La vida es teatro, o la gente nerviosa Hace diez meses empecé a asistir a un taller de teatro y desde entonces mi vida cambió drásticamente. Ya no fui yo sino la multitud de personalidades que tenía que representar en diferentes ejercicios e improvisaciones. La gama de personajes y carácteres es más que diversa. Se puede mencionar una adolescente con problemas de su edad de pavo (rebeldía, chicos, drogas), una lesbiana que se da cuenta de que ya no le interesa su pareja actual sino un hombre cualquiera, una amante que exige joyas y cosas de lujo de su compañero de cama, una anciana que casi se mata golpeándose contra la viga de la bodega y después se cura de una manera extraña... Incluso fui un lémur devorando su plato favorito – arroz con gusanos. A la vez durante el año trabajábamos con obras serias, por ejemplo representábamos fragmentos de “Un tranvía llamado Deseo”. Pero mi primer papel serio y preferido fue él de la representación de un cuento corto del escritor ruso Zóshchenko. La obra nos salió muy graciosa, divertida y con un final inesperado. Quizás, el éxito influyera en que después entre todos elegimos otros relatos de este escritor para hacer una obra teatral de verdad. Trabajamos durante casi tres meses para que en junio nuestros amigos, parientes y otros interesados vieran el resultado de nuestra labor teatral. Estrenamos primeramente en el anticafé donde teníamos las clases y luego en la escena de verdad en la universidad en que me gradué. La sensación de estar en aquella escena es indescriptible. Tantas veces vi como allá actuaban otros y ahora me tocó a mí... La gente nerviosa – así se llama nuestro espectáculo – fue creada en el ambiente de amor, compromiso y apoyo. Tal vez por eso los espectadores destacaran en sus comentarios la magia, la energía pura y positiva que se sentía en la sala. Pasó un año y yo aprendí muchas cosas gracias a las clases, a nuestra querida profe y a mis compañeros. Una de las cosas más importantes que me enseñaron fue no cómo actuar sino cómo vivir en la escena y en la misma vida.

Unit III. St Basil's Cathedral St Basil’s Cathedral, an outstanding sample of Russian architecture, is situated on Red Square in Moscow. It was constructed between 1555 and 1560 on the Ivan the Terrible’s order. St Basil’s consists of eight independent churches. All of them are topped by onion domes and are clustered around the ninth pillar-shaped church of the Intercession of the Virgin, which dominates them and is crowned by a tent-roof with a small cupola. All nine churches are united by a common base, a roundabout gallery and internal arcaded ways across. In 1588 to the cathedral was added an aisle of the Blessed Basil, which gave to the whole building its second and most popular name. In 1670s a tent-roofed belfry was constructed. The cathedral has been restored more than once. In the seventeenth century were added asymmetrical annexes, tents above the porches, fanciful decorative treatment of domes, ornamental paintings inside and outside.

Unit II. Red Square Red Square, located in the centre of Moscow, is the most famous one in the country. To the west of it is settled the Moscow Kremlin, to the east there are GUM (or State Department Store) and Kitay-Gorod, to the north there are the Historical Museum and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, to the south there is St Basil’s Cathedral. The square is 330 metres long and 70 metres wide. On the square are located Lobnoy mesto (a circular platform to make announcements on), the monument to Minin and Pozharsky, the Mausoleum, near which there is the Necropolis below the Kremlin wall. Red Square is thought to be founded in the 90s of the fifteenth century and at that time it was called Market or Square of Fires. Since the latter half of the seventeenth century it has been called Red Square which means Beautiful. Red Square was originally a trade square, but since the sixteenth century there had been solemn processions and the edicts had been announced. Since 1918, when Moscow gained the status of a capital city once again, on Red Square have been held demonstrations and military parades. On June 24, 1945 was staged a Victory parade in commemoration of the rout of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War.

Unit I. Moscow When I entered the university and knew that for the next five years I’d be learning Spanish I was very glad. But unfortunately, during that time I forgot almost everything related to English, which I studied at school. Now I need to remember the language and make it even better to be able to work with it. In the book which I’ve chosen to study there are some translation tasks so I’ll write them here and I would be really grateful if you could correct my mistakes. *** Unit I Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, political, economic, cultural and scientific centre of the country. It’s located in the centre of the European part of Russia. The area of the city consists of 2511 square kilometres. The main part is situated within the automobile ring road. The city lies on both banks of the Moskva river in its middle reaches. Moscow is one of the greenest world capitals. The name of the city was first mentioned in the annals in 1147. Since the year of 1260 it had been the centre of the principality and since 1460 – the centre of Moscovian Rus. Moscow was the capital of Russia since the middle of the XIV century till 1712 and has been the capital once again since 1918 till nowadays. In the historic centre are located the Kremlin, Red Square and St Basils’s cathedral.