Match the words in the text with the definitions below.

a) It is a governmental forum of leading advanced economies in the world.

b) Gross domestic product.

c) The lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia. Its members are referred to as deputies.

d) A set of fundamental principles according to which a state or other organization is governed.

f) The state on the Eurasian continent that existed between 1922 and 1991.

g) This territory stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the national borders of Mongolia and China.

Prepare a report about the political structure of the Russian Federation (not less then 50 words). Use additional sources of information.

7. Make up the plan of the text and retell it according to the plan (not less then 100 words).

The Great Patriotic War

The siege of Leningrad

The outbreak of the Second World War found the Soviet Union unprepared for the conflict ahead. Having signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939, Hitler’s invasion of June 1941 caught the USSR by surprise. By the end of the year, the Germans had seized most of the Soviet Union’s western territory and surrounded Leningrad.

Leningrad’s horrific siege was one of the most lethal in world history. It lasted for 900 days, from September 1941 to January 1944. The city’s civilian population of almost three million refused to surrender, even though they were completely surrounded. By the first winter of the siege there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity and very little food. Somehow, the city survived, its heroic resistance summed up in the motto: “Troy fell, Rome fell, Leningrad did not fall”.

Defending the capital

Meanwhile the Germans advanced as far as Moscow, reaching the outskirts by early December 1941. Hundreds of young recruits were preparing to defend the capital. But none could imagine that before going to battle they would march on Red Square in front of Joseph Stalin and top Communist Party officials. Stalin held a military parade on Red Square on November 7 to mark the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. The troops left Red Square to head straight to the frontline. The parade had a tremendous impact on morale in Moscow and throughout the Soviet Union. The capital never surrendered.

The siege of Stalingrad

Stalingrad (now Volgograd) was a major industrial centre on the Volga. Control over it opened the way to the vital Caucasus oil fields. The city’s very name drove Hitler’s obsession with it. Stalin’s order to the troops was: “Not One Step Back”. The horror of Stalingrad lasted for 199 days, costing an estimated 1.5 million lives from both sides. One building that the Germans failed to take was the so-called “Pavlov’s House”. In September 1942, a Soviet platoon led by Yakov Pavlov turned an apartment block in the city centre into an impenetrable fortress.

The cost of victory

… in May… 1945… Berlin finally fell.

The famous photo of two Soviet soldiers unfurling a red flag over the Reichstag became an iconic image of World War II. It was a symbol of the USSR’s triumph… the victory that came at a colossal cost.

The number of Soviet deaths was at first grossly distorted – the figure Stalin gave in 1946 was seven million. The USSR’s losses are now estimated at about 26.6 million. In the USSR the end of the war was considered to be May 9, 1945. The date has become a national holiday – Victory Day – and is commemorated in a grand military parade on Red Square.

· GRAMMAR FOCUS

Plural form of nouns

Существительные в английском языке, как и в русском, могут стоять в форме единственного или множественного числа.

Единственное число (singular) обозначает один предмет:

cup, gun, bubble

Множественное число (plural) обозначает два и более предмета:

three cups, two guns, thousands of bubbles

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