Where’s the booking office? — где кас- ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION:

ca? pollution — загрязнение

You needn’t queue up at the booking offi- poisoning — отравление

ce — вам не нужно стоять в очере- resources — ресурсы

ди в кассу wasteland — свалка

There are also slot-machines for tickets — disappear — исчезать

здесь есть автоматы по продаже би- atmosphere — атмосфера

летов reduce — сокращать

Take the escalator and follow the di- ill-health — болезненный, с плохим здоровьем

rection signs — воспользуйтесь эс- smoke — дым

калатором и следуйте указателям gas — газ

Mind the gap — не заходите за ограни- exhaust — выхлопные газы

чительную линию lead — свинец

2 Learn to speak about the greatest cities of the world.

ST PETERSBURG: UNIVERSAL CITY

by Evil Ecomakis

Every city has something to be proud of. We believe however that St Petersburg is truly an original city. Other cities may be summarised by a few words, such as “city of canals,” or “city of lights.” But St Petersburg has been described in more ways than any other city: “Window on the West,” “Palmira” or “Venice of the North” (as early as 1738 there were already more than 40 bridges over the city’s rivers and canals), “Peter’s creation,” “univer­sal city,” “city of Dostoesvsky,” “cradle of revolution,” “hero city” and “city of white nights.”

St Petersburg was a planned city, a city artificially imposed by man on na­ture in an inhospitable and scarcely populated corner of the Empire. In 1703, when Tsar Peter I captured the Swedish fortress of Nienshants on the Neva, the place where St Petersburg stands today was a forested and swampy area at the mouth of the Neva river. Here lived a few Finnish and Russian tribes, practising trapping and fishing. This place became the capital of the Russian Empire, a huge centre of the Baltic Sea, one just as important to Northern Europe as the Mediterranean was for the Romans.

The population of St Petersburg was multinational from the very start. Unlike any other Russian city St Petersburg always had a large number of foreigners living in it: Germans, Jews, Greeks, Finns, Poles and Swedes, among many others. Traditionally, St Petersburg was a city of great religious toleration. On Nevsky Prospect, the city’s main street, there are Lutheran, Catholic and Armenian churches. St Petersburg also had a synagogue, a splen­did mosque, and Europe’s largest Buddhist temple.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION. CONVERSATIONAL TOPICS

Rome, centre of European Christian civilisation, was the City of Saint Peter. Peter the Great named his city after the same saint. He thus an­nounced Russia’s new cultural and historic mission in Europe and the world. St Petersburg’s architecture reflects Peter’s intention to build a universal city, one in which great historical epochs and styles are represented. Neo-Classi­cal, Baroque, Rococo, Empire style — the list goes on and on. Stand at the Vasilievsky Island Point, or near the statue of the Bronze Horseman on the opposite bank of the Neva, and look out the view is breathtaking. There are few cities which can match St Petersburg in terms of the variety and beauty of its architecture.

The flourishing of culture in Russia, especially in the XVIII and XIX centu­ries had its epicentre in St Petersburg. As the Empire’s new capital, St Peters­burg became the official residence of the country’s higher nobility. That is why arts and culture were focused here. St Petersburg was the place where Russia’s first ballet school was opened (1738: the now well-known Vaganova Academy of Russian ballet), where the first professional theatre was founded (1756) and where the first musical society was established (1778). These beginnings were followed in the XIX century by the establishment of the Philharmonic Society (1802), the opening of the Hermitage Museum to the publics (1852), the found­ing of the Mariinsky Theatre (1860) and the Conservatory (1862). St Peters­burg was also the home of Russia’s first stationary circus (1877). The Academic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1882 by decree of Tsar Al­exander III, and was the first permanent symphonic orchestra in Russia. Final­ly, the country’s first cinema opened here in 1896 (46 Nevsky Prospect). In terms of other forms of entertainment, Russia’s first tennis club was founded in St Petersburg in 1888 and in 1893 the first football game was played here, at the hippodrome (Semenovsky parade-ground).

In music, opera and ballet, giant strides were made in St Petersburg by Glazunov, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev, among others. In terms of painting, the city produced such fecund and prolific talents as Repin, Roerich and Benois. Outstanding dancers also lived and performed here: Pavlova, Nijinsky, Karsavina, Ulanova, Makarova, Barishnikov and Nureyev. So did famous choreographers such as Fokine and Petipa. The fa­mous impresario Diaghilev was also a product of St Petersburg.

In terms of literature and poetry, the list is long: Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Block, Mandelshtam and Brod­sky. All of these great writers and poets lived at some point in St Petersburg, and were inspired by the city. Many of their writings belong to what scholars refer to as “St Petersburg text.”

If St Petersburg was founded as an administrative centre, it soon became a huge commercial city. By the late XIX century it was one of Europe’s largest