In England and Wales compulsory school begins at the age of five, but before that age children can go to a nursery school. School is compulsory till the children are 16 years old. The school year is divided into three terms with the intervals between them during Christmas and Easter holidays lasting about two weeks each and summer holiday which is usually six weeks long. All kinds of out-of-class activities are part of school life in Britain.

Sport is very important in our life. It is popular among young and old people. Many people do morning exercises, jog in the morning and train themselves in clubs, in different sections and take part in sport competitions. Other people like sports too, but they only watch sports games, listen to sports news. They prefer reading interesting stories about sportsmen. But they don't go in for sports. Physical training is an important subject at school. Boys and girls play volley-ball and basketball at the lessons. There is the sports ground near our school and schoolchildren go in for sports in the open air. A lot of different competition are held at schools, a great number of pupils take part in them. All participants try to get good results and become winners. Sport helps people to keep in good health. If you go in for sports you have good health and don't catch cold. Children and grown-ups must take care of their health and do morning exercises regularly. There are some popular kinds of sports in our country: football, volley ball, hockey, gymnastics, skiing, skating. Athletics is one of the most popular kinds of sports. It includes such kinds of sports as: running, jumping and others. Everybody may choose the sport he (or she) is interested in. There are summer and winter sports. My favourite sport is swimming. I go to the swimming-pool twice a week, but I prefer to rest by the lake or the river and swim there. My friend Kostya goes in for boxing. He is a good boxer and he is a brave and courageous boy. His hobby helps him in his every day life.

HOLIDAYS IN GREAT BRITAIN 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. Public holidays in Britain are called bank holidays, because the banks as well as most of the offices and shops are closed. The most popular holiday is Christmas. Every year the people of Norway give the city of London a present. It's a big Christmas tree and it stands in Trafalgar Square. Central streets are beautifully decorated. Before Christmas, groups of singers go from house to house. They collect money for charity and sing carols, traditional Christmas songs. Many churches hold a carol service on the Sunday before Christmas. The fun starts the night before, on the 24th of December. Traditionally this is the day when people decorate their trees. Children hang stockings at the end of their beds, hoping that Father Christmas will come down the chimney during the night and fill them with toys and sweets. Christmas is a family holiday. Relatives usually meet for the big Christmas dinner of turkey and Christmas pudding. And everyone gives and receives presents. The 26th of December, Boxing Day, is an extra holiday after Christmas Day. This is the time to visit friends and relatives or perhaps sit at home and watch football. New Year's Day is less popular in Britain than Christmas. But in Scotland, Hogmanay is the biggest festival of the year. Besides public holidays there are some special festivals in Great Britain. One of them takes place on the 5th of November. On that day, in 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill King James I. He didn't succeed. The King's men found the bomb, took Guy Fawkes to the Tower and cut off his head. Since that day the British celebrate the 5th of November. They burn a dummy, made of straw and old clothes, on a bonfire and let off fireworks. This dummy is called a "guy" (like Guy Fawkes) and children can often be seen in the streets before the 5th of November saying, "Penny for the guy." If they collect enough money they can buy some fireworks. There are also smaller, local festivals in Britain.

SPORTS IN GREAT BRITAIN 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. It is often played in schools, colleges, universities and by club teams all over the country. Summer isn't summer without cricket. To many Englishmen cricket is both a game and a standard of behaviour. When they consider anything unfair, they sometimes say: "That isn't cricket." But as almost everywhere else in the world, the game which attracts the greatest attention is Association football, or soccer. Every Saturday from late August till the beginning of May, large crowds of people support their favourite sides in football grounds. True fans will travel from one end of the country to the other to see their team play. There are plenty of professional and amateur soccer clubs all over Britain. International football matches and the Cup Finals take place at Wembley. Rugby football is also very popular, but it is played mainly by amateurs. Next to football, the chief spectator sport in British life is horse-racing. A lot of people are interested in the races and risk money on the horse which they think will win. The Derby is perhaps the most famous single sporting event in the whole world. Britain is also famous for motor-car racing, dog-racing, boat-racing, and even races for donkeys. The famous boat-race between the teams of Oxford and Cambridge attracts large crowds of people. A great number of people play and watch tennis. Tennis tournaments at Wimbledon are known all over the world. The innumerable tennis courts of Britain are occupied by people between the ages of 16 and 60 who show every degree of skill — from practically helpless to the extremely able. The British also like to play golf, baseball, hockey, grass-hockey. Various forms of athletics, such as running, jumping, swimming, boxing are also popular. You can sometimes hear that there are no winter sports in England. Of course the English weather is not always cold enough to ski, skate, or toboggan, but winter is a good season for hunting and fishing. Indeed, sport in one form or another is an essential part of daily life in Britain.

The mass media play an important part in our lives. Newspapers, radio and especially TV inform us of what is going on in this world and give us wonderful possibilities for education and entertainment. They also influence the way we see the world and shape our views. The main source of news for millions of people is television. People like TV news because they can see everything with their own eyes. And that's an important advantage. Seeing, as we know, is believing. Besides, it's much more difficult for politicians to lie in front of the cameras than on the pages of newspapers. It's the window on the world which gives us an opportunity to "travel" all over the world, to "meet" different people and learn about their customs and traditions . It has the power to educate and broaden our minds. It helps us to relax after a hard day's work and escape from reality. There's always a great variety of programmes on TV: news and sports programmes, talk shows and TV games, documentaries and feature films, concerts and theatre performances... Of course, not all programmes are good. But many are made in good taste and with great professional skill. Some people argue that television is a terrible waste of time. It makes us lazier. We stay at home instead of going out. We read less. We think less. We even talk less. It's true that some TV addicts spend hours in front of the "box" watching whatever's on — from second-rate Mexican soap operas to silly commercials. The trick is to learn to control television and use it intelligently. The ideal is to turn on the TV-set only when there's a really interesting programme. Violence on TV is another problem that worries people. As George Mikes once said, TV teaches us "how to kill, to rob, to shoot and to poison." But the same can be said about computer games and many films and books.

ENGLISH TODAY The modern world is becoming smaller all the time. Every day distances between different countries seem less. For this reason it's becoming more and more important to know different languages, especially English. One billion people speak English today. That's about 20% of the world's population. 400 million people speak English as their first language. For the other 600 million people it's either a second language or a foreign language. English is the first language in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand. It is one of the official languages in Canada, the Irish Republic and the Republic of South Africa. As a second language English is spoken in more than 60 countries. It is used by the government, businessmen and universities. English is the language of politics and diplomacy, science and technology, business and trade, sport and pop music. 80% of all information in the world's computers is in English. 75% of the world's letters and faxes are in English. 60% of all international telephone calls are made in English. More than 60% of all scientific journals are written in English. To know English today is absolutely necessary for every educated person, for every good specialist. Learning a language is not an easy thing. It's a long and slow process that takes a lot of time and patience. But it's a must. English is taught throughout the world and a lot of people speak it quite well. In our country English is very popular: it is studied at schools (sometimes even at nursery schools), colleges and universities. Everyone will speak English soon — I'm sure of it. We all need to understand each other. To do that we need an international language, and that's English.

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. The first holiday of the year is New Year's Day. People see the new year in at midnight on the 31st of December. They greet the new year with champagne and listen to the Kremlin chimes beating 12 o'clock. There are lots of New Year traditions in Russia. In every home there is a New Year tree glittering with coloured lights and decorations. Children always wait for Father Frost to come and give them a present. Many people consider New Year's Day to be a family holiday. But the young prefer to have New Year parties of their own. A renewed holiday in our country is Christmas. It is celebrated on the 7th of January. It's a religious holiday and a lot of people go to church services on that day. On the 8th of March we celebrate Women's Day when men are supposed to do everything about the house, cook all the meals and give women flowers. The greatest national holiday in our country is Victory Day. On the 9th of May, 1945, our army completely defeated the German fascists and the Great Patriotic War ended. We'll never forget our grandfathers and grandmothers who died to defend our Motherland. We honour their memory with a minute of silence and put flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Independence Day is a new holiday in our country. On the 12th of June, 1992, the first President of Russia was elected. We also celebrate Day of the Defender of Motherland on the 23d of February, Easter, Day of Knowledge and lots of professional holidays which are not public holidays and banks, offices and schools do not close.

Moscow is the capital of Russia, its political, economic, commercial and cultural centre. It was founded 8 centuries ago in 1147 by Yuri Dolgoruky. Now Moscow is one of the largest cities in Europe. Its total area is about nine hundred square kilometres. The population of the city is over 9 million. Moscow is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The heart of Moscow is Red Square. It has more historic associations than any other place in Moscow. The Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral (Vasily Blazheny) are masterpieces of ancient Russian architecture. The main Kremlin tower, the Spasskaya Tower, has become the symbol of the country. On the territory of the Kremlin you can see old cathedrals, the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great, the Tzar-Cannon and the Tzar-Bell, the biggest cannon and bell in the world. St Basil's Cathedral was built in the middle of the16th century in memory of the victory over Kazan. There are a lot of beautiful palaces, old mansions, cathedrals, churches and monuments in Moscow There are more than 100 museums in Moscow. The largest museums are the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the State Tretyakov Gallery. Other unique museums in Moscow include the All-Russia Museum of Folk Arts, the Andrei Rublev Museum of Early Russian Art, Alexei Bakhrushin Theatre Museum, Mikhail Glinka Museum of Musical Culture and many others. Moscow is famous for its theatres. The best-known of them is the Bolshoi Opera House. Drama theatres and studios are also very popular. Moscow is a city of students. There are over 100 higher educational institutions in it. Moscow is the seat of the Russian Parliament (the Duma) and the centre of political life of the country.

The Russian Federation is the largest country in the world. It occupies about one-seventh of the earth's surface. It covers the eastern part of Europe and the northern part of Asia. Its total area is about 17 million square kilometers. The country is washed by 12 seas of 3 oceans: the Pacific, the Arctic and the Atlantic. In the south Russia borders on China, Mongolia, Korea, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the west it borders on Norway, Finland, the Baltic States, Byelorussia, the Ukraine. We have steppes in the south, plains and forests in the midland, tundra and taiga in the north, highlands and deserts in the east. There are two great plains in Russia: the Great Russian Plain and the West Siberian Lowland. There are several mountain chains on the territory of the country: the Urals, the Caucasus, the Altai and others. The largest mountain chain, the Urals, separates Europe from Asia. There are over two million rivers in Russia. Europe's biggest river is the Volga it flows into the Caspian Sea. The main Siberian rivers are the Ob, the Yenisei and the Lena. Russia is rich in beautiful lakes. The world's deepest lake (1,600 metres) is Lake Baikal. Russia has one-sixth of the world's forests. They are concentrated in the European north of the country, in Siberia and in the Far East. On the vast territory of the country there are various types of climate, from arctic in the north to subtropical in the south. In the middle of the country the climate is temperate and continental. Russia is very rich in oil, coal, iron ore, natural gas, copper, nickel and other mineral resources. Russia is a parliamentary republic. The Head of State is the President. The legislative powers are exercised by the Duma. The capital of Russia is Moscow. It's its largest political, scientific, cultural and industrial centre. It's one of the oldest Russian cities.