Listening1 A city of heroes 

Q1：Why do people think St Petersburg is a great city？

Q2：Why are the people of St Petersburg heroes？

    Where there is a river, there is a city. Perhaps this is not always true, but it is true that many of the world’s greatest cities have been built on the bank of a river. The Neva River flows through the centre of St Petersburg in Russia. Three hundred years ago, the Russian Czar Peter the Great came here and built a new capital-St Petersburg. Peter the Great, like his country, was strong and proud. Many great palaces were built during his lifetime. The palaces were large and beautiful, and they often looked like something out of a fairy tale.

    St Petersburg has also been the centre of many important events in history. In 1941, the Germans tried to destroy the city. It was attack for 900 days, but the people of the city never gave in. The Germans burned many of the palaces as they left. St Petersburg was almost in ruins: fires burned everywhere. Buildings were destroyed, and paintings and statues lay in pieces on the ground. Restoring the city and its cultural relics seemed impossible, but the people of the great city would not give up, “We will not let our history and culture be destroyed, and we will do everything we can to save our city!”

    When the Nazis had gone, the people of St Petersburg began rebuilding the city. Pieces of the palaces that had been hidden before the Nazis came could now be used to rebuild the city and its culture. It was not easy. Painters and workers had to be very careful when they were trying to bring the city back to life. It was difficult to save the palaces and buildings without destroying their old beauty. With the help of old paintings and photographs, the people of St Petersburg were able to bring the beauty of their culture and history. Now, after years of hard work, parts of statues have been put back together and missing pieces have been replaced. Old paintings, including a portrait of Peter the Great which was found in the snow outside St Petersburg, have been carefully recreated, and the old palaces have been made as wonderful as in the past.

   Today Peter the Great on his bronze can once again look over the city he built. Like their hero Peter, the people of St Petersburg have shown that dreams can once come true. Strong, proud and united, the people of St Petersburg are the modern heroes of Russia.