Lesson 3. The Russian Federation / Российская Федерация
Exercise 1: Read and translate the text, learn the active vocabulary:
The Russian Federation is my Homeland. It is the largest country in the world. It occupies about 1/7 (one-seventh) of the Earth surface. The country is situated in Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia. Its total area is over 17 million square kilometres.
Our land is washed by 12 seas, most of which are the seas of three oceans: the Arctic, the Atlantic and the Pacific. In the south and in the west the country borders on fourteen countries. It also has a sea-border with the USA.
There are no countries in the world where such a great variety of flora and fauna can be found as in our land. Our country has numerous forests, plains and steppes, taiga and tundra, highlands and deserts. There are two great plains in Russia: the Great Russian Plain and the West Siberian Lowland. The highest mountains in our land are the Altai, the Urals and the Caucasus. The largest mountain chain, the Urals, separates Europe from Asia.
There are over two thousand rivers in the Russian Federation. The longest of them are the Volga, the Ob', the Yenisei, the Lena and the Amur. Our land is also rich in lakes with the deepest lake in the world, the Baikal, included. It is much smaller than the Baltic Sea, but there is much more water in it than in the Baltic Sea. The water in the lake is so clear that if you look down you can count the stones on the bottom.
On the Russian territory there are 11 time zones. The climate conditions are rather different: from arctic and moderate to continental and subtropical. Our country is one of the richest in natural resources countries in the world: oil, natural gas, coal, different ores, ferrous and non-ferrous metals and other minerals.
The Russian Federation is a multinational state. It comprises many national districts, several autonomous republics and regions. The population of the country is about 140 million people.
Moscow is the capital of our Homeland. It is the largest political, scientific, cultural and industrial center of the country and one of the most beautiful cities on the globe. Russian is the official language of the state. The national symbols of the Russian Federation are a white-blue-red banner and a double-headed eagle.
At present, the political and economic situation in the country is rather complicated. There are a lot of problems in the national economy of the Russian Federation. The industrial production is decreasing. The prices are constantly rising, the rate of inflation is very high. People are losing their jobs because many factories and plants are going bankrupt.
The Russian Federation is a constitutional republic headed by the President. The country government consists of three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. The President controls only the executive branch of power -the government, but not the Supreme Court and Federal Assembly.
The legislative power belongs to the Federal Assembly comprising two chambers: the Council of Federation (upper Chamber) and the State Duma (lower Chamber). Each chamber is headed by the Speaker. The executive power belongs to the government (the Cabinet of Ministers) headed by the Prime Minister. The judicial power belongs to the system of Courts comprising the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and federal | courts. Our country has a multiparty system.
The foreign policy of the Russian Federation is that of international cooperation, peace and friendship with all nations irrespective of their political and social systems.