Текст на английском про Санкт-Петербург

Saint Petersburg is a big city in Russia. It is very old and very beautiful.

The city is on the river Neva. There are a lot of bridges and canals.

There are many museums in Saint Petersburg. The Hermitage is a very famous museum. It has got a lot of beautiful pictures.

In summer the nights are white. It is not dark at night, and people walk in the streets.

My aunt lives in Saint Petersburg. I like visiting her in the summer holidays.

Last May my class went to Saint Petersburg for a weekend. We travelled by fast train from Moscow, and the journey took only four hours.

On the first day we walked along Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of the city. Then we visited the Hermitage. It is one of the biggest museums in the world, so we saw only a small part of it. My favourite thing was the golden Peacock Clock.

In the evening we took a boat trip along the canals. It was cold and windy, but the views were amazing.

On Sunday it was raining, but nobody was sad, because we went to Peterhof and saw its famous fountains. They were even more beautiful than in the pictures!

I am going to come back in June to see the white nights.

Saint Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 on the marshy banks of the river Neva. The tsar wanted Russia to have a port on the Baltic Sea and a modern capital that looked towards Europe. Soon the capital was moved here from Moscow, and the city remained the capital of the country for about two hundred years.

The city is often called the Venice of the North, because it is built on dozens of islands which are connected by hundreds of bridges. Its historic centre, which is protected by UNESCO, is full of palaces, cathedrals and elegant embankments.

Saint Petersburg has been home to many great writers and composers. Alexander Pushkin lived and died here, and Fyodor Dostoevsky set his novel Crime and Punishment in its streets. The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, was founded by Catherine the Great.

In June the city is famous for its white nights, when the sky never gets completely dark. However, the weather can change quickly, so visitors are advised to carry an umbrella.

I have been to Saint Petersburg twice, but I have never seen the bridges open at night. If I go there in summer, I will stay up all night to watch them.

Few cities owe their existence so entirely to the will of one person. When Peter the Great ordered a new city to be built at the mouth of the Neva in 1703, the site was little more than a cold, flood-prone marsh. Common sense would have suggested building somewhere else; the tsar, however, was determined to open Russia to the sea and to Europe, whatever the cost.

That cost was enormous. Thousands of workers laboured in harsh conditions to drain the land and drive wooden piles into the ground, and floods have threatened the city ever since. Only in 2011, when a long barrier across the Gulf of Finland was completed, did the city gain reliable protection from storm surges.

What emerged from these hardships, though, is arguably one of the most harmonious cities in Europe. Designed largely by Italian and French architects, its straight avenues and pastel-coloured facades create a sense of order that contrasts sharply with the irregular growth of older Russian towns.

The city has also witnessed some of the most dramatic chapters of Russian history. The siege of nearly nine hundred days during the Second World War, which its people endured at a terrible price, remains a source of both grief and pride for its inhabitants.

Having walked along its embankments on a grey November afternoon, I understand why so many writers found the city both enchanting and unsettling. Were it simply beautiful, it would be less memorable; it is the tension between its grandeur and its harsh climate that gives it such a unique character.