Traditional American Food

Americans eat a lot. They have three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Most of Americans don't eat home but prefer to go to restaurants. They can choose from many kind of restaurants. There is a great number of ethnic restaurants in the United States. Italian, Chinese and Mexican food is very popular. An American institution is the fast food restaurant, which is very convenient but not very healthy.

However there are some principles of American cuisine (if we may call it so). Americans drink a lot of juices and soda, eat a lot of meat, fruits and vegetables, not much bread. In the morning Americans have cereal or scrambled eggs, milk or orange juice.

Chicken or fish, fried potatoes, vegetable salads, and desert: this is the most common menu for lunch. Dinner is probably the most important meal of the day, some people have family dinner, when all members of family have to be there.

For dinner Americans usually have meat, fried or baked potatoes with ketchup or sour cream, corn, peas, sometimes macaroni and cheese or spaghetti; ice-cream, fruit or cake may be for dessert. Turkey, ham and apple pie are traditional for Christmas and Thanksgiving Day dinners.

The Russian Federation

The Russian Federation is extremely rich in natural and mineral resources. It has deposits of oil, gas, iron, gold, non-ferrous metals and many other minerals.

Russia's economy is a foundation of any country's life. The economy of Russia is going through a transitional period from the centrally planned socialist economy to a market economy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the greater part of industries were privatized, agriculture and land underwent partial privatization later and are still undergoing it. After the crisis of 1997 and the depreciation of the rouble followed by sharp deterioration in living standards for most of the population, Russia's economy faced recession. The economy started recovering in 1999, partially because of high export prices on oil and gas which Russia is rich in. Russia is still heavily dependent on export of oil, gas and timber, while its industrial and farming sectors are still weak as compared with those of the developed countries, but the rate of economic growth of the country is very high. If the rate is the same within a period of several years, Russia will be the second largest European economy after Germany. The third point I am going to touch upon is Russia's political system. The current population of Russia is about 143 million people. The capital of the Russian Federation is Moscow, with a population of about 11 million people.

English Traditions

Every nation and every country has its own customs and traditions. In Britain traditions play a more important part in the life of the people than in other countries. Englishmen are proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up. It has been the law for about three hundred years that all the theatres are closed on Sundays. No letters are delivered, only a few Sunday papers are published.

To this day an English family prefers a house with a garden to a flat in a modern house with central heating. English people like gardens.

Holidays are especially rich in old traditions and are different in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. Christmas is a great English national holiday, and in Scotland it is not kept at all, except by clerks in banks; all the shops, mills and factories are working. But six days later, on New Years Eve the Scotch begin to enjoy themselves. All the shops, mills and factories are closed on New Years Day.

People invite their friends to their houses and "sit the Old Year out and the New Year in".

When the dock begins to strike twelve, the head of the family goes to the entrance door, opens it wide and holds it until the last stroke. Then he shuts the door. He has let the Old Year out and the New Year in.