He died in 1968, but people always remember the first Russian cosmonaut.
Newspapers
There are many kinds of newspapers in our country. It is possible to buy them almost everywhere. But we can't read all the newspapers. We know that it is necessary to read newspapers. Reading them we can learn a lot of interesting and useful things. I think that everyone must read newspapers every day. I read many newspapers and magazines.
Everyone has its favourite newspapers. I like "Vechernaya Moskva" best of all. This newspaper was published on the 6th of December, 1923 for the first time. It usually has 8 pages. You can read some news on the 1st page. You can't know a lot about these events, you read only some facts, which are usually short, but
interesting. If you turn the second page, you can read about our life. You can read out events abroad and about your favourite artists and singers, too. You л see some advertisements on each page the newspaper and use them. You can learn about the weather from the pages of is newspaper.
If you are fond of football, basket-ball tennis, you read articles about sport events in our country and about our famous sportsmen. If you want to buy something you have to read the last page. There are some humorous stories in this newspaper.
Magazines
It is interesting to look through some magazines or read them. It is possible to subscribe to some of them or buy them. We usually subscribe to the magazine "At the wheel". As we have a car it is useful for us to read it. My mother prefer to read the magazine "Liza". She says that it even helps her in some cases.
I think that they are very popular means of information. They are popular among young people in our country. We can know a lot of news watching TV or listening to the radio set. All members of our family watch TV very regularly. We like such programme as "My family". I prefer to discuss some problems with my parents after it. I have many favourite TV programmes but I haven't enough time to watch all of them.
MY HOBBY
What is a hobby? It is what you can and like to do, when you have free time. We choose a hobby according to our character and taste. When we have a hobby our life becomes more interesting.
Very often our hobby helps us to choose our future profession because we learn a lot of new things.
Many people are interested in music. They collect records. Others like to read and collect books. People living in cities and towns like to be closer to nature and they spend their free time in the country.
Some of us go on hikes, some like to work in their gardens, take photographs or knit.
For example, gardening and growing roses is the most common hobby among Englishmen.
Both grown-ups and children are fond of playing different computer games. It has become one of the numerous hobbies.
I have got a hobby too.
My name is Nastya. Sometimes I have got some free time. As my hobby is cooking I like to make cakes and pies. My cakes are very tasty, but I like pies best of all. I'll tell you how I make pies with cabbage.
First of all I take a head of cabbage, cut and put it into a frying-pan. Then I take carrot and peel it. By the way I have a very comfortable grater at home. I like to use it when I make my pies. I usually grate carrot, onion using my favourite grater. I put grated carrot into the frying-pan, then I salt cabbage and carrot to my taste, mix them and add some water. Then I stew these vegetables in the frying-pan. I usually buy some paste for my pies.
I cut up paste, roll it and make small pies. Then I put pies with stewed cabbage into the oven. It takes twenty minutes
to bake them. My parents and friends like to eat my pies. I advise you to make such pies and I hope that you'll like them too.
At the age of 6 or 7 all boys and girls go to school. I go to school too. The number of my school is 338. Our school is large and light. It is neither old nor new. There is a schoolyard around it. It is a pity, but there are no flowers near the school. You can see a sportsground behind the school. Sometimes we have physical training lessons there.
Our school has got three floors. There is a workshop on the ground floor. It is big. There are all kinds of tools and machines there. The boys of our school have a wood-work room too. They learn to make things of wood in this room. There is a room for manual work for girls. It is not on the ground floor, it is on the second floor.
There are some computer classes, and pupils like such school subjects as Computing.
If you enter the school and go to the left you see a dining-room. Here pupils and teachers have their breakfast and dinner.
The dining-room is a clean one. There are many nice pictures on the walls.
There is a gymnasium near the dining-room. All pupils like to go there, because they like physical training lessons.
Our school has got a library. It is on the ground floor too. There are a lot of interesting new and old books in it. But our library has no reading-room.
Our school has got many classrooms. We have got two English classrooms. History, Geography and Physics classrooms and others. They are big and light and each of them has got two large windows with green curtains, flowers on the window-sills, a bookcase near the door, the blackboard on the wall.
The teacher's table with many books on it is situated not far from the blackboard.
There are twenty desks and some comfortable chairs in the classrooms.
There is a TV set in each classroom. Sometimes it is used during the lessons.
There is a school hall on the second floor where meetings and conferences take place.
We organize concerts, parties when we celebrate our holidays. Pupils of our school sing songs and dance modern and folk dances and perform some plays there. The last bell is organized at our school in a proper way. It is a very remarkable day in the life of all the pupils. The pupils of the first form and the pupils of the eleventh one are preparing for this day with great pleasure.
The teachers' room is on the second floor. There are tables and chairs for teachers, a TV set and a telephone there. It is a comfortable and cosy room and the teachers like to spend their free time in it. I like my school. I go there and get knowledge.
THE CINEMA
The Lumiere brothers made their first film in 1895. This film was demonstrated in one famous cafe in Paris.
The first films were silent and short, but they were popular among people.
The USA was the leader in the production of films. The first sound film appeared in 1927. Soon coloured films appeared.
Cinematography has a long history in our country too.
Pioneers of the Russian cinema were Protozanov, Gardin, later Pudovkin and Dovzhenko. At that time films were silent and black-and-white.
Later films became sound and colourful.
Some years ago it was popular to go to the cinemas in Moscow. It was difficult to buy a ticket for a good film and we had to stand in a queue for hours.
But now we prefer to stay at home and watch TV and video films.
In England the cinema is usually called "the pictures". The prices of cinema seats in London are high. In the past cinemas were more popular than they are now. It is interesting that in some towns in Britain the cinemas are closed on Sundays.
I like to see documentary films best of all. Some of them are rather interesting, because they tell us the truth about the history of our country.
I like to see films about school life. As I study at school, such films are connected with me. It is interesting to see films bout school life in England, France, Spain and in the USA. It is interesting to know about foreign education and to see their schools.
My favourite Russian film is "Moscow doesn't believe in tears". It is the true story about the girl. She leaves her village for Moscow. This film tells us about her difficulties, about her wish to live in the capital, about her friends. I am sure that it is a kind and a clever film.
THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY
There are many interesting galleries in our country. The Tretyakov Gallery is one
of the famous and well-known picture galleries in our country and all over the world.
The State Tretyakov Gallery is situated in a Russian-looking building in the centre of Moscow. This gallery is named after its founder Peter Tretyakov. He began to collect Russian paintings in 1856. He wanted these paintings to be seen by people.
This gallery and collections of paintings were nationalized in 1918.
The first works in Tretyakov's collection were the paintings of the "Pere-dvizhniki". The collector bought paintings "Morning in a Pine Wood" by Shish-kin and "Ivan Tsarevich on the Grey Wolf "by Vasnetsov.
The gallery has got many halls. There are halls devoted to the great Russian painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. We can see pictures by such painters as Serov, Repin, Ivanov, Levitan and others. You can see the landscapes "After Rain" and "Golden Autumn". These paintings by Levitan are beautiful. I like to see his paintings because he is one of my favourite artists. I compare his painting "Golden Autumn" with the poem "Autumn" by Pushkin.
There are some paintings by Repin in the Tretyakov Gallery. His paintings are connected with the history of our country. For example, his painting "Ivan Grozny Murders His Son Ivan". There are some portraits of Lev Tolstoy and a self-portrait of Repin in this hall.
I like the painting "Trinity" by Andrei Rublyov. This work reflects the life and soul of the Russian people.
This gallery has many new exhibits now. You can see works of the painters of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century there. I like works by Gerasimov. I think that he is a very talented painter.
BOOKS IN OUR LIFE
Books... I think that we can't live without them.
I consider that books are with us during all our life. When I was a child my parents read them to me. I was pleased to listen to the stories and tales. I learned a lot of interesting things from books. I remember, I liked thick books.
Later I could read myself. I like to read books about animals, nature and children.
I like to get presents on my birthday. I am happy if it is a book. It doesn't matter what kind of book it is. I like to read almost all books. If I have got time I like to spend it with my favourite book. When I was fifteen I was fond of reading too.
But I preferred to read books about travels. I travelled with the heroes of the stories. I saw many interesting places and learned a lot of important facts about other countries and people.
Now I like to read books on science. You can learn many things from books. I am sure that books play a very important role in my life.
Our family has got many books. All the members of our family buy books and read them. My mother says that books help us in self-education.
In ancient times books were written by hand. It was difficult to write a book with a pen. Then printing came into our life. Printing played an important role in the development of literature and culture.
Now there are a lot of books in the shops, there are many books in our flats. But it is difficult to buy all books which we want to read. That's why we get books in public libraries.
There are some problems in our life and sometimes it is difficult to solve them. I think that books can help us. Last year I read a very interesting book "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser. This novel was published at the beginning of the 20th century. The novel describes the tragic fate of a boy and a girl, Clyde and Roberta by name. It is a sad story. This novel was written many years ago, but it is popular nowadays. Books must be our friends during all our life.