Task 3. Complete each sentence with a word from the box.

Authorities, emancipation, engineering, estates, feudal, illiterate, landlord/landlady, peasant, serf, subsistence, textile

1. In a ….system, landowners owned the land and the people who worked on it.
2. The Eiffel Tower is an amazing piece of …………. .
3. A person who makes their living from farming a small piece of land is often called a …….. .
4. People who cannot read or write are ………… .
5. Someone who owns property and rents it to others is a ………… .
6. A ………. was a person who belonged to the owner of land.
7. The aristocracy own large areas of land called ………….. .
8. ……………. farming means you only just manage to survive on what is produced.
9. The …….. industry produces cloth, cotton and wool.
10. The people who rule the country are sometimes called the ……..
11. …….. People have to be free – their …… is necessary.

Writing

Imagine that you are a factory inspector for the Russian government in 1890. You visit a textile factory and you are shocked by the conditions. Write a letter to the Finance Minister Sergei Witte telling him what you saw and what you want him to do about it.

Letter from history

Remember, this is a formal letter:

Begin ‘Dear Sir’, and finish ‘Yours faithfully’ or ‘Dear Mr.Witte’, and finish ‘Yours sincerely’,

Do not use contractions (eg. ‘is not should be used instead of ‘isn’t’)

Use some or all of these words and expressions:

I am writing in order to …..

Furthermore ….

It was disgraceful to see …..

I would appreciate it if you could look into this matter.

Greeting

Paragraph 1

Say that you are writing to complain about conditions in the factories.

Paragraph 2.

Explain where you went and why. Say what you saw there (age of the workers, conditions of the factory, conditions of accommodation for workers).

Paragraph 3.

Explain more about the pay workers receive and the hours they have to work.

Paragraph 4.

Say what you want the Minister to do in order to improve conditions.

Thank him and sign off.

Write 150-200 words.

Read for more information

Task 1. Read and translate the text.

A recent survey compared the cost of living for expatriates in cities around the world. Not surprisingly, the top ten most expensive cities included Tokyo, London and new York. But more expensive than any of these was… Moscow! Less than two decades ago Moscow was the heart of the world’s biggest planned economy. There was no property for sale back then. The state-run shops had few consumer goods. Shortages for simple things like shoes were common. Today, things could not be more different. Moscow is the centre of a free market with some of the highest property prices in the world. The state-run shops have been replaced by expensive shopping centres and designer stores. But the change has not been easy.

The figures for Russia’s real gross domestic product since 1991 when the economic reforms began show that the economy has been on quite a roller-coaster ride. In 1991 GDP was over $350 billion. That fell dramatically year after year until 1998 when GDP was just over $220 billion. However, the situation improved again from ’98. In fact Russia’s GDP increased steadily year after year from 1999 until 2006 when it reached around $740 billion. What caused such a change of fortunes?

Changing over to a completely different economic system could never be painless. The Russian government of the early 1990s decided to use a shock therapyapproach. They introduced severe fiscal and monetary policies. The government drastically reduced its spending. It cut subsidies to its crumbling state industries. Interest rates and taxes were raised. Government price controls on nearly all consumer goods were lifted. Only prices for staple goods like food and energy remained controlled by the government. New laws were introduced to allow private ownership and businesses to exist.

All of these measures were intended to create conditions for a market economy to grow. However, they also caused great hardship for ordinary people. Most workers at that time were on fixed incomes. The measures caused the cost of living to rise but their salaries did not rise at the same rate. To make matters worse events in the banking system in 1992 caused the money supply to balloon. This resulted in hyperinflation levels of 2,000%. Despite Russia’s enormous reserves of oil and gas the economy went into a long and difficult depression. Finally in 1998 when an economic crisis hit the East Asian Tigers, oil prices began to fall around the world. For Russia it turned a depression into an economic crisis.

However from 1999 world oil prices began to rise again. Mostly with money earned from energy exports Russia began to pay off its foreign debts. Inflation fell and the value of the rouble stabilized. The economy was recovering. GDP grew steadily year after year and foreign investors began to show confidence in investing in the country. Moscow’ place at the top of the list of the world’s most expensive cities is not enviable. However it is a clear sign that the Russian economy has survived a difficult time.

Task 2. Now read the text again and match each paragraph with the correct heading.

Paragraph 1 ………….

Paragraph 2 ………….

Paragraph 3 ………….

Paragraph 4 ………….

1. Recovery
2. Drastic measures
3. Ups and downs
4. Hard times
5. Then and now

Task 3. Match the words and phrases with the definitions

expatriate very high inflation

consumer goods financial help from the government for a business

state-run change

hardship something that other people want

reform managed by the government

severe very strict or cruel

subsidy basic things like food that everyone needs

crumbling to grow very big very quickly

staple goods things that people buy but don’t really need

fixed incomes falling apart or collapsing

to balloon very difficult times – poverty

hyperinflation someone who lives and works away from their home country

enviable salaries or pensions that do not grow with inflation

stabilize become steady, unchanging

Task 4. You are going to read about three persons expressing their views on the winners and losers in the Russian economic reforms. As you read, make notes in the table.

Speaker 1:Well, in my view the only real winners have been the big business people – especially in the early days after the fall of the old system. I mean if you were in the right place at the right time you made a fortune. But what about the ordinary people? The truth is that for most of us things have got worse. Inflation is still high. In the early days lots of older people saw their life’s savings disappear overnight. Education and the health service are also in a mess. Teachers’ and doctors’ pay has really fallen – lots of doctors have left to make a living somewhere else. No, I don’t think ordinary people have been the winners.

Speaker 2:With the rise in oil prices Russia’s energy sector has really grown. I mean our resources of oil and gas are some of the biggest in the world and the new economic reforms have helped us to exploit that. At the same time, though, Russia’s other manufacturing industries have suffered. For example, we used to have a huge transport industry making aeroplanes, cars and ships – but this has almost collapsed. You see these industries used to be subsidized by the Soviet government. They were never able to compete on the world market. And now their equipment and other capital is old and inefficient. So in truth these industries are dying.

Speaker 3:The new economic reforms have been great for the big Russian cities – especially Moscow. They’ve got new shopping centres and expensive shops and new supermarkets. And of course there are lots more tourists visiting those places. But if you go out of Moscow and go to the other regions of Russia things are very dif. Foreign investment goes mostly to Moscow or St.Petersburg – but in the provinces very little has changed. There are still a lot of ‘one-factory’ towns and there is still a lot of poverty.

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