Текст на английском про Красную площадь

Red Square is in the centre of Moscow. It is very big and very old. Many tourists come here every day.

There are famous buildings on Red Square. The Kremlin is on one side. It has got red walls and tall towers.

Saint Basil's Cathedral is very colourful. It has got a lot of domes. It looks like a cake!

GUM is a big old shop. People like walking there and eating ice cream.

In winter there is a skating rink on the square. I like Red Square very much.

Last winter my cousin Lena came to Moscow from Omsk. It was her first visit, so on Saturday morning we went to Red Square. It was snowing, and the square looked like a picture from a fairy tale.

First we walked along the Kremlin wall and looked at the Spasskaya Tower. Its clock is the most famous in Russia. When we were standing under it, it started to chime.

Then we visited Saint Basil's Cathedral. From the outside it is bright and cheerful, but inside it is darker and smaller than we expected. There are narrow corridors and lots of old paintings on the walls.

After that we were very cold, so we went to GUM. We drank hot chocolate and bought some ice cream, because in GUM it tastes better than anywhere else!

In the evening we went skating on the rink. Next summer Lena is going to come again, and we are going to visit the Kremlin museums.

Red Square is the main square of Moscow and one of the most recognisable places in the world. It appeared at the end of the fifteenth century, when a market grew up outside the walls of the Kremlin. In old Russian the word 'krasnaya' meant 'beautiful', so the name originally had nothing to do with the colour red.

The most famous building on the square is Saint Basil's Cathedral, which was built in the 1550s by order of Ivan the Terrible. According to a well-known legend, the tsar ordered the architects to be blinded so that they could never create anything as beautiful again. However, historians believe that this story is not true.

On the opposite side stands GUM, a large shopping centre which was opened in 1893. Its glass roof was a real technical achievement at that time. The square is also home to the State Historical Museum, a red-brick building where you can learn about the history of the country.

Since 1990 Red Square and the Kremlin have been on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Every year the square hosts major celebrations, and on New Year's Eve thousands of people gather here to hear the chimes of the Spasskaya Tower.

I have been to Red Square many times, but I still stop and look around every time. If you visit Moscow, come here in the early morning, when it is almost empty.

Some places are simply beautiful; others are beautiful and, at the same time, saturated with history. Red Square clearly belongs to the second group. Standing on its cobblestones, one is surrounded by five centuries of Russian architecture, each building reflecting the tastes and ambitions of a different age.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the square is how little its buildings have in common. The fortress walls of the Kremlin were designed by Italian masters in the late fifteenth century; Saint Basil's Cathedral, with its swirling, multicoloured domes, belongs to an entirely different tradition; and the nineteenth-century Historical Museum and GUM imitate old Russian styles while using the technology of their own time. Remarkably, the result feels not chaotic but harmonious.

The square has also witnessed many of the most significant moments in the country's history. Coronation processions, religious festivals, fairs and military parades have all taken place here. The monument to Minin and Pozharsky, which commemorates the liberation of Moscow in 1612, reminds visitors that ordinary citizens have played their part in that history too.

Today, however, the square is above all a public space. Tourists take selfies, children skate on the winter rink and couples walk hand in hand on summer evenings. Some people regret that commerce and entertainment have taken over such a symbolic place, but I would argue that a square is meant to be lived in rather than merely admired.

Were I to show a foreign friend just one place in Russia, I would choose Red Square without hesitation, because nowhere else does the country's long and complicated story fit into such a small space.