Read the text to find out what the towns mentioned in the text below are famous for

TEXT B

NATURE

B) Find sentences in the text describing the beauty of our nature in winter.

A) Skim the following text, trying to understand what it is about. Time your reading. It is good if you can read it for five minutes (70 words per minute).

TEXT A

UNIT 2

The nature of the Murmansk region is unique for northwest of Russia and is unusual to Scandinavia. Winds of the Polar seas and Northern Asia fight for possession of it. The shrill sunrises, sunsets turbulent with incredible colors and heavens shining with a beauty in days of a victory of one of them are the traces of their severe battles.

You cannot find such pure colors above your head, such great variety of clouds as here anywhere else.

When the ice winds cease torturing our beautiful land, it gets warm and is filled with aromas of its own forests, flowers, lakes and bogs. The animals, birds and people go out from their shelters and warm up under the sparkling Arctic sun.

Majestic mountains, crystal rivers and lakes, primeval forests and rough seas – all is filled with life. The flora reminds of a lace. The rocks, stones, branches of trees, surface of bogs and tundra, walls of old houses are covered with a finest pattern of epiphytic lichens and mosses.

The pattern of ice and hoarfrost on trees, windows and coastal rocks, telegraphic wires, rigging of ships in port competes with plants in the Art of Pattern.

The mighty Golfstream, carrying its waters from the Caribbean Sea, from the shores of Mexico, tries to warm up our cold seas with all its might. There are no hard frosts on the Kola Peninsula, which is a result of its warm influence.

The stable blanket of snow covers the Kola land from October till May, but it happens that the snow falls down from heavens both in June and in August.

But nevertheless – in the summer time one can quite often bathe in the lakes both day and night, as the sun shines round-the-clock during a polar day.

It is very beautiful in the North at the time, but nevertheless, the favourite time of all northerners, both people and animals is August – September, when the woods and tundra are covered with a carpet of berries and mushrooms.

In one word, our land is beautiful and filled with miracles – as well as the rough seas washing it, and it is simply impossible not to love it!

NOTES:

possession	обладание
the shrill sunrises, sunsets turbulent with incredible colors and heavens shining with beauty	пронзительные восходы, бушующие невероятными красками закаты и сияющие красотой небеса
the ice winds cease torturing	ледяные ветры перестают терзать
majestic mountains	величественные горы
primeval forests	дремучие леса
a finest pattern of epiphytic lichens and mosses	мельчайший узор эпифитных лишайников и мхов
rigging of ships	оснастка кораблей
the Art of Pattern	искусство узорочья
the mighty Golfstream	могучий Гольфстрим
with all its might	всеми силами
the stable blanket of snow	снежное полотно

Дата добавления: 2015-06-26