1. Some facts from Kemerovo’s history.

Kemerovo sprang up on the place of ancient Russian settle­ments. In 1859 there were 7 villages on the territory of today's Kemerovo. One of them was Scheglovo. In 1703 there were only six houses in Scheglovo. It was near this village where Mikhailo Volkov discovered the black coal deposit on the right bank of the Tom River. In the middle of the 19th century the peasants from the neighbouring Kemerovo village tried to extract coal and transport it on rafts to the city of Tomsk, but the management of the Altay mining district forbade doing that. And only in 1907 after the Siberian railway was built the management of the Altay min­ing district established the Kemerovo mine that was designed to produce 8300 tons of coal per year. In 1915 the construction of a coking plant and chemical shops began near Scheglovo village. In the same year the railway traffic was put into operation. The area of 6 villages Scheglovo, Kemerovo, Krasnyi Yar, Pleshki, Kur-Iskitim, Borovaya became an important indus­trial center. 1918 is considered to be the year of the city foundation, when Scheglovo was transformed into the city of Scheglovsk (Kemerovo village was included in).

In 1925 the city became the center of the district. There were 2510 wooden houses and 9 schools in the city. The population was 21,7 thousand people. The rapid development of the city was caused by the indus­trialization and the construction of the Ural-Kuznetskii industrial complex. On March 27, 1932 Scheglovsk was renamed into Kemerovo.

When the Great Patriotic War began, thousands of townspeople went to the front line and bravely battled against fascist aggressors. More than 6000 people of Kemerovo were awarded battle orders and medals.

On January 26, 1943 Kemerovo was declared as the adminis­trative center of the newly formed Kemerovo Region. By that time the city had become a large industrial center and a leader of the defense industry: 33 factories were evacuated here from the western part of the country.

В. Kemerovo’s places of interest.

Kemerovites and guests of the city like to walk along the embankment of the Tom river. One can see there the bridges across the river, the Monument of Glory dedicated to the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War. In front of the Monument there is the Alley of Heroes. Some lime-trees were planted by cosmonauts: Alexey Leonov, Boris Volynov and the frontier guard Yuri Babansky. If you want to do sightseeing, you can see the Drama theatre (with the beautiful singing fountain in front of its facade), the Puppet theatre, the Musical (Comedy) theatre, art galleries, exhibitions and museums. The halls of the city regional museum and the museum of fine arts are always full of visitors. The reserve-museum Tomskaya Pisanitsa located on the right bank of the Tom River (55 kilometers away from the city) is very popular with the townspeople and guests of the city. Unique historical monuments are concen­trated here in the open-air; the oldest of them date back to the fourth millennium B.C.

The first square in our city was Pushkin Square, but the monument to the poet was set up in 1949. Not far from the square there is the most beautiful street of the city – UlitsaVesennyaya. Together with Central City Park it is the greenest place in Kemerovo. Kemerovites are also proud of their pine wood on the right bank of the Tom river. Across the Iskitimka river one can see the magnificent building of the Kemerovo Circus built in 1973. It houses 2000 people. The streets in Kemerovo are broad and straight. The street traffic is rather heavy in the main thoroughfares. The longest are Sovetsky, Oktjabrsky and Lenin prospects.

Ex.VII. Read the dialogues aloud and act them out.