• Russian Indologist Gerasim Lebedev was the founder of the first European-style drama theatre in India and also the first printing house in Europe equipped with Indic scripts of Bengali and Devanagari?

Facts on topics related to Gerasim Lebedev

Bengali language

• Hindi, Bengali, and Portuguese have all recently been proposed as official languages of the United Nations?
• Indian author and journalist Peary Chand Mitra played a leading role in the Bengal renaissance in the 19th century and became known as the "Dickens of Bengal" due to his clear Bengali prose?
• Leela Majumdar, author of children's books, translated Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea into Bengali?
• Mukh O Mukhosh (The face and the mask), directed by Abdul Jabbar Khan, is the first full-length Bengali language feature film to be produced in the erstwhile East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh?
• a version of the traditional Bengali panjika, the Hindu astrological almanac, comes with an interactive CD-ROM?
• noted Bengali writer Rajnarayan Basu was a tutor of Asia's first Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore?
• the tyranny and the perceived dread of Gobindram Mitter, a British deputy in Calcutta, earned him a place in a Bengali rhyme?

Kolkata

• Brahmo social reformer Dwarkanath Ganguly served a girls' boarding school in Kolkata, India as headmaster, teacher, dietician, guard, and janitor?
• human sacrifices were once offered in Chitpur, now home to Kolkata’s latest railway passenger terminal?
• Job Charnock landed at Jorabagan, Sutanuti ghat in 1690, which is believed by many to be the starting point of the metropolitan growth of Kolkata?
• Adwaita, the reportedly 255-year-old Aldabra Giant Tortoise that recently died in Kolkata zoo, was a pet of Robert Clive, the Commander-in-Chief, India of British East India Company?
• Bidhannagar College, a government college in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, had to move out of its old premises because of student overpopulation?
• Burrabazar, in Kolkata, expanded from a yarn and textile market into a large wholesale market?
• the Charnockite in St. Thomas Mount, Chennai got its name from Job Charnock, the founder of Kolkata, whose tomb was made of rocks quarried from St. Thomas Mount?
• Entally was home to the poor and the depressed, and a neighbourhood where Mother Teresa started her active life in Kolkata, India?
• Ganendranath Tagore established the Jorasanko Natyasala, a private theatre in his own household, in Kolkata in 1865?
• Rasik Krishna Mallick, a student at Hindu College, Kolkata, a leading Derozian and journalist, shocked a court in British India in the 1820s when he stated that he did not believe in the sacredness of the Ganges?

Russia

• 17th century Russian diplomat Pyotr Ivanovich Potemkin (pictured) is reputed to have insisted on lying in bed during an audience with the King of Denmark, who was himself confined to his bed, to demonstrate equality between Russia and Denmark?
• Abkhaz writer Fazil Iskander publishes articles for the Russian newspaper Kultura?
• aluminium alloys developed by Russian metallurgist Igor Gorynin are claimed to have the highest specific strength of all known weldable metallic materials?
• Armenian composer and musician Ara Gevorgyan composed the music for Russian prima ballerina Anastasia Volochkova's "Golden cage" ballet dedicated to the Bolshoi Theater?
• aviation historian Randy Acord was awarded the Alaska–Siberian Lend Lease Award for his role in improving Russian–North American relations during World War II?
• Chechen military commander Said-Magomed Kakiev has been declared a Hero of the Russian Federation four times, making him one of the most decorated Russian citizens?
• Chinese immigration to the Russian Far East has led to fears of Chinese irredentism in Russia, even though there are less than 35,000 Chinese in all of Russia?
• Count Orlov's Marble Palace, decorated with 32 shades of Russian marbles, currently houses the largest exhibition of Pop Art in Saint Petersburg?
• Emperor Paul of Russia ordered the name of his mistress Anna Lopukhina to be given to warships and to be inscribed on the standards of his Leib Guard?
• England brokered the 1617 Treaty of Stolbova between Sweden and Russia?

India

• 10,000 people protested against construction of a dam across the Subarnarekha River in India?
• 16th century Indian musician-composer Miyan Tansen laid the foundations of Hindustani classical music by mixing Sufi and Bhakti musical traditions ?
• 18th-century professional portrait painter Tilly Kettle was the first British painter to work in India?
• 22-year-old Indian cricketer Vikram Singh, regarded by many as the fastest bowler in India, played only 5 matches for his state before being selected for the national squad against Sri Lanka?
• 70% of the population of Tamil Nadu is engaged in the Indian state's agricultural sector and related industries for their livelihood?
• Rani Abbakka, who fought the Portuguese in the 16th century, is regarded as the 'first woman freedom fighter of India'?
• Arya Samaj spearheaded the 19th-century cow protection movement, Hindu opposition to Muslim cow sacrifice, leading to violent riots spreading all across India?
• footballer Bud Houghton was born in Madras to an Anglo-Indian family who migrated to England in 1947 when India gained independence from British rule?
• Australian Test cricketers Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined after accepting money from an Indian bookmaker known only as "John" in return for pitch and weather reports?
• Bollywood actress Shenaz Treasurywala was discovered while stuck in India when Kuwait Airways lost her luggage, including travel documents she needed to return to school in New York?

Bengal

• 17th-century Mughal subahdar Shaista Khan conquered Chittagong and ousted the British East India Company from Bengal over a trade dispute?
• Bengali nationalism motivated the proposal for a united, independent Bengal as an alternative to the 1947 partition of Bengal?
• Hakim Habibur Rahman, a Unani physician, collected all the Arabic, Persian and Urdu books written in Bengal for more than 40 years and published a catalog titled Sulasa Ghusala?
• Islam Khan was the founder of the modern city of Dhaka and the first Mughal general to subjugate Bengal?
• Oladevi, a deity whose worship may have originated in the Indus Valley Civilization, was honoured and feared as the goddess of cholera in rural Bengal?
• Sarat Chandra Bose, the brother of Subhash Chandra Bose attempted to obtain independence for a united Bengal with Muslim leader Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in 1947?
• Sir Richard Garth was a barrister, MP, Privy Counsellor and Chief Justice of Bengal as well as Lord of the Manor of Morden?
• for about a millennium, the Hindu kings of Bishnupur were supreme in the Bankura area, even after Muslims conquered Bengal?
• for nearly three centuries until 1956, the Burdwan Zamindari, one of the richest feudal estates in Bengal, was held by the same Punjabi family (family member pictured)?
• the Bengal chess player Moheschunder Bannerjee in 1855 introduced the body of openings now known as Indian defence?

Hindi

• Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters in Bihari culture?
• Hindi, Bengali, and Portuguese have all recently been proposed as official languages of the United Nations?