Lake Baikal: the Pearl of Siberia
Lake Baikal is the most ancient lake on earth. Lakes rarely live longer than a million years but the Pearl of Siberia or the Sacred Sea, as it is often called, is more than 25 million years old! For scientists it is a living laboratory of evolution!
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, measuring 1 637 metres from top to bottom. It sits in the planets deepest land depression where at least 3 tectonic plates meet! These plates scrape against each other, making the lake even deeper and wider. There is a theory that Lake Baikal is the beginning of a new ocean. The lake holds one-fifth of the planets fresh water and its still remarkably clean! The waters of the lake are amazingly transparent and they change colours all the time!
Lake Baikal is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Everyone who has been to its shores is impressed and charmed by its grandeur, size, and unusual might. This wonder of the natural world is very difficult to describe. Valentin Rasputin once said, Man does not have enough feelings to respond to this miracle.
The Buryat had settled the lakes shores long before the 13th-century conquests of Genghis Khan. Russian fur traders arrived in the 1640s. The Buryat have a mystical feeling for the lake. They believe that its waters are charmed. This is why they never call it a lake, only the Sea, or the Old Man, or He!
The snows of Siberia come to Lake Baikal in early October. At the end of October the lake begins to freeze. In winter the ice gets very thick well over a metre! In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, a railway track was laid across the ice to carry guns to the front. By mid-April the ice begins to thaw and the lake becomes so huge that sailors and fishermen here talk of going to sea.
The water of the lake can hardly be called warm. In summer, its average temperature is + 12C. But many people who go for their first swim in the lake behave as if they had jumped into boiling water!
Lake Baikal is a living museum of water plants and animals. About 1 500 species of animals are endemic you can see them nowhere else in the world! Its also rich in life at all depths. Its cold waters move vertically, carrying oxygen even to the 1 637 bottom. The golomyanka, a transparent, glass-like fish, lives only in Lake Baikal. The omul, an arctic fish endemic to Lake Baikal, is delicious. One great mystery about the lake is how nerpa, the Baikal seal, originally came there, as it is hundreds of kilometers from any ocean.
The lake is surrounded by beautiful mountains. The Baikal Mountains on the north shore and the taiga are protected as a national park.
Olkhon is the largest of the lakes 27 islands. Its 72 km long and its shape resembles the shape of Lake Baikal. Olkhon is a remarkable conglomeration of all possible landscapes that exist around Baikal rolling grass steppes, deep forests, sand dunes and rocky cliffs. Olkhon is also an important centre of shamanism. Shamanka, or the Shamans Rock, is the most famous landmark of the island. According to legend, it has some magic power and blocks the entrance to the underground spirit world.
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TEXT 4. Read and translate the text. Make reports on the topic.
What is Russia famous for?
Russian Bear
The Russian Bear is a widespread symbol for Russia, used in cartoons, articles and dramatic plays at least since the 17th century, and relating alike to Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the present-day Russian Federation.
It often was and is used by Westerners, to begin with especially in Britain and later also in the US, and not always in a flattering context on occasion used to imply that Russia is big, brutal and clumsy.
The bear image was, however, on various occasions (especially in the 20th century) also taken up by Russians themselves. Having the teddy bear Misha as the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games boycotted by numerous countries due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was evidently intended to counter the big and brutal Russian Bear image with a small, cuddly and smiling bear.
Matryoshka
Matryoshka refers to a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. The first Russian matryoshka was carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter at Abramtsevo. Traditionally the outer layer is a woman, dressed in a sarafan, a long traditional Russian dress. The figures inside may be of either gender; the smallest doll is typically a baby lathed from a single piece of wood. Much of the artistry is in the painting of each doll, which can be very elaborate. The dolls often have different images varying from typical Russian girls to the famous sportsmen, from fairy tale characters to the country leaders.
Balalaika
The balalaika is a plucking string instrument that resembles a guitar, but has a triangular shape and only three strings (or two in some cases).
It is difficult to explain, but when you hear balalaikas sounds, you at once think of Russia. There is something deeply Russian, typical folk and traditional in it. It is quiet and delicate, gently filling you with the essence of Russia.
Unfortunately, today the balalaika has disappeared from Russians everyday life almost completely. There arent many people left who can play it not to mention, only professional musicians in Russian folk music ensembles.
Samovar
Samovar has traditionally been the most recognized symbol of Russian hospitality and family comfort as well as a sign of prosperity. For more than 250 years, the samovar has occupied an honored place in Russian homes as the centerpiece of the table, around which life revolved. Step by step a peculiar ritual of tea-drinking emerged and was adopted in every Russian home - people gathered to have tea parties and provided the right atmosphere for friendly conversation and sharing news, stories, and fellowship. Thus, samovar had both a practical and an emotional function.
The Russian word samovar literally means self-boiling. The vessel consists of a metal container for boiling the water and a fire-pan with a tube. The first samovar was made in Tula (an old city to the south of Moscow) in 1778, and since that time Tula is known as the centre of Russian samovar production.
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Russian tea culture
Tea is part of Russian culture. According to recent studies, some 82% of Russians consume tea daily. Tea is a source of various minerals and nutrients that help supplement the Russian diet, and is used in Russia as a source of low cost nutrition.
According to William Pokhlyobkin, tea in Russia was not regarded as a self-dependent beverage; thus, even the affluent classes adorned it with a jam, syrup, cakes, cookies, candies, lemon and other sweets. This is similar to the archaic idiom (tea and sugar). The Russian language utilizes some expressions connected with tea consumption, including -? (roughly some tea?), used by the pre-Revolutionary attendants. The others are (whip the teas) and (indulging in tea). Tea was made a significant element of cultural life by the literati of the Karamzinian circle. By the mid-19th century tea had won over the town class, the merchants and the petty bourgeoisie. This is reflected in the dramas of Alexander Ostrovsky. Since Ostrovsky's time, duration and the amount of consumed tea are appreciated in the tea-drinking.
The Scarlet Sails
The Scarlet Sails is a celebration in St. Petersburg, Russia, the most massive and famous public event during the White Nights Festival. The tradition is highly popular for spectacular fireworks, numerous music concerts, and a massive water-show including battle among tens of boats full of pirates on the waters of Neva river. Millions people visit the event, among the entertainers were such stars as Cirque du Soleil, Mariinsky Ballet, Antonio Banderas and others.
Entertainment also includes appearances by popular rock stars, as well as St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, ballet, and other classical acts, performing on several stages simultaneously during the days of the event. The show also includes rowing and motorboat races, and a massive battle with pirates culminating with appearance of a tall ship sporting spectacular Scarlet sails.
Yo-mobile
The Yo-mobile is a planned hybrid electric car that will be produced by Yo-auto, a Russian company. The car will be powered by an engine that can burn both gasoline and natural gas and is connected to a pair of electric motors. Fuel economy of the car is expected to be around 67 mpg-US (3.5 L/100 km; 80 mpg-imp), with a range of 680 miles (1,090 km) and a top speed of 80 mph (130 km/h). However, no tests were conducted due to the lack of working examples.
TEXT 5. Read and translate the article. Be ready to discuss. Name some more Russian personal qualities. Make a list of Russian good and bad character features, strengths and weaknesses, if any.
Russian Character
Most Russians are not very different from most westerners in the way they perceive things or in their desired lifestyle. However, there are certain peculiarities, which may emerge when you get to know your Russian friends closer. Below we tried to list the most common traits of the Russian character.
We are a free nation. Here we despise all the rules. Its an honor for our drivers to move on the red light or to bother other drivers and scorn pedestrians.
Its cool to do nothing and to just lie on the sofa thinking about how great you are. Really, Russia is such an amazing but lazy country.
We value generosity. We can give you the last piece of bread we have if we believe you really need it. And we expect the same in return.
Some of us are naturally indifferent; we dont care too much about dirt on the streets, saving money, breaking the rules, risking without particular reason, drinking too much...
Some of us are quite emotional, but somehow its all kept inside most of the time. We may seem a bit cold and too much to ourselves at first, but when you get to know us better, we're like a volcano.
We don't feel easy about talking to strangers on the street, but if you start conversation saying that you're from another country or ask for some help, there's a good chance we will be very open, because we are naturally curious about foreigners.
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Women and old women are very respected here. Its considered polite if while being in the metro and seeing a woman or an old woman coming in and therere no free seats, man offers her his seat.
Beware of the babushkas (old women). They are active, pushy and very proud of themselves, so if you do something not the way they think you shouldve done, better disappear.
If you invited a girl or a woman somewhere be prepared to pay for her everywhere. If you invited a man, hell pay for himself, and there's a good chance he'll pay for you as well without telling you about it.
Yes, we love vodka, but we're not alcoholics. Despite what some people think, Russians are not drunkards, they just have a special resistance to alchohol, that's why they can drink so much. And we actually get our strength from it and it warms us during the cold winters. By the way, if you drink with us, you'll have to drink as much as we do, or we will be offended.
Russians are hooligans. It's not because we're bad - we just like everything extraordinary. That's why you hear our tourists singing folk songs at 3am and that's why we make a revolution every 80 years.
We believe in magnetism. The thing is, that every so often the sun sends some electro-magnetic signals and this affects the whole course of events on the earth, including our mood and feelings. So, if you see two housewives discussing how bad their day went because of the electro-magnetic storm that happened in the afternoon - don't think they are adepts of some sort of new age philosophy, it's completely normal here.
Yes, we are superstitious. And if you want to shake our hand, you can never ever do it through the door: you have to come in, otherwise we will quarrel. If you come back to your house just after you left - look at the mirror, it's for your own good. If you're sitting at the corner of the table, you won't be married for 7 years. If a fork falls, a woman is going to come, if a knife falls, a man will certainly appear.
Most of us know a few words in English, but we are too shy to speak - no practice, you see... However, you will be surprised at how many things are written in English on the streets: it is used to show a shop or a cafe, to advertise a new product, and there's a lot of foreign goods. Also, almost more than a half of Russian products have their ingredients listed in English.
Questions
1. How do Russians differ from other nations?
2. What is meant by being free for you?
3. Do you agree with the opinion that most Russians are lazy?
4. Do you appreciate generosity? Are you a generous person?
5. What things are Russian people usually indifferent to?
6. Are most of your relatives and friends emotional or reserved?
7. Is it easy for you to talk to strangers?
8. Why are women and old women specially respected in Russia?
9. How can you describe Russian babushkas?
10. Is it a must to pay for a girl in the café or restaurant?
11. Why do Russians drink alcohol so much? Is it a problem for the nation?
12. Do you think that Russians are hooligans? Give examples.
13. What is the influence of magnetism on your lifestyle?
14. How superstitious are you? What superstitions do work?
15. Is your level of English good? Or does it leave much to be desired? Would you like to improve it?
