Elena (given name)

Elena is a popular female first name in Greek, Slavic, Spanish, Romanian and Italian. It originates in the ancient Greek name Helen/Helene. The variation "Elena" dates back to the 12th century.

Other common variants are Alena (German, Czech, Russian, Belarusian); Alenka (Slovenian); Alyona (Russian); Elene (Georgian); Helen (English); Hélène (French); Helena; Eliana (Portuguese); Ileana (Romanian and Spanish); Ilona (Hungarian, Finnish, and Latvian); Olena (Ukrainian); and Jelena/Yelena (Russian, Serbian).

Notable people

First name

Elena (2011 film)

Elena (Russian: Елена) is a 2011 Russian drama film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize.

Plot

The film depicts the social and cultural distance between the inhabitants of an exclusive apartment in downtown Moscow and a crumbling khrushchevka in Moscow's industrial suburb. Elena is a woman with a proletarian background who connects these disparate worlds. She met Vladimir, an elderly business tycoon, in a hospital when she was his nurse. Their alliance has been described by a critic as "a morganatic marriage nearly a century after the October Revolution".

Elena's son from a previous marriage is poor and wants money from Vladimir to have one of his sons enrolled in a university, keeping him out of the compulsory military service. After Vladimir makes it clear that he is not going to subsidize Elena's relatives, she decides to poison him in order to inherit his fortune. Vladimir plans to leave the apartment to his only daughter from an earlier marriage.

Elena (opera)

Elena is a dramma per musica in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli, set to a libretto originally by Giovanni Faustini that was completed by Nicolò Minato. The opera was first performed in Venice at the Teatro San Cassiano; the dedication is dated to 26 December 1659.

References

Suburb

A suburb is a residential area or a mixed use area, either existing as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city. In most English-speaking regions, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner city areas, but in Australian English, "suburb" has become largely synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in other countries and the term extends to inner city areas. In some areas, such as Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and a few U.S. states, new suburbs are routinely annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as France, Arabia, most of the United States, and Canada, many suburbs remain separate municipalities or are governed as part of a larger local government area such as a county.

Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. In general, they have lower population densities than inner city neighborhoods within an metropolitan area, and most residents commute to central cities or other business districts; however, there are many exceptions, including industrial suburbs, planned communities, and satellite cities. Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land.

Suburbia (film)

Suburbia, also known as Rebel Streets and The Wild Side, is a 1984 film written and directed by Penelope Spheeris about suburban punks who run away from home. The kids take up a punk lifestyle by squatting in abandoned suburban tract homes. The punks are played by Chris Pedersen, Bill Coyne, Timothy O'Brien and Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea, amongst others.

Director Penelope Spheeris recruited street kids and punk rock musicians to play each role, rather than hire young actors to portray punk rockers.

Suburbia was filmed in and around the cities of Downey and Norwalk in California. The abandoned housing tract was a former neighborhood along the west side of I-605, around the Alondra Boulevard offramp; Firestone Boulevard CA 42 was to its north, with Alondra Boulevard to its south. The entire area was Eminent Domain starting in the late 1960s / early 1970s, wherein it sat mostly vacant until its demolition in c.1990; some houses still had inhabitants up until c.1980. This was a gang-infested area; many abandoned houses were "drug houses", or, just as in the film, "crash houses" (e.g. the "T.R. House" ). I-105 now occupies most of the property, and has since the early '90s.

Suburbia (department store)

Suburbia is a chain of department stores founded in 1970, operating more than 90 stores all over Mexico.