Culture of the Don Land. Учебное пособие

of just 12 Russian cities that has a population of more than 1 million.

Rostov is also a key transportation hub, providing a water route to five seas, including the Black, Azov and Caspian seas. The country’s two most important land routes — the North Caucasus Railroad and the Don highway – also go through the city.

The local administration is developing transportation infrastructure and getting ready to start construction of a stadium after Rostov-on-Don was named a host city for the World Cup in 2018.

Locals, however, seem to like a homegrown sport even more than football: tractor racing. Every summer, tractor drivers from all over the Rostov region turn into Michael Schumachers at the Bizon Track Show, the only rally of its kind in Russia.

The roaring tractors, tearing through mud and dust at the race just outside Rostov-on-Don, return to their normal farm work immediately after the contest. Agriculture and the production of agricultural equipment are among the most rapidly developing sectors in Rostov-on-Don and the region. In fact, Rostov-on-Don is headquarters for one of the world’s biggest combine makers, Rostselmash Group, which has plants in the United States, Canada, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Another sector associated with Rostov-on-Don for decades is the production of helicopters. The city is home to Rostvertol, a unit of Russian Helicopters, one of the world’s biggest helicopter producers that has supplied India and Venezuela, among others.

Rostov-on-Don, which was founded in 1749 as a customs point, has traditionally been a merchants' city. Today, company offices, administrative buildings and residential districts are

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located on the right bank of the Don, while the left bank is occupied with numerous restaurants and bars.

The river's banks are connected by two bridges – a new one opened in late 2010 and the Voroshilovsky bridge built in 1965. Driving over the bridge from one bank to the other takes about 20 minutes – which is just enough time to notice how quietly the Don flows.

Activities:

1.Make sentences using the following words and word groups:

to catch one’s eye, a group of Cossaks, Nobel Prize, to take pride in something, to be scattered throughout the city, local administration, key transportation hub, agricultural equipment, helicopters, merchants’ city.

2.Complete the sentences

a). The vast Don River, which divides Rostov-on-Don in

white or pale yellow and decorated with stucco, which give the street the atmosphere of a bygone era of nobles' receptions and

e). Rostov-on-Don, which was founded in 1749 as a ---------

point, has traditionally been a merchants' city.

In the centre of Rostov

Find the answers to the following questions:

1. Why was Rostov-on-Don almost in ruins by the end of the Great Patriotic war?

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2.Where can you see most of the plants?

3.What can you say about the planning of the city?

4.What streets are the most beautiful in Rostov?

5.What kind of buildings can you see in the centre of

Rostov?

6.What is Theatre Square famous for?

7.Why is the centre of Rostov called «the centre of learn-

ing»?

8.Where are the newspapers printed?

Rostov-on-Don is a large industrial, cultural and scientific centre in the south of

Russia. It is the capital of the Rostov Region. During the Great Patriotic War Rostov was twice occupied by the fascists and by the end of the war Rostov was almost in ruins. The main street (Bolshaya Sadovaya) and all the adjacent streets were completely destroyed. The architects tried not to rebuild the centre of the city, but to restore it.

Though there are many large scale plants in our city, such as the Rostov Combine-harvester plant, the Helicopter Plant, the Don Shoe Factory and many others; you can't see many of them in the centre, most of them are in the suburbs.

As to the city planning there are wide streets and avenues. You can enjoy walking in the parks and gardens of Rostov and especially the beautiful alleys of Pushkin, B. Sadovaya streets and the Don embankment. Now Rostov is noted for the greenness of its streets and the shade of its boulevards and parks. There is a charming view of the city and the wide scope of the Don from the top of the Voroshilov Bridge. The new many-storeyed buildings were constructed in the centre of the city, but they are still in harmony with the old buildings.

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For example, the Children's Department Store, the cinema «Rostov» and the Youth Creative Centre.

You can find fine theatres in the centre of Rostov such as the Drama Theatre, the Puppet Theatre, the Youth Theatre, and the Music Theatre.

The Museum of Regional Study, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Picture Gallery of the Don Artists, the House of the Philharmonic Society are part and parcel of the Rostov centre and satisfy the tastes of Rostov public and guests.

The centre of Rostov covers about four miles. The Cathedral with fine golden domes, the Stock Exchange and the Central Market are also in the centre of Rostov. Here you will find the buildings of the City and Regional Administration.

Theatre Square is known for its Drama Theatre, which is the symbol of Rostov, fountains and the monument «Victory» to the victims of the Great Patriotic War.

Rostov centre is the centre of books and learning. Here you will find bookshops, the city and regional libraries. If you walk along B.Sadovaya Street, you will see the Southern Federal University, National Economy University, Medical University and many colleges.

The newspapers of Rostov are printed in Budyonnovsky Avenue. Here you can see the old and very fine building of the Rostov Circus. So, the centre of Rostov is the centre of business, pleasure and learning.

Vocabulary notes: to occupy – занимать, оккупировать suburb – пригород

embankment – дамба, набережная boulevard – бульвар, проспект

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Activities:

1.Speak about the centre of Rostov using the new words and expressions: will you tell me anything about ... Sure! Ok! I’d like to know more about ... Really? That’s interesting! Excuse me for interrupting but ... Oh, let me think! Let me see ...

That’s not all.

2.Use situations:

a)You tell a guest about the places of interest in the centre of Rostov;

b)You ask the guide about one of the places of interest in the centre of Rostov;

c)You walk along Bolshaya Sadovaya Street with a guide;

d)You make a bus-trip around the centre of Rostov with a

guide.

3. Discuss the text in the form of a group dialogue.

4. The students are divided into groups. Each group gets its own topic. For example:

1) Historical places in the centre of Rostov;

2) Rostov downtown as the centre of books and learning; 3) The architects and architecture of the Rostov centre.

The history of Rostov-on-Don

Find the answers to the following questions:

1.Where is Rostov-on-Don situated?

2.Who has sung the beauty of the Quiet Don?

3.Why has the land where Rostov stands always been sacred for Russian people?

4.How did the Don Cossacks defend the southern frontiers of Russia?

5.What was built first: the custom house or the fortress of Dimitry Rostovsky?

6.What settlement appeared round the fortress?

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7.When and why was the fortress dismissed?

8.Why did the Crimean Armenians migrate to the Don

Land?

9.Give some facts showing the rapid development of Rostov-on-Don.

10.Why did it achieve prosperity?

Rostov has a specific southern beauty and its own very rich and interesting history, customs and a specific architectural character.

The green city lies on the high bank of the river Don and is set amidst a typically southern Russian landscape. On both sides of the Don vast plains stretch steppe lands and fields with rich crops of golden wheat, green maize and patches of sunflowers.

Mikhail Sholokhov has written much about the beauty of the Quiet Don and about the courageous and gallant Don Cossacks.

The land on which Rostov stands has long been sacred for Russian people. Here the Russian warriors of the past crossed swords with the nomads who ravaged the domains of Kiev Rus. Here the Don Cossacks – former serfs who had fled to the Don and the Northern Donets to escape the oppression of their owners valiantly defended the southern frontiers of Russia. And it was in this area that the Cossack atamans Stepan Razin, Kondraty Bulavin and Yemelyan Pugachov started the popular uprisings which shook feudal Russia in the 17-th and 18-th centuries.

The foundation of the city itself is considered to date back to the middle of the 18-th century when the Temernik frontier custom house was opened on the high western bank of the Don. According to the decree of the Russian empress Elizaveta Pet-

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rovna, the Temernik custom house was set up to control the foreign trade at the place of intersection of important routes.

Soon building work began on the fortress of Dimitry Rostovsky. It was an important strategic point. The fortress was founded in 1861 near the place «Bogaty Kolodez» (rich spring). They say this name to it was given by Peter the Great. The fortress got the name of the saint Dimitry Rostovsky who was a metropolitan of Rostov Veliky.

The fortress was built on the plan of the engineer I.Vedeneev under the supervision of the military engineer Alexander Ivanovich Rigelman. The fortress had a nine-pointed star form so that all the enemies were always under the flank fire. In the 18-th century Rostov fortress with its redoubts, bastions and cannons was the best and the largest in the south of Russia. The territory of the fortress was limited by the presentday Nakhichevansky by-street from the east, Chekhov Street from the west, M. Gorky Street from the north and Stanislavsky Street from the south. The fortress was one of the main military bases of the Russian army on the Azov seashore during the Russian-Turkish war. The famous Russian general A.V.Suvorov visited the fortress in 1788. In honour of this visit one of the streets of our city is called Suvorov Street.

Round the fortress some settlements such as Poludenka and Kupecheskaya Sloboda from the east and, Dolomanovka and Soldatskaya Sloboda from the west appeared.

Thanks to its favourable geographical location (Rostov is 46 kilometres from the place where the river Don empties its waters into the Azov Sea) the city grew rapidly. The fortress of Dimitry Rostovsky and the town which quickly grew up around its walls were called «Rostov which lies on the Don» or Rostov- on-Don to distinguish it from the ancient north Russian city of Rostov the Great which is now within the bounds of Yaroslavl

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Region of the Russian Federation. In 1835 the fortress lost its military importance and was dismissed.

At the result of the Russian-Turkish war Russia got many new lands on the shores of the Azov and the Black Seas and became independent from Turkey. Having the aim to consolidate Russia's positions on the Azov lands and in the Crimea the tsarist government decided to deprive the Crimean Khan of considerable profits used by him mostly for the army, which he got from the Crimean Armenians. They were the main taxpayers as they were busy with agriculture, handicrafts and trade.

The tsarist government suggested that the Armenians should move to Russia.

The conditions of the migration were extremely difficult and many people died. But still in summer of 1779 about 12 thousand Armenians reached the suburbs of the fortress. They settled on the Don not far from the fortress in the place where now Karl Marx Square is situated.

They called their town «Nakhichevan» that means «The First Refuge». Besides Nakhichevan Armenians built 5 suburban villages: Chaltyr, Krym, Bolshye Saly, Malye Saly and Nesvetai, and later the sixth settlement-Katerinovan was founded.

Nakhichevan soon turned into a big city even bigger than Rostov. At the beginning of the XIX century the town of Rostov had 15 streets and the population of 2000 people while in Nakhichevan there were more than 4000 people.

Weavers, leather-dressers, blacksmiths, bakers and other handicraftsmen living in Nakhichevan filled the market with their goods. Both towns developed separately but rapidly. The Don favoured the development of Rostov as it connected the Don Land with the Ural region and Siberia and also with the Azov and the Black Seas. It became one of the biggest trade

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centres in the south of Russia. Rostov summer and autumn fairs became well-known all over the country. By 1913 both cities were economically one and the same city but still they were different towns and in the place of the present-day Theatre Square there was a boundary between them and the tram conductor asked passengers if they needed tickets «till the boundary» or «beyond the boundary». Only in December, 1928 both cities were united into one city Rostov-on-Don. Nakhichevan became Proletarsky district of Rostov-on-Don.

In this desert place in 1935 our beautiful Gorky Drama Theatre was built. Nakhicnevan and Rostov appeared in different years and on different reasons but in a short period of time they turned into rich and flourishing cities thanks to their favourable location. Both cities economically were very much alike but Rostov's population increased quicker as thousands of homeless people from all poor provinces of Russia came every year to the rich Don Land in search of better life.

By l913 the population of Rostov was 204,5 thousand people while in Nakhichevan only 50 thousand people lived.

About the rapid development of Rostov you can judge by the following facts:

In 1818 the first school was opened. In 1915 Warsaw University moved to Rostov. In 1916 the first local higher school (or the Women's Medical Institute) was founded. But as you may guess only rich people could afford their children to study at higher schools, medical and commercial colleges as the tuition fee was very high. By 1897 only 74 thousand citizens were literate, while about 35 thousand were illiterate. But taking into account the average indices in the Russian Empire it should be noted that it was much higher and Rostov was not the worst of Russian cities.

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The first hospital opened in 1856 but it had only 30 beds. But by the end of the XIX century this hospital had a bacteriological laboratory and the laboratory for making antidiphtheria serum and became one of the best in the south of Russia.

The first water-supply was built in 1853. But it was imperfect and soon ruined. The construction of a new watersupply was begun in 1865.

The first railway connecting Rostov with Kharkov was built in 1870, Rostov-Voronezh railway – in 1871, and RostovVladikavkaz railway in 1875.

In 1887 the first tram «konka» ran along Bolshaya Sadovaya but since December 20, 1901 the Rostovites have got the first electric tram which ran along Bolshaya Sadovaya street till Nakhichevan. In 1902 it appeared in Nakhichevan.

The first forty electric lamps were installed in B. Sadovaya Street in 1896. The first in Russia civil radio stations were built in Rostov in 1901 by Alexander Popov.

In 1908 the number of factories and plants grew up to

100.Paramonov's mills, Asmolov's and Kushnaryov's tobacco factories, Churilin's brewery, macarony factory, Pastukhov's and Zigel's mettalurgical works, Panchenko's paper-mill factory and machine-building plant were the biggest at that time.

Since that time Rostov has made great progress. Rostov grows bigger and becomes more beautiful with every year. Rostov-on-Don «is loved by all who were born there, lived there or whose fate was otherwise bound up with it, and it will never be forgotten by all who visit it.

Vocabulary notes: gallant – доблестный, храбрый courageous – мужественный

nomad – кочевник

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