Nature Protection

It became part of the Spartak Sports Society during its establishment on April 19, 1935

Soviet period 
In 1935 Starostin proposed the name Spartak that was derived from Spartacus, a gladiator-slave who led a rebellion against Rome, and was inspired by eponymous book by Raffaello Giovagnoli. Starostin is also credited with the creation of the Spartak logo. The same year the club became a part of newly created Spartak sports society.

Czech manager Antonin Fivebr is credited as the first head coach of Spartak, though he worked as a consultant in several clubs simultaneously. In 1936 the Soviet Top League was established. The first Championship was won by Dynamo Moscow, while in the second one held the same year Spartak came first. Before the WWII Spartak gained two more titles.

During 1950-s Spartak together with Dynamo Moscow dominated in the Soviet Top League. When the USSR national football team won gold medals on the Melbourne Olympics, it consisted largely of Spartak players. Spartak captain Igor Netto was the captain of the national team from 1954 to 1963. In the 1960s, Spartak won two league titles, but by mid-60s Spartak was no more regarded as a leading Soviet club. The club was even less successful in the 1970s and in 1976 Spartak was relegated into the lower league.

During the following season, the stadium was still full as the club's fans stayed with the team during its time in the lower division. Konstantin Beskov, who became the head coach (ironically, as a footballer Beskov made his name playing for Spartak's main rivals, Dynamo Moscow), introduced several young players, including Rinat Dasayev and Georgi Yartsev. Spartak came back the next year and won the title in 1979, beating Dynamo Kyiv and thanks to Spartak supporters, the period is considered to be the start of the modern-style fans' movement in the Soviet Union.

On October 20, 1982, disaster struck during the UEFA Cup match between Spartak and HFC Haarlem. Scores of people were trampled. The official number of deaths is 66 but many people believe this number to be significantly higher.

In 1989 Spartak won the its last USSR Championship defeating 2-1 the main rival Dynamo Kyiv in the closing round. Spartak's striker Valery Shmarov scored the "golden" free kick with almost no time left. The next season Spartak reached European Cup semifinal consequently eliminating Napoli (by penalties) and Real Madrid (with 3-1 away victory) but losing to Olympique de Marseille.

Modern period 
A new page in the club’s history began when the USSR collapsed and its championship ceased to exist. In the newly created Russian league, Spartak, led by coach and president Oleg Romantsev dominated and won all but one title between 1992 and 2001. Year after year the team also represented Russia in the Champions League.

Problems began in the new century. Several charismatic players (Ilya Tsymbalar and Andrey Tikhonov among others) left the club as a result of conflict with Romantsev. Later Romantsev sold his stock to oil magnate Andrei Chervichenko, who in 2003 became the club president. The two were soon embroiled in a row that would continue until Romantsev was sacked in 2003 with the club suffering several sub-par seasons until Chervichenko finally sold his stock in 2004. The new ownership made a number of front office changes with the aim of returning the team to the top of the Russian Premier League.

In the 2005 season, Spartak, led by Aleksandrs Starkovs, finished 2nd in the league following an impressive run to beat Lokomotiv, Zenit and Rubin to the last Champions League place.

Following a mixed start to the 2006 season and public criticism from Dmitry Alenichev, the team's captain and one of its most experienced players, Starkovs left his position to Vladimir Fedotov.

Spartak was entitled to place a golden star on its badge in 2003 in commemoration of having won five Russian championships (this having been achieved in 1997).

Forest/ Лес.

Forests can be found in all regions capable of sustaining tree growth, at altitudes up to the tree line, except where natural fire frequency or other disturbance is too high, or where the environment has been altered by human activity.

The latitudes 10° north and south of the Equator are mostly covered in tropical rainforest, and the latitudes between 53°N and 67°N have boreal forest. As a general rule, forests dominated by angiosperms (broadleaf forests) are more species-rich than those dominated by gymnosperms (conifer, montane, or needleleaf forests), although exceptions exist.

Forests sometimes contain many tree species only within a small area (as in tropical rain and temperate deciduous forests), or relatively few species over large areas (e.g., taiga and arid montane coniferous forests). Forests are often home to many animal and plant species, and biomass per unit area is high compared to other vegetation communities. Much of this biomass occurs below ground in the root systems and as partially decomposed plant detritus. The woody component of a forest contains lignin, which is relatively slow to decompose compared with other organic materials such as cellulose or carbohydrate.

Forests are differentiated from woodlands by the extent of canopy coverage: in a forest, the branches and the foliage of separate trees often meet or interlock, although there can be gaps of varying sizes within an area referred to as forest. A woodland has a more continuously open canopy, with trees spaced further apart, which allows more sunlight to penetrate to the ground between them (also see: savanna).

Among the major forested biomes are:

* rain forest (tropical and temperate) 
* taiga 
* temperate hardwood forest 
* tropical dry forest

Улица Старый Арбат, Москва. The Old Arbat street.

The Old Arbat is a picturesque pedestrian street in Moscow, running west from Arbat Square (which is part of the Boulevard Ring) towards Smolenskaya Square (which is part of the Garden Ring). The Old Arbat has the reputation of being Moscow's most touristy street, with lots of entertainment and souvenirs sold. It is distinct from the New Arbat, a street running parallel to it and lined with Soviet skyscrapers made of steel, concrete, and glass.

The first mention of the Arbat was in 1493 as a road leading from the Moscow Kremlin to Smolensk. The origin of the name is Tatar and means suburb (the same as Rabat). During the 16th and 17th centuries, the neighbourhood was graced with elegant churches, notably the one featured in Vasily Polenov's celebrated painting A Courtyard in Moscow (1879).

In the 18th century, the Arbat came to be regarded by the Russian nobility as the most prestigious living area in Moscow. The street was almost completely destroyed by the great fire during Napoleon's occupation of Moscow in 1812 and had to be rebuilt. Alexander Pushkin lodged in one of its mansions for a short time, and there is a statue of him and his wife, Natalie, in front of this house. Another famous native was the writer Andrey Bely, many of whose novels feature impressionist portrayals of this patriarchal area.

In the 20th century, the street succumbed to limited renovations in the Art Nouveau and Constructivist styles. Probably the most original monument to this new trend is the Melnikov Mansion. The street's confluence with the Garden Ring was marked with a flamboyant wedding-cake skyscraper of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Simultaneously, most of the Arbat's churches were demolished, including that of St Nicholas, regarded as one of the finest examples of Godunov style.

The Arbat District before the Russian Revolution.  
Since 1986, the Arbat has been dotted with distinctive street lanterns. It has several notable statues, including one to Princess Turandot in front of the Vakhtangov Theatre and another to Soviet-era folk singer, bard, and poet, Bulat Okudzhava, who wrote several poignant songs about the Arbat. During Perestroika, the street was a gathering place for informal youth movements (like hippies or punks), as well as street musicians and artists. Viktor Tsoi's wall in one of the Arbat side-streets (Krivoarbatskiy Pereulok) remains a curious monument to those turbulent years. To this day, Russian youth frequently gather on the Arbat to play the songs of Tsoi and other Russian songwriters.

The Arbat is home to the headquarters of oil company TNK-BP - a modern building at the beginning of the street. It also contains numerous restaurants, including The Hard Rock Cafe. Many of these restaurants are geared towards visitors to Moscow and are considered by many residents to be over-priced and of low quality compared to those in other parts of the city. There are also a few restaurants and cafes that cater to the working population and middle class; these include Kruzhka, Praim, and Mu-Mu's.

Architecture/ Архитектура.

Architecture the art of building in which human requirements and construction materials are related so as to furnish practical use as well as an aesthetic solution, thus differing from the pure utility of engineering construction. As an art, architecture is essentially abstract and nonrepresentational and involves the manipulation of the relationships of spaces, volumes, planes, masses, and voids. Time is also an important factor in architecture, since a building is usually comprehended in a succession of experiences rather than all at once. In most architecture there is no one vantage point from which the whole structure can be understood. The use of light and shadow, as well as surface decoration, can greatly enhance a structure.

The analysis of building types provides an insight into past cultures and eras. Behind each of the greater styles lies not a casual trend nor a vogue, but a period of serious and urgent experimentation directed toward answering the needs of a specific way of life. Climate, methods of labor, available materials, and economy of means all impose their dictates. Each of the greater styles has been aided by the discovery of new construction methods. Once developed, a method survives tenaciously, giving way only when social changes or new building techniques have reduced it. That evolutionary process is exemplified by the history of modern architecture, which developed from the first uses of structural iron and steel in the mid-19th cent.

Until the 20th cent. there were three great developments in architectural construction—the post-and-lintel, or trabeated, system; the arch system, either the cohesive type, employing plastic materials hardening into a homogeneous mass, or the thrust type, in which the loads are received and counterbalanced at definite points; and the modern steel-skeleton system. In the 20th cent. new forms of building have been devised, with the use of reinforced concrete and the development of geodesic and stressed-skin (light material, reinforced) structures.

See also articles under countries, e.g., American architecture; styles, e.g., baroque; periods, e.g., Gothic architecture and art; individual architects, e.g., Andrea Palladio; individual stylistic and structural elements, e.g., tracery, orientation; specific building types, e.g., pagoda, apartment house.

Architecture of the Ancient World

In Egyptian architecture, to which belong some of the earliest extant structures to be called architecture (erected by the Egyptians before 3000 BC), the post-and-lintel system was employed exclusively and produced the earliest stone columnar buildings in history. The architecture of W Asia from the same era employed the same system; however, arched construction was also known and used. The Chaldaeans and Assyrians, dependent upon clay as their chief material, built vaulted roofs of damp mud bricks that adhered to form a solid shell.

After generations of experimentation with buildings of limited variety the Greeks gave to the simple post-and-lintel system the purest, most perfect expression it was to attain (see Parthenon ; orders of architecture). Roman architecture, borrowing and combining the columns of Greece and the arches of Asia, produced a wide variety of monumental buildings throughout the Western world. Their momentous invention of concrete enabled the imperial builders to exploit successfully the vault construction of W Asia and to cover vast unbroken floor spaces with great vaults and domes, as in the rebuilt Pantheon (2d cent. AD; see under pantheon).

The Evolution of Styles in the Christian Era

The Romans and the early Christians also used the wooden truss for roofing the wide spans of their basilica halls. Neither Greek, Chinese, nor Japanese architecture used the vault system of construction. However, in the Asian division of the Roman Empire, vault development continued; Byzantine architects experimented with new principles and developed the pendentive, used brilliantly in the 6th cent. for the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

The Romanesque architecture of the early Middle Ages was notable for strong, simple, massive forms and vaults executed in cut stone. In Lombard Romanesque (11th cent.) the Byzantine concentration of vault thrusts was improved by the device of ribs and of piers to support them. The idea of an organic supporting and buttressing skeleton of masonry (see buttress), here appearing in embryo, became the vitalizing aim of the medieval builders. In 13th-century Gothic architecture it emerged in perfected form, as in the Amiens and Chartres cathedrals.

The birth of Renaissance architecture (15th cent.) inaugurated a period of several hundred years in Western architecture during which the multiple and complex buildings of the modern world began to emerge, while at the same time no new and compelling structural conceptions appeared. The forms and ornaments of Roman antiquity were resuscitated again and again and were ordered into numberless new combinations, and structure served chiefly as a convenient tool for attaining these effects. The complex, highly decorated baroque style was the chief manifestation of the 17th-century architectural aesthetic. The Georgian style was among architecture's notable 18th-century expressions (see Georgian architecture ). The first half of the 19th cent. was given over to the classic revival and the Gothic revival.

New World, New Architectures

The architects of the later 19th cent. found themselves in a world being reshaped by science, industry, and speed. A new eclecticism arose, such as the architecture based on the Ecole des Beaux-Arts , and what is commonly called Victorian architecture in Britain and the United States. The needs of a new society pressed them, while steel, reinforced concrete, and electricity were among the many new technical means at their disposal.

After more than a half-century of assimilation and experimentation, modern architecture, often called the International style, produced an astonishing variety of daring and original buildings, often steel substructures sheathed in glass. The Bauhaus was a strong influence on modern architecture. As the line between architecture and engineering became a shadow, 20th-century architecture often approached engineering, and modern works of engineering—airplane hangars, for example—often aimed at and achieved an undeniable beauty. More recently, postmodern architecture (see postmodernism), which exploits and expands the technical innovations of modernism while often incorporating stylistic elements from other architectural styles or periods, has become an international movement.

Atomic Bomb/ Атомная бомба.

Atomic bomb or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy ). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex., laboratory and successfully tested on July 16, 1945. This was the culmination of a large U.S. army program that was part of the Manhattan Project, led by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. It began in 1940, two years after the German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission. On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima with an estimated equivalent explosive force of 12,500 tons of TNT, followed three days later by a second, more powerful, bomb on Nagasaki . Both bombs caused widespread death, injury, and destruction, and there is still considerable debate about the need to have used them.

Atomic bombs were subsequently developed by the USSR (1949; now Russia), Great Britain (1952), France (1960), and China (1964). A number of other nations, particularly India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea now have atomic bombs or the capability to produce them readily; South Africa formerly possessed a small arsenal. The three smaller Soviet successor states that inherited nuclear arsenals (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus) relinquished all nuclear warheads, which have been removed to Russia.

Atomic bombs have been designed by students, but their actual construction is a complex industrial process. Practical fissionable nuclei for atomic bombs are the isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239, which are capable of undergoing chain reaction . If the mass of the fissionable material exceeds the critical mass (a few pounds), the chain reaction multiplies rapidly into an uncontrollable release of energy. An atomic bomb is detonated by bringing together very rapidly (e.g., by means of a chemical explosive) two subcritical masses of fissionable material, the combined mass exceeding the critical mass. An atomic bomb explosion produces, in addition to the shock wave accompanying any explosion, intense neutron and gamma radiation, both of which are very damaging to living tissue. The neighborhood of the explosion becomes contaminated with radioactive fission products. Some radioactive products are borne into the upper atmosphere as dust or gas and may subsequently be deposited partially decayed as radioactive fallout far from the site of the explosion.

Check or Cheque/ Чек.

Check or cheque, bill of exchange drawn upon a bank or trust company or broker connected with a clearinghouse. Upon presentation of a check, the bank or other drawee pays cash to the bearer or to a specified person. Payment is made from those funds of the maker or drawer that are in a primary demand deposit account (checking account) with the drawee.

The check is intended for prompt presentation, rather than for use as a continuing currency. When the check is presented, the drawee pays the designated sum to the holder and cancels the check, which is then returned to the drawer as his receipt. To prevent fraud, checks are usually of tinted paper and are filled in with ink; the figures may be punched out of the paper or embossed.

Many checks also have identifying code numbers that have been printed with magnetically active ink. The numbers enable banks to clear checks mechanically and thereby speed up operations. Whether or not the check will be paid by the bank depends upon its recognition of the drawer's signature and upon the bank's confidence in the person presenting the check for payment. A bank becomes primarily liable for payment only when it "certifies" on a check that the necessary funds are in the bank to the credit of the drawer.

However, a bank is usually responsible to its depositor for paying forged checks. All local checks accepted by a bank are turned over daily to a clearinghouse, which cancels checks due from and to all banks of a given neighborhood, the balances alone being paid in cash. Banks settle out-of-town checking claims by means of entries made in the books of the appropriate Federal Reserve banks.

Checks were probably used in Italy in the 15th cent. and in Holland in the 16th, from where their use spread to England and the American colonies in the 17th cent. Their rise to first place as a medium of exchange in industrialized nations took place in the 19th cent., their importance varying with differences in banking facilities, the density of population, and commercial activity.

About 90% of all transactions in the United States are said to be effected by checks.

Equity/ Право справедливости.

Equity principles of justice originally developed by the English chancellor. In Anglo-American jurisprudence equitable principles and remedies are distinguished from the older system that the common law courts evolved. One of the earliest functions of the king's chaplain (the chancellor) and of the chancery (the office that he headed) was to govern access to the royal courts by issuing on application the appropriate original writ. At first the chancellor had great discretion in framing writs, but in time he was limited to a few rigidly circumscribed forms, and in certain cases worthy claims could not be satisfied.

From this inadequacy arose the practice of appealing directly for aid to the chancellor as the "keeper of the king's conscience." By the early 16th cent. a fairly well-defined jurisdiction was exercised by the court of chancery in rivalry with the common law. In the 17th cent. it was definitely established that the court of chancery would decide any claim to jurisdiction that the courts of common law disputed. The early chancellors purported to dispense equity in its original sense of fair dealing, and they cut through the technicalities of common law to give just treatment. Some of their principles were derived from Roman law and from canon law.

Soon, however, equity amassed its own body of precedents and tended to rigidity. Equity, even in its more limited modern sense, is still distinguished by its original and animating principle that no wrong should be without an adequate remedy. Among the most notable achievements of equity were the trust and the injunction. Because the decree (final order) of an equity court operated as an order of the king, disobedience might be punished as contempt; in legal remedies, on the contrary, the plaintiff was limited to enforcing his (monetary) judgment. The fact that equity trials were decided without a jury was thought advantageous in complex cases. The coexistence of different systems of justice and delays in the courts of chancery came to present such great procedural difficulties that in England the Judicature Act was adopted (1873) to amalgamate law and equity.

In the United States amalgamation had begun with the New York procedure code (1848) drafted by David Dudley Field . Today only a few of the states have separate equity courts. Of the remaining states some divide actions and (to a lesser extent) remedies into legal and equitable, while the others have almost entirely abolished the distinction. Even in those states where law and equity remain unmerged, they are often handled by two sides of the same court, with relatively simple provisions for the transfer of a case that is brought on the wrong side.

Fable/ Басня.

Fable brief allegorical narrative, in verse or prose, illustrating a moral thesis or satirizing human beings. The characters of a fable are usually animals who talk and act like people while retaining their animal traits. The oldest known fables are those in the Panchatantra, a collection of fables in Sanskrit, and those attributed to the Greek Aesop, perhaps the most famous of all fabulists.

Other important writers of fables include Jean de La Fontaine, whose fables are noted for their sophistication and wit, the Russian poet Ivan Krylov, and the German dramatist and critic Gotthold Lessing, who also wrote a critical essay on the fable. In England the tradition of the fable was continued in the 17th and 18th cent. by John Dryden and John Gay. The use of the fable in the 20th cent. can be seen in James Thurber's Fables for Our Time (1940) and in George Orwell's political allegory, Animal Farm (1945).

The American poet Marianne Moore wrote poems quite similar to fables in their use of animals and animal traits to comment on human experience; she also published an excellent translation of The Fables of La Fontaine (1954).

Find the right sports program for your kids.

When it comes to signing your child up for a sports program, look before you leap.

Ask yourself, "Why do I want my child to play sports?" Ask your child, "Why do you want to play sports?" And ask the program director, "What can you offer my child?"

A good program should provide children with all the positive values that sports have to offer -- and feed their reasons for playing.

There is no denying the benefits of participating in sports. Aside from the obvious health benefits that come with activity and exercise, research shows that there are strong physical, social and psychological rewards associated with competition.

Dan Gould, the director of the Michigan State University Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, stresses that when children participate in multiple sports at an early age, they can develop the "ABCs of sports -- agility, balance and coordination."

He adds that children can learn both fundamental motor skills, such as running or throwing, and sport-specific skills that will help them to stay active well into adulthood.

In addition to skill development, given the right environment, research has shown that sports can have a positive psychological impact on kids.

Dr. Darrell Burnett, a clinical psychologist and certified sports psychologist specializing in youth sports in Laguna Niguel, California, suggests that participation in sports meets the four basic needs that contribute to our self-esteem.

"When kids play sports, they can have the opportunity to feel that they belong, feel like they are worthwhile just for being kids, be treated with respect and learn about a sense of emotional control."