Экзаменационный (типовой) материал ЕГЭ / Английский / 10 задание / 05

A. Different cities have different shapes depending on how they were started and then developed throughout the centuries. London and Paris grew along the rivers they were built on. Philadelphia, the first city built as a grid, is a rectangle with perpendicular streets. Washington, D.C., began as a diamond and is now roughly half of it. Moscow was started as a fortress and kept growing around it as a circle with radial and circular streets.
 

B. Moscow often faced invasions. The high walls of the Kremlin, Kitay-Gorod, Bely Gorod and Zemlyanoy Gorod protected the capital. With its four rings of fortifications, by the early 17th century Moscow was one of the most protected cities in Europe. Around the 15th century, defensive monasteries were built around the city. They had high thick walls that could provide resistance to the enemy. There were about 25 of them, some of which still exist.
 

C. One of the very first of these monasteries, Spaso-Andronikov Monastery, was founded as early as 1357. It was built in the most dangerous area around Moscow – in the east, where Muscovites were suffering from the enemy invasions most badly. The famous Russian icon painter Andrey Rublev spent his last years in this monastery and painted the frescos of the Saviour Cathedral, which have partially survived and can be seen today.
 

D. Simonov Monastery was founded in 1377. It protected Moscow from southern invasions. This was one of the most spectacular monasteries in Moscow. During his trip to Russia, Lewis Carroll visited it twice and described the chapels that were “beautifully decorated with frescos”, as well as the tall tower from where he “had a nearer, …better view of Moscow than that from the Sparrow Hills”. It’s sad that this monastery no longer exists.
 

E. Perhaps the most famous of all is the beautiful Novodevichy Convent, which is now proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Novodevichy Convent was protecting Moscow from its western enemies. It was founded in 1525 by Vassily III who was the first Tsar to force his wife become a nun to marry another. Later the convent became quite notorious for housing other women of royal blood, including Peter the Great’s sister Sofia and first wife Eudokia.
 

F. Danilov Monastery was founded in 1561 and was known for its big melodious bells. However, during the war with Sweden, Peter the Great made cannons out of them. New ones were made in the late 19th century only to be removed again after the Revolution. In 1930 they were bought and donated to Harvard University by an American businessman Charles R. Crane. In 2008 ‘Danilov Bells’ were returned to the Monastery.
 

G. Donskoy is another monastery which still exists. Founded in 1591, it completed the semicircle of the defensive monasteries closest to Moscow. In 1812 Napoleon’s soldiers stole the jewels from its icons and destroyed some of its buildings. The famous Russian general Matvey Platov, commander of the Don Cossacks, who was wittily depicted by Nikolay Leskov in his short story “Levsha”, donated money to rebuild the Monastery.