Английский язык. Александрова Г.А. - 33 стр.

The Hermitage Palace and the Winter Palace, the homes of the tsars were
equal to any in Europe.
       During the Great Patriotic war the city suffered a great deal. The
German armies laid siege to it in 1941, and for 900 days the city was cut
off from the rest of the country. The people suffered from malnutrition,
lack of water and desease. They ate leather belts, cat meat was considered
a delicacy. No food could be brought in the city, and 600 000 people died
from starvation.
       In this period of incredible trials and tribulations, there was only
one little narrow passage for escape and the transport of food to the popu-
lation and supplies to the factories and troops. This passage, laid across
ice-bound Lake Ladoga, was called the Road of Life. Despite all hard-
ships and handicaps, work went on in the bleeding and starving city with-
out a hitch. Women replaced their husbands, fathers and brothers at the
machines. Their exploit will indeed never be forgotten.
       Teams were set up in the city to pick up and help the feeble in the
streets to get to their homes, fetch water, chop wood. In two winter months
of 1942 they picked some 12 000 emaciated people, unable to make an-
other step. In that bitterly cold winter the city opened 162 public heating
centres with wardrobes, chairs and tables being chopped up and fed to the
fire. But not a single tree was felled: the Leningraders love their city, their
public gardens. Daily shelling and air raids destroyed parts of the city.
Thousands of people were killed. The enemy dropped some 5.000 high
explosive and 100.000 incendiary bombs on the city and showered it with
150.000 shells. World War II brought vast destruction and the death of
millions of Russian people, but the losses sustained by Leningrad at the
hands of the fascist invaders were particularly great. About 200.000 Len-
ingraders volunteered for the Home Guard, including 40.000 women, young
and old. Here we had display of heroism, the type of heroism the world
had seldom seen. There is the mass grave of about 700.000 people who
had fallen during the siege. It is at one and the same time, a monument of
honour to heroes who defended to the last their Motherland.
       Rebuilding took years. And now St. Petersburg is an important in-
dustrial, cultural and educational centre. St. Petersburg is a wonderful city:
at every turn there is something to catch your eye. The Winter Palace, the
Hermitage, the Russian Museum, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Peter-and-Paul

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