World’s most beautiful girls live in Stockholm, Sweden

Traveler’s Digest, a magazine for travelers, has made a list of countries and cities where world’s most beautiful women live. Russia and its capital of Moscow do not take the last place on the list, although the country and the city can not be found on such lists as “the safest, most fashionable and pleasant country in the world to go.”

Sweden with its capital, Stockholm, is the most attractive place to go for male tourists, the authors of the research believe. The abundance of beautiful women in the city gives you an impression as if you have found yourself in a reality show about top models. In addition, Swedish women are very friendly and well-educated. They speak English with the British accent, so many might take them for British ladies. It is worthy of note that Sweden, as well as other Scandinavian countries, are one of the safest countries in the world for tourists.

Argentina and Buenos Aires takes the second place on the list. Many young Argentinean women look like models because Buenos Aires is inhabited by descendants of Italian emigrants. The countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic region take positions from 3 to 8: Russia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and Estonia respectively. Russia is the home of world’s most beautiful women. “The number of beautiful girls in the Moscow metro may exceed the number of beautiful women in the entire USA,” the magazine wrote.

Germany , France and Switzerland have not been included on the list. The people of those countries pay much more attention to the way their animals look, tourists say. There is a saying in Switzerland which says that beauty pageants are held among cows, but not among women, because cows are nicer than women.

Denmark is also known as one of the safest and pleasant places to travel to. Copenhagen’s girls are distinctive for their freedom of expression and absolute indifference to the social status of their partner.

In the Netherlands, one can see beautiful women riding bicycles instead of ﾵcarsﾧ, which helps them keep up a good shape. In addition, Amsterdam is included in the top ten of world’s most fashionable cities. Varna (Bulgaria), Los Angeles (the USA), Caracas (Venezuela), Montreal (Canada) and Tel Aviv (Israel) have also been included on the list.

It is worthy of note that Israeli girls join the army at the age of 18. If a man cheats on an Israeli girl, he may be sure to have severe problems afterwards. Beauty girls from Montreal are attractive for their fluent French, which definitely makes them more charming.

Questions and Tasks:

1. What does “beauty” mean to you?

2. How come that the notion of beauty varies from culture to culture?

3. They say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Why beauty standards have changed over the years?

4. Where do you think the most beautiful men/ women live?

5. Is it true that being both beautiful and clever is impossible?

Homeless billionaire gives away his 3-billion-dollar fortune

Nicolas Berggruen, a 46-year-old American, owns a three-billion-ﾵdollarﾧ fortune. The most interesting thing about this man is the fact that the general public does not know anything about him. Furthermore, he is officially a homeless man. Berggruen says that he prefers to live in hotels.

When he made his billion-dollar fortune on investments and media ﾵbusinessﾧ, Berggruen began to lose the interest in acquiring material values. Real estate, ﾵcarsﾧ, works of art, jewels and other valuable things have become a burden for him. The billionaire started selling his property: apartments in New York, a villa in Florida. He intends to sell his last vehicle in the nearest future too.

Berggruen is not married and has no children. He plans to leave his fortune to charity by setting up a special foundation. In addition, Berggruen will bequeath his valuable art collection to a Berlin museum. Nicolas Berggruen says that he has no place where he could keep his paintings because he has no home. “Everybody is different and I think that we live in a material world. But for me, possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal. Whatever I own is temporary, since we’re only here for a short period of time. It’s what we do and produce, it’s our actions, that will last forever. That’s real value,” Nicolas Berggruen believes.

It is worthy of note that Berggruen tries to avoid communication with reporters. He also does his best not to let his name appear in newspapers and magazines. When a Dutch magazine published an article about him, the billionaire simply bought all the copies of the magazine and destroyed them.

Nicolas Berggruen is not alone in his noble deeds. Passion for philanthropy and demonstrative denial of material values has become a current trend of modern-day billionaires. Russ Alan Prince, who owns a firm that tracks the habits of the rich, believes that modern billionaires think about how they are going to be remembered after their death. Some of them realize that if they want to do something then they have to do it now, otherwise they will not have any time for it afterwards.

Questions and Tasks:

1. Can money buy happiness?

2. Health is better than wealth. Is this proverb right?

3. They say “money is the root of all evil”. What do you think about it?

4. You can feel yourself a millionaire if you can give away $1mln. When can you feel a millionaire?

5. How would you spend your money if you were reach?

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