St Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia and one of the most: beautiful cities in the world. It was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as the "Window on the West".

The word library comes from the Latin word liber, meaning "a book". This is a place where information in print (books, manuscripts, periodicals and musical scores) and in other forms is collected and arranged to serve people of all ages and interests. Libraries appeared in ancient times in Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome.

William Shakespeare, the greatest and most famous of English writers, and probably the greatest playwright who has ever lived, was bom on the 23 d of April, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon.

My favourite writer is Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. In my opinion, he is the greatest Russian dramatist and short-story writer. I'm never tired of reading and rereading his plays and humorous stories.

Agatha Christie is known all over the world as the Queen of Crime. She wrote 78 crime novels, 19 plays and 6 romantic novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. Her books have been translated into 103 foreign languages.

Ernest Hemingway is one of the great 20th century American writers. His incredible career, and the legend which developed around his impressive personality, was that of a man of action, a devil-may-care adventurer, a brave war correspondent, an amateur boxer...

I've recently read a book which has made a very deep impression on me. It's called Gone with the Wind and it makes really unforgettable reading. The author of the book is Margaret Mitchell.

The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the best-known picture galleries in Russia. It takes its name from its founder Pavel Tretyakov, a Moscow merchant and art connoisseur.

One of my favourite artists is Valentin Serov. When I first saw his famous pictures - - the Girl with Peaches and the Girl in the Sunlight - - in the Tretyakov Gallery, frankly speaking, I wasn't too impressed.

Tsaac Ilyich Levitan, the great Russian artist, became the first painter of the iRussian scenery, who revealed all its beauty. He is a real poet of the Russian countryside.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the greatest composers ever born. Like Shakespeare, he stands at the summit of human achievement.

My favourite singer is Michael Jackson. I like his songs very much because they are full of energy and very melodic. I also like the way he dances. There were nine children in Michael's family.

Can you imagine life without films or television, cinema's little sister? Today we can watch television 24 hours a day, we can go to the cinema or put a cassette into our video when we want. We can even make video films ourselves.

David Duchovny was born in New York City on the 7th of August, 1960. His father is a writer and his mother is a housewife. Before David was bom his parents had been English teachers.

Albert Einstein is known all over the world as a brilliant theoretical physicist and the founder of the theory of relativity. He is perhaps the greatest scientist of the 20th century.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, an outstanding scientist and public figure, was born on the 21st of May, 1921, into the family of teachers. He graduated from Moscow University in 1942.

Films and science fiction books have often played with the idea of reproducing exact copies of people. Today, science fiction has become science fact. We have our first real clones, though they are not human beings - yet!

The Olympic Games have a very long history. They began in 777 BC in Greece and took place every four years for nearly twelve centuries at Olimpia. They included many different kinds of sports: running, boxing, wrestling, etc.

The British are known to be great sports-lovers, so when they are neither playing, nor watching games, they like to talk about them. Many of the games we play now have come from Britain. One of the most British games is cricket.

Sport has always been popular in our country. There are different sporting societies and clubs in Russia. Many of them take part in different international tournaments and are known all over the world.

There are fewer public holidays in Great Britain than in other European countries. They are: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good ' Friday, Easter Monday, May Day, Spring Bank Holiday and Summer Bank Holiday.

There are many national holidays in Russia, when people all over the country do not work and have special celebrations. The major holidays are: New Year's Day, Women's Day, May Day, Victory Day, and Independence Day.

Have you ever wondered how many people there are who speak English? It's quite a number! Geographically, English is the most widespread language on earth, and it is second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it.

Other languages absorb English words too, often giving them new forms and new meanings. So many Japanese, French and Germans mix English words with their mother tongues that the resulting hybrids are called Japlish, Franglais and Denglish.

Can you imagine what our life will be like in the year 2050? What will our cities be like in the future? How will we live and behave? Will medical science win its battle against the terrible illnesses that mankind continues to suffer from?

Modern man appeared perhaps 70,000 years ago — a very short period of time if you consider that life has existed on earth for more than 3,000 mil­lion years.

We've climbed the highest mountains, conquered the deepest oceans and crossed the widest deserts. It seems there's little left for us to see on this planet. So what's next? Space, of course.

The Earth is our home. What sort of home it is depends on how we treat it, just as the houses we live in depend on how we take care of them. Do you like to fish or swim? Do you like to walk through the woods? Do you like to breathe fresh air?

The official number of people on our i planet is 6,000,000,000. Six billion! The world's population is growing very quickly. It adds up to 184 people every minute, 11,040 every hour, 264,960 every day and 97 million every year!

It was in Britain that the word "smog" was first used (to describe a mixture of smoke and fog). As the world's first industrialized country, its cities were the first to suffer this atmospheric condition.

Because of the great size of the USA, local newspapers are more important than national ones. Only the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Wall Street Journal are read over a large part of the country.

In the 16ш century a favourite toy for children of all ages was the hobbyhorse. In appearance a hobbyhorse could be as simple as a stick, or it could have a decorated wooden framework with an imitation horse's head attached.

Everybody's tried them at least once. Sitting in front of a screen with a button or a joystick you can make cars go very fast or move strange little green men about as they escape from dangerous enemies.

If we travel all over Scotland, we can see that geographically it consists of three main parts: Lowlands, Uplands and Highlands with their Grampian Mountains, where the tallest mountain peak, Ben Nevis (1,342 metres), is located.

With the arrival the new millennium London's face has changed. From now on, the UK's capital is going to be an even more exciting place to visit.