Контрольная работа My Native Town Saratov
My Native Town Saratov
Once years ago our ship called at Colombo, the port of Sri Lanka, and we had a chance to go sightseeing and visit the Botanical Gardens with its exotic trees and flowers.
There was a special lane with trees planted by honourable guests of the country: kings, presidents, prominent politicians.
The guide took us to a large tree planted by the last Russian Tsar Nicolas II in 1891. Then we saw a group of about dozen a local people standing around a not so tall tree. The plaque on it read: "The first world's cosmonaut Yury Gagarin planted this tree December 9, 1961".
I put down its Latin name - Saraca Thaipingensis -and asked a young couple whether they knew where Gagarin had landed after his space flight.
"In Moscow," they replied.
I could not help smiling and corrected them: "Yury landed on the left bank of the Volga river near Saratov."
By their eyes it was clear that they were at sea with Russian geography.
But I could not blame Sri Lankan people, as a great number of Russians, especially the younger generation, can not tell whether Saratov is situated north or south of Volgograd or Ulyanovsk, and on what bank of the biggest river in Europe which Russians call Mother Volga, Gagarin landed.
Saratov was founded in 1590 as a stronghold against the forays of nomads. The buildings were wooden and in 1693 Saratov suffered the same fate as London in 1666 - a great fire demolished the settlement, also its wooden Trinity Church.
The inhabitants began to reconstruct the town and built a new Trinity Church, using stones and bricks in 1695.
According to the chronicle, Tsar Peter the Great visited Saratov in the summer of the same year sailing along the Volga to Azov. In 1712 another big fire broke out in the town and demolished a lot of houses; but the Trinity Church, the main church of Saratov, survived the disaster.
Later, bricklayers built another storey and made some additional annexes to the Cathedral.
Peter the Great visited Saratov for the second time for negotiations with Kalmyk Khan, Ayuka. The event took place in June 1722. The tsar was pleased to see the beautiful Cathedral and was also satisfied with the negotiations with the Khan.
After the last fire the town fathers decided to rebuild the place according to a new plan: the streets must be very wide and laid in straight lines and should also be crossed by wide and straight avenues.
If you look at the centre of Saratov's map you can compare the plan of the town with that of Manhattan. Also green park squares were laid out; so Saratov is a very green place and resembles London.
The famous park in the centre of the town is called Lipky because of the number of linden trees planted there in 1885.
For a long time Saratov was called the capital of the Volga Region; it used to be the centre of trade and business. Already in the second half of the 17th century fishing began to develop and get stronger. A great many tons of wonderful fish and caviar were sent from here to various places in Russia.
It is not by chance that the emblem of Saratov is a shield with three sterlets on a blue field - a kind of the symbol of the region's rich fisheries.
In the middle of the 18th century the development of the town was greatly helped by the beginning of extraction of salt from Elton Lake.
The next branch of business peculiar to Saratov is the grain trade. It is dated from the end of the 18th century. A great part in the life of the town and the region was played by the German settlers invited by Catherine II. They began to play the leading role in the flour-grinding industry of the region.
The Germans lived in the so-called German village; later their places of residence became the centre of Saratov and the street was called Nemetskaya or German Street.
In the Soviet years the street was renamed after Kirov, a famous Communist revolutionary.
Saratov was famous as a big transshipping point: grains, fish, salt, manufactured goods were sent to provinces and both capitals. It is natural that fairs became very popular in Saratov.
In 1882 the first trade exchange was organised in the town. Banks began to function.
New iron forging, machine-building and textile industries appeared. Saratov took first place among the five provinces of the Middle and the Lower Volga.
Saratov also became one of the biggest ports on the Volga. The first steamship appeared on the Volga in 1846 and its name was Volga. The next year two more cargo vessels started sailing on the river. Their names were Samson and Hercules. They had a very slow speed and moved only in the day time.
Two big steamship companies, Mercury and Samolet, were organised in 1849 and 1854. Both were the owners of cargo and passenger ships. The latter had cabins for passengers of first, second and third class.
Steamships ousted the famous barge haulers.
By 1880 more than 200 cargo and passenger ships were sailing along the Mother Volga. In summer navigation, the right bank of the river near Saratov turned into a 6-mile-long berth, serving simultaneously as market place and a promenade for thousands of strolling people.
Saratov also became one of the most cultural places along the Volga, among other towns. In 1885, an Arts Museum was opened in Saratov, the first museum for
the rank and file people in Russia. The famous Tretyakov Gallery was organised only in 1892 and the St. Petersburg Russian Museum opened its doors for the public in 1897. The founder of Saratov Museum was an artist Alexey Bogomolov, the grandson of the Russian revolutionary and enlightener Alexandre Radishev.
Residents of Saratov were fond of singing folk songs and chastooshkas (humorous two or four-line folk verses sung in a lively manner) to the accompaniment of the Saratovskaya concertina with three little bells.
People were also interested in classical music. In 1875 the first musical school was organised; it was attached to a branch of the Russian Musical Society. Twenty years later the school turned into a Musical College and later in 1912 into a Conservatory. It was the third Russian higher musical institution after the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories.
At the beginning of the 19th century two drama theatres were organised in Saratov. Both were destroyed by fire as they were made of wood. The first brick theatre was constructed in 1865. Plays by A. Ostrovsky, N. Gogol, and A. Chekhov were performed there. Also dramas and comedies by W. Shakespeare were very popular among local audiences.
In 1890 an opera company was organised and the troupe performed many classical operas by famous Russian composers: Glinka, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and others.
Famous operas singers liked to come to Saratov and sing for the exacting audiences. Among those singers were L. Sobinov, F. Shalyapin, and A. Nezhdanova.
In 1909 a university was organised. At first there was only medical faculty. Later there appeared many others - geology, geography, chemistry, physics and mathematics and others.
Currently there are dozens of technical colleges and institutions of higher education in Saratov. A good number of well-known people of Russia came from Saratov: A. Radishev - an enlightener and revolutionary; N. Chernyshevsky - a democrat and writer; P. Yablochkov - an inventor of the electrical lamp in Russia; K. Fedin - a well-known Russian writer; P. Stolypin, who was the governor of Saratov in 1905-1906, then Interior Minister and Prime-Minister of Russia. He was the organiser of the agrar reform which failed. For his cruel methods and policy in implementing the reform, he was criticised by Russian writers L. Tolstoy and V. Korolenko.
Well-known cinema and drama actors who lived or studied in Saratov became famous all over the country: B. Andreev, 0. Yankovsky, G. Itskina, and O. Tabakov, who is now the director of the world famous Moscow Drama Theatre named after A. Chekhov.
Perestroika experiments brought a lot of changes in the life of the Volga city and brought to power some not very honest people. For eight years the residents of Saratov endured the rule of the infamous governor Dimitry Ayatskov, who became the talk of the town for his extravagance and misconduct.
Saratov prosecutors charged him with the abuse of office in an investigation into the possible misappropriation of regional funds. All charges were proved. His new young wife also became a crook. With the help of her husband she illegally appropriated a beautiful country palace. Later it was taken away from her by the state.
His two terms in office were gained by illegally using so-called administrative sources and power. D. Ayatskov wanted to run for a third term, but was fired by President V. Putin.
The most famous citizen of Saratov was Yury Gagarin. He was not a native of the town, but once said: "Saratov is my second mother-land".
He studied in Saratov Industrial College during 1951— 1955 and at the same time learned to fly in the local Aeroclub. After finishing college he was enrolled in the army and became a military pilot; then in 1961 be was launched into space and became the first world cosmonaut. As fate willed, Yury Gagarin landed on Saratov soil on the left bank of the Volga a few kilometers from Saratov. The landing spot has become a place of pilgrimage.
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