The Kentucky Derby is a horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The competition is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbreds at a distance of one and a quarter miles (2.0 km) at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds and fillies 121 pounds.
Lexington, consolidated with Fayette County and often denoted as Lexington-Fayette, is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 60th-largest city in the United States. By land area, Lexington is the 28th largest city in the United States. Known as the "Horse Capital of the World," it is the heart of the state's Bluegrass region. It has a nonpartisan mayor-council form of government, with 12 council districts and three members elected at large, with the highest vote-getter designated vice mayor. In the 2018 U.S. Census Estimate, the city's population was 323,780 anchoring a metropolitan area of 516,697 people and a combined statistical area of 760,528 people.
Louisville is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 29th most-populous city in the United States. It is one of two cities in Kentucky designated as first-class, the other being Lexington, the state's second-largest city. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
Mammoth Cave National Park is an American national park in central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world. Since the 1972 unification of Mammoth Cave with the even-longer system under Flint Ridge to the north, the official name of the system has been the Mammoth–Flint Ridge Cave System. The park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941, a World Heritage Site on October 27, 1981, and an international Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990.
The University of Kentucky (UK) is a public co-educational university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's two land-grant universities, the largest college or university in the state, with 30,720 students as of Fall 2015.
The Girkin Formation is a geologic formation located in the Chester Escarpment of central Kentucky, USA. It comprises a level of Mammoth Cave and lies above the Ste. Genevieve Limestone and St. Louis Limestone and below the Big Clifty Sandstone in that area. The Girkin is a limestone Mississippian in age.
The Big Clifty Sandstone is a geologic formation in Illinois and Kentucky. It is a subunit of the Golconda Formation in Kentucky and is correlative with the Fraileys Shale to which it grades to in southern Illinois. The Big Clifty and Golconda are part of the Chesterian Series of late Mississippian age. The Big Clifty Sandstone was deposited in deltaic to marginal marine environment by the paleo Michigan River which in modern directions flowed south from the Canadian shield, the sediment source, and then westward depositing sediment across Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana, as the Big Clifty Formation of the Stephensport Group. At Mammoth Cave National Park the Big Clifty overlies the Girkin Formation, the uppermost of three cave forming carbonate formations which the Mammoth-Flint Ridge cave system spans. Below the Girkin Formation are the Ste. Genevieve Limestone, and the St. Louis Limestone respectively. The chemically resistant sediments comprising the Big Clifty, and similar siliciclastics, act as a caprock over the dissolving carbonates. The presence of the Big Clifty is one of several contributory factors that create favorable conditions for the formation, and subsequent preservation, of connected cavernous porosity in the Mammoth-Flint Ridge cave system.
The Kentucky Wildcats football program represents the University of Kentucky in the sport of American football. The Wildcats compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The Wildcats play their home games at Kroger Field in Lexington, Kentucky and are currently led by head coach Mark Stoops.
The Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team is an American college basketball team that represents the University of Kentucky. Kentucky is the most successful NCAA Division I basketball program in history in terms of both all-time wins (2,293) and all-time winning percentage (.765). The Wildcats are currently coached by John Calipari.
Konstantin Valeryevich Malofeev is a Russian businessman, chairman of non-government organisation Society for the development of Russian historical education Double-Headed Eagle. He is chairman of the Board of Directors of the media group Tsargrad, founder of the international investment fund Marshall Capital Partners, member of the board of trustees of the non-profit partnership Safe Internet League and Chairman of the Saint Basil the Great Charitable Foundation.
Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, born Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, born on 17 December 1970 is a Russian army artillery veteran who played a key role in the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and later the War in Donbass as an organizer of the Donetsk People's Republic's militant groups. Strelkov, a self-described Russian nationalist, was charged by Ukrainian authorities with terrorism. He is currently sanctioned by the European Union for his leading role in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have called him a retired colonel of the GRU.
Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Ponomarev is an owner of a soap production company who in 2014 became known as the self-proclaimed mayor of the city of Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast, a part of Ukraine.
The Russian Orthodox Army is a militant group in Ukraine that was founded in May 2014, as part of the insurgency and following War in Donbass. It reportedly had 100 members at the time of its founding, including locals and Russian volunteers. As fighting between separatists and the Ukrainian government worsened in Donbass, their membership rose to 350, and later 4,000. Notable engagements of the ROA include the June 2014 skirmishes in Mariupol and Amvrosiivka Raion. The headquarters of the ROA is located in an occupied Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) building in Donetsk city. Members had no special training apart from the usual conscription service in the army and swore allegiance to Igor Girkin ("Strelkov"), insurgent and Minister of Defence of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic. Along with other separatist groups in the region, the ROA has been noted of "kidnapp[ing], beat[ing], and threaten[ing] Protestants, Catholics, and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church… as well as participat[ing] in anti-Semitic acts."
Vladimir Petrovich Kononov was the defence minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, serving from August 15, 2014 after the resignation of Igor Girkin until October 1, 2018.
The "Kalmius" Brigade), a military unit of the Donetsk People's Republic, operates within the United Armed Forces of Novorossiya. Media often refer to it as a battalion of special purpose. As of the end of June 2015 Konstantin Kuzmin commanded the unit. The unit's name comes from the river of the same name, one of the largest rivers in Donbass. On February 16, 2015 the "Kalmius" battalion was included in the sanctions list of the European Union and of Canada.
The unit's core comprises mainly volunteers; as of fall 2014 the unit had the following structure:
Strelkov is a Russian masculine surname, its feminine counterpart is Strelkova. It may refer to
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bednov was a rebel commander of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in Ukraine. He was the leader of the pro-Russian Batman Rapid Response Group. He was assassinated in Luhansk, with conflicting reports on who was responsible.
