paragraph_text: Alena Vinnitskaya ( "Aliona Vinnytska"; born Olha Viktorivna Vinnytska () on 27 December 1974, Kiev, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union – in present-day Ukraine) is a Ukrainian singer. She is an author and performer.

paragraph_text: In February 20, 1988, after a week of growing demonstrations in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (the Armenian majority area within Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic), the Regional Soviet voted to secede and join with the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia. This local vote in a small, remote part of the Soviet Union made headlines around the world; it was an unprecedented defiance of republic and national authorities. On February 22, 1988, in what became known as the "Askeran clash", two Azerbaijanis were killed by Karabakh police. These deaths, announced on state radio, led to the Sumgait Pogrom. Between February 26 and March 1, the city of Sumgait (Azerbaijan) saw violent anti-Armenian rioting during which 32 people were killed. The authorities totally lost control and occupied the city with paratroopers and tanks; nearly all of the 14,000 Armenian residents of Sumgait fled.

paragraph_text: Vertov's feature film, produced by the film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in the Soviet cities of Kiev, Kharkov, Moscow and Odessa. It has no actors. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters", they are the cameramen of the title, the film editor, and the modern Soviet Union they discover and present in the film.

paragraph_text: Hotel Savoy is a 1924 novel by the Austrian writer Joseph Roth. Its story is set in the Hotel Savoy in Łódź, where lonely war veterans, variety dancers and others dream of better places.

paragraph_text: Armenia was annexed by Bolshevist Russia and along with Georgia and Azerbaijan, it was incorporated into the Soviet Union as part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR) on 4 March 1922. With this annexation, the Treaty of Alexandropol was superseded by the Turkish-Soviet Treaty of Kars. In the agreement, Turkey allowed the Soviet Union to assume control over Adjara with the port city of Batumi in return for sovereignty over the cities of Kars, Ardahan, and Iğdır, all of which were part of Russian Armenia.

paragraph_text: Gosbank (, "Gosudarstvenny bank SSSR"—the State Bank of the USSR) was the central bank of the Soviet Union and the only bank whatsoever in the entire Union from the 1930s to 1987. Gosbank was one of the three Soviet economic authorities, the other two being "Gosplan" (the State Planning Committee) and "Gossnab" (the State Committee for Material Technical Supply). The Gosbank closely collaborated with the Ministry of Finance of the USSR to prepare the national state budget.

paragraph_text: The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union () was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991.

paragraph_text: Hector Hamilton was a British-born architect working in New York City for "Hamilton and Green" during the 1930s. He became prominent in 1932 when the Soviet Union awarded him first prize alongside two Soviet architects for his design for the Palace of the Soviets in the second round of a public design competition, only to cancel the award without explanation a few months later. He also designed the grade II listed "San Remo Towers" block of flats in Boscombe, England, built between 1935 and 1938.

paragraph_text: The Boulder Dam Hotel, also known as the Boulder City Inn, is a hotel located in Boulder City, Nevada that is listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places. It was designed in the Colonial Revival style by architect Henry Smith. The hotel was built to accommodate official visitors and tourists during the building of Boulder Dam, now Hoover Dam.

paragraph_text: Syktyvkar Southwest is an unfinished and abandoned airport in Komi, Russia located 19 km southwest of Syktyvkar. It was intended to be a civilian airport and was partially constructed in the 1980s, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting drop in air passenger traffic, the plans to complete it were dropped. Today, the existing Syktyvkar Airport within city limits continues to serve as the city's air transport gateway.

paragraph_text: The Dnipro Metro (; ) is a single-line rapid transit system that serves the city of Dnipro, the fourth largest city in Ukraine by population. The metro was the third system constructed in Ukraine, after the Kiev and Kharkiv metro systems, respectively, when it opened on December 29, 1995. The metro was the fourteenth built in the former Soviet Union region, and the first to open after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

paragraph_text: Eugene Demjanovich Maltsev (; August 9, 1929, Ryazan Oblast, USSR — December 24, 2003, Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a Soviet Russian painter, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, a member of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists (before 1992 — the Leningrad Union of the Soviet Artists), who lived and worked in Leningrad. In 1990-1997 Eugene Maltsev was a head of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists, in 1989-1991 was elected a People's Deputies of the Soviet Union from the USSR Union of Artists. Maltsev regarded as one of representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his portrait and historical paintings.

paragraph_text: Pierre Hérisson (born 12 June 1945 in Annecy, Haute-Savoie) is a French politician and a member of the Senate of France. He represents the Haute-Savoie department and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement Party.

paragraph_text: West Berlin was 100 miles (161 kilometres) east and north of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945. It was, however, a de facto part of West Germany. It had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. At the same time, East Berlin, de jure occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, was the de facto capital of East Germany. The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically separated West Berlin from its East Berlin and East German surroundings until it fell in 1989.

paragraph_text: Janusz Magnuski (1933–1999) was a Polish author and military historian. His principal works document the development and deployment of Polish and Soviet armor utilized during World War II and he has been called "the world's most noted historian of Soviet tank history". He was one of the authoritative sources for documentation of the hardware on display in the Museum of the Polish Army located in Warsaw.

paragraph_text: Claude Birraux (born January 18, 1946 in Ambilly, Haute-Savoie) is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Haute-Savoie department, and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.

paragraph_text: What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933 is a book of reportage by the Austrian writer Joseph Roth from the era of the Weimar Republic. The selection of pieces from Roth's large journalistic output was made by Michael Bienert and published in German in 1996. The English translation with the present title was made by Michael Hofmann and appeared in 2003. The pieces in the book "record the violent social and political paroxysms that constantly threatened to undo the fragile democracy" of those years, but some of them also report on more prosaic aspects of life in Berlin in those years, such as the public parks and the rising entertainment industry.

paragraph_text: Rimma Fyodorovna Kazakova (; 27 January 1932 in Sevastopol, Soviet Union – 19 May 2008 in Perkhushkovo, Odintsovo District of Moscow Oblast, Russia) was a Soviet/Russian poet. She was known as an author of many popular songs of the Soviet era.

paragraph_text: Lionel Tardy (born June 7, 1966 in Annecy-le-Vieux, Haute-Savoie) is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Haute-Savoie department, and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.

paragraph_text: For its part, the Soviet Union harbored fears of invasion. Having suffered at least 27 million casualties during World War II after being invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, the Soviet Union was wary of its former ally, the United States, which until late 1949 was the sole possessor of atomic weapons. The United States had used these weapons operationally during World War II, and it could use them again against the Soviet Union, laying waste its cities and military centers. Since the Americans had a much larger air force than the Soviet Union, and the United States maintained advance air bases near Soviet territory, in 1947 Stalin ordered the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in order to counter the perceived American threat.

Question: When did the Soviet Union seal off the city where the author of Hotel Savoy worked during the Weimar Republic?
Answer: 1961