I"dlike to say that it"s hard to imagine our life without books.Books play such a great role in the development of personality. They help as toforget our daily problems and to pretendwe travel to the past, future and to many different, wonderfull places that wecan"t visit in reality. I am also surethat books are our good friends and teachers. From them we get to know the life around as better, they teatch as how to tellright from wrong, to love our Motherland, to understand friendship, people"sfeelings. So, they teach us how to live. Asfor me I like to read different kinds of books: ......
Learninglanguages.
The problem of learning languages is very important today. Foreignlanguages are socially demanded especially at the present time whenthe progress in science and technology has led to an explosion ofknowledge and has contributed to an overflow of information. Thetotal knowledge of mankind is known to double every seven years.Foreign languages are needed as the main and most efficient means ofinformation exchange of the people of our planet.
Today Englishis the language of the world. Over 350 million people speak it as amother tongue. The native speakers of English live in Great Britain,the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand. English isone of the official languages in the Irish Republic, Canada, theSouth African Republic. As a second language it is used in the formerBritish and US colonies.
It is the major international languagefor communication in such areas as science, technology, business andmass entertainment. English is one of the official languages of theUnited Nations Organization and other political organization. It isthe language of the literature, education, modern music,international tourism.
Russia is integrating into the worldcommunity and the problem of learning English for the purpose ofcommunication is espicially urgent today. Learning a foreing languageis not as easy thing. It is a long and slow process that takes a lotof time and patience. But to know English is absolutely necessary forevery educated person, for every good specialist.
It is wellknown that reading books in the original , listening to the BBC news,communicating with the English speaking people will help a lot. Whenlearning a foreign language you learn the culture and history of thenative speakers. One must work hard to learn any foreign language.
ARTGALLEREYS OF LONDON
Speakingabout art gallereys of London we should first of all
mention The national gallery, The national portret galerey and
Thetate gallery. I would like to tell you about National portret
galleryand about Tate gallery.
Thenational gallery houses one of the richest and most
extensivecollections of painting in the world. It stands to the
northof the Trafalgar Square. the gallerey was desighned by
William Wilkins and build in 1834-37. The collection covers all
schoolsand periods of painting, but is a specially famous for
it's examples of Rembrant and Rubents. The british schools is
onlymoderately represented as the national collections are
sharedwith the Tate gallerey. The National gallerey was founded
in1824 when the government bought the collection of John
Angersteinwhich included 38 paintings.
TheTate gallery houses the national collection of british
painting from the 16-th century to the present day. It is also
thenational gallerey for modern art, including painting and
sculpturemade in Britain, Europe, America and other countries.
Itwas opened in 1897 as the national gallerey of british art. It
owes it's establishment to Suie Henritate who built the gallerey
andgave his own collection of 65 painting.
MOSCOW THEATRES
Fordecades Moscow has had a reputation as a city of theatres. The birth plays of the historic "Bolshoy", "Maly"and "MoscowArt" theatres the city has been and steel is a centre for the development exploretary modern ideas in the dramatic art and isfamous for it's great number of highlygifted, interesting directors,actors, playwrigts and artists.
Everyevening the doors of Moscow theatres open to streams oftheatre-gowers. The best Moscow theatres devoded themselves to developingthe principals of directing and acting laid down by Stanislavsky, Meerhold, Nemerovich-Danchenko, Vachtangov and others. The discoveries and successes of Moscow theatres today existsdue to experience and triumphs of preceding generations.
I'dlike to tell you about the Bolshoy Theatre. The magestic buildingof the Bolshoy Theatre stands in Theatre Square in Moscow'scentral quater, not far from Kremlin. This is the leading Russian opera house with the best vocalists and choreographersin it's company.
TheBolshoi traces it's history to 1776 when a standing operacompany was organized in Moscow. The first opera shown in Bolshoi theatre was opera "life of tsar" (now "IvanSusanin").At latertimes operas by Dargomyzhsky, Serov, Tcaikovsky, Borodin, Moussorgsky,Rimsky-Korsakov and Rubinstein were produced here.
Atthe same time the Bolshoi company staged the best operas and ballets by West European composers-Mozart, Rossini, Weber, Verdiand others.
Thebolshoi ballet company enjoys well-deserved fame as the world'sfinest. This is equally true of it's brilliant realistic styleof perfomance and repertoire.
MYFAVORITE PAINTER
Oneof my favorite artists is Rembrant is the greatest Dutch
master, one of the supreme geneuses in the history of art. To
thisday the art of Rembrant remains one of the most profound
witness of the progress of the soul in it's earthly pilgrimage
towardsthe realisation of higher destiny. The son of the
prosperous miller, Rembrant was born in Leiden in 1608. He
studiedat Leiden University, but his real vocation was painting.
Hisrapid sugsess promoted him to move to the Amsterdam in 1631.
In1632 Rembrant bought a splendid house, started a collection
of paintings and rarities. The universal artist dealt with many
worldsubjects. Rembrant created a number of portraits and some
groupportraits which were traditional to the Dutch art. The best
ofthem are "Anatomy lesson of Dr. Tulp" and "The nightwatch".
In1655 Rembrant found himself in the midst of several
financialtroubles. At that period he painted "The Polish Rider",
whichis an allegory of the man's earthly journey.
Probablyin 1669, the year of his own death, Rembrant
painted his famous "Return of the Prological son", which stands
atthe ultimate peak of Cristian spirituality, illuminating the
relationshipof the self to the eternity.
Thebiblical theme was very important to Rembrant. He painted
"Artakserks,Oman and Eshpir", "The Saint Family".
Rembrantwas not understood when he was alive. He died in
poverty.But it is the spirituality of his art that distinguishes
Rembrantfrom his Dutch contemporaries making him the greatest
artistof the world
THEATRES,MUSIC HALLS AND CINEMAS
Theatresare very much the same in London as anywhere else; thechief theatres ,music halls and cinemas are in the West End. If you are staying in London for a few days, you'll have no difficultywhatever in finding somewhere to spend an enjoyable evening.You'll find opera, balley, comedy, drama, revue, musical comedyand variety. Films are shown in the cinemas during the greatestpart of the day.
Thebest seats at theatres are those in the stalls, the circleand the upper circle. Then comes the pit, and the last of allthe gallery where the seats are cheapest. Boxes, of course, are the most expensive. Most theatres and music halls have good orchestraswith popular conductors.