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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. During the Gorbachev era, what did old women sell in city parks as a vaccine against Aids?
(a) Bottled medicines made mostly of alcohol.
(b) Herbal sachets.
(c) Magnets.
(d) Copper bracelets.

2. Why did democratic leader Anatoly Sobchak have a picture of Lenin in his office?
(a) Because he still respected Lenin.
(b) Because Gorbachev asked him to leave it up.
(c) Because there was a stain on the wallpaper.
(d) Because he was afraid of people's reaction if he took it down.

3. What major event in Soviet history was preserved the longest?
(a) The Bolshevik Revolution.
(b) Victory against Nazi Germany.
(c) The terror of the czars.
(d) The history of the collectives.

4. When did Sakharov die?
(a) January 4, 1990.
(b) October 24, 1989.
(c) May 14, 1989.
(d) December 14, 1989.

5. What was the name of the last prison for political prisoners?
(a) Magadan.
(b) Perm-35.
(c) Solovetsk Special Camp.
(d) Kolyma.

6. What American movie was shown to students at the Moscow Higher Party School?
(a) Wall Street.
(b) Schindler's List.
(c) Forest Gump.
(d) The Matrix.

7. During what years had Lithuania been a free country?
(a) 1898-1935.
(b) 1840-1858.
(c) 1918 to 1940.
(d) 1920-1932.

8. In 1991, where did Yakovlev tell his friends they would soon be seeing one another?
(a) Siberia.
(b) Lithuania.
(c) The Baltic States.
(d) The United States.

9. Why did the workers strike at Novocherkassk in June 1962?
(a) They wanted soap.
(b) The prices of food went up and their wages went down.
(c) They wanted better hours.
(d) They wanted better working conditions.

10. How many died in the camps of Kolyma between 1936 and 1953?
(a) Around three million.
(b) About a million.
(c) Nearly two million.
(d) 100,000.

11. How old was Boris Yeltsin when he had his first encounter with the Communist Party?
(a) 15.
(b) 18.
(c) 12.
(d) 5.

12. Where did Stalin have his prison camps?
(a) Siberia.
(b) Ukraine.
(c) Sakhalin Island.
(d) Kolyma.

13. When did Shevardnadze resign as foreign minister?
(a) January 1991.
(b) December 1990.
(c) November 1990.
(d) September 1990.

14. What young politician was elected chairman of the October District in Moscow during the first elections?
(a) German Sterligov.
(b) Vyacheslav Shostokovsky.
(c) Ilya Zaslavsky.
(d) Anatoly Sobchak.

15. What young Party leader in Southern Russia did Yakovlev help protect in the 1970s?
(a) Swoboda.
(b) Gorbachev.
(c) Borosov.
(d) Brezhnev.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did the czars have their prison camps?

2. What book did Solzhenitsyn want Novy Mir to publish first?

3. What was the first major monument to victims of the regime?

4. In the October Region, what did entreprenueur Sterligov set up as a place where like-minded tycoons could get together and make plans?

5. What did an elderly factory worker write on a banner that angered Gorbachev?

(see the answer keys)

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