title: Thirty Years' War

text: Although some towns may have overstated their losses to avoid taxes, individual records confirm serious declines; from 1620 to 1650, the population of Munich fell from 22,000 to 17,000, that of Augsburg from 48,000 to 21,000. The financial impact is less clear; while the war caused short-term economic dislocation, especially in the period 1618 to 1623, overall it accelerated existing changes in trading patterns. It does not appear to have reversed ongoing macro-economic trends, such as the reduction of price differentials between regional markets, and a greater degree of market integration across Europe. The death toll may have improved living standards for the survivors; one study shows wages in Germany increased by 40% in real terms between 1603 and 1652.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Innovations made during the war by Gustavus in particular are considered part of the tactical evolution known as the "Military Revolution", although there is some debate as to whether tactics or technology were at the heart of these changes. These developments were popularised by Maurice of Orange in the 1590s and sought to increase infantry firepower by moving from massed columns to line formation. Gustavus refined these changes by reducing the ten ranks used by Maurice to six, while increasing the proportion of Musketeers to pikemen; in addition, each unit was equipped with quick-firing light artillery pieces on either flank. Perhaps the best example of their application in real life was the defeat of Tilly's traditionally organised army by the Swedes at Breitenfeld in September 1631.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Line formations were not always successful, as demonstrated by the victory of the supposedly obsolete Spanish tercios over the "new model" Swedish army at Nördlingen in 1634. They were also harder to co-ordinate in offensive operations; Gustavus compensated by requiring his cavalry to be far more aggressive, often employing his Finnish light cavalry or "Hakkapeliitta" as shock troops. He also used columns on occasion, including the failed assault at Alte Veste in September 1632. Columns continued to be viewed as more effective in offensive operations and were used by Napoleon throughout the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Such tactics needed professional soldiers, who could retain formation, reload and fire disciplined salvos while under attack, as well as the use of standardised weapons. The first half of the 17th century saw the publication of numerous instruction manuals showing the movements required, thirty-two for pikemen and forty-two for musketeers. The period needed to train an infantryman who could operate in this way was estimated as six months, although in reality many went into battle with far less experience. It also placed greater responsibility on junior officers who provided the vital links between senior commanders and the tactical unit. One of the first military schools designed to produce such men was set up at Siegen in 1616 and others soon followed.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: On the other hand, strategic thinking failed to develop at the same pace. Historian Jeremy Black claims most campaigns were "inconclusive" and almost exclusively concerned with control of territory, rather than focused strategic objectives. The lack of connection between military and diplomatic goals helps explain why the war lasted so long and why peace proved so elusive. There were a number of reasons for this. When the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, the Franco-Swedish alliance still had over 84,000 men under arms on Imperial territory, their opponents around 77,000; while relatively small in modern terms, such numbers were unprecedented at the time. With the possible exception of Spain, the 17th century state could not support armies of this size, forcing them to depend on "contributions" levied or extorted from areas they passed through.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Obtaining supplies thus became the limiting factor in campaign planning, an issue that grew more acute later in the war when much of the Empire had already been fought over. Even when adequate provisions could be gathered, the next problem was getting them to the troops; to ensure security of supply, commanders were forced to stay close to rivers, then the primary means of bulk transportation, and could not move too far from their main bases. Many historians argue feeding the troops became an objective in itself, unconnected to diplomatic goals and largely uncontrolled by their central governments. The result was "armies increasingly devoid of intelligible political objectives...degenerating into travelling armed mobs living in a symbiotic relationship with the countryside they passed through". This lack of connection often worked against the political aims of their employers; the devastation inflicted in 1628 and 1629 by Imperial troops on Brandenburg and Saxony, both nominally their allies, was a major factor in their support for Swedish intervention.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: It has been suggested the breakdown of social order caused by the war was often more significant and longer lasting than the immediate damage. The collapse of local government created landless peasants, who banded together to protect themselves from the soldiers of both sides, and led to widespread rebellions in Upper Austria, Bavaria and Brandenburg. Soldiers devastated one area before moving on, leaving large tracts of land empty of people and changing the ecosystem. Food shortages were worsened by an explosion in the rodent population; Bavaria was overrun by wolves in the winter of 1638, and its crops destroyed by packs of wild pigs the following spring.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Contemporaries spoke of a 'frenzy of despair' as people sought to make sense of the relentless and often random bloodshed unleashed by the war. Attributed by religious authorities to divine retribution for sin, other attempts to identify a supernatural cause led to a series of Witch-hunts, beginning in Franconia in 1626 and quickly spreading to other parts of Germany. They began in the Bishopric of Würzburg, an area with a history of such events going back to 1616 and now re-ignited by Bishop von Ehrenberg, a devout Catholic eager to assert the church's authority in his territories. By the time he died in 1631, over 900 people from all levels of society had been executed.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The Bamberg witch trials, held in the nearby Bishopric of Bamberg from 1626 to 1631, claimed over one thousand lives; in 1629, 274 died in the Eichstätt witch trials, plus another 50 in the adjacent Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg. Elsewhere, persecution followed Imperial military success, expanding into Baden and the Palatinate following their reconquest by Tilly, then into the Rhineland. However, the extent to which they were symptomatic of the impact of the conflict on society is debatable, since many took place in areas relatively untouched by the war. Concerned their brutality would discredit the Counter-Reformation, Ferdinand ensured active persecution largely ended by 1630.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Although the war caused immense destruction, it has also been credited with sparking a revival in German literature, including the creation of societies dedicated to "purging of foreign elements" from the German language. One example is "Simplicius Simplicissimus", often suggested as one of the earliest examples of the Picaresque novel; written by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen in 1668, it includes a realistic portrayal of a soldier's life based on his own experiences, many of which are verified by other sources. Other less famous examples include the diaries of Peter Hagendorf, a participant in the Sack of Magdeburg whose description of the everyday brutalities of the war remain compelling.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: For German, and to a lesser extent Czech writers, the war continued to be remembered as a defining moment of national trauma, the 18th century poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller being one of many to use it in their work. Variously known as the 'Great German War,' 'Great War' or 'Great Schism', for 19th and early 20th century German nationalists it showed the dangers of a divided Germany and was used to justify the creation of the German Empire in 1871, as well as the Greater Germanic Reich envisaged by the Nazis. Bertolt Brecht used it as the backdrop for his 1939 anti-war play "Mother Courage and Her Children", while its enduring cultural resonance is illustrated by the novel "Tyll"; written by Austro-German author Daniel Kehlmann and also set during the war, it was nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The Peace reconfirmed "German liberties", ending Habsburg attempts to convert the Holy Roman Empire into a more centralised state similar to Spain. Over the next 50 years, Bavaria, Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony and others increasingly pursued their own policies, while Sweden gained a permanent foothold in the Empire. Despite these setbacks, the Habsburg lands suffered less from the war than many others and became a far more coherent bloc with the absorption of Bohemia, and restoration of Catholicism throughout their territories.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: By laying the foundations of the modern nation state, Westphalia changed the relationship between subjects and their rulers. Previously, many had overlapping, sometimes conflicting, political and religious allegiances; they were now understood to be subject first and foremost to the laws and edicts of their respective state authority, not the claims of any other entity, religious or secular. This made it easier to levy national forces of significant size, loyal to their state and its leader; one lesson learned from Wallenstein and the Swedish invasion was the need for their own permanent armies, and Germany as a whole became a far more militarised society.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The benefits of Westphalia for the Swedes proved short-lived. Unlike French gains which were incorporated into France, Swedish territories remained part of the Empire, and they became members of the Lower and Upper Saxon "kreis". While this gave them seats in the Imperial Diet, it also brought them into direct conflict with both Brandenburg-Prussia and Saxony, their competitors in Pomerania. The income from their imperial possessions remained in Germany and did not benefit the kingdom of Sweden; although they retained parts of Swedish Pomerania until 1815, much of it was ceded to Prussia in 1679 and 1720.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: France arguably gained more from the Thirty Years' War than any other power; by 1648, most of Richelieu's objectives had been achieved. These included separation of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, expansion of the French frontier into the Empire, and an end to Spanish military supremacy in Northern Europe. Although the Franco-Spanish conflict continued until 1659, Westphalia allowed Louis XIV to begin replacing Spain as the predominant European power.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: While differences over religion remained an issue throughout the 17th century, it was the last major war in Continental Europe in which it can be said to be a primary driver; later conflicts were either internal, such as the Camisards revolt in South-Western France, or relatively minor like the 1712 Toggenburg War. It created the outlines of a Europe that persisted until 1815 and beyond; the nation-state of France, the beginnings of a unified Germany and separate Austro-Hungarian bloc, a diminished but still significant Spain, independent smaller states like Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, along with a Low Countries split between the Dutch Republic and what became Belgium in 1830.


title: Will Poulter

text: William Jack Poulter (born 28 January 1993) is a British actor. He first gained recognition for his role as Eustace Scrubb in the fantasy adventure film "" (2010). He received critical praise for his starring role in the comedy film "We're the Millers" (2013), for which he won the BAFTA Rising Star Award.


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter starred in the dystopian science fiction film "The Maze Runner" (2014) and the sequel "" (2018), the period epic film "The Revenant" (2015), the crime drama film "Detroit" (2017), the interactive science fiction film "" (2018), and the folk horror film "Midsommar" (2019). In 2021, he had a leading role in the Hulu miniseries "Dopesick", for which he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter was born on 28 January 1993 in Hammersmith, London, the son of Neil Poulter, a professor of Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine at Imperial College London, and Caroline (née Barrah), a former nurse who was brought up in Kenya. He was a pupil at Harrodian School, whose well-known acting graduates also include George MacKay and Robert Pattinson. However, he struggled in school due to dyslexia and developmental coordination disorder, telling "The Independent" in 2013, "It felt like it didn't matter how hard I tried, I wasn't getting anywhere. That's the most demoralising thing, as a kid. And to find something like drama, which I loved so much... it gave me a sense of purpose."


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter played various acting roles before landing the role of Lee Carter in the 2007 movie "Son of Rambow", which was released to positive reviews and praise for the performances of Poulter and his co-star Bill Milner. He also performed with other young comedic actors in "School of Comedy", which aired its pilot on Channel 4's Comedy Lab on 21 August 2008. "School of Comedy" was then commissioned for a full series by Channel 4, which began airing on 2 October 2009. The programme finished after a second series.


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2009, he was selected to play the role of Eustace Scrubb in the film "" (filmed in Queensland, Australia), and was accompanied by some members of his family. The movie was first screened on 10 December 2010. The film opened to mixed reviews, but Poulter's performance was well received.


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2010, he appeared in the BBC Three pilot "The Fades", a 60-minute supernatural thriller written by "Skins" writer Jack Thorne. The pilot was picked up as a six-part series with an almost entirely new cast, which aired in 2011.


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter began filming a small British independent film called "Wild Bill", directed by Dexter Fletcher, at the end of 2010. The film was released on 23 March 2012 to extremely positive reviews, with praise for Poulter's performance. In 2011, Poulter appeared with his "School of Comedy" co-star and popular British blogger, Jack Harries, on his YouTube channel "JacksGap", in a video called "Jack and Will". In 2012, Poulter began studying drama at the University of Bristol where he lived in Badock Hall, however dropped out after a year in order to pursue acting full time.


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2013, he played Kenny in "We're the Millers", starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis. While the film opened to mixed reviews, the performances of the cast were well received, especially that of Poulter, who found mainstream recognition with his showy, comedic work in the film. He also appeared as a caretaker in the music video for Rizzle Kicks' song "Skip to the Good Bit". Though he loved the script and auditioned for the role of Augustus Waters, he was denied the part in "The Fault in Our Stars".


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2014, he played Fordy in the crime film "Plastic", directed by Julian Gilbey and starring Ed Speleers, Alfie Allen, Sebastian De Souza and Emma Rigby. The film was critically panned on release. The same year, he played Gally in the film adaptation of "The Maze Runner", alongside Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario. The film was a critical and commercial success, with the performances of the cast being praised. Poulter went on to describe the film, and his role in it, as "a turning point" in his career.


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2015, Poulter starred as Shane in the Irish indie film "Glassland", directed by Gerard Barrett and co-starring Jack Reynor and Toni Collette.


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2014, Poulter won the BAFTA Rising Star Award, voted for by the public. The same year, he also won the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and the MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with his co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Emma Roberts) for his performance in "We're the Millers".


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2014, Poulter was chosen as one of 23 upcoming actors to feature in July's issue of "Vanity Fair", with all actors being named "Hollywood's Next Wave".


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter played Jim Bridger in the revenge-thriller "The Revenant" (2015), directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. The film centres on an 1820s frontiersman on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling. In 2017, he played the racist police officer Philip Krauss in the film "Detroit", about the 1967 Detroit riots. His work in the film was praised with one critic calling him "terrifyingly confident".


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter was initially cast as Pennywise the Clown in the 2017 film adaptation of Stephen King's 1986 epic horror novel "It". However, it was announced in June 2016 that Bill Skarsgård had been cast instead because Poulter dropped out due both to scheduling conflicts (the film was set to shoot at the same time as Poulter was set to begin work on "Detroit") as well as the departure of its initial director, Cary Fukunaga.


title: Will Poulter

text: In 2018, Poulter reprised his role as Gally in "", the third and final installment of the "Maze Runner" film series. Later that year, he starred in the film "The Little Stranger" as Roderick "Roddy" Ayres, a facially disfigured, haunted war veteran; and as game developer Colin Ritman in "", a standalone interactive film of the "Black Mirror" television series. In 2019, he played the character of Mark in Ari Aster's horror film "Midsommar". In 2020, he participated in filming "", an interactive choice game created by Supermassive Games, in which he portrays Andrew, Anthony and Abraham.


title: Will Poulter

text: In October 2021, Poulter was cast in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" as Adam Warlock, set to be released on 5 May 2023.


title: Will Poulter

text: Poulter played the role of OxyContin sales representative Billy Cutler in Hulu's 2021 drama miniseries "Dopesick". Poulter's performance was nominated for a 2022 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for this role.


title: Yandex

text: Yandex LLC () is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, maps and navigation, mobile applications, and online advertising. It primarily serves audiences in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States of the former Soviet Union, and has more than 30 offices worldwide.


title: Yandex

text: The firm is the largest technology company in Russia and the second largest search engine on the Internet in Russian, with a market share of over 42%. It also has the largest market share of any search engine from Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States and is the 5th largest search engine worldwide after Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Baidu. Its main competitors on the Russian market are Google, VK, and Rambler.


title: Yandex

text: Yandex LLC's holding company, Yandex N.V., is registered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands as a "naamloze vennootschap" (Dutch public limited company), has its registered office in Schiphol Airport, and is listed in Nasdaq with a secondary listing in the Moscow Exchange.


title: Yandex

text: Yandex has offices in 10 countries. The company's technology and business development unit, Yandex Labs, was opened in Silicon Valley in 2008. The Istanbul office was launched together with the company's web portal in Turkey in 2011.


title: Yandex

text: The company opened its first European office in Lucerne in 2012 to serve advertising clients in the EU. Its first research and development office in Europe started operating in Berlin in 2014. The company's Shanghai office was launched in 2015 to facilitate work with Chinese companies operating on the Russian language market.


title: Yandex

text: A new location in Prague was added in December 2021 to accommodate the company's rapidly expanding crowdsourcing, routing, cloud computing, ridesharing and weather forecasting teams.


title: Yandex

text: In 1993, Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich, friends since their school days and by then working together to develop search software, invented the word "Yandex" to describe their search technologies. The name initially stood for "Yet Another iNDEXer". However, this is also a bilingual pun on "index" since "Я" ("ya") means "I" in Russian. Another pun is based on the "yin and yang" contrast (Russian: инь – индекс, ян – яндекс).


title: Yandex

text: Between 1993 and 1996, the company continued developing its search technologies and released software for searching the Bible. The Yandex.ru search engine was launched on September 23, 1997, and was presented at the Softool exhibition in Moscow. Initially, the search engine was developed by Comptek. In 2000, Yandex was incorporated as a standalone company by Arkady Volozh.


title: Yandex

text: In September 2005, it opened an office in Ukraine and launched www.yandex.ua. In 2007, Yandex introduced a customized search engine for Ukrainian users; Yandex also opened its development center in Kyiv in May 2007. In 2008, Yandex extended its presence in Ukraine by increasing bandwidth between Moscow data centers and UA-IX in Ukraine fivefold. In 2009, all services of www.yandex.ua were localized for the Ukrainian market. In 2010, Yandex launched its "Poltava" search engine algorithm for Ukrainian users, based on its MatrixNet technology.


title: Yandex

text: On June 20, 2008, it announced the formation of Yandex Labs in Silicon Valley, with an objective to foster "innovation in search and advertising technology".


title: Yandex

text: In 2022, TechCrunch reported that Yandex was selling its media division after the EU sanctioned the former head of its news operation, Lev Gershenzon (VK confirmed to be the buyer in an Apr 2022 press release). The CNN also reported in March 2022 that Yandex warned it may not be able to pay its debts due to sanctions imposed on Russia. On 12 September 2022 Yandex transferred its domain from yandex.ru to ya.ru. In late November 2022, the holding company announced a review of its ownership with the goal of divestment.


title: Yandex

text: In January 2009, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, replaced Google with Yandex as the default search provider for Russian-language builds.


title: Yandex

text: In September 2010, Yandex launched Yandex Music, a music streaming service, with a catalogue of 800,000 tracks from 58,000 performers.


title: Yandex

text: On October 10, 2017, the company introduced its intelligent personal assistant, Alisa (Alice) for Android, iOS, and Microsoft Windows.


title: Yandex

text: In March 2007, it acquired Russian social networking service moikrug.ru.; on June 16, 2008, Yandex acquired SMILink, a Russian road traffic monitoring agency, to merge with Yandex. Maps services. In September 2008, the company acquired the rights to the Punto Switcher software program, an automatic Russian to English keyboard layout switcher.


title: Yandex

text: In September 2010, it invested in a $4.3 million financing round by Face.com. The company was acquired by Facebook in 2012. In December 2010, the firm launched Yandex.Start to find startups and work with them systematically, and purchased WebVisor's behavior analysis technology in December 2010. In September 2011, it invested in Blekko as part of a $30 million financing round. In November 2011, it acquired software developer SPB Software for $38 million. In June 2012, it acquired a 25% stake in Seismotech, for $1 million. On January 26, 2011, it introduced premium placement opportunity in its Business directory in which advertisers' local small businesses are highlighted. On January 27, 2011, the company acquired single sign-in service Loginza.


title: Yandex

text: In August 2011, Yandex acquired The Tweeted Times, a news delivery startup. In September 2011, it launched a search engine and a range of other services in Turkey, opening an office in Istanbul.


title: Yandex

text: In October 2013, the company acquired KinoPoisk, the biggest Russian movie search engine. In February 2014, Yandex invested several million dollars in MultiShip. In March 2014, it acquired Israeli geolocation startup KitLocate and opened a research and development office in Israel.


title: Yandex

text: In June 2014, it acquired Auto.ru, an online marketplace and classified advertising website for automobiles, for $175 million. In December 2015, it acquired Internet security company Agnitum . On June 6, 2017, the company invested in a $5 million financing round by Doc+. In December 2017, it acquired food delivery Foodfox. On February 7, 2018, Uber and Yandex NV merged their businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia. Uber invested $225 million and owns 36.6% stake in the venture while Yandex invested $100 million and owns a 59.3% stake.


title: Yandex

text: In May 2018, Sberbank and Yandex completed a joint venture deal to develop a B2C eCommerce ecosystem. In October 2018, Yandex acquired Edadil (Russian: Едадил, lit. "grocery deals"), a deal aggregator service.


title: Yandex

text: In June 2021, Yandex, VTB Bank, LANIT Group and computer hardware producer Gigabyte founded a joint venture to start producing servers in Russia in 2022. In October 2021, construction of a new plant in Ryazan Oblast was launched with 1 billion roubles during the first stage of investments. The new plant will produce servers, data storage systems, gateways and smart equipment under “Openyard” brand. In January 2022, Yandex acquired "eLama", digital advertising platform, waiting for the approvement from Federal Antimonopoly Service. That same month Yandex has also bought "BandLink" music service.


title: Yandex

text: The company became profitable in November 2002. In 2004, Yandex sales increased to $17 million, up 1000% in 2 years. The net income of the company in 2004 was $7 million. In June 2006, the weekly revenue of Yandex.Direct context ads system exceeded $1 million. The company's accounting has been audited by Deloitte since 1999.


title: Yandex

text: On May 24, 2011, it raised $1.3 billion in an initial public offering on NASDAQ, the biggest initial public offering for a dot-com company since Google's offering in 2004. Among the largest investors were Baring Vostok Capital Partners, which owned a 30% stake, and Tiger Management, which owned a 15% stake.


title: Yandex

text: On June 1, 2017, Yandex closed its offices in Kyiv and Odessa, Ukraine after the Security Service of Ukraine raided the offices and accused the company of illegally collecting Ukrainian users’ data and sending it to Russian security agencies. The firm denied any wrongdoing. In May 2017, all Yandex services were banned in Ukraine by Presidential Decree No. 133/2017.


title: Yandex

text: In October and November 2018, Yandex was targeted in a cyberattack using the Regin malware, aimed at stealing technical information from its research and development unit on how users were authenticated. An investigation by Kaspersky Lab attributed the hacks to Five Eyes intelligence agencies.


title: Yandex

text: In June 2019, "RBC News" reported that Yandex had refused a request by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) under the Yarovaya law to surrender encryption keys that could decrypt the private data of its e-mail service and cloud storage users. The company argued that it was impossible to comply with the relevant law without compromising its users' privacy. Maxim Akimov, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, said that the government will take action to relieve FSB pressure on the company. Alexander Zharov, head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, subsequently said that Yandex and the FSB had reached an agreement where the company would provide the required data without handing over the encryption keys.


title: Yandex

text: In February 2021 Yandex admitted that one of their system administrators with access rights to Yandex's email service had enabled unauthorized access, leading to almost 5,000 Yandex email inboxes being compromised.


title: Yandex

text: Yandex.Games is Internet gaming platform made by Yandex, which is available on both browser and mobile. As of January 2022, the number of games included in the catalog exceeded 7000, with more than 11 million players a month. The platform provides two types of income: advertising and in-app purchases. There is also an in-game currency called "Yans".


title: Yandex

text: Developers add their games to the catalog independently and edit them in the future. All games are moderated. Mandatory requirements include integration with the Yandex.Games SDK, support for HTTPS and offline Service Worker mode. Game developers follow the updates of the platform in the blog, and content is provided by companies all over the world (e.g. Dutch media platform Azerion).


title: Yandex

text: In addition to a wide system of user ratings and reviews, the service uses complex algorithms to create personalized collections: games that have already been played, or those that are likely to be played.


title: Yandex

text: On April 20, 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia, Yandex made its home coronavirus testing service free of charge for all residents of Moscow and its surroundings, and will be available to other regions in the future. Previously, it announced the launch of the service on April 16.


title: Yandex

text: In late March 2022, Yandex was the subject of a "Financial Times" investigation that had been initiated by the nonprofit organization Me2B Alliance as part of an application auditing campaign led by researcher Zach Edwards. Edwards and four expert researchers, including Cher Scarlett, a former Apple security engineer, found that a software development kit (SDK) called AppMetrica, a product of Yandex, was harvesting data from more than 52,000 applications such as a user's device fingerprint and IP address and storing it in Russia on Yandex's servers, which they said due to Russian law, and the nature of SDKs, could be accessed by Russian authorities without their knowledge and used to identify them. Yandex said of identification by the data collected: "Although theoretically possible, in practice it is extremely hard to identify users based solely on such information collected." Of authority requests for data they said: "Any requests that fail to comply with all relevant procedural and legal requirements are turned down."


title: Yandex

text: According to Meduza investigation published on 5 May 2022, since 2016 the top-5 news on the Yandex's main page are formed on the basis of a secret list of Russian media approved by Presidential Administration of Russia, which includes only pro-Kremlin media.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002. The group consists of Alex Turner (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jamie Cook (guitar, keyboards), Nick O'Malley (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Matt Helders (drums, backing vocals). Former band member Andy Nicholson (bass guitar, backing vocals) left the band in 2006 shortly after their debut album was released.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys were heralded as one of the first bands to come to public attention via the Internet, with commentators suggesting they represented the possibility of a change in the way in which new bands are promoted and marketed. Their debut album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" (2006), became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history, and has been hailed as one of the greatest debut albums. It won Best British Album at the 2007 Brit Awards. The band's second album, "Favourite Worst Nightmare" (2007), was also acclaimed by critics and won Best British Album at the 2008 BRIT Awards. They went on to release "Humbug" (2009) and "Suck It and See" (2011).


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band's wider international fame came with the success of their critically acclaimed fifth album "AM" (2013), which was supported by the global hit "Do I Wanna Know?". It topped four "Billboard" charts and was certified platinum in the US. At the 2014 BRIT Awards, the album became their third to win British Album of the Year. Their sixth album, "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" (2018), was a major departure from the band's previous guitar-heavy work, instead being piano-oriented. It received a Best Alternative Music Album nomination at the 2019 Grammy Awards, their second to do so after "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: In the United Kingdom, the band became the first independent-label band to debut at number one in the UK with their first five albums. The band have won seven Brit Awards; winning Best British Group and British Album of the Year three times, becoming the first band to ever "do the double" (that is, win in both categories) three times; a Mercury Prize for "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", an Ivor Novello Award, and 20 NME Awards. In addition, they have been nominated for six Grammy Awards, and received Mercury Prize nominations in 2007, 2013, and 2018. Both "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" and "AM" are included in "NME"s and different editions of "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time lists.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The Arctic Monkeys were formed in mid-2002 by friends Alex Turner, Matt Helders, and Andy Nicholson. Turner and Helders were neighbours and close friends, and they met Nicholson in secondary school. Turner, who had grown up in a musical household as his father was a music teacher, played guitar in the then-instrumental-only band, with Helders on drums, Nicholson on bass, and a new band member, Jamie Cook as a second guitarist. The name "Arctic Monkeys" was Cook's idea, and is perhaps a play on "northern monkey", a derogatory term for someone from northern England. Initially, Turner was reluctant when it came to being the lead singer. As time passed, Turner became the lead singer and frontman of the band as he had "a thing for words", according to Helders. The band began rehearsing at Yellow Arch Studios in Neepsend, and played its first gig on 13 June 2003 at The Grapes in Sheffield city centre. After a few performances in 2003, the band began to record demos at 2fly studios in Sheffield. 18 songs were demoed in all and the collection, now known as "Beneath the Boardwalk", was burned onto CDs to give away at gigs, which were promptly file-shared amongst fans. The name "Beneath the Boardwalk" originated when the first batch of demos were sent around. The first sender, wanting to classify the demos, named them after where he received them, the Boardwalk. Slowly, as more demos were spread, they were all classified under this name. This has led to many people falsely believing that "Beneath the Boardwalk" was an early album, or that the early demos were all released under this title. The group did not mind the distribution, saying "we never made those demos to make money or anything. We were giving them away free anyway – that was a better way for people to hear them."


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band began to grow in popularity across the north of England, receiving attention from BBC Radio and the British tabloid press. A local amateur photographer, Mark Bull, filmed the band's performances and made the music video "Fake Tales of San Francisco", releasing it on his website, alongside the contents of "Beneath the Boardwalk" – a collection of the band's songs which he named after a local music venue. When asked about the popularity of the band's MySpace site, the band said that they were unaware of what it was and that the site had originally been created by their fans. In May 2005, Arctic Monkeys released the EP "Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys" on their own 'Bang Bang' label, featuring the songs "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and "From the Ritz to the Rubble". This release was limited to 500 CDs and 1,000 7" records, but was also available to download from the iTunes Music Store. Soon after, the band played at the Carling Stage of the Reading and Leeds Festivals, reserved for less known or unsigned bands.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Eventually, they were signed to Domino in June 2005. The band said they were attracted to the DIY ethic of Domino owner Laurence Bell, who ran the label from his flat and only signed bands that he liked personally. The UK's "Daily Star" reported that this was followed in October by a £1 million publishing deal with EMI and a £725,000 contract with Epic Records for the United States. Arctic Monkeys denied this on their website, dubbing the newspaper "The Daily Stir". However, Domino had licensed the Australian and New Zealand publishing rights to EMI and the Japanese rights to independent label Hostess. Their debut single "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", which was recorded at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, was released on 17 October 2005 and went straight to No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. Their second single, "When the Sun Goes Down" (previously titled "Scummy"), released on 16 January 2006, also went straight to No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. The band's success with little marketing or advertising led some to suggest that it could signal a change in how new bands achieve recognition.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band finished recording their debut album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire in September 2005 with British record producer Jim Abbiss producing. "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history, selling 363,735 copies in the first week. This surpassed the previous record of 306,631 copies held by "Popstars" by Hear'Say, and sold more copies on its first day alone – 118,501 – than the rest of the Top 20 albums combined. The cover sleeve of "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", showing Chris McClure, a friend of the band smoking a cigarette, was criticised by the head of the NHS in Scotland for "reinforcing the idea that smoking is okay". The image on the CD itself is a shot of an ashtray full of cigarettes. The band's product manager denied the accusation, and suggested the opposite – "You can see from the image smoking is not doing him the world of good."


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The record was released a month later in the US on 21 February 2006 and entered at No. 24 on the "Billboard" album chart after it sold 34,000 units in its first week, making it the second fastest selling for a debut indie rock album in America. However, US sales for the first year did not match those of the first week in the UK for the album. US critics were more reserved about the band than their UK counterparts, and appeared unwilling to be drawn into the possibility of "yet another example of the UK's press over-hyping new bands". However, the band's June 2006 tour of North America received critical acclaim at each stop – the hype surrounding them "proven to exist for good reason". The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in 2017 for selling over 500,000 units in the United States. Meanwhile, the UK's "NME" magazine declared the band's debut album the "5th greatest British album of all time". It also equalled the record of the Strokes and Oasis at the 2006 NME Awards, winning three fan-voted awards for Best British Band, Best New Band and Best Track for "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys wasted no time in recording new material, and released "Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?", a five-track EP on 24 April 2006. Due to its length, the EP was ineligible to chart as a UK single or album. Furthermore, the record's graphic language has resulted in significantly less radio airplay than previous records, although this was not a reported concern according to an insider – "since they made their name on the Internet... they don't care if they don't get radio play". The release of the EP "Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?" just three months after their record-breaking debut album has been criticised by some, who have seen it as "money-grabbing" and "cashing in on their success". The band countered that it regularly releases new music not to make money, but to avoid the "boredom" of "spending three years touring on one album".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Soon after the release of the EP in the UK, the band announced that Andy Nicholson would not take part in the band's forthcoming North America tour due to fatigue from "an intensive period of touring". On returning to the UK, Nicholson confirmed that he would leave Arctic Monkeys and start his own project. He also said that he couldn't deal with the band's fame and success over the previous six months. In a statement on their official website, the band said: "We are sad to tell everyone that Andy is no longer with the band", also confirmed that Nick O'Malley – former bassist with the Dodgems who had drafted in as temporary bassist for the tour – would continue as bassist for the rest of their summer tour schedule. Shortly after, Nick O'Malley was confirmed as the formal replacement for Nicholson.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys' first release without Nicholson, the single "Leave Before the Lights Come On", came on 14 August 2006. Turner said that the song was one of the last songs he wrote before their rise to fame, and suggested that "it feels very much like it could be on the album". Peaking at No. 4 in the UK, the single became the band's first single not to reach No. 1. The band was re-united at the Leeds Festival when Nicholson met up with his former bandmates and his replacement bassist, O'Malley. Only the original band members, minus Nicholson, were present at the award ceremony when "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" won the 2006 Mercury Prize two weeks later.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band's second album, "Favourite Worst Nightmare", was released on 23 April 2007, a week after the release of accompanying single "Brianstorm". Like its predecessor, "Favourite Worst Nightmare" also quickly reached No. 1 in the album charts. Turner described the songs as "very different from last time", adding that the sound of some tracks are "a bit full-on – a bit like "From the Ritz to the Rubble", "The View from the Afternoon", that sort of thing". A secret gig played at Sheffield's Leadmill on 10 February 2007, debuted seven new songs (six from "Favourite Worst Nightmare" and one other). Early reviews of the release were positive, and described it as "very, very fast and very, very loud".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Meanwhile, the band continued to pick up awards from around the world, namely the Best New Artist in the United States at the PLUG Independent Music Awards, the Album of the Year awards in Japan, Ireland and the US, awards for Best Album and Best Music DVD for the short film "Scummy Man" at the 2007 NME Awards. It ended the year by clinching the Best British Band and Best British Album at the 2008 BRIT Awards. For the second year in a row, the band was nominated for the annual Mercury Prize.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 29 April 2007, the day "Favourite Worst Nightmare" charted at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart, all 12 tracks from the album charted in the Top 200 of the UK Singles Chart. The band later released "Fluorescent Adolescent" as a single, and it charted at No. 5, after debuting the song live on "The Jonathan Ross Show" dressed as clowns. The third single from "Favourite Worst Nightmare", "Teddy Picker", was released on 3 December 2007. It charted at No. 20 and remained only one week in the top 40 staying in this position, making it the lowest charting single for the band so far. Prior to this release the band released an extremely limited number of 250 vinyl under the pseudonym Death Ramps containing two of the B-sides from the "Teddy Picker" single.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: In its first week of release the album sold 227,993 copies, emulating "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" in going straight to number one in the UK Albums Chart, albeit selling 130,000 copies fewer than their record-breaking debut. The first two singles from the album Brianstorm and Fluorescent Adolescent were both UK Top Hits. "Favourite Worst Nightmare"s first day sales of 85,000 outsold the rest of the Top 20 combined, while all twelve tracks from the album entered the top 200 of the UK Singles Chart in their own right. By September 2013 the album has sold 821,128 copies in UK and has since gone 3× platinum by 2018. In the USA, the album debuted at number seven, selling around 44,000 copies in its first week.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys headlined the Glastonbury Festival on 22 June 2007, the highlights of which were aired on BBC2. During their headline act, the band performed with Dizzee Rascal and Simian Mobile Disco and covered Shirley Bassey's "Diamonds Are Forever". The band also played a large gig at Dublin's Malahide Castle on 16 June 2007, with a second date added the following day. On 28–29 July 2007 the band played their biggest concert to date with two sell out shows at the 55,000 capacity Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester. Billed as being the group's own 'mini-festivals' both date saw support sets for Supergrass, The Coral, Amy Winehouse and Japanese Beatles tribute act The Parrots. The shows were hailed as 'the gigs of a generation' by NME and were even compared to Oasis' record-breaking shows at Knebworth House in 1996. The LCCG concerts cemented Arctic Monkeys' status as the defining band of their generation, as Oasis had done before them. The band was also slated to play the Austin City Limits Music Festival in September 2007. Other European festivals include Rock Werchter in 2007. The band played two shows at Cardiff International Arena on 19 and 20 June 2007. They also played two London gigs at Alexandra Palace on 8 and 9 December 2007. On 1 September 2007 the band performed an intimate show at Ibiza Rocks show in Bar M (now Ibiza Rocks Bar) along with Reverend and the Makers. The band played their last show of the tour on 17 December 2007 at Manchester Apollo, which was filmed for the live album and video release "At the Apollo", which was released in cinemas the following year.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: After a brief hiatus during which Turner toured and recorded with his side project the Last Shadow Puppets, the band recorded half the album at Rancho De La Luna recording sessions with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age in early autumn, 2008, and half in the New York sessions with James Ford in spring, 2009, following their January tour of New Zealand and Australia. During this tour, lead single "Crying Lightning", along with "Humbug" songs "Pretty Visitors", "Dangerous Animals", and "Potion Approaching" (then known as "Go-Kart"), was debuted live. It was later revealed by Matt Helders in a video diary that the album would consist of 14 tracks and that Turner would stay in New York to oversee the mixing of the material. However, the final track listing, revealed on 1 June 2009, listed only 10.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: In a preview article on "Clash", writer Simon Harper claimed that the band had "completely defied any expectations or presumptions to explore the depths they can reach when stepping foot outside their accepted styles," and that "Turner is his usual eloquent self, but has definitely graduated into an incomparable writer whose themes twist and turn through stories and allegories so potent and profound it actually leaves one breathless". On the same site, Turner revealed that the band had listened to Nick Cave, Jimi Hendrix and Cream while writing the new album, the title of which would be "Humbug". "Humbug" was released on 19 August 2009, and, like both of its predecessors, the album went straight to No. 1.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: As announced on Arctic Monkeys' website, the first single from "Humbug" was "Crying Lightning", released on 6 July. It also received its first radio premiere on the same day. On 12 July 2009, the single "Crying Lightning" debuted at number 12 in the UK Singles Chart. The second single, "Cornerstone", was released on 16 November 2009. It was announced in February 2010 that the third and final single to be taken from "Humbug" would be "My Propeller", released on 22 March. Shortly before the release of the new single, the band did a one-off UK show at the Royal Albert Hall in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust on 27 March.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys embarked on the first leg of the worldwide Humbug Tour in January 2009 and went on to headline 2009's Reading and Leeds Festivals. During this performance, they played a number of songs from "Humbug", plus older tracks such as "Brianstorm" and a cover of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Red Right Hand". They were also the headline act on the first night of 2009's Exit festival in Serbia. In North America, where they had less of a following, they played abridged sets at Montreal's Osheaga Festival, as well as New Jersey's All Points West Music and Arts Festival. The tour finished in early 2010 in Mexico.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: "NME" reported in May 2011 that the band were teaming up with producer James Ford once again, and would be releasing their fourth studio album in late spring at the earliest. "Q" magazine reported that the fourth Arctic Monkeys album would be of a "more accessible vintage" than "Humbug". "Q" printed edition 299 states "It's the sound of a band drawing back the curtains and letting the sunshine in".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The album was recorded in Sound City Studios in Los Angeles in 2010 and 2011. On 4 March 2011, the band premièred on its website a new track called "Brick by Brick" with lead vocals by Matt Helders. Helders explained that this is not a single, just a tease of what is coming and that is it is going to be on the fourth album. On 10 March 2011 the band revealed the album is to be called "Suck It and See" and was released on 6 June 2011.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Their fourth album's first single, titled "Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair" was released as a digital download on 12 April and on vinyl with "Brick by Brick" on 16 April for Record Store Day. On 17 April, it went to No. 28 in the UK Singles Chart. A version of the single with 2 B-sides was released on 7 and 10 inch vinyl on 30 May. The band allowed fans to listen to the entire album on their website before deciding about whether to purchase it or not. "Suck It and See" was then released on 6 June 2011, and went straight to No. 1 in the album charts. In doing so, Arctic Monkeys became only the second band in history to debut four albums in a row at the top of the charts.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band announced "The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala" as the second single to be taken from "Suck It and See". Most of the stock was burned because of the London riots. A limited edition 7" Vinyl of the single was then released over the band's website on 14 August. The song reached No. 15. in Belgium. In September 2011 the band released a music video for the song "Suck It and See" featuring drummer Matt Helders, and announced they would be releasing it as a single on 31 October 2011. In July 2011, the band released a live EP over iTunes with 6 live recordings from the iTunes Festival in London.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The album has also been successful commercially. In its first week of release, the album debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, selling over 82,000 units. Overall, the album sold 333,000 units. "NME" named the album cover, an artwork free cream monochrome after the styling of the Beatles' White Album, as one of the worst in history. In July, the album won Mojo award for the Best Album of 2011. "Mojo" placed the album at number 39 on its list of "Top 50 albums of 2011." On 30 May, a week before official release, Domino Records streamed the entire album on SoundCloud. Within a few hours of being made public, the first two tracks had reached over 10,000 listens each, and by the end of the week, each had accrued over 100,000 plays.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys embarked in May 2011 on their Suck It and See Tour. They headlined the Benicàssim Festival 2011 alongside the Strokes, Arcade Fire and Primal Scream. They also headlined Oxegen 2011, Super Bock Super Rock 2011, V Festival 2011, Rock Werchter and T in The Park. They confirmed on 7 February that they were playing two "massive homecoming shows" at the Don Valley Bowl in Sheffield on 10 and 11 June, support included Miles Kane, Anna Calvi, the Vaccines and Dead Sons and Mabel Love, clips from the show were also used in the music video for "The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala". They played at Lollapalooza 5–7 August 2011. On 21 August, they also played at Lowlands, the Netherlands. The tour continued until March 2012.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 27 October they released a music video for "Evil Twin" on YouTube, the B-side to their new single "Suck It and See". They performed the song on "The Graham Norton Show" on 28 October. The fourth single from "Suck It and See", "Black Treacle" was released on 23 January 2012. This video for the single continued the theme from the previous single, "Suck It and See" and "Evil Twin". In March, the band embarked on a North American stadium tour supporting the Black Keys.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 26 February 2012, the band released a new song titled "R U Mine?" on their YouTube channel. On 4 March, it went to No. 23 on the UK Singles Chart on downloads alone. On 21 April, the song was released as a single, with the track "Electricity" as a B-side, released additionally for Record Store Day. On 27 July, Arctic Monkeys played in the London Summer Olympics opening ceremony, performing "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and a cover of the Beatles song "Come Together".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 22 May 2013 the band started the AM Tour at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura, California, where they debuted a new song titled "Do I Wanna Know?". On 1 June 2013, the band performed at Free Press Summer Fest in Houston, TX. On 14 June, the band debuted another song titled "Mad Sounds" at Hultsfred Festival in Sweden. Four days later, on 18 June 2013, the band released the official video to "Do I Wanna Know?". The studio version of the song, along with accompanying visuals, was also made available to purchase via iTunes, and entered the UK Singles Chart at number 11. On 23 June 2013 Arctic Monkeys headlined Southside Festival in Germany.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band's fifth studio album, "AM", was released on 9 September 2013. The album was recorded in Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, California, and features guest appearances from Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Elvis Costello's drummer Pete Thomas and Bill Ryder-Jones of the Coral. Further, on 27 June, the band announced an eight date UK arena tour culminating with a homecoming gig at the Motorpoint Arena Sheffield. The band played at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival on 28 June as headliners at the Pyramid stage. Arctic Monkeys also headlined the 2013 Open'er Festival in Gdynia, Poland and played on the main stage on 4 July. On 20 July, the band performed at Benicàssim 2013.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 11 August 2013, the third single from the album, "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?", was released, with the B-side "Stop The World I Wanna Get Off With You". It debuted at no. 8 on the UK Singles Chart on 18 August 2013, making it the band's first UK Top 10 single since 2007's "Fluorescent Adolescent". The band streamed the album in its entirety four days ahead of its release.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: "AM" has received critical acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 81, based on 36 reviews. Simon Harper of "Clash" magazine states: "Welding inspiration from hip-hop greats with rock's titans, "AM" is built upon portentous beats that are dark and intimidating, yet wickedly thrilling." Ray Rahman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave it an 'A−', and opined that ""AM" mixes Velvet Underground melodies, Black Sabbath riffs, and playful grooves, and has fun doing it." "Time Out" said of the album: "One of Britain's greatest bands just got greater in an unexpected but hugely welcome way. Single men, I urge you: put down "FHM" and pick up "AM"." In their 10/10 review, "NME" wrote that "AM" is "absolutely and unarguably the greatest record of their career". In his 8/10 review, J.C. Maçek III of "PopMatters" praised Turner for being "at his most poetic to date", and called the album "a wonderfully cohesive and diverse album that fits together incredibly well". Tim Jonze of "The Guardian" noted that the album "manages to connect those different directions – the muscular riffs of "Humbug" and the wistful pop of "Suck It and See" – with the bristling energy and sense of fun that propelled their initial recordings". "Pitchfork"s Ryan Dombal called "AM" "paranoid and haunted".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Upon the release of "AM" on 9 September 2013, the album debuted at number 1 in the UK album charts, selling over 157,000 copies in its first week. As a result, Arctic Monkeys made history as the first independent label band with five consecutive number 1 albums in the UK. The album received widespread critical acclaim and brought Arctic Monkeys their third nomination for the Mercury Prize. The album also won the Brit award for Best British Album. In the United States, the album sold 42,000 copies in its first week, and debuted at number six on the "Billboard" 200 chart, becoming the band's highest-charting album in the United States. In August 2017, "AM" was certified platinum by the RIAA for combined sales and album-equivalent units over of a million units in the United States.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Turner described "AM" as the band's "most original [album] yet," merging hip-hop drum beats with 1970s heavy rock. The frontman has said that the song "Arabella" expresses the two styles of the album most effectively in one track. On "AM", Turner continued to experiment with unusual lyrics, and the album includes the words from poem "I Wanna Be Yours" by John Cooper Clarke. Turner has stated that Homme's appearance on the song "Knee Socks" marks his favourite moment of the whole album.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 23 and 24 May 2014, Arctic Monkeys held one of their biggest shows to date, playing to approximately 80,000 crowds across two days shows at Finsbury Park with the support act by Tame Impala, Miles Kane, and Royal Blood. Arctic Monkeys also headlined the Reading and Leeds Festival in August 2014. The band had a handful of shows in late 2014, which closed the AM Tour. In December 2014, "Do I Wanna Know?" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 24 August 2014, the band announced a hiatus following their AM Tour. Turner and Helders have both pursued other projects during this time. In 2016, Turner announced his second album with the Last Shadow Puppets, "Everything You've Come to Expect". Helders played the drums on Iggy Pop's album "Post Pop Depression". In July 2016, the band revealed an elephant sculpture designed in the style of their ‘AM’ album cover for charity. The project raised money for the Sheffield Children's Hospital arts trail.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: In December 2016, Turner confirmed to BBC Radio Sheffield that the band's hiatus had ended and work had begun on their sixth studio album. The album had begun recording in September 2017. The album, "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" was released on 11 May 2018. The band headlined a handful of festivals in summer 2018, included Firefly Music Festival, TRNSMT, Rock Werchter, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits Music Festival, and the Voodoo Experience. Despite its stylistic deviation polarising listeners, "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" was released to generally positive reviews. It became the band's sixth consecutive number-one debut in the UK, and the country's fastest-selling vinyl record in 25 years. Following its release, the album was promoted by the singles "Four Out of Five" and "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino", multiple television appearances, as well as a global tour in which they played their biggest show todate with 64,467 attandance at the Foro Sol Stadium in Mexico City.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Reflektor Magazine had the following to say about the album in a review, "After five years of silence, the Arctic Monkeys make their much-awaited return with surprising and hypnotic "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino". Perfectly managing to avoid self-parody or stylistic repetitions, this new album appears as a startling reinvention, a meandering and puzzling journey beyond known territories. Just like mankind first set foot on the moon on the ‘Tranquility base’ site, the Arctic Monkeys disembark in an unknown universe in which they reveal a new, unexpected aspect of themselves.".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" was nominated for the 2018 Mercury Prize, an annual prize awarded to the year's best British or Irish album. This became the band's fourth nomination for the award: the second most nominations received by any act. The album was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, with single "Four Out of Five" nominated for Best Rock Performance. The album also appeared on numerous year-end lists. At Album of the Year, which creates an aggregate of music critic's year-end lists, "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" was listed as the fourteenth best album of the year, with "Q" and Kitty Empire of "The Observer" naming it the best album of 2018. Publications including "NME", "The Independent" and "Mojo" also listed "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" as the year's second best album. "Uproxx", BBC Radio 6 Music and "Entertainment Weekly" included the album in the top five of their year-end lists, with "Vulture" and "The Guardian" including the album in their top ten. Publications that listed the album in their top twenty include "Paste" and "The Line of Best Fit". Numerous publications included "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" in their top fifty albums of the year, including "Crack Magazine", "Esquire", "musicOMH", "Pitchfork", "Uncut" and "Louder Than War", while "Noisey" listed the album in their top hundred.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: A live album from their 2018 "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino Tour" concert at the Royal Albert Hall entitled "Live at the Royal Albert Hall" was released on 4 December 2020. All proceeds from the album, as with the concert, went to the charity War Child.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: On 8 December 2021, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner of the 2022 Reading and Leeds Festival, alongside Bring Me the Horizon, Megan Thee Stallion, Rage Against the Machine and Halsey. On 23 August 2022 at the Zurich Openair festival, they debuted new song "I Ain't Quite Where I Think I Am". The following day they announced their seventh studio album, "The Car", which was released on 21 October 2022. On 30 August 2022, they released the first single from the album, "There'd Better Be a Mirrorball", accompanied by a video directed by Turner. "I Ain't Quite Where I Think I Am" was released as the third single on 18 October 2022. "The Car" peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart, behind Taylor Swift's "Midnights". In the US, the album landed at No. 6 on the ′′Billboard′′ 200.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Arctic Monkeys' musical style has been mainly described as indie rock, garage rock, post-punk revival, psychedelic rock, alternative rock, post-Britpop, stoner rock, guitar pop, post-punk, punk rock, and hard rock. A key part of their sound, and one that translates across their whole discography, is Turner's intricate and often rapidly delivered lyrics, sung in a distinctive strong Sheffield accent that their music became famed for in their early years. The punk poet John Cooper Clarke was a formative influence on Turner; his poem "I Wanna Be Yours" was adapted into a track on the band's fifth album "AM". Their first album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", has been described as indie rock, garage rock revival, post-punk revival, punk rock, alternative rock, and post-Britpop. "Favourite Worst Nightmare" has been described as post-punk revival, indie rock, garage rock, alternative rock, psychedelic rock, and post-Britpop, with Turner's sharp lyrics the focal point. On the first album, Turner examined human behaviour in nightclubs and in the culture of the band's hometown, Sheffield. Turner describes "Dancing Shoes" as being about "people always looking to pull when they go out however much they mask it".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: These themes continued on the following album "Favourite Worst Nightmare" with the band still progressing as musicians. Songs such as "Fluorescent Adolescent" and "Do Me a Favour" explored failed relationships, nostalgia and growing old, while musically the band took up a more up-tempo and aggressive sound.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Their third album "Humbug" marked a change in sound and was described as psychedelic rock, hard rock, stoner rock, alternative rock, post-punk revival, indie rock, garage rock, and desert rock, due to the influence of the album's producer and Queens of the Stone Age frontman, Josh Homme. For "Humbug", the band actively sought a new sound. Homme was quoted saying, "They came to me: 'Will you take us to the weird and the strange?'" According to "Brooklyn Vegan", "they were no longer pulling mostly from rowdy garage rock, but from tripped-out psychedelia, lumbering doom metal, hypnotic stoner rock, and darker songwriters like Nick Cave."


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Their fourth album "Suck It and See" sees the band exploring styles, mixing them with newfound maturity. Turner said: "I think the new album is a balance between our first three. There's nothing about taxi ranks or anything like that, but there's a bit of the standpoint I had on those early songs and the sense of humour, but also there's a bit of the 'Humbug' stuff which is kind of off in the corners." The album was described as guitar pop, indie rock, indie pop, psychedelic pop, alternative rock, pop rock, garage rock, psychedelic rock, and pop. Critics noted an influence from British rock bands from the 1960s, as well as the Smiths, and slower, love-themed ballads featured more heavily on the album than the fast-paced, rockier songs that typify the band's sound. Turner wrote much of the album in his apartment on an acoustic guitar, further influencing the ballad-style prevalent on the album.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: In a 2012 interview with "Pitchfork", Turner recalled that he and his friends were fans of Oasis, and that his mother "would always play the Eagles too, so I'm word-perfect on shitloads of Eagles tunes". He also listened to hip hop acts such as Outkast, Eminem, Wu-Tang Clan and Roots Manuva, amongst others. He cited John Lennon, Ray Davies, Nick Cave and Method Man as major influences lyrically. When speaking about Lennon in an interview with "NME", Turner said; "I remember when I first started writing songs, and writing lyrics, I really wanted to be able to write an "I Am the Walrus" type song, and I found it very difficult. You listen to that and it sounds like it's all nonsense, but it's difficult to write that sort of thing and make it compelling. Lennon definitely had a knack for that".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: According to the band, their fifth album "AM" has been described as psychedelic rock, blues rock, indie rock, and hard rock, with hip hop influences. As Turner stated in an interview with "NME", it's "like a Dr. Dre beat, but we've given it an Ike Turner bowl-cut and sent it galloping across the desert on a Stratocaster". He also cited Outkast, Aaliyah and Black Sabbath as influences for the album on the song "Arabella".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Their sixth album "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" took on a different direction, substituting the guitar-heavy sound from their previous albums for a more complex, piano-based style of composition. The album was described as psychedelic pop, lounge pop, space pop, and glam rock. In a 2018 interview with BBC Radio 1, Turner explained that he wrote the songs for the album on a piano instead of the guitar as "the guitar had lost its ability to give me ideas. Every time I sat with a guitar I was suspicious of where it was gonna go. I had a pretty good idea of what I might be which is completely contrary to what I felt when I sat at the piano.” Alex also stated that he received inspiration from three Jean-Pierre Melville films—"Un flic", "Le Cercle Rouge", and "Le Samouraï", as well as the film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories named "Spirits of the Dead".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: According to "Vice", "in Britain at least, Arctic Monkeys have reached a point where they are too enormous, too beloved a force to truly fail" and are probably the UK's biggest, most culturally important band. "Vice" further states that they are "the band that your friends whose music taste can otherwise be described as “"Match of the Day"-wave” are desperate to see perform live; the band dads and little brothers have in common—simply because throughout their career, they have remained consistent, while their peers in both sound and age have failed to keep similar longevity." English poet John Cooper Clarke praised the band as "the nearest thing" to the Beatles. Radio X has also named Arctic Monkeys as one of the best bands of all time.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: Following the success of "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", some critics cited the Arctic Monkeys as revolutionising the way people find music as they built a fanbase on the basis of a few demos shared by fans through the internet. Critics hugely praised the album for its depiction of youth British Culture and for resurging British indie music that had waned after the 1990s, with "NME" declaring the Arctic Monkeys "Our Generation's Most Important Band".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: According to "NME", the band's 2013 album "AM" "became the soundtrack for countless nights out, hook-ups and comedowns in every town and city of this country" by the end of the 2010s. Johnny Davis of "Esquire" wrote, "Every so often, a band emerges to define the times not just for a generation of music fans but for a whole era – the Clash, the Smiths, Oasis, the Strokes. Where Arctic Monkeys may be unique is that they have now managed that role twice [with both "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" and "AM"]" The co-founder of the band's label Domino Records, Laurence Bell, said "They're the toast of the playground again, every 13-year-old loves them. But so do grandads who were into Led Zeppelin. It's very rare for a band to come out of the traps so big [with "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not"] and then have another massive moment [with "AM"]. It reminds me of The Who and The Stones, where they did some pop singles early on and then moved into an imperial phase." Other musicians have praised the band including Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and rapper RZA.


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band was an object of discussion for cultural theorist Mark Fisher in regard to the concept of hauntology and what he described as "the lost futures" of modernity. In an interview with "Crack Magazine" Fisher said: "[...] something like the Arctic Monkeys, there is no relation to historicity. They’re clearly a retro group, but the category of retro doesn’t make any sense anymore because it’s retro compared to what?" and "Arctic Monkeys airbrush cultural time out and appeal to this endless return and timelessness of rock".


title: Arctic Monkeys

text: The band have influenced several artists such as Black Midi, Blossoms, Wallows, The 1975, Halsey, Yungblud, Lewis Capaldi, Louis Tomlinson, Mahalia, Arlo Parks, Sam Fender, Billie Eilish, Bring Me the Horizon, Måneskin, Hozier, Slowthai, Mikill Pane, JID, and Earthgang, among others.


title: Jen Psaki

text: Jennifer Rene Psaki (; born c. 1978) is an American television political analyst who currently works for MSNBC. Previously, she was a political advisor who served under both the Obama and Biden administrations. Immediately prior to working for MSNBC, she served the Biden administration as the 34th White House press secretary during 2021 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the Obama administration as the White House deputy press secretary (2009); the White House deputy communications director (2009–2011); the spokesperson for the United States Department of State (2013–2015); and the White House communications director (2015–2017). Psaki was a political contributor for CNN from 2017 to 2020.


title: Jen Psaki

text: Psaki, the eldest of three daughters, was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1978 to psychotherapist Eileen (née Dolan) Medvey and Dimitrios "James" R. Psaki, a retired real estate developer whose grandfather had emigrated from Greece in 1904 and whose grandmother was of Irish descent. Her parents married in 1976. Psaki also has Polish ancestry.


title: Jen Psaki

text: Psaki graduated from Greenwich High School in 1996. In 2000, she graduated from the College of William & Mary with a degree in English and sociology. She is a member of the Chi Omega sorority. At William & Mary, Psaki was a competitive backstroke swimmer for the William & Mary Tribe athletic team for two years.


title: Jen Psaki

text: Psaki began her career in 2001 with the re-election campaigns of Iowa Democrats Tom Harkin for the U.S. Senate and Tom Vilsack for governor. Psaki then became deputy press secretary for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. From 2005 to 2006, Psaki served as communications director to U.S. representative Joseph Crowley and regional press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.


title: Jen Psaki

text: Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign of U.S. senator Barack Obama, Psaki served as traveling press secretary. After Obama won the election, Psaki followed Obama to the White House as deputy press secretary and was promoted to deputy communications director on December 19, 2009. On September 22, 2011, Psaki left this position to become senior vice president and managing director at the Washington, D.C., office of public relations firm Global Strategy Group.


title: Jen Psaki

text: In 2012, Psaki returned to political communications as press secretary for President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. On February 11, 2013, Psaki became spokesperson for the United States Department of State. Her hiring at the Department of State fueled speculation that she would replace White House Press Secretary Jay Carney when he left the White House, but, on May 30, 2014, it was announced that Josh Earnest would replace Carney. In 2015, she returned to the White House as communications director and stayed through the end of the Obama administration.


title: Jen Psaki

text: In November 2020, Psaki left CNN and joined the Biden–Harris transition team. Later that month, Psaki was named as the White House press secretary for the Biden administration.


title: Jen Psaki

text: She held her first press briefing on the evening of January 20, 2021, after the inauguration. On May 6, in an interview with former Senior Advisor to the President David Axelrod, Psaki suggested she would depart from the position of press secretary "in about a year from now". In October, Psaki was accused by a watchdog group of violating the Hatch Act for her comments on the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election. On November 2, Psaki announced that she had tested positive for COVID-19. After quarantining, she returned to work on November 12, after fully recovering, and crediting her vaccination status for her recovery without complications.


title: Jen Psaki

text: On March 22, 2022, Psaki tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time in six months and did not accompany President Biden on his trip to Europe. On April 1, "Axios" reported that Psaki would likely leave the White House "around May" for a job with MSNBC. On May 5, the White House announced she would be leaving the role on May 13, and named her principal deputy, Karine Jean-Pierre, as her replacement.


title: Jen Psaki

text: MSNBC announced that Psaki will serve as a political analyst throughout the 2022 United States elections and during the 2024 presidential campaign. She will also host a show on MSNBC's Peacock streaming service in 2023. Psaki made her first television appearance after leaving her position as White House Press Secretary on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" discussing the Robb Elementary School shooting.


title: Jen Psaki

text: On May 8, 2010, Psaki married Greg Mecher, then chief of staff to Congressman Steve Driehaus. Later, Mecher served as chief of staff to Congressman Joe Kennedy. The couple met at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006. They have two children.


title: Russian alphabet

text: The Russian alphabet (, or , more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. It comes from the Cyrillic script, which was devised in the 9th century for the first Slavic literary language, Old Slavonic. Initially an old variant of the Bulgarian alphabet, it became used in the Kievan Rusʹ since the 10th century to write what would become the Russian language.


title: Russian alphabet

text: The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: twenty consonants (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ), ten vowels (, , , , , , , , , ), a semivowel / consonant (), and two modifier letters or "signs" (, ) that alter pronunciation of a preceding consonant or a following vowel.


title: Russian alphabet

text: Although it is usually stated that the letters in the table above were eliminated in the typographical reform of 1708, reality is somewhat more complex. The letters were indeed originally omitted from the sample alphabet, printed in a western-style serif font, presented in Peter's edict, along with the letters (replaced by ), , and (the diacriticized letter was also removed), but were reinstated except and under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church in a later variant of the modern typeface (1710). Nonetheless, since 1735 the Russian Academy of Sciences began to use fonts without , , and ; however, was sometimes used again since 1758.


title: Russian alphabet

text: Although praised by Western scholars and philosophers, it was criticized by clergy and many conservative scholars, who found the new standard too "Russified". Some even went as far as to refer to Peter as the Anti-Christ.


title: Russian alphabet

text: Lomonosov also contributed to the Russian standard language, developing a "High Style" with high influence of Church Slavonic, which was to be used in formal situations such as religious texts; as well as "Medium Style" and "Low Style", deemed for less formal events and casual writing. Lomonosov advocated for the "Medium Style", which later became the basis of the modern Russian standard language.


title: Russian alphabet

text: Most consonants can represent both "soft" (palatalized, represented in the IPA with a ) and "hard" consonant phonemes. If consonant letters are followed by vowel letters, the soft/hard quality of the consonant depends on whether the vowel is meant to follow "hard" consonants or "soft" consonants ; see below. A soft sign indicates palatalization of the preceding consonant without adding a vowel.


title: Russian alphabet

text: However, in modern Russian six consonant phonemes do not have phonemically distinct "soft" and "hard" variants (except in foreign proper names) and do not change "softness" in the presence of other letters: are always hard; are always soft. (Before 1950 Russian linguists considered a semivowel rather then a consonant.)


title: Russian alphabet

text: The Russian alphabet contains 10 vowel letters. They are grouped into soft and hard vowels. The soft vowels, , either indicate a preceding palatalized consonant, or (with the exception of ) are iotated (pronounced with a preceding ) in all other cases. The IPA vowels shown are a guideline only and sometimes are realized as different sounds, particularly when unstressed. However, may be used in words of foreign origin without palatalization (), and is often realized as between soft consonants, such as in ('toy ball').


title: Russian alphabet

text: is an old Proto-Slavic close central vowel, thought to have been preserved better in modern Russian than in other Slavic languages. It was originally nasalized in certain positions: Old Russian ; Modern Russian ('rock'). Its written form developed as follows: + → → .


title: Russian alphabet

text: , introduced by Karamzin in 1797 and made official in 1943 by the Soviet Ministry of Education, marks a sound that historically developed from stressed . The written letter is optional; it is formally correct to write for both and . None of the several attempts in the twentieth century to mandate the use of have stuck.


title: Russian alphabet

text: The hard sign () acts like a "silent back vowel" that separates a succeeding "soft vowel" (, but not ) from a preceding consonant, invoking implicit iotation of the vowel with a distinct glide. Today it is used mostly to separate a prefix ending with a hard consonant from the following root. Its original pronunciation, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short middle schwa-like sound, likely pronounced or . Until the 1918 reform, no written word could end in a consonant: those that end in a "hard" consonant in modern orthography then had a final .


title: Russian alphabet

text: While is also a soft vowel, root-initial following a hard consonant is typically pronounced as . This is normally spelled (the hard counterpart to ) unless this vowel occurs at the beginning of a word, in which case it remains . An alternation between the two letters (but not the sounds) can be seen with the pair ('without name', which is pronounced ) and ('nameless', which is pronounced ). This spelling convention, however, is not applied with certain loaned prefixes such as in the word – , 'Pan-Islamism') and compound (multi-root) words (e.g. – , 'high treason').


title: Russian alphabet

text: The soft sign () in most positions acts like a "silent front vowel" and indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized (except for always-hard ) and the following vowel (if present) is iotated (including in loans). This is important as palatalization is phonemic in Russian. For example, ('brother') contrasts with ('to take'). The original pronunciation of the soft sign, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short fronted reduced vowel but likely pronounced or . There are still some remnants of this ancient reading in modern Russian, e.g. in co-existing versions of the same name, read and written differently, such as and ('Mary').


title: Russian alphabet

text: When applied after stem-final always-soft (, but not ) or always-hard (, but not ) consonants, the soft sign does not alter pronunciation, but has grammatical significance:


title: Russian alphabet

text: Because Russian borrows terms from other languages, there are various conventions for sounds not present in Russian.


title: Russian alphabet

text: For example, while Russian has no , there are a number of common words (particularly proper nouns) borrowed from languages like English and German that contain such a sound in the original language. In well-established terms, such as ('hallucination'), this is written with and pronounced with , while newer terms use , pronounced with , such as ('hobby').


title: Russian alphabet

text: Similarly, words originally with in their source language are either pronounced with , as in the name ('Thelma') or, if borrowed early enough, with or , as in the names ('Theodore') and ('Matthew').


title: Russian alphabet

text: For the affricate, which is common in the Asian countries that were part of the Russian Empire and the USSR, the letter combination is used: this is often transliterated into English either as or the Dutch form .


title: Russian alphabet

text: The numerical values correspond to the Greek numerals, with being used for digamma, for koppa, and for sampi. The system was abandoned for secular purposes in 1708, after a transitional period of a century or so; it continues to be used in Church Slavonic, while general Russian texts use Indo-Arabic numerals and Roman numerals.


title: Russian alphabet

text: The Cyrillic alphabet and Russian spelling generally employ fewer diacritics than those used in other European languages written with the Latin alphabet. The only diacritic, in the proper sense, is the acute accent  (Russian: 'mark of stress'), which marks stress on a vowel, as it is done in Spanish and Greek. (Unicode has no code points for the accented letters; they are instead produced by suffixing the unaccented letter with .) Although Russian word stress is often unpredictable and can fall on different syllables in different forms of the same word, the diacritic accent is used only in dictionaries, children's books, resources for foreign-language learners, the defining entry (in bold) in articles on Russian Wikipedia, or on minimal pairs distinguished only by stress (for instance, 'castle' vs. 'lock'). Rarely, it is also used to specify the stress in uncommon foreign words, and in poems with unusual stress used to fit the meter.


title: Russian alphabet

text: The letter is a special variant of the letter , which is not always distinguished in written Russian, but the umlaut-like sign has no other uses. Stress on this letter is never marked with a diacritic, as it is "always stressed" (except in some compounds and loanwords).


title: Russian alphabet

text: Both and the letter have completely separated from and . has been used since the 16th century (except that it was removed in 1708, but reinstated in 1735). Since then, its usage has been mandatory. It was formerly considered a diacriticized letter, but in the 20th century, it came to be considered a separate letter of the Russian alphabet. It was classified as a "semivowel" by 19th- and 20th-century grammarians but since the 1970s, it has been considered a consonant letter.


title: Russian alphabet

text: However, there are several variations of so-called "phonetic keyboards" that are often used by non-Russians, where, as far as is possible, pressing an English letter key will type the Russian letter with a similar sound (A → А, S → С, D → Д, F → Ф, etc.).


title: Russian alphabet

text: Until approximately the year 1900, mnemonic names inherited from Church Slavonic were used for the letters. They are given here in the pre-1918 orthography of the post-1708 civil alphabet.


title: Russian alphabet

text: The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote: "The [names of the] letters that make up the Slavonic alphabet don't represent a meaning at all. ', ', ', ', "" etc. are individual words, chosen just for their initial sound". However, since the names of the first few letters of the Slavonic alphabet seem to form readable text, attempts have been made to compose meaningful snippets of text from groups of consecutive letters for the rest of the alphabet.


title: Russian alphabet

text: In this attempt only lines 1, 2 and 5 somewhat correspond to real meanings of the letters' names, while "translations" in other lines seem to be fabrications or fantasies. For example, "" ("rest" or "apartment") does not mean "the Universe", and "" does not have any meaning in Russian or other Slavic languages (there are no words of Slavic origin beginning with "f" at all). The last line contains only one translatable word – "" ("worm"), which, however, was not included in the "translation".


title: YIFY

text: YIFY Torrents or YTS was a peer-to-peer release group known for distributing large numbers of movies as free downloads through BitTorrent. YIFY releases were characterised through their small file size, which attracted many downloaders.


title: YIFY

text: The original YIFY/YTS website was shut down by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 2015; however, numerous websites imitating the YIFY/YTS brand still receive a significant amount of traffic. The name "YIFY" is derived from the name of the founder, Yiftach Swery.


title: YIFY

text: YIFY Torrents was founded by Yiftach Swery in 2010 while he was studying computer science at University of Waikato. Yiftach is an app developer, web developer and archery champion from Auckland, New Zealand. In August 2011, the YIFY brand was gaining enough traffic to warrant the launch of an official YIFY Torrents Website, although it was eventually blocked by United Kingdom authorities. A backup website yify-torrents.im was launched for users to bypass this ban.


title: YIFY

text: The YIFY name continued to generate traction to the point where in 2013 'YIFY' was the most searched term on Kickass Torrents, along with other related search terms such as 'yify 720p', 'yify 2013' and 'yify 1080p'. This popularity was maintained through to 2015, where it was once again the most searched term on BitTorrent websites.


title: YIFY

text: In January 2014, Yiftach announced that he was retiring from encoding and uploading, mentioning that it was 'time for a change' in his life. The website rebranded to YTS, and moved to a new domain name at yts.re. "YTS" is an abbreviation of "YIFY Torrent Solutions". Management was handed over to the existing team of staff members, and encoding was delegated to a new automated system nicknamed "OTTO" which would handle future encodes and uploads. Yts.re owned a company based in the United Kingdom, officially incorporated on 5 February 2015, with Yiftach taking the role as a company "programmer". The company was officially dissolved in February 2016. The website was reprogrammed at both the frontend and backend in February 2015, as part of a site overhaul to deal with increased traffic. The domain name was suspended by the FRNIC registry in March 2015 as a result of legal pressure, and as a result, the website moved to a new domain yts.to by 20 March 2015.


title: YIFY

text: In October 2015, the YIFY website went down, with no word from any of the staff or those connected with the site, and no new YIFY releases. It was confirmed on October 30, 2015, that YIFY/YTS was shut down permanently. The site was shut down due to a lawsuit coming from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). They filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the website's operator, accusing him of "facilitating and encouraging massive copyright infringement". This news came as a surprise to some, such as a spokesman for the New Zealand Screen Association who would have expected the site to have been operating from Eastern Europe, the case with some other past websites. Swery was able to settle out of court a month later, signing a non-disclosure agreement. Yiftach did not resist legal action in any way, and co-operated with authorities as needed. In a 2016 Reddit AMA, Yiftach justified this saying that he never intended to "put up a fight", and had frequently told himself "When someone asks you to stop properly, you stop".


title: YIFY

text: Since the shutdown of the official YIFY in 2015, many websites began to use the YIFY name unofficially. Some websites claimed to be the "new" YIFY, whilst others simply used the name for unrelated purposes such as streaming sites and subtitle download repositories, such as "YIFY Subtitles".


title: YIFY

text: One particular imitator, YTS.AG, appeared very quickly after the shutdown of the real YIFY. The clone website was started by the same group who created a fake EZTV website. YTS.AG indexed all of the old YIFY uploads, whilst adding their own uploads under their own branding. There was immediate backlash to the imitator websites by multiple torrent index sites; RARBG and ExtraTorrent banned all YIFY/YTS imposters, while Kickass Torrents allowed them under the condition that they were uploaded under a different name. They have shifted domain names multiple times throughout their lifespan.


title: YIFY

text: In May 2020, anti-piracy lawyer Kerry Culpepper sued multiple YIFY/YTS clones for trademark infringement. The Hawaii-based company "42 Ventures LLC" registered multiple trademarks related to movie piracy and torrenting (including YTS), and targeted the operators of yts.ws, yts.ms, yst.lt, yts.tl, ytsag.me, yts.ae, ytsmovies.cc and yts-ag.com for using the (newly registered) trademark without authorisation. Later, in June, the operator of YTS.WS (based in Russia) agreed to pay $200,000 in damages in relations to the trademark lawsuit.


title: YIFY

text: In July 2016, the YIFY name made a cameo in an episode of the second season of the television series "Mr. Robot", wherein the lead character Elliot is seen using the μTorrent client, and his Plex folder, filled with films from release groups such as RARBG and YIFY. When approached by "TorrentFreak", Yiftach stated that he appreciated the "badass" mention.


title: The Last of Us (TV series)

text: The Last of Us is an upcoming American post-apocalyptic drama television series created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for HBO. Based on the 2013 video game of the same name developed by Naughty Dog, the series will follow Joel (Pedro Pascal), a smuggler tasked with escorting the teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic United States. It will feature Gabriel Luna as Joel's younger brother Tommy, Merle Dandridge as resistance leader Marlene, and Anna Torv as Joel's smuggler partner Tess.


title: The Last of Us (TV series)

text: The series, said to be the largest television production in Canadian history, was filmed in Alberta from July 2021 to June 2022. It is the first HBO series to be based on a video game, and is a joint production by Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Naughty Dog, The Mighty Mint, and Word Games. The first season will consist of nine episodes written by Mazin and Druckmann; the latter wrote and directed the game. Original game composer Gustavo Santaolalla will compose the score. The series is set to debut on January 15, 2023.


title: The Last of Us (TV series)

text: Brad Leland, Scott Shepherd, and Rutina Wesley will star in the series in undisclosed roles. The show will feature the character Maria, as well as Clickers, humans who have been heavily infected by a mutated strain of the "Cordyceps" fungus.


title: The Last of Us (TV series)

text: After the release of Naughty Dog's video game "The Last of Us" in 2013, two film adaptations were attempted: a feature film written by the game's writer and creative director Neil Druckmann and produced by Sam Raimi entered development hell, and an animated short film adaptation by Oddfellows was canceled by Sony. In March 2020, a television adaptation was announced in the planning stages at HBO, expected to cover events of this game and possibly some parts of its sequel, "The Last of Us Part II" (2020). Alongside Druckmann, Craig Mazin was named to help write and executive produce the series, while television producer Carolyn Strauss and Naughty Dog president Evan Wells were named additional executive producers, and Gustavo Santaolalla, who worked on the games, the show's composer. The show was announced as a joint production of Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, and Naughty Dog; it is the first show produced by PlayStation Productions. The show is produced under the company name Bear and Pear Productions.


title: The Last of Us (TV series)

text: Johan Renck, Mazin’s collaborator on his previous HBO series "Chernobyl", was announced as an executive producer and the director of the pilot episode in June 2020; by November 2020, he had dropped out due to scheduling conflicts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. HBO greenlit the series on November 20, 2020. PlayStation Productions's Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan were named executive producers, and Word Games was added as a production company. In January 2021, the Mighty Mint joined production, and Kantemir Balagov was announced as the pilot episode's director. Balagov had been interested in adapting the game for several years and was said to have been directing several of the show's opening episodes; in October 2022, Balagov said he left the project a year prior due to creative differences and his work would not be featured in the show. Rose Lam was added as an executive producer in February 2021.


title: The Last of Us (TV series)

text: Pre-production for the series in Calgary, Alberta, began on March 15, 2021, according to the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC); Mazin arrived in Calgary in May. Ali Abbasi and Jasmila Žbanić were announced as additional directors in April 2021. In July, Mazin said the first season would consist of ten episodes and two more directors were yet to be announced; in November 2022, the season's nine-episode count was confirmed. In July 2021, the DGC revealed Peter Hoar was assigned to direct, followed in August by Mazin, in September by Druckmann, and in January 2022 by Liza Johnson and Jeremy Webb. In February 2022, Druckmann confirmed he directed an episode and felt his experience reinforced and reflected his experience in directing games. Director of photography Nadim Carlsen, a frequent collaborator of Abbasi, noted he was working alongside him on the ninth and tenth episodes. Paul Becker choreographed the series, and Barrie Gower is the prosthetics designer, responsible for the designs of the Infected. Visual effects studio DNEG are involved with the series.