I’m happy to have such a good friend as Sergey.

♦ I have a lot of friends. They are my former schoolmates and boys and girls from my neighborhood. But my bosom friend is Olga. She is a pleasant-looking girl of about 17. Olga is not very tall, but she has a strong attractive body, she is pleasantly plump. Olga is always very elegant, she wears clothes of the latest fashion. Her features are very delicate, and her charm is irresistible. She has white curly hair and dark-blue eyes. Her eyelashes are so long and thick, and her eyes seem dark for this reason. Her face is oval and she has a turn-up nose. To cut the long story short - Olga is a pretty girl. But in my opinion, inner beauty is more important than physical one. Olga is a well-bred, jolly and kind person. She is very tactful, shy and sensitive, emotionally stable and witty, generous and good-hearted.

She did well at school and was always ready to help their friends to cope with difficult home assignments.

She is fond of reading books. Olga thinks the one book isn't enough to read, she generally has two or three books going at once. Olga has a lot of books at home and she buys them wherever she goes. She says that the books are of great help any time and they always must be at hand.

Besides, my best friend is fond of music, especially classic one. She likes to listen to the music and relax. Olga goes in for sports and she is a member of our school volley-ball team. Our coach says she is a very gifted sportsman.

Olga always manages to be amusing and cheerful, energetic and enthusiastic.

She is in a habit of helping her parents, because they always have a lot of work to do both at work and about the house. She is a sunny soul by nature and always takes the slightest excuse to be amused. My best friend has an imagination and her own style. She usually writes nice compositions, because she is an educated person.

Olga is an easy-going girl, and when sometimes it comes to quarreling, she tries to make it up at once. As I have already told you, she is a helpful person and always tried to do her best to help somebody when lie has some problems. In a word - she has a noble look and bright spirit.

5 (#7) Holidays___________________________________________

♦ There are many national holidays in the world, when people all over the country do not work and have special celebrations. For example in Russia the major holidays are: New Year's Day, Victory Day. The first holiday of the year is New Year's Day. People see the new year in at midnight on the 31st of December. They greet the new year with champagne and listen to the Kremlin chimes beating 12 o'clock. There are lots of New Year traditions in Russia. In every home there is a New Year tree glittering with colored lights and decorations. Children always wait for Father Frost to come and give them a present. Many people consider New Year's Day to be a family holiday. But the young prefer to have New Year parties of their own. The greatest national holiday in our country is Victory Day. On the 9lh of May, 1945, the Soviet Army and its allies completely defeated the German fascists and the Second World War ended. A lot of guests from different countries of the world came to Moscow to participate in the celebrations.

There are fewer public holidays in Great Britain than in other European countries. They are: Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Easter Monday, Spring Bank Holiday. Public holidays in Britain arc called bank holidays, because the banks as well as most of the offices and shops are closed. The most popular holiday is Christmas. Every year the people of Norway give the city of London a present. It's a big Christmas tree and it stands in Trafalgar Square. Central streets are beautifully decorated. The fun starts the night before, on the 24th of December. Traditionally this is the day when people decorate their trees. Children hang stockings at the end of their beds, hoping that Father Christmas will come down the chimney during the night and fill them with

toys and sweets. New Year's Day is less popular in Britain than Christmas. But in Scotland, Hogmanay is the biggest festival of the year. Besides public holidays there are some special festivals in Great Britain. There are also smaller, local festivals in Britain.

In the different countries according to their traditions and history, there is a set of various national holidays. But there is one thing, which unites all of them: a holiday is always fun and pleasure.

♦ New Year is the principal winter holiday, as opposed to Christmas. It is universally recognized as such by both secular and religious people. Whereas New Year is mostly an occasion merely for parties and drinking in the West, most of the traditions associated with Christmas fall on New Year in Russia. The welcoming of the new year is considered the most significant occasion of the winter.

The New Year's tree is identical to a Christmas tree in the West. It is decorated in the same way, with ornaments, lights and garland. Stars are usually perched atop the tree rather than angels, and ornaments of a religious nature as well as nativity scenes are notably absent.

Folklore holds that Ded Moroz ("Grandfather Frost") is charged with the responsibility for delivering presents on New Year's Eve. He is a large, bearded and grandfatherly man resembling Santa Claus, although he has no saintly identity, nor sleigh nor reindeer. He is sometimes said to be dressed in blue rather than red - this is a point of contention. Either way, he emerges on New Year's Eve with a gargantuan, overflowing sack of gifts and dispenses them to each family. The actual procedure of doing this is not a significant component of the mythology; he doesn't come down the chimney, but it doesn't really matter how he gets into your dwelling. Perhaps through the front door, perhaps through the window - who knows?

Instead of elves to help him, Ded Moroz has his grand-daughter Snegurochka ("Snowy"), with whom he lives somewhere in the northern forest. Snegurochka is generally portrayed as an attractive young blonde girl, often dressed in light winter attire and sometimes a red cap. Presents are also given on New Year. There is no requirement of waiting until the morning of New Year's Day to open them; instead, they are usually presented and opened shortly after greeting the New Year at midnight.

♦ Christmas is celebrated in Russia as a religious holiday. Because the Russian Orthodox Church does not recognize the Gregorian calendar, religious events are timed according to the Julian calendar. This means that Christmas falls on the 7th of January. In point of whether New Year and Christmas have always held their respective positions, my knowledge is rather weak. As far as I have been told, New Year has always held a position of eminence, yet it is safe to assume that its position as the dominant affair of the winter was bolstered by the official atheism of the Soviet regime. Christmas was stripped of official recognition as a holiday after the 1917 revolution, and it was not re-established as such until 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.