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.

paragraph_text: Vecheslav Frantsevich Zagonek (; December 19, 1919, city of Irkutsk, Soviet Russia – June 24, 1994, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation) was a Soviet, Russian painter, People's Artist of the USSR, Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, who lived and worked in Leningrad. He was a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists and regarded as one of the brightest representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his lyrical landscapes and genre paintings.

paragraph_text: Peter Shire (born 1947) is a Los Angeles-based artist. Shire was born in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. His sculpture, furniture and ceramics have been exhibited in the United States, Italy, France, Japan and Poland. Shire has been associated with the Memphis Group of designers, has worked on the Design Team for the XXIII Olympiad with the American Institute of Architects, and has designed public sculptures in Los Angeles and other California cities. Shire has been honored by awards for his contribution to the cultural life of the City of Los Angeles.

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: The etymology of the name Bern is uncertain. According to the local legend, based on folk etymology, Berchtold V, Duke of Zähringen, the founder of the city of Bern, vowed to name the city after the first animal he met on the hunt, and this turned out to be a bear. It has long been considered likely that the city was named after the Italian city of Verona, which at the time was known as Bern in Middle High German. As a result of the find of the Bern zinc tablet in the 1980s, it is now more common to assume that the city was named after a pre-existing toponym of Celtic origin, possibly *berna "cleft". The bear was the heraldic animal of the seal and coat of arms of Bern from at least the 1220s. The earliest reference to the keeping of live bears in the Bärengraben dates to the 1440s.

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: 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: Joie de Vivre (English: Joy of Life) is an outdoor sculpture by Mark di Suvero, located at Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The 70-foot sculpture, composed of "open-ended tetrahedrons", was installed by the intersection of Broadway and Cedar Street in June 2006 and was previously located at the Holland Tunnel rotary (also named St. John's Park).

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: 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: Both the Olympics and 2014 Winter Paralympics were organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOOC). Sochi was selected as the host city in July 2007, during the 119th IOC Session held in Guatemala City. It was the first Olympics to be held in a CIS state since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was previously the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. These were the first Olympic Games under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency of Thomas Bach.

paragraph_text: Seweryn Bialer (November 3, 1926 in Berlin – February 8, 2019 in New York City) was a German-born American academic. He was emeritus professor of political science at Columbia University and an expert on the Communist parties of the Soviet Union and Poland. He was the Director of Columbia's Research Institute on International Change.

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: The western Allies' decision to leave eastern Germany and the city of Berlin to the Red Army -- honoring the agreement they made with the Soviet Union at Yalta -- eventually had serious repercussions as the Cold War emerged and expanded in the post-war era.

paragraph_text: The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by the German Army Group South against the Red Army, around the city of Kharkov (or "Kharkiv") between 19 February and 15 March 1943. Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign, and in the Soviet Union as the Donbas and Kharkov operations, the German counterstrike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod.

paragraph_text: Miracle on Ice Total Soviet Union 0 United States 0 Date February 22, 1980 Arena Olympic Center City Lake Placid, New York, U.S. Attendance 8,500

paragraph_text: Bernhard Heiliger (11 November 1915, Stettin - 25 October 1995, Berlin) was a German artist. He was considered "West Germany's foremost sculptor", and his large public artworks are a prominent presence in many German cities, especially Berlin.

paragraph_text: Basketball contests at the 1968 Summer Olympics took place at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City, Mexico from October 13 to October 25, 1968. The United States defeated Yugoslavia to win their seventh straight gold medal in this sport, while the Soviet Union earned the bronze against Brazil.

paragraph_text: Vegetative Sculpture I is a public art work by artist Bernhard Heiliger located at the Lynden Sculpture Garden near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The sculpture has an abstract form; it is installed on the patio.

Question: When did the Soviet Union seal off the city where the creator of the Vegetative Sculpture died?
Answer: 1961