hitter-friendly ballpark. Additionally, Piazza's .997 fielding percentage was the highest among NL catchers in 2000.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On October 2, 2005, Piazza played his final game in a Mets uniform. Because it was well-reported that Piazza would soon depart to free agency, Mets manager Willie Randolph elected to replace Piazza in the top of the eighth inning. With the Shea Stadium crowd giving him a standing ovation, Piazza humbly bowed to the stands and blew kisses to the adoring fans.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Following the 2005 season, Piazza signed a one-year contract with the San Diego Padres on January 29, 2006.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Serving as the Padres' starting catcher and clean-up hitter, Piazza experienced somewhat of a rejuvenation in 2006, batting .283 with 22 homers and helping the Padres to a division title. On July 21, 2006, Mike Piazza collected his 2,000th career hit in the major leagues.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On August 8, 2006, Piazza played his first game at Shea Stadium since leaving the Mets. Throughout the three-game series, Piazza drew frequent standing ovations from New York fans. It was on par with that of Tom Seaver on his return to pitch at Shea Stadium in 1977 and 1978. Even more telling was during that series, on August 9, he drew a rare curtain call in the opposing park following a home run off Mets pitcher (and former Dodgers and Mets teammate) Pedro Martínez in the 4th inning. Not done for the day, Piazza went deep off Martinez again in the 6th. With the Mets ahead 4–2 in the 8th, and two runners aboard, Piazza hit one to the wall in center, nearly bashing his third homer of the day and putting the Padres ahead.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On July 25, 2007, in the top of the ninth inning in a game between the Angels and Athletics at Angel Stadium, a fan threw a water bottle that hit Piazza, who had homered earlier in the game. Piazza then pointed his bat in the stands at the fan he believed threw the water bottle to get the attention of security. The fan, who was identified as Roland Flores from La Puente, California, was arrested by the ballpark security. Piazza pressed charges against Flores. Flores was sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years of probation on March 27, 2008. On September 26 against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, Piazza hit his 427th and what would be his final major league home run of his career off of rookie pitcher Jon Lester.


title: Mike Piazza

text: After not being signed to any MLB team for the 2008 season, Piazza announced his retirement on May 20, 2008, saying, "After discussing my options with my wife, family and agent, I felt it is time to start a new chapter in my life. It has been an amazing journey."


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza made a return to Shea Stadium during the "Shea Goodbye" closing ceremony on September 28, 2008, where he received the final pitch in the history of the stadium from Hall of Famer Tom Seaver. Piazza and Seaver also officially "closed" Shea when they walked off together into the center field exit and closed the door on the park after waving goodbye to the capacity crowd. On April 13, 2009, Piazza received the very first pitch in the new Citi Field from Seaver before the Mets' opening game against the Padres.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On Nov. 13, 2019, Piazza announced that he would manage the Italian National Baseball team in the 2020 European Baseball Championship and the 2021 World Baseball Classic. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and cancellation of the 2020 European Baseball Club competitions, Piazza was unable to do so.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza was the Italian National Baseball team's hitting coach at the 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classic. He was an instructor for the Italian Baseball Academy when it won back-to-back European Baseball Championships in 2010 and 2012.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Prior to the start of the 2006 MLB season, Piazza represented Italy in the 2006 World Baseball Classic.


title: Mike Piazza

text: In 2016, Piazza purchased a majority ownership stake of the third-division Italian soccer club A.C. Reggiana in Reggio Emilia, with an estimated investment of $3 million. His interest grew from his friendship with former Italian soccer player Maurizio Franzone.


title: Mike Piazza

text: However, after two seasons of ownership and a controversial playoff loss to Robur Siena (with a penalty called in the 96th minute) Piazza put the team up for sale. Finding no buyers, and faced with mounting costs, including rent, the club ceased operations in July 2018. In December 2018 the team declared bankruptcy for the third time in twenty years. Piazza and his wife had feuded with Luca Vecchi, then mayor of Reggio Emilia, during their time as owners of the club.


title: Mike Piazza

text: In a sixteen-year major league career, Piazza played in 1,912 games, accumulating 2,127 hits in 6,911 at bats for a .308 career batting average along with 427 home runs, 1,335 runs batted in, an on-base plus slugging percentage of .922 and an on-base percentage of .377. Piazza is one of the best-hitting catchers of all time, hitting 427 career home runs, 396 of them while he was playing the catcher position, a Major League Baseball record for career home runs by a catcher. Only eight other players have ever had over 400 home runs with over a .300 lifetime average while never striking out more than 100 times in a season (Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones). He is one of only three players in history to win ten Silver Slugger Awards, along with Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.


title: Mike Piazza

text: In addition to his hitting, Piazza's defense has undergone a more positive reassessment in light of new defensive metrics. His pitch framing, in particular, ranks seventh-best among all catchers going back to the first data in 1988. Another report published in 2008 put him third among all catchers since 1948 in improving the performances of his pitchers.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Mets teammate Tom Glavine called Piazza a "first-ballot Hall of Famer, certainly the best hitting catcher of our era and arguably the best hitting catcher of all time". On May 8, 2010, while receiving an award, Piazza said to reporters that if he got into the Hall of Fame, he would like to be inducted as a Met, for whom he played seven-plus seasons.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On January 9, 2013, Piazza failed to be elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving only 57.8% of the votes and falling short of the 75% qualifying votes. He stated that he would address the performance-enhancing drugs and steroid rumors in his book "Long Shot". In his second appearance on the ballot, Piazza's percentage numbers did rise (62.2%), but not to the 75% needed to be inducted. Piazza again failed to make the Hall of Fame in 2015, receiving 69.9% of the votes needed (28 votes shy of the mark). On January 6, 2016, Piazza was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 83% of the vote.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame on September 29, 2013. The New York Mets retired his uniform number, 31, in a ceremony on July 30, 2016 prior to the Mets' game against the Colorado Rockies at Citi Field.


title: Mike Piazza

text: A triangular pennant bearing Piazza's surname and uniform number is in the background of character Peter Parker's bedroom in the 2019 film "". The song 'Piazza, New York Catcher' by Scottish rock band Belle & Sebastian is about Piazza. Piazza's autobiography, entitled "Long Shot", was released in February 2013.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza has appeared in the movie "Two Weeks Notice" and has acted in various TV shows and commercials. During the 1994–95 MLB strike, Piazza and a handful of other striking players appeared as themselves in the November 27, 1994 episode of "Married With Children".


title: Mike Piazza

text: On May 3, 2013, Piazza debuted with the Miami City Ballet, saying a few lines in the role of a hit man in the troupe's production of "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue". Piazza wants to increase the reputation of ballet among sports fans as a result of his daughters' attendance at a ballet school.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On January 29, 2005, Piazza married "Playboy" Playmate Alicia Rickter at St. Jude's Catholic Church in Miami, Florida, before 120 guests, including Brande Roderick, Lisa Dergan, Anjelica Bridges, Al Leiter, John Franco, Iván Rodríguez, Eddie Trunk, and his best friend Eric Karros.


title: Mike Piazza

text: On February 3, 2007, Piazza's wife gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Nicoletta. On August 3, 2009, their second child, daughter Paulina, was born. The couple's third child and first son, Marco, was born in July 2013.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza is known to be a fan of heavy metal music and is featured on the album "Stronger than Death" by Black Label Society. He is also godfather to Zakk Wylde's son, Hendrix. He often cohosts Eddie Trunk's "Friday Night Rocks" show on WAXQ ("Q-104.3 FM") in New York City and was featured as the primary guest on an episode of "That Metal Show". He is also an accomplished drummer and has performed on stage with various bands.


title: Mike Piazza

text: Piazza is a devout Roman Catholic. His faith was instilled in him by his Catholic mother and was featured in "Champions of Faith", a DVD documentary exploring the intersection of Catholic religious faith and sports. He also appeared in the follow-up video "Champions of Faith: Bases of Life". His mother was raised Jewish, but converted to Catholicism after marrying Piazza's father.


title: Mike Piazza

text: While playing with the Mets, Piazza was a resident of Cresskill, New Jersey. He also maintained a penthouse apartment on 18th Street in New York City.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: Into the Wild is a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It is an expansion of a 9,000-word article by Krakauer on Chris McCandless titled "Death of an Innocent", which appeared in the January 1993 issue of "Outside". The book was adapted to a film of the same name in 2007, directed by Sean Penn with Emile Hirsch starring as McCandless. "Into the Wild" is an international bestseller which has been printed in 30 languages and 173 editions and formats. The book is widely used as high school and college reading curriculum. "Into the Wild" has been lauded by many reviewers, and in 2019 was listed by "Slate" as one of the 50 best nonfiction works of the past quarter-century.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: Despite its critical acclaim, the book's accuracy has been disputed by some of those involved in McCandless' story, and by some commentators such as Alaskan reporter Craig Medred. Medred covers a large number of items in the book that are questionable, most of which stem from the extremely limited detail in McCandless' journal. He concludes that Krakauer had to infer or invent much of McCandless' experiences. Krakauer was criticized for presenting his speculation as fact. Additionally, weather records refute some of the dramatic weather events presented in the story.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: Christopher Johnson McCandless grew up in suburban Annandale, Virginia. After graduating in May 1990 with high grades from Emory University, McCandless ceased communicating with his family, gave away his college fund of $24,500 to Oxfam, and began traveling across the Western United States, later abandoning his 1982 Datsun B210 after a flash flood.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: On April 28, 1992, McCandless hitchhiked to the Stampede Trail in Alaska. There he headed down the snow-covered trail to begin an odyssey with only 10 pounds (4500 g) of rice, a .22 caliber rifle, several boxes of rifle rounds, a camera, and a small selection of reading material—including a field guide to the region's edible plants, "Tana'ina Plantlore". He declined an acquaintance's offer to buy him sturdier clothing and better supplies. McCandless perished sometime around the week of August 18, 1992, after surviving for 113 days.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: On September 6, 1992, Christopher McCandless's body was found in an abandoned bus at on the Stampede Trail in Alaska. One year later, author Jon Krakauer retraced McCandless's steps during the two years between college graduation and his demise in Alaska. McCandless shed his legal name early in his journey, adopting the moniker "Alexander Supertramp", after W.H. Davies. He spent time in Carthage, South Dakota, laboring for months in a grain elevator owned by Wayne Westerberg before hitchhiking to Alaska in April 1992. Krakauer interprets McCandless's intensely ascetic personality as possibly influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau and McCandless's favorite writer, Jack London. He explores the similarities between McCandless's experiences and motivations, and his own as a young man, recounting in detail Krakauer's own attempt to climb Devils Thumb in Alaska. Krakauer also relates the stories of some other young men who vanished into the wilderness, such as Everett Ruess and Carl McCunn. In addition, he describes at some length the grief and puzzlement of McCandless's parents, sister Carine, and friends.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: McCandless survived for approximately 113 days in the Alaskan wilderness, foraging for edible roots and berries, shooting an assortment of game—including a moose—and keeping a journal. Although he planned to hike to the coast, the boggy terrain of summer proved too difficult, and he decided instead to camp in a derelict camping bus left behind by a road construction company. In July he tried to leave, only to find the route blocked by the Teklanika river raging with snow-melt. On July 30, McCandless wrote a journal entry which read, "Extremely Weak. Fault Of Pot[ato] Seed". Based on this entry, Krakauer hypothesized that McCandless had been eating what he thought was the roots of an edible plant, "Hedysarum alpinum", commonly known as wild Eskimo potato, which are sweet and nourishing in the spring but become too tough to eat in the summer, perhaps forcing McCandless to eat the H. alpinum's seeds instead. Krakauer first speculated that the seeds were actually from "Hedysarum mackenzii", or wild sweet pea, instead of the Eskimo potato, which contained a poisonous alkaloid, possibly swainsonine (the toxic chemical in locoweed) or something similar. In addition to neurological symptoms, such as weakness and loss of coordination, the poison causes starvation by blocking nutrient metabolism in the body. However, Krakauer later suggested that McCandless had not confused the two plants and had in fact actually eaten "H. alpinum". Krakauer had the "H. alpinum" seeds tested for toxins and, through tests on "Hendysarum alpinum", it was discovered that it contained an unidentifiable form of toxin.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: According to Krakauer, a well-nourished person might consume the seeds and survive because the body can use its stores of glucose and amino acids to rid itself of the poison. Since McCandless lived on a diet of rice, lean meat, and wild plants and had less than 10% body fat when he died, Krakauer hypothesized that McCandless was likely unable to fend off the toxins. However, when the Eskimo potatoes from the area around the bus were later tested in a laboratory of the University of Alaska Fairbanks by Dr. Thomas Clausen, toxins were not found. Krakauer later modified his hypothesis, suggesting that mold of the variety "Rhizoctonia leguminicola" may have caused McCandless's death. "Rhizoctonia leguminicola" is known to cause digestion problems in livestock, and may have contributed to McCandless's impending starvation. Krakauer hypothesised that the bag in which Chris kept the potato seeds was damp and the seeds thus became moldy. If McCandless had eaten seeds that contained this mold, he could have become sick, and Krakauer suggests that he thus became unable to get out of bed and so starved. His basis for the mold hypothesis is a photograph that shows seeds in a bag. Following chemical analysis of the seeds, Krakauer now believes that the seeds themselves are poisonous.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: In March 2015, Krakauer co-authored a scientific analysis of the "Hedysarum alpinum" seeds McCandless ate. The report found relatively high levels of L-canavanine (an antimetabolite toxic to mammals) in the "H. alpinum" seeds and concluded "it is highly likely that the consumption of H. alpinum seeds contributed to the death of Chris McCandless."


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: "Into the Wild" addresses the issues of how to be accepted into society, and how finding oneself sometimes conflicts with being an active member in society. Most critics agree that Chris McCandless left to find some sort of enlightenment. He also tries to find his way in the wild with minimal material possessions, because "it made the journey more enjoyable." His extreme risk-taking was the calling which eventually led to his downfall.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: McCandless was influenced by transcendentalism and the need to "revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience."


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: A film adaptation was released in September 2007, directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch as McCandless.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: McCandless's story is also the subject of the documentary by Ron Lamothe named "The Call of the Wild" (2007). In his study of McCandless's death, Lamothe concludes that McCandless ran out of supplies and game, and starved to death, instead of being poisoned by eating the seeds of the wild potato.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: The Christopher Johnson McCandless Memorial Foundation, headed by McCandless's parents Billie and Walt, with the editorial and writing input of family and friends, released the book and DVD "Back to the Wild: The Photographs & Writings of Christopher McCandless" (2010). The material includes hundreds of McCandless's previously unseen pictures and journal entries. Jon Krakauer has written a piece in the book's introduction, while Hal Holbrook—who appeared in the Penn film—narrates the DVD.


title: Into the Wild (book)

text: The bus that McCandless died in became a tourist attraction after the book became popular. The bus was removed on June 18, 2020 because tourists were endangering themselves in the Alaskan wilderness. Members of the Alaska National Guard airlifted the bus to an undisclosed location, and then on September 24, 2020, the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks announced the permanent display of the bus.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The 141st Special Motorized Regiment (), also known as the Kadyrovites and the Kadyrovtsy (from ), after Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov, is a paramilitary organization in Chechnya, Russia, that serves as the protection of the Head of the Chechen Republic. The term "Kadyrovtsy" is commonly used in Chechnya to refer to any armed, ethnically-Chechen men under the control of Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov - although nominally they are under the umbrella of the National Guard of Russia.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Akhmad Kadyrov, the then chief mufti of separatist Chechnya, defected to the Russian side in the Second Chechen War in 1999, and the Kadyrovites began fighting separatists and jihadists during the "guerrilla phase" as a "de facto" unit of the state police after he was appointed Chechen President in July 2000.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Kadyrov was assassinated in 2004. Control of the militia was inherited by his son, Ramzan Kadyrov. In 2006, the Kadyrovites were legalized as a motorized regiment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as the 141st Motorized Regiment. When Kadyrov was elected Chechen President in 2007 its current official role as a personal protective service was established. Besides the 141st, units considered "Kadyrovites" also include the Chechen branches of OMON and SOBR.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The Kadyrovites have been criticized as being Ramzan Kadyrov's private army, and have been accused of committing widespread human rights abuses such as kidnapping, forced disappearances, torture and murder. Critics claim the Kadyrovites use extrajudicial punishment to cement Kadyrov's autocratic rule. By mid-2000s they surpass Russian federal servicemen as the most feared organization among Chechnya's civilian population. Under Kadyrov's orders, the Kadyrovites committed anti-gay purges in Chechnya, including operating concentration camps for gay men. The Kadyrovites have also been involved in international conflicts including the Syrian Civil War in 2017 and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Kadyrovites

text: After Akhmad Kadyrov's defection to the Kremlin side in 1999, he and his followers were fighting for Russia against Maskhadov government troops and Islamist insurgents. The return of Russian rule over Chechnya was declared in July 2000, beginning the "guerrilla phase". Kadyrov was appointed as acting President of the Chechen Republic by Russian President Vladimir Putin until he was elected President of the Chechen Republic on 5 October 2003. The Kadyrovites acted as bodyguards for Kadyrov, who experienced several assassination attempts. The security detail was headed by Movladi Baisarov.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Technically still a personal militia, it functioned as an unofficial part of the Chechen Republic's state police without any legal status in either the republican or federal government. In May 2003, the Kadyrovites established effective control over the Chechen OMON, then estimated at 300 men, which had been considered one of the strongholds of anti-Kadyrov opposition. It was led by Musa Gazimagomadov, who died in a road accident under "strange circumstances". The Kadyrovites OMON was afterwards run by Ruslan Alkhanov, who had been a rebel commander amnestied just a year before, and later became the Chechnya's Interior Minister.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In October 2003, Akhmad Kadyrov became the President of the Chechen Republic. By this time his Security Service (SB) was already the largest security body consisting of the Chechens, numbering 3,000 according to Kadyrov. According to the next President Alu Alkhanov, in 2005 this figure had grown to 7,000 armed men.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Kadyrov was killed on 9 May 2004 in the 2004 Grozny stadium bombing, in what is considered to be a deliberate assassination. Control of the Kadyrovites was inherited by his son, Ramzan Kadyrov, who was already the second-in-command of the militia. At this point, the backbone of the militia was still made up of former separatist fighters (more than 70% in 2004 according to the Russian military sources), and allegiance to their new leader was questioned. Many of them continued as members of the Kadyrovites under Ramzan due to the pressure upon the welfare of their relatives, as coercion was commonly used in Chechnya to demand compliance. The practice of hostage taking, in particular, was widespread and affected many in the country, including the former rebel Minister of Defence Magomed Khambiyev.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Shortly after Akhmad Kadyrov's death, the unit of the Kadyrovites responsible for his protection was formally liquidated. Most of the remaining units were integrated into the system of Russian law enforcement agencies and security authorities in Chechnya under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. By 2005, two units were formed: the "Akhmad Kadyrov" Second Road Patrol Regiment of the Police (PPSM-2, Kadyrov Regiment), and the Oil Regiment "Neftepolk" headed by the Kadyrov's cousin Adam Delimkhanov, comprising around 1,500 to 2,000 men, respectively.


title: Kadyrovites

text: By 2006, the total strength of the Kadyrovites, which by then included the PPSM-2, the Oil Regiment, and so-called Anti-Terrorist Centers (commanded by Muslim Ilyasov), was not disclosed. Memorial's estimations spoke of around 5,000 people. In 2007 a similar estimation was made by Reuters.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On April 29, 2006, Ramzan Kadyrov officially disbanded his security service, saying on television that "These structures are no longer existent, and those calling themselves Kadyrovites are impostors and must be punished in accordance with the law." Some of the Kadyrovites gunmen were completely legalized into the Chechen government's power structures, while others, estimated at least 1,800, continued to exist in the semi-legal form of paramilitary formations. The ATCs were quickly closed down and some of the members were transferred to newly formed battalions: "Sever" (North, led by Muslim Ilyasov and composed of an estimated 500 men) and "Yug" (South, led by Alimbek Delimkhanov and composed of an estimated 700 men).


title: Kadyrovites

text: The Kadyrovites were rearmed and given heavy equipment, such as armoured personnel carriers they previously did not possess. Observers have considered that the open existence of the Kadyrovites, and the reason for its legalization by the Russian government as a law enforcement unit, is so that the presence of federal troops in Chechnya can be decreased and redeployed to the neighboring state of Dagestan where an Islamist insurgency continued. In 2007, Ramzan Kadyrov became the new President of the Chechen Republic and is now controlling all of the Chechen Interior Ministry forces, with the top seats of his government occupied by the former commanders of the Kadyrovites.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In 2016, after a series of reforms, most of the Russian internal military and paramilitary troops were placed under the command of the newly-created National Guard of Russia (also known as the Rosgvardiya). The Chechen internal troops were placed under nominal control of the National Guard, although still under direct control of Kadyrov. Researcher Gordon M. Hahn, for The Duran, and Russian political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky, who heads the analytics department of the Center for Political Technologies (CPT), said one of the objectives of the National Guard was a way to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to limit Ramzan Kadyrov's power over his troops by putting them under the control of the National Guard, which respond directly to Putin.


title: Kadyrovites

text: As part of Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war, Kadyrovites police units were deployed on the ground in Aleppo to "preserve order" and engage in civic outreach.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Chechen militants loyal to Kadyrov have been active in the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014. These forces include the Vostok Battalion and the Chechen Death Battalion.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Kadyrovites volunteer units participated in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24. Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed on February 26 that the Kadyrovites had been deployed in Ukraine. According to Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, they were deployed to capture and kill Ukraine's leaders, including Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Foreign Policy described the deployment of Chechen Kadyrovites as "leveraging the very presence of Chechen soldiers in Ukraine as a psychological weapon against Ukrainians".


title: Kadyrovites

text: "The Kyiv Independent" reported the destruction of a Chechen column of 56 tanks by Ukrainian missiles near Hostomel on 27 February. According to Ukrainian sources, the missile attack had been delayed because the Kadyrovites had been hiding behind civilian infrastructure. On the same day, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said that the Alpha Group of the SBU had ambushed a convoy of Chechen troops in Hostomel and killed the commander of the 141st motorized regiment Major General Magomed Tushayev. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied this, saying he was still alive and posted a video which he said showed Tushayev alive. Chechen media posted video it said was of Tushayev denying his death on 16 March 2022.


title: Kadyrovites

text: According to Ukrainian media, Chechen troops have been used as barrier troops, used to address low morale by executing Russian deserters. In April 1, Ukrainian media reported that Chechen troops executed conscripted soldiers of the Luhansk People's Republic who refused to fight. There were unconfirmed reports that Chechen troops were executing Russian troops who were too injured in field hospitals. On 29 April, Ukrainian intelligence alleged that a unit of Buryat soldiers and Chechen troops exchanged fire on the village of Kyselivka in the Kherson Oblast. Supposedly the conflict was caused by the sharing of loot, exacerbated by tensions with what the Buryat soldiers saw as favoritism of the Chechen troops, as the Buryats had to be in the frontlines and conduct offensive operations while the Chechens are better-equipped and stay behind as barrier troops or conduct anti-partisan warfare.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On March 1, Kadyrov said that Chechen fighters in Ukraine had sustained losses of two killed and six wounded. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Chechen units suffered "hundreds" of casualties while being deployed around Kyiv and were withdrawn to Chechnya on 13 March 2022. Chechen troops were seen fighting in the Siege of Mariupol. The National Guard of Ukraine released a video appearing to show fighters from the Azov Regiment, based in Mariupol, greasing bullets in lard ("salo") to be used against Chechen troops as an insult, in reference to the prohibition of pork in Islamic law.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Chechen troops in Ukraine have become known for publishing videos on social media, including combat footage from Mariupol. Kadyrov was widely mocked online as a "TikTok warrior" after a picture meant to show him traveling in Ukraine showed him praying at a gas station whose brand only exists in Russia.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In late June 2022, Ramzan Kadyrov announced the creation of four new battalions consisting only of ethnic Chechens. These battalions would be named "North-Akhmat", "South-Akhmat", "West-Akhmat," and "Vostok-Akhmat", according to Kadyrov, and that they would be sent to fight in Ukraine.


title: Kadyrovites

text: A significant number of members of these groups are people with a criminal past, including people who had committed criminal offences in the period between wars. Particularly feared are the PPSM-2, named after Akhmad Kadyrov, and the Oil Regiment. Officially PPSM-2 is responsible for security on the streets and the Oil Regiment for the security of industrial sites. In reality, both structures are involved in so-called "anti-terrorist operations," according to human rights groups accompanied by grave human rights violations. Human rights activists working in Chechnya have said the group has been heavily involved in kidnapping, torture and murder to cement Kadyrov's clan rule.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In October 2006 German human rights group the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), which branded Kadyrov a "war criminal", has alleged that up to 75 percent of recent incidents of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping in Chechnya have been committed by Ramzan's paramilitary forces.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The Memorial group investigator stated in its report: "Considering the evidence we have gathered, we have no doubt that most of the crimes which are being committed now in Chechnya are the work of Kadyrov's men. There is also no doubt in our minds that Kadyrov has personally taken part in beating and torturing people. What they are doing is pure lawlessness. To make matters worse, they also go after people who are innocent, whose names were given by someone being tortured to death. He and his henchmen spread fear and terror in Chechnya. (...) They travel by night as death squads, kidnapping civilians, who are then locked in a torture chamber, raped and murdered,".


title: Kadyrovites

text: Anna Politkovskaya, a veteran Russian reporter (murdered in 2006; case unsolved as of April 2008) who specialized in Chechen reporting, claimed that she had received a video footage of a man identical in appearance to Ramzan. "...On them (the clips) were the murders of federal servicemen by the Kadyrovites, and also kidnappings directed by Kadyrov. These are very serious things; on the basis of this evidence a criminal case and investigation should follow. This could allow this person to be brought to justice, something he has long richly deserved," she said. She was allegedly working on an article revealing human rights abuses and regular incidences of torture in Chechnya at the time of her murder. Some observers alleged that Kadyrov or his men were possibly behind the assassination.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The Kadyrovites are often accused of working as a death squad against Kadyrov's enemies. Ramzan is rumoured to own a private prison in his stronghold of Tsentoroi, his home village south-east of Grozny. Fields around Tsentoroi are reportedly mined and all access routes are blocked by checkpoints. On May 2, 2006, representatives of the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) stated that they were prevented from entering the fortress. They have also begun using cell phones to record videos of them beating and humiliating ordinary Chechens accused of crimes. The videos are later circulated, with the intention of intimidating civilians.


title: Kadyrovites

text: According to the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Unofficial Places of Detention in the Chechen Republic" report, many illegal places of detention exist in the Chechen Republic. Most of them are run by "Kadyrovites". In Tsentoroi (also known as Khosi-Yurt, present-day Akhmat-Yurt), where the Kadyrovite headquarters is located, there are at least two illegal prisons functioning. One consists of concrete bunkers or pillboxes, where kidnapped relatives of armed Chechen fighters are held hostages while the second prison in Tsentoroi is evidently located in the yard—or in immediate vicinity—of the house of Ramzan Kadyrov.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On November 13, 2006, Human Rights Watch published a briefing paper on torture in Chechnya that it had prepared for the 37th session of the United Nations Committee Against Torture. The paper covered torture by personnel of the Second Operational Investigative Bureau (ORB-2), torture by units under the effective command of Ramzan Kadyrov, torture in secret detentions, and the continuing "disappearances." According to HRW, torture "in both official and secret detention facilities is widespread and systematic in Chechnya." In many cases, the perpetrators were so confident that there would be no consequences for their abuses that they did not even attempt to conceal their identity. Based on extensive research, HRW concluded in 2005 that forced disappearances in Chechnya are so widespread and systematic that they constitute crimes against humanity.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On March 1, 2007, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group rights organisation, stated "Kadyrov is to blame for kidnappings of many innocent people. Their bodies were found later with signs of torture."


title: Kadyrovites

text: The Kadyrovites were accused of mass kidnappings (occasionally, even members of the Russian security forces have been kidnapped), tortures and summary executions, rapes, racketeering, participation in the illegal oil trade and other crimes even by Chechen and Russian officials. In October 2003, the former Chechen official and presidential candidate Shamil Burayev, accused the Security Service of "hunting for the dissidents". In May 2004, Russian Presidential adviser Aslambek Aslakhanov acknowledged that the "security guard of the Kadyrovs" was operating outside of the law.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In June 2005, Beslan Gantamirov, the former Chechen Prime Minister, accused the SB of "abductions and murder even of the FSB employees" and "gangsterism in the territory of all the "North Caucasus"". In April 2006, Mikhail Babich, another former Prime Minister of Chechnya and then Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the Russian State Duma on Defense, called the armed formations of Kadyrov "an absolutely illegal structure".


title: Kadyrovites

text: In May 2007, more than 100 members of the United Kingdom's political and cultural elite have appealed to President Vladimir Putin of Russia to restore "peace and justice" to Chechnya, calling Kadyrov's presidency "little more than a regime of fear and oppression".


title: Kadyrovites

text: In 2021 spetsnaz groups from different Russian regions took part in a selection march at "Tambukan" training facility in Stavropol Krai, which ended in a scandal when other participants noticed that the Chechen soldiers are being given a lift on cars. making shortcuts and cheating in other ways. The scandal ended in a fight between the participants and the Chechen unit.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In 2006, a video leaked out in which armed men loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov displayed the severed head of a Chechen guerrilla who was killed in July 2006, separated from his body for public display in the village of Kurchaloi, marking the brutality of the Kadyrovites. They mounted the head on a pipe, together with blood-stained trousers, and put a cigarette on him. It was displayed for at least a day as they came back a day later to record it again.


title: Kadyrovites

text: According to human rights group Memorial as well as Anna Politkovskaya, the Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya Idris Gaibov had orchestrated the atrocities by Kadyrovites in the outskirts of the Chechen village in the Kurchaloy on July 27–28, 2006. Reportedly, he hung the severed head of a killed rebel fighter up as a warning to the rest of the village. As a Chechen state official, he had given orders to members of the Russian security forces who were not subordinate to him to decapitate a dead body. Armed men then spent the next two hours photographing the head with their mobile phones. The head remained there for 24 hours.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On September 21, 2005 a similar incident occurred, as published by Memorial as well as Kavkazky Uzel which described "shocking details" of a special operation conducted by forces loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov, earlier in September in the town of Argun and the settlement of Tsotsin-Yurt. Citing local residents, the human rights group reported that on September 14, a group of Kadyrovites placed a severed head on a pipe on a footbridge across the Khulkulau River for "general viewing" and intimidation purposes.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In 2005 unidentified men kidnapped separatist field commander Dokka Umarov's father Khamad, his wife, and one-year-old son. Several months earlier, his brother Ruslan Umarov, father of four children, had been kidnapped by masked men in uniform. His wife and son were later freed, but his father and brothers disappeared. According to some sources, Umarov's father, Khamad Umarov, was kidnapped back on May 5, 2008, by the Kadyrovite employees of the Oil Regiment ("Neftepolk") headed by Chechnya's First Deputy Prime Minister Adam Delimkhanov.


title: Kadyrovites

text: In April 2007 Umarov declared that his 74-year-old father was murdered in captivity. His sister Natalia Khumaidova was also abducted in Urus-Martan in August 2005 by "unidentified armed men". She was released days later after local residents protested for her return. In the past years a cousin Zaurbek and nephew Roman Atayev were also kidnapped. Nothing has been heard of them since.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Shortly after the Beslan hostage-taking raid in 2004, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov suggested the practice of taking rebel leaders' relatives hostage. Memorial, who largely condemned such practices, blamed pro-Russian Chechen forces for the abductions. According to separatists, all kidnapped persons were put into Ramzan Kadyrov's personal prison in Akhmat-Yurt.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On April 28, 2006, security forces loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov fought a fist fight and then a gun battle with the bodyguards of the then pro-Russian president Alu Alkhanov. Up to two men were reportedly killed and four injured in the clash at the presidential administration, sparking fears of a broader power struggle between the groups of Chechen men who control the republic in support of the Russian authorities. The exchange of fire happened during a meeting between Alkhanov and a federal official, Sergei Stepashin.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The "Moskovskij Komsomolets" newspaper reported that Alkhanov had banned Kadyrov from bringing more than two men of his private army with him into meetings. It reported that Kadyrov had rung Alkhanov and given him 30 minutes to flee the presidential administration as his men wanted to storm it. The official explanation of the whole incident was that "an ordinary quarrel" had occurred between two men who worked in the security services, and that no shots were ever fired.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The next day reports came out that Ramzan Kadyrov had officially disbanded his security service. On June 4, 2006, President Alu Alkhanov said he would prefer his republic be governed by Sharia law and suggested adapting the Islamic code, as it is championed by Kadyrov, He also dismissed reports of conflicts with Ramzan.


title: Kadyrovites

text: People in Chechnya long ago started talking about the Kadyrov-Alkhanov power struggle that included armed confrontation, murders, and hostage-taking. Many of these incidents are provoked by Kadyrov's men. In February 2005, for example, two of Alkhanov's men were killed and three civilians were injured during an attack in the Kurchaloev region of the republic, which was essentially in Kadyrov's personal domain. The ITAR-TASS attributed the killing to "members of one of the republic's security services currently involved in anti-terrorist operations".


title: Kadyrovites

text: In the other incident, members of an OMON unit based at the Grozny railway station exchanged fire with and then jailed a group of Kadyrovites. This incident outraged Kadyrov, who ordered his men to shoot to kill anyone who stood in their way. He reportedly called Alkhanov to warn him that there would be a "war" if his men were further provoked. Both sides called for reinforcements and there was further shooting before the situation was defused.


title: Kadyrovites

text: On 17 June 2006, a group of the Kadyrovites and FSB officers killed the President of Ichkeria, Abdul Halim Sadulayev (also known as Sheikh Abdul-Halim). His body was driven to Tsentoroy and presented to Ramzan Kadyrov. According to the FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, two members of the federal forces were killed and five were wounded in a firefight in which Sadulayev and his bodyguard were killed, and two other rebels escaped. In August 2006, rebel commander Isa Muskiev said the FSB and Kadyrovites lost five men killed in the shootout, one of them shot by Sadulayev personally, and three fighters escaped.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The killing of Sheikh Abdul Halim was trumpeted by leaders of the Russian-backed official government of the province, claiming that the separatist forces there had been dealt a "decapitating blow "from which they will never recover." The next day, June 18, Sadulayev was succeeded as the head of the Chechen resistance by the rebel vice-president and an active guerrilla commander Dokka Umarov.


title: Kadyrovites

text: The "Goretz" (Mountaineer) detachment of the Kadyrovites was a spetsnaz unit of the FSB headed by Movladi Baisarov, a close ally and chief bodyguard to Akhmad Kadyrov. It was formally disbanded and its servicemen were to be reassigned to the Chechen Interior Ministry. After Akhmad Kadyrov's death, conflict with Ramzan Kadyrov led to Baisarov being declared an outlaw, and many men in the detachment refused the reassignment. "The Guardian" in June 2006 detailed a showdown between Kadyrov's and Baisarov's forces that had taken place the previous month. The Kadyrovites ended up backing down in that confrontation when another Chechen warlord, Said-Magomed Kakiev, head of the Spetsnaz GRU unit the Special Battalion "Zapad", came down on Baisarov's side.


title: Kadyrovites

text: Baisarov went to Moscow and appeared in the Russian media saying that Ramzan Kadyrov was trying to hunt him down to get rid of possible competition. He accused Kadyrov of directing numerous political murders and kidnappings. At the same time, he told "Kommersant" that he was not hiding from anyone in Moscow and was expecting to return to Chechnya soon to become the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of law enforcement. In October 2006, while Baisarov was in Moscow, it was believed he still commanded 50 to little over 100 men based in Grozny. On November 18, 2006, Baisarov was shot dead in central Moscow by a detachment of the Kadyrovites.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere ( , , ; , ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population of 341,696; and the metropolitan area, also known as the Tampere sub-region, has a population of 393,941 in an area of . Tampere is the second-largest urban area and third most-populous individual municipality in Finland, after the cities of Helsinki and Espoo, and the most populous Finnish city outside the Greater Helsinki area. Today, Tampere is one of the major urban, economic, and cultural hubs in the whole inland region.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere and its environs belong to the historical province of Satakunta. The area belonged to the Häme Province from 1831 to 1997, and over time it has often been considered to belong to Tavastia as a province. For example, in "Uusi tietosanakirja" published in the 1960s, the Tampere sub-region is presented as part of the then Tavastia Province. Around the 1950s, Tampere and its surroundings began to establish itself as their own province of Pirkanmaa. Tampere became the center of Pirkanmaa, and in the early days of the province, "Tammermaa" was also used several times in its early days - for example, in the "Suomi-käsikirja" published in 1968. Tampere is wedged between two lakes, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. Since the two lakes differ in level by , the rapids linking them, Tammerkoski, have been an important power source throughout history, most recently for generating electricity. Tampere is dubbed the "Manchester of the North" for its industrial past as the former center of Finnish industry, and this has given rise to its Finnish nickname "Manse" and terms such as "Manserock". Also, Tampere has been officially declared the "Sauna Capital of the World", because it has the most public saunas in the world.


title: Tampere

text: Helsinki is approximately south of Tampere, and can be reached in 1 hour 31 minutes by Pendolino high-speed rail service and 2 hours by car. The distance to Turku is roughly the same. Tampere–Pirkkala Airport is Finland's eighth-busiest airport, with over 230,000 passengers in 2017. Tampere also serves as an important transit route for three Finnish highways: Highway 3 (E12), Highway 9 (E63) and Highway 12.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere ranked 26th in the list of 446 cities in the world's hipster cities, and it has often been rated as the most popular city in Finland. The positive development of Tampere and the Tampere metropolitan area has continued throughout the 21st century, which is largely due to Tampere being one of the most migratory and attractive cities in Finland.


title: Tampere

text: Although the name Tampere is derived from the Tammerkoski rapids (both the city and the rapids are called Tammerfors in Swedish), the origin of the "Tammer-" part of that name has been the subject of much debate. Ánte accepts the "straightforward" etymology of Rahkonen and Heikkilä in Proto-Samic , meaning "deep, slow section of a stream" and "rapids" (cognate with the Finnish "koski"). This has become the most accepted explanation in the academia, according to the Institute for the Languages of Finland. Other theories include that it comes from the Swedish word "damber", meaning milldam; another, that it originates from the ancient Scandinavian words "þambr" ("thick bellied") and "þambion" ("swollen belly"), possibly referring to the shape of the rapids. Another suggestion links the name to the Swedish word "Kvatemberdagar", or more colloquially "Tamperdagar", meaning the Ember days of the Western Christian liturgical calendar. The Finnish word for oak, "tammi", also features in the speculation, although Tampere is situated outside the natural distribution range of the European oak.


title: Tampere

text: The first coat of arms of Tampere was designed by Arvid von Cederwald in 1838, while the current coat of arms created in 1960 and currently in use was designed by Olof Eriksson. Changing the coat of arms was a controversial act and the restoration of the old coat of arms has, from time to time, been demanded even after the change. The new coat of arms has also been called Soviet-style in letters to the editor because of its colors.


title: Tampere

text: The blazon of the old coat of arms has either not survived or it has never been done, but the description of the current coat of arms is explained as follows: "In the red field, a corrugated counter-bar, above which is accompanied by a piled hammer, and below, a Caduceus; all gold". The colors of the coat of arms are the same as in the coat of arms of Pirkanmaa. The hammer, which looks like the first letter of the city's name T, symbolizes Tampere's early industry, Caduceus its trading activities and the corrugated counter-bar represents the Tammerkoski rapids, which divides Tampere's industrial and commercial areas.


title: Tampere

text: The city received its first seal in 1803, and the seal depicted the city's buildings of that time and Tammerkoski.


title: Tampere

text: The earliest known permanent settlements around Tammerkoski were established in 7th century, when settlers from the west of the region started farming land in Takahuhti. The area was largely inhabited by the Tavastian tribes. For many centuries, the population remained low. By the 16th century, the villages of Messukylä and Takahuhti had grown to be the largest settlements in the region. Other villages nearby were Laiskola, Pyynikkälä and Hatanpää. At that time, there had been a market place in the Pispala area for centuries, where the bourgeoisies from Turku in particular traded. In 1638, Governor-General Per Brahe the Younger ordered that two markets be held in Tammerkoski each year, the autumn market on every Peter's Day in August and the winter market on Mati Day in February. In 1708 the market was moved from the edge of Tammerkoski to Harju and from there in 1758 to Pispala. The early industries in the Pirkanmaa region in the 17th century were mainly watermills and sawmills, while in the 18th century other production began to emerge, as several small-scale ironworks, Tammerkoski distillery and Otavala spinning school were founded.


title: Tampere

text: Before the birth of the city of Tampere, its neighboring municipality of Pirkkala (according to which the current Pirkanmaa region got its name) was the most administratively significant parish in the area throughout the Middle Ages. This all changed in the 18th century when Erik Edner, a Finnish pastor, proposed the establishment of a city of Tampere on the banks of the Tammerkoski channel in 1771–1772; it was officially founded as a market place in 1775 by Gustav III of Sweden and four years later, 1 October 1779, Tampere was granted full city rights. At this time, it was a rather small town, founded on the lands belonging to Tammerkoski manor, while its inhabitants were still mainly farmers. As farming on the city's premises was forbidden, the inhabitants began to rely on other methods of securing a livelihood, primarily trade and handicraft. When Finland became part of the Russian Empire as the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809, Tampere still had less than a thousand inhabitants.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere grew as a major market town and industrial centre in the 19th century; the industrialization of Tampere was greatly influenced by the Finlayson textile factory, founded in 1820 by the Scottish industrialist James Finlayson. By the year 1850, the factory employed around 2000 people, while the population of the city had increased to 4000 inhabitants. Other notable industrial establishments that followed Finlayson's success in the 1800s were the Tampella blast furnace, machine factory and flax mill, the Frenckell paper mill, and the Tampere broadcloth factory. Tampere's population grew rapidly at the end of the 19th century, from about 7,000 in 1870 to 36,000 in 1900. At the beginning of the 20th century, Tampere was a city of workers and women, with a third of the population being factory workers and more than half women. At the same time, the city's area increased almost sevenfold and impressive apartment buildings were built in the center of Tampere among modest wooden houses. The stone houses shaped Tampere in a modern direction. The construction of the sewerage and water supply network and the establishment of electric lighting were further steps towards modernisation; regarding the latter, Tampere was the first Nordic city to introduce electric lights for general use in 1882. The railway connection to Tampere from the extension of the Helsinki–Hämeenlinna line section (today part of the Main Line) via Toijala was opened to public traffic on 22 June 1876.


title: Tampere

text: The world-famous Nokia Corporation, a multinational telecommunication company, also had its beginnings in the Tammerkoski area; the company's history dates from 1865, when the Finnish-Swedish mining engineer Fredrik Idestam (1838–1916) established a pulp mill on the shores of the rapids and after that, a second pulp mill was opened in 1868 near the neighboring town of Nokia, where there were better hydropower resources.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere was the centre of many important political events in the early 20th century; for example, the 1905 conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), led by Vladimir Lenin, was held at the Tampere Workers' Hall, where it was decided, among other things, to launch an armed uprising, which eventually led to the October 1917 revolution in the Russian Empire. Also, on 1 November 1905, during the general strike, the famous "Red Declaration" was proclaimed on Keskustori. In 1918, after Finland had gained independence, Tampere played a major role, being one of the strategically important sites for the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (FSWR) during the Civil War in Finland (28 January–15 May 1918); the city was the most important industrial city in Finland at the beginning of the 20th century, marked by a huge working population. Tampere was a Red stronghold during the war, with Hugo Salmela in command. White forces, led by General Mannerheim, captured the town after the Battle of Tampere, seizing about 10,000 Red prisoners on 6 April 1918.


title: Tampere

text: During the Winter War, Tampere was bombed by the Soviet Union several times. The reason for the bombing of Tampere was that the city was an important railway junction, and also housed the State Aircraft Factory and the Tampella factory, which manufactured munitions and weapons, including grenade launchers. The most devastating bombings were on 2 March 1940, killing nine and wounding 30 city residents. In addition, ten buildings were destroyed and 30 were damaged that day.


title: Tampere

text: Prevalent in Tampere's post-World War II municipal politics was the Brothers-in-Arms Axis ("aseveliakseli"), which mostly consisted of the National Coalition Party and the Social Democrats. While the Centre Party was the largest political force in the Finnish countryside, it had no practical relevance in Tampere.


title: Tampere

text: After World War II, Tampere was enlarged by joining some neighbouring areas. Messukylä was incorporated in 1947, Lielahti in 1950, Aitolahti in 1966 and finally Teisko in 1972. The limit of 100,000 inhabitants was crossed in Tampere in 1950. Tampere was long known for its textile and metal industries, but these have been largely replaced by information technology and telecommunications during the 1990s. The technology centre Hermia in Hervanta is home to many companies in these fields. Yleisradio started broadcasting its second television channel, Yle TV2, in Ristimäki, Tampere in 1965, as a result of which Finland was the first of the Nordic countries to receive a second television channel, after Sweden's SVT2 started broadcasting only four years later. Tampere became a university city when the Social University moved from Helsinki to Tampere in 1960 and became the University of Tampere in 1966. In 1979, Tampere-Pirkkala Airport was opened from the center of Tampere on the side of the Pirkkala municipality.


title: Tampere

text: At the turn of the 1990s, Tampere's industry underwent a major structural change, as the production of Tampella's and Tampere's textile industry in particular was heavily focused on bilateral trade with the Soviet Union, but when it collapsed in 1991 the companies lost their main customers. As a result of the sudden change and the depression of the early 1990s, Finlayson and the Suomen trikoo had to reduce their operations sharply. Tampella went bankrupt. But although the change left a huge amount of vacant industrial space in the city center, in the early 2000s it was gradually put to other uses, with the current Tampere cityscape being characterized above all by strong IT companies, most notably Nokia's Tampere R&D units.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is part of the Pirkanmaa region and is surrounded by the municipalities of Kangasala, Lempäälä, Nokia, Orivesi, Pirkkala, Ruovesi, and Ylöjärvi. There are 180 lakes that are larger than 10,000 m (1 ha) in Tampere, and fresh water bodies make up 24% of the city's total area. The lakes have formed as separate basins from Ancylus lake approximately 7500–8000 years ago. The northernmost point of Tampere is located in the Vankavesi fjard of Teisko, the southernmost at the eastern end of Lake Hervanta, the easternmost at the northeast corner of Lake Paalijärvi of Teisko and the westernmost at the southeast corner of Lake Haukijärvi near the borders of Ylöjärvi and Nokia. The city center itself is surrounded by three lakes, Näsijärvi, Pyhäjärvi and much smaller Iidesjärvi. Tampere region is situated in the Kokemäki River drainage basin, which discharges into the Bothnian Sea through river which flows through Pori, the capital of Satakunta region. The bedrock of Tampere consists of mica shale and migmatite, and its building stone deposits are diverse: in addition to traditional granite, there is an abundance of quartz diorite, tonalite, mica shale and mica gneiss. One of the most notable geographical features in Tampere is the Pyynikki Ridge ("Pyynikinharju"), a large esker formed from moraine during the Weichselian glaciation. It rises 160 meters above sea level and is said to be the largest gravel esker in the world. It is also part of Salpausselkä, a 200 km long ridge system left by the ice age.


title: Tampere

text: The center of Tampere ("Keskusta"), as well as the Pyynikki, Ylä-Pispala and Ala-Pispala districts, are located on the isthmus between Lake Pyhäjärvi and Lake Näsijärvi. The location of the city on the edge of the Tammerkoski rapids between two long waterways was one of the most important stimuli for its establishment in the 1770s. The streets of central Tampere form a typical grid pattern. On the western edge of the city center, there is a north–south park street, Hämeenpuisto ("Häme Park" or "Tavastia Park"), which leads from the shore of Lake Pyhäjärvi near Lake Näsijärvi. The wide Hämeenkatu street leads east–west from the Tampere Central Station to Hämeenpuisto and crosses Tammerkoski along the Hämeensilta bridge. Also along Hämeenkatu is the longest street in the city center, Satakunnankatu, which extends from Rautatienkatu to Amuri, which crosses Tammerkoski along the Satakunnansilta bridge. The Tampere Central Square is located on the western shore of Tammerkoski, close to Hämeensilta. The traffic center of Tampere is the intersection of Itsenäisyydenkatu, Teiskontie, Sammonkatu, Kalevanpuisto park street, and Kaleva and Liisankallio districts.


title: Tampere

text: The city of Tampere is divided into seven subdivisions, each of which includes the many districts and their suburbs. There are a total of 111 statistical areas in Tampere. However, the statistical areas made for Tampere's statistics do not fully correspond to the Tampere district division or the residents' perception of the districts, as the Amuri, Kyttälä and Tammela districts, for example, are divided into two parts corresponding to the official district division, and in addition to this, Liisankallio and Kalevanrinne are often considered to belong to the Kaleva district.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere has a Subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfc") bordering the Humid continental climate "Dfb" climate zone. Winters are cold and the average temperature from December to February is below . Summers are cool to warm. On average, snow cover lasts 4–5 months from late November to early April. Considering it being close to the subarctic threshold and inland, winters are, on average, quite mild for the classification, as is the annual mean temperature.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere has buildings from many architectural periods. Only the old stone church of Messukylä represents medieval building culture. Early 19th century neoclassicism, in turn, is represented by the Tampere Old Church and its belfry. The Gothic Revival buildings in Tampere that emerged from neoclassicism are the new Messukylä Church and the Alexander Church, and the Renaissance Revival buildings are the Hatanpää Manor, the Tampere City Hall, the Ruuskanen House and Näsilinna. The romantic nationalism design can be seen in the Commerce House, the Tirkkonen House, the Palander House, the Tampere Cathedral, the Tampere Central Fire Station and the National Bank Building in Tampere. At an early stage, the use of red brick as a material in the industrial buildings along Tammerkoski, such as the Finlayson and Tampella factories, has left a strong imaginary mark on the city.


title: Tampere

text: Post-Art Nouveau classicism was largely Nordic, during which the Laikku Culture House, Hotel Tammer, the Tuulensuu House and the Viinikka Church were built in Tampere. After functionalism became the prevailing style in the 1930s, the Tampere Central Station, the Tempo House, a bus station and the Kauppi Hospital were built in Tampere. There is no single accepted designation for the post-war style, but the key representatives of the reconstruction period are the Bank of Finland House, the Amurinlinna House and the Pyynikki Swimming Hall. The rationalist buildings of the modernist period are represented by the University of Tampere, the Tampere Central Hospital, Sampola, the School of Economics, Ratina Stadium and the Kaleva Church. After this, diverse modernism will be represented by, among others, the Metso Main Library, the Hervanta Operations Center, the Tampere Hall, the university extension and Nokia's office building in Hatanpää.


title: Tampere

text: The city center of Tampere and also its western parts have been developed in a more modern direction since the 2010s, and the city aims to get the center to take on its future form by the 2030s. Plans have been drawn up for the Central Station area in particular in the form of the "Tampere Deck" project, in connection with which a new multi-purpose arena and high-rise buildings have been sent to the area. A light rail network has also been recently built in the downtown area. Artificial island projects are planned on the shores of the lakes, which would create new residential areas for several thousand inhabitants. The projects are estimated to cost several billion euros.


title: Tampere

text: The Tampere region, Pirkanmaa, which includes outlying municipalities, has around 509,000 residents, 244,000 employed people, and a turnover of 28 billion euros .


title: Tampere

text: According to the Tampere International Business Office, the area is strong in mechanical engineering and automation, information and communication technologies, and health and biotechnology, as well as pulp and paper industry education. Unemployment rate was 15.7% in August 2020. 70% of the areas jobs are in the service sector. Less than 20% are in the manufacturing sector. 34.5% of employed people live outside the Tampere municipality and commute to Tampere for work. Meanwhile, 15.6% of Tampere's residents work outside Tampere. In 2014 the largest employers were Kesko, Pirkanmaan Osuuskauppa, Alma Media and Posti Group.


title: Tampere

text: According to a study carried out by the Synergos Research and Training Center of the University of Tampere, the total impact of tourism in the Tampere region in 2012 was more than 909 million euros. Tourism also brought 4,805 person-years to the region. The biggest single attraction in Tampere is the Särkänniemi amusement park, which had about 630,000 visitors in 2016. In addition, in 2015, 1,021,151 overnight stays were made in Tampere hotels. The number exceeded the previous record year with more than 20,000 overnight stays. All that makes Tampere the second most popular city in Finland after Helsinki in terms of hotel stays. Leisure tourism accounted for 55,4% of overnight stays and occupational tourism for 43,2%. The occupancy rate of all accommodation establishments with more than 20 rooms was 57,0%, while that of accommodation establishments in the whole country was 48,3%.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere's economic profit in 2015 was the worst of big Finnish cities. In 2016 the loss of the fiscal year was 18,8 million euros. In the city's economy, the largest revenues come from taxes and government contributions. In 2015, the city received 761 million euros in municipal tax revenue. In addition, 61,4 million euros came from corporate taxes and 64 million euros from property taxes. Tax revenues have not increased as expected in the 2010s, although the city's population has increased. This has been affected by high unemployment.


title: Tampere

text: In 2013, Tampereen Energiantuotanto, which is part of the Tampereen Sähkölaitos Group, generated 1,254 GWh of electricity and 2,184 GWh of district heating. The two units of the Naistenlahti's power plant generated a total of about 65% and the Lielahti's power plant about 30% of the electricity production. In district heating production, the Naistenlahti power plant units accounted for 57% and the Lielahti power plant for 23%. Tampere's ten heating centers accounted for 21%.


title: Tampere

text: In 2013, the share of natural gas in energy production was about 65%. Wood and peat accounted for about 17%. In addition, hydropower and oil were used. Emissions from energy production have decreased in the 21st century due to the growth of renewable forms of production and the modernization of the Naistenlahti plant. In 2013, approximately 669,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and 297 tonnes of sulfur dioxide emissions were generated.


title: Tampere

text: 66,5% of Tampere's domestic water is surface water and 33,5% groundwater. 58% of the water was diverted to economic use and 13% to industrial use. In addition to Tampere, Tampereen Vesi manages water in Pirkkala. Almost all surface water comes from Lake Roine. In addition, Tampereen Vesi has four surface water plants in Lake Näsijärvi and five groundwater intakes. Tampereen Vesi is 96% responsible for the wastewater of Tampere, Kangasala, Pirkkala and Ylöjärvi. In 2012, a total of 31,9 million cubic meters of wastewater was treated in Tampere. The Viinikanlahti treatment plant treats more than 75% of wastewater.


title: Tampere

text: Pirkanmaan Jätehuolto handles waste management in Tampere. It has waste treatment facilities in Nokia's Lake Koukkujärvi and Tampere's Lake Tarastenjärvi.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere has 238,671 inhabitants, making it the third most populous municipality in Finland and the tenth in the Nordics. The Tampere region, which has 410,689 inhabitants, is the second largest urban area after Helsinki. 8.6% of the population has a foreign background, which is lower than Helsinki and Turku but higher than Oulu.


title: Tampere

text: The demographic structure of Tampere shows the city's position as a very popular place to study, as the number of young adults is clearly higher than in other municipalities in the region. At the end of 2012, the population dependency ratio was 45. About 17,3% of the population was over 65 years of age. Just over half of the population is women, as in the whole country. The population is fairly educated, with two-thirds of those over 15 having completed post-primary education.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is Finland's largest monolingual Finnish-speaking municipality. In 2021, 1,321 Swedish-speakers lived in Tampere, ie their share of the Tampere population was about half a per cent. This is the second largest number of Swedish-speakers in monolingual Finnish-speaking municipalities after Kaarina. Kaarina and Tampere are also the only monolingual Finnish-speaking municipalities with a separate Swedish-speaking congregation. In 1900, Swedish-speakers accounted for more than six per cent of Tampere's population and in 1950 for less than two per cent. Speakers of languages other than Finnish or Swedish account for 8.5% of the population, similar to the national average of 8.3%. The most spoken languages among them are Russian (1.3%), Arabic (1.0%), Farsi (0.8%) and English (0.6%).


title: Tampere

text: At the end of 2018, there were a total of 140,039 dwellings in Tampere, of which 127,639 were permanently inhabited and 12,400 were not permanently inhabited. Of these, 74% were apartment buildings, 14 detached houses, 10 terraced houses and 2% other residential buildings. Between 2002 and 2020, more than 40,000 new apartments have been completed in Tampere. Living space has been growing for a long time, although growth virtually came to a halt after 2008. The average living space at the end of 2012 was about 36,8 m per inhabitant, compared to about 19,2 m in 1970 and about 31,8 m in 1990. The average population of a dwelling in 2012 was about 1,8 inhabitants.


title: Tampere

text: For more than ten years, Tampere has been one of the most migratory municipalities, as in January–September 2021, more than 1,930 new residents moved to Tampere. Nokia, Kangasala and Lempäälä, which are among Tampere's neighboring municipalities, have also been identified as the most migratory municipalities, which rose to the list of the 20 most attractive municipalities. Even during COVID-19 pandemic, Tampere has become Finland's most attractive area for internal migration, as Tampere gained the most migration gains in 2020.


title: Tampere

text: In 2019, out of the total population of 238,140, 231,648 people lived in urban areas and 3,132 in sparsely populated areas, while the coordinates of 3,360 people were unknown. This made Tampere's degree of urbanization 98.7%. The urban population in the municipality was divided between three statistical urban areas as follows:


title: Tampere

text: The comprehensive education is given mainly in Finnish but the city has special bilingual groups where students study in Finnish and a second language (English, French or German). Furthermore, there is a private Swedish-speaking school in the Kaakinmaa district (Swedish Svenska samskolan i Tammerfors) that covers all levels of education from preschool to high school.


title: Tampere

text: There are three institutions of higher education in the Tampere area totaling 40,000 students: the university and two polytechnic institutions (). Tampere University (TUNI) has over 20,000 students and is located in two campuses, one in the Kalevanharju district, close to the city centre, and one in Hervanta, in the southern part of the city. The institution was formed in 2019 as a result of the merge of University of Tampere (UTA) and Tampere University of Technology (TUT). TUNI is also the major shareholder of the Tampere University of Applied Sciences ("Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu", TAMK), a polytechnic counting about 10,000 students. The Police University College, the polytechnic institution serving all of Finland in its field of specialization, is also located in Tampere.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere University Hospital ("Tampereen yliopistollinen sairaala", TAYS) in the Kauppi district, one of the main hospitals in Finland, is affiliated with Tampere University. It is a teaching hospital with 34 medical specializations.


title: Tampere

text: The Nurmi district in the northern part of city also houses the Tampere Christian School ("Tampereen kristillinen koulu"), which operates on a co-Christian basis and is maintained by the Adventist Church of Finland, offering free basic education based on Christian basic values and outlook on life for all grades of primary school.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is known for its active cultural life. Some of the most popular writers in Finland, such as Väinö Linna, Kalle Päätalo, and Hannu Salama, hail from Tampere. These authors are known particularly as writers depicting the lives of working-class people, thanks to their respective backgrounds as members of the working class. Also from such a background was the poet Lauri Viita of the Pispala district, which was also the original home of the aforementioned Hannu Salama. On 1 October, Tampere celebrates the annual Tampere Day (), which hosts a variety of public events.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is a strong "media city", as the television center in Tohloppi and Ristimäki districts has had a nationwide Yle TV2 television channel since the 1970s, and Finnish radio, for example, began in Tampere when Arvi Hauvonen founded the first broadcasting station in 1923. Yle TV2 has its roots in Tamvisio, which was transferred to Yleisradio in 1964. "Kakkoskanava" ("Channel 2") has been a major influence in Tampere, and several well-known television programs and series have been shot in the city, such as TV comedies "Tankki täyteen", "Reinikainen" and "Kummeli". The Ruutu+ streaming service's popular crime drama television series "Lakeside Murders" (), based on the "Koskinen" book series by Seppo Jokinen, is also produced and filmed in Tampere.


title: Tampere

text: The Tampere Film Festival, an annual international short film event, is held every March. Tampere has also served as a filming location for international film productions, most notably the 1993 British comedy film "The Big Freeze" and the 2022 American sci-fi film "Dual".


title: Tampere

text: In 2014, "Aamulehti", which was published in Tampere and was founded in 1881, was the third largest newspaper in Finland in terms of circulation, after "Helsingin Sanomat" and "Ilta-Sanomat". The circulation of the magazine was 106,842 (2014). In addition, a free city newspaper "Tamperelainen" (literally translated "Tamperean", meaning person who live in Tampere) will be published in the city. In November 2016, the "Tamperelainen" was awarded the second best city newspaper in Finland.


title: Tampere

text: The city is also known as the home of the popular Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube, which originates from a machine shop owned by Lauri Vuohensilta.


title: Tampere

text: A local food speciality is "mustamakkara", which resembles the black pudding of northern England. It is a black sausage made by mixing pork, pig's blood and crushed rye and flour and is stuffed into the intestines of an animal. It is commonly eaten with lingonberry sauce. Especially Tammelantori square in the district of Tammela is known for its "mustamakkara" kiosks.


title: Tampere

text: A newer Tampere tradition are "munkki", fresh sugary doughnuts that are sold in several cafés around Tampere, but most traditionally in Pyynikki observation tower.


title: Tampere

text: One of the specialties of Tampere's local barbecue dishes include the peremech () based on traditional Tatar food. It is a pie reminiscent of Karelian pasty with seasoned ground meat inside.


title: Tampere

text: In the 1980s, in addition to "mustamakkara" and barley bread, the old parish dish of Tampere was also called a potato soup, home-made small beer ("kotikalja"), a sweetened lingonberry porridge and a sweetened potato casserole ("Imelletty perunalaatikko").


title: Tampere

text: Since 1991, the two-day fish market event ("Tampereen kalamarkkinat") in Laukontori attracts as many as 80,000–100,000 visitors in year, and is held both in the spring on "vappu" and in the autumn on Tampere Day.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is home to the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra ("Tampere Filharmonia"), which is one of only two full-sized symphony orchestras in Finland; the other one is located in Helsinki. The orchestra's home venue is the Tampere Hall, and their concerts include classical, popular, and film music. Tampere Music Festivals organises three international music events: The Tampere Jazz Happening each November, and in alternate years The Tampere Vocal Music Festival and the Tampere Biennale. Professional education in many fields of classical music, including performing arts, pedagogic arts, and composition, is provided by Tampere University of Applied Sciences and Tampere Conservatoire.


title: Tampere

text: Tammerfest, Tampere's urban rock festival, is held every July. The Blockfest, which also takes place in Tampere during the summer months, is the largest hip hop event in the Nordic countries. The Tampere Floral Festival is an annual event, held each Summer.


title: Tampere

text: "Manserock" became a general term for rock music from Tampere, which was essentially rock music with Finnish lyrics. Manserock was especially popular during the 1970s and 1980s, and its most popular artists included Juice Leskinen, Virtanen, Kaseva, Popeda, and Eppu Normaali. In 1977, Poko Rekords, the first record company in Tampere, was founded.


title: Tampere

text: In the 2010s, there has been a lot of popular musical activity in Tampere, particularly in the fields of rock and heavy/black metal; one of the most important metal music events in Tampere is the Sauna Open Air Metal Festival. Some of the most popular bands based in Tampere include Negative, Uniklubi, and Lovex. Tampere also has an active electronic music scene. Tampere hosts an annual World of Tango Festival ("Maailmantango"), which is one of the most significant tango events in Finland next to the Tangomarkkinat of Seinäjoki.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere has a lengthy tradition of theater, with established institutions such as Tampereen Työväen Teatteri, Tampereen Teatteri, and Pyynikin Kesäteatteri, which is an open-air theatre with the oldest revolving auditorium in Europe. The longest-running directors of the Tampereen Teatteri include Eino Salmelainen and Rauli Lehtonen, and the Tampereen Työväen Teatteri has Kosti Elo, Eino Salmelainen and Lasse Pöysti. The Tampere Theatre Festival ("Tampereen teatterikesä") is an international theatre festival held in the city each August. Tampere also has the Tampere Opera, founded in 1946.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere's other professional theaters are Teatteri Siperia; restaurant theater Teatteripalatsi; Teatteri Telakka, known for its artistic experiments; Ahaa Teatteri, which specializes in children's and young people's plays; puppet theater Teatteri Mukamas, and Tanssiteatteri MD, specializes in contemporary dance performances. In addition, there are also three cinemas in Tampere: two Finnkino's theaters, Cine Atlas and Plevna, and private Arthouse Cinema Niagara, which serves as the main venue for the Cinemadrome Festival, which presents horror, action, sci-fi, trash, and other cult films. Local cinemas also included the historic Imatra, formerly located in the Kyttälä district, which was completely destroyed on a fire in the midst of a 1924 film "Wages of Virtue" on 23 October 1927, killing 21 people.


title: Tampere

text: As is the case with most of the rest of Finland, most Tampere citizens belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. One Lutheran church in Tampere is Finlayson Church in the district by the same name. Tampere also has a variety of other religious services spanning from traditional to charismatic. There are also some English speaking services, such as the Tampere English Service, an international community affiliated with the ("Tampereen helluntaiseurakunta"). English services of the International Congregation of Christ the King (ICCK) are organized by the Anglican Church in Finland and the Lutheran Parishes of Tampere. The Catholic parish of the Holy Cross also offers services in Finnish, Polish and English. Other churches may also have English speaking ministries. Tampere is the center of a LDS stake (diocese). Other churches in Tampere are the Baptist Church, the Evangelical Free Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, the Finnish Orthodox Church and the Nokia Revival.


title: Tampere

text: There was an organized Jewish community until 1981. Though a small number of Jews remain in Tampere, organized communal life ended at that time.


title: Tampere

text: There are three registered Muslim communities in Tampere. The biggest of them being Tampere Islam Society with over 1500 members.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere ostensibly has a long-standing mutual feud with the city of Turku, the first capital of Finland, and they tend to compete for the title of being the "second grand city of Finland" after Helsinki. This rivalry is largely expressed in jokes in one city about the other; prominent targets are the traditional Tampere food, "mustamakkara", the state of the Aura River in Turku, and the regional accents. Tampere is well known as a food destination because of its food culture. Since 1997, students at Tampere have made annual excursions to Turku to jump on the market square, doing their part to undo the post-glacial rebound and push the city back into the Baltic Sea.


title: Tampere

text: One of the main tourist attractions is the Särkänniemi amusement park, which includes the landmark Näsinneula tower, topped by a revolving restaurant. In addition to these, it used to house a dolphinarium. Other sites of interest are Tampere Cathedral, Tampere City Hall, Tampere Central Library "Metso" ("Capercaillie"), Kaleva Church (both designed by Reima Pietilä), the Tampere Hall (along Hämeenkatu) for conferences and concerts, the Tampere Market Hall and historical Pyynikki observation tower.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere has at least seven hotels, the most noteworthy of which are Hotel Tammer, Hotel Ilves, and Hotel Torni, the tallest hotel building in Finland. The Holiday Club Tampere spa is also located in the Lapinniemi district on the shores of Lake Näsijärvi. There are also many significant shopping centers in the city center of Tampere and its suburbs; the most notable shopping centers are Ratina, Koskikeskus, DUO, Like, and Tullintori.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is also home to one of the last museums in the world dedicated to Vladimir Lenin. The museum is housed in the Tampere Workers' Hall (along Hallituskatu) where during a subsequent Bolshevik conference in the city, Lenin met Joseph Stalin for the first time. Lenin moved to Tampere in August 1905, but eventually fled for Sweden in November 1907 when being pursued by the Russian Okhrana. Lenin would not return to any part of the Russian Empire until ten years later, when he heard of the start of the Russian Revolution of 1917.


title: Tampere

text: Pispala is a ridge located between the two lakes. It is divided into Ylä-Pispala ("Upper Pispala") and Ala-Pispala ("Lower Pispala"). It's the highest gravel ridge in the world, raising above Lake Pyhäjärvi and around above sea level. It was used to house the majority of industrial labour in the late 19th and early 20th century, when it was part of Suur-Pirkkala and its successor Pohjois-Pirkkala. It was a free area to be built upon by the working-class people working in Tampere factories. It joined Tampere in 1937. Currently it is a residential area undergoing significant redevelopment and together with neighbouring Pyynikki it forms an important historical area of Tampere.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere's sporting scene is mainly driven by ice hockey. The first Finnish ice hockey match was played in Tampere, on the ice of Pyhäjärvi. Tampere is nicknamed the hometown of Finnish ice hockey. Three exceptional ice hockey teams come from Tampere: Tappara, Ilves and KOOVEE. Especially both Tappara and Ilves have had a great impact on Finnish ice hockey culture and are among the most successful teams in Finland; of these, Ilves was the first Tampere-based hockey team to win the 1935-1936 Finnish championship. The Finnish ice hockey museum, and the first ice hockey arena to be built in Finland, the Hakametsä arena, are both located in Tampere. Construction of a new main ice hockey arena, Tampere Deck Arena, began in 2018, and was first opened to the public on 3 December 2021, although the official opening date was on 15 December. The name of the new arena was supposed to be "UROS LIVE", but due to the financial difficulties of the sponsor behind it, the name was abandoned. After that, Nokia Corporation was chosen as the new sponsor on 19 November 2021, and the arena was renamed as "Nokia Arena". The arena served as the main venue for the 2022 IIHF World Championship.


title: Tampere

text: Like ice hockey, association football is also a popular sport in Tampere. Ilves, the professional football club of Tampere, alone has over 4,000 players in its football teams, while Tampere boasts over 100 (mostly junior) football teams. Basketball is another popular sport in Tampere; the city has three basketball teams with big junior activity and one of them, Tampereen Pyrintö, plays on the highest level (Korisliiga) and was the Finnish Champion in 2010, 2011, and 2014.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere Saints is the American football club in the city, that won division 2 in 2015 and plays in the Maple League (division 1) in summer 2017. Tampere has a baseball and softball club, the Tampere Tigers, which plays in the top division of Finnish baseball. In addition to all of the above, volleyball, wrestling and boxing are also among Tampere's best-known sports.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere hosted some of the preliminaries for the 1952 Summer Olympics, the 1965 World Ice Hockey Championships and was co-host of the EuroBasket 1967. The city also hosted two canoe sprint world championships, in 1973 and 1983. In 1977, Tampere hosted the World Rowing Junior Championships and in 1995 the Senior World Rowing Championships. Recently, Tampere was the host of the 10th European Youth Olympic Festival on 17–25 July 2009 and the 2010 World Ringette Championships on 1–6 November at Hakametsä arena.


title: Tampere

text: Ratina Stadium of Tampere, in the district by the same name, has served as the venue for many of the most significant concerts, most notably in connection with the "Endless Forms Most Beautiful World Tour" in 2015 by the band Nightwish. Other noteworthy tours from other bands held at Ratina Stadium include Iron Maiden ("Somewhere Back in Time World Tour", 2008), Bruce Springsteen ("Working on a Dream Tour", 2009), AC/DC ("Black Ice World Tour", 2010), Red Hot Chili Peppers ("I'm with You World Tour", 2012), Bon Jovi ("Because We Can World Tour", 2013), Robbie Williams ("The Heavy Entertainment Show Tour", 2017) and Rammstein ("Rammstein Stadium Tour", 2019).


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is an important railroad hub in Finland and there are direct railroad connections to, for example, Helsinki, Turku and the Port of Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, and Pori. Every day about 150 trains with an annual total of 8 million passengers arrive and depart in the Tampere Central Railway Station, which is located in the city center. There are also frequent bus connections to destinations around Finland. To the south of Tampere, there is the Tampere Ring Road, which is important for car traffic and which is part of Finnish highways number 3 (on the west side) and number 9 (on the east side). The main stretch of the ring road sees over 50,000 vehicles per day, and, according to the ELY Centre of Pirkanmaa, the western part of the ring road is the busiest road in Finland, if highway and ring road connections in the Helsinki metropolitan area are excluded. There are also plans for another ring road project that would run from Pirkkala to Tampere's Hervanta and possibly in the future to Kangasala. Teiskontie, which runs east of the city center, is part of Highway 12 in the direction of Lahti. This highway also runs through the center of Tampere under the name Paasikiven–Kekkosentie, below the downtown as the Tampere Tunnel, which is the longest road tunnel built in Finland for car traffic.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere is served by Tampere–Pirkkala Airport, located in neighboring municipality Pirkkala some southwest of the city, and it replaced the former Härmälä Airport, which was closed in 1979. The current airport is connected to the city centre of Tampere by bus route 103, and to that of Pirkkala by bus route 39.


title: Tampere

text: The public transport network in Tampere currently consists of a bus network and two lines of city's light rail, operating from 9 August 2021. The Tampere Bus Station, designed by Jaakko Laaksovirta and Bertel Strömmer, representing functionalist architecture, was completed in 1938, being the largest bus station in the Nordic countries at the time, and between 1948 and 1976, the city also had an extensive trolleybus network, which was also the largest trolleybus system in Finland. As of 2017, commuter rail service on the railroad lines connecting Tampere to the neighbouring towns of Nokia and Lempäälä is being established.


title: Tampere

text: In 2015, the Port of Tampere, the charter port area carrying passengers on the shores of Lake Näsijärvi and Lake Pyhäjärvi, was the busiest inland waterway in Finland in terms of the number of passengers (71,750). A partial explanation for the high number of passengers can be found in the summer traffic to the Viikinsaari island in Lake Pyhäjärvi, where people travel for an excursion or various cultural events such as watching a summer theater. Domestic passenger and connecting vessel traffic was only busier in the Finnish sea area in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, between mainland Finland and Åland in the Archipelago Sea.


title: Tampere

text: In the 2010s, Tampere has made efforts to invest in the smooth running of cycling and walkability. Thanks to it, the city was awarded the title of "Cycling Municipality of the Year" in 2013. According to a survey conducted in 2015, the attractiveness of both cycling and walking had increased during 2014 and 2015. In any case, during the 21st century, the growth of bicycle traffic has been clearly faster than the growth of the city's population, and the number of cycles has increased by an average of about 2% per year.


title: Tampere

text: In 2007, Tampere switched to a new model of government. Since then, a mayor and four deputy mayors have been chosen for a period of four years by the city council. The mayor also becomes the seat of the city council for the duration of the tenure.


title: Tampere

text: Tampere was the first Finnish municipality to be elected mayor. However, the mayor does not have an official relationship with the municipality; the mayor serves as chairman of the city board and directs the municipality's activities, and the mayor's duties are defined in the city government's bylaws. Because the mayor and deputy mayors are trustees, they can be removed by the council if they lose the majority trust.


title: Tampere

text: For the first two years, Timo P. Nieminen, representing the National Coalition Party from 2007 to 2012, served as mayor. In 2013, Anna-Kaisa Ikonen of the same party was elected mayor. As of 1 June 2017, the number of deputy mayors decreased from four to three. Lauri Lyly (SDP) was elected Mayor of the City of Tampere for the period 2017–2021 at the City Council meeting on 12 June 2017.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a pediatric treatment and research facility located in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1962, it is a 501(c)(3) designated nonprofit medical corporation which focuses on children's catastrophic diseases, particularly leukemia and other cancers. In the 2021 fiscal year, St. Jude received $2 billion in donations. The hospital costs about $1.7 million dollars a day to run, but patients are not charged for their care. St. Jude treats patients up to age 21, and for some conditions, up to age 25.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: St. Jude was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, with help from Lemuel Diggs and Thomas' close friend from Miami, automobile dealer Anthony Abraham. The hospital was founded on the premise that "no child should die in the dawn of life". This idea resulted from a promise that Thomas, a Maronite Catholic, had made to a saint years before the hospital was founded. Thomas was a comedian who was struggling to get a break in his career and living paycheck to paycheck. When his first child was about to be born, he attended Mass in Detroit, and put seven dollars in the offering bin. He prayed for intercession to Saint Jude Thaddeus for a means to provide for his family, and about a week later, he obtained a gig that paid 10 times what he had put in the offering bin. Thomas promised St. Jude Thaddeus that if the saint interceded for his success, he would build him a shrine. Years later, Thomas became a successful comedian and built St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as a shrine to St. Jude Thaddeus to honor his promise.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: While some donations for St. Jude come from government grants and insurance recoveries, the principal source of funding comes from the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), a semi-independent entity founded in 1957 by Danny Thomas. ALSAC serves primarily to raise funds and promote awareness for St. Jude. They largely collect funds from independent sources, such as companies and individuals.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: Memphis was chosen at the suggestion of Catholic Cardinal Samuel Stritch, a Tennessee native who had been a spiritual advisor to Thomas since he presided at Thomas's confirmation in Thomas's boyhood home of Toledo, Ohio.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: Although it was named after Thomas's patron saint, St. Jude is not a Catholic hospital and is a secular institution not affiliated with any religious organization.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: In 2007, Chili's restaurant chain pledged $50 million to fund the construction of the seven-story Chili's Care Center, adding , providing space for the department of radiological services, The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, two floors of outpatient clinics, one floor of inpatient clinics and rooms, two floors of laboratory space, an office floor and an unfinished level for future expansion.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: In 2014, the Marlo Thomas Center for Global Education and Collaboration was opened as part of the hospital. In 2017, the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences accepted its inaugural class of PhD students.


title: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

text: St. Jude has an International Outreach Program to improve the survival rates of children with catastrophic illnesses worldwide.