Kuibyshev

It continued performances through the revolutionary year of 1917, while in 1941 after the Nazi invasion, the Bolshoi moved partly to the city of Kuibyshev.

The city, which during Soviet times was known as Kuibyshev, became a strategic point during World War II because it was far from the conflict and it provided an escape route through the Volga River.

During World War II the Soviet government was evacuated to Samara, then known as Kuibyshev after a Communist leader, when it looked like Moscow might fall into German hands.

In the east, artillery shells fell overnight into the snowy Kuibyshev district of the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, but then halted in the morning, Russian television reported, while on the Ukrainian side, six soldiers died in the 24 hours before the silent day began, the Ukrainian military said.

Nikolai Bukharin, who considered Pavlov indispensable, made the case for him: “I know that he does not sing the ‘Internationale,’ ” Bukharin wrote to Valerian Kuibyshev, the head of the state planning committee.