Russia scans the stars, and the Future is mostly bad

Astrology Booms in Russia

MOSCOW- In Russia, astrologers do not sugarcoat the news.

"Today is a largely dangerous day," one recent, typical horoscope warned from the pages of the newspaper Kommersant.

"You may end up broke," one warning goes. "This day is entirely unsuitable for undertakings of any sort."

The next day may not be any better: "Fraud, cheating and crooked deals are only a small fraction of the troubles that threaten to disrupt all your plans today," another Kommersant chart began.

Banned in Soviet days as beneath the dignity of scientific Marxism, astrology has caught on in a big way in the new Russia. Russians may hear their future on the radio, see it on television, call for a personalised account by telephone or read it in almost any newspaper or magazine.

Even in the official government newspaper Rossiskie Vesti, there is a horoscope devoted entirely to health: "Your health reserves are low," it warned one day. "You may have problems with your spine," it added. Or, "It would be best to refrain from sexual relations. Diseases beginning today may last a long time."

Even when the signs are auspicious, Russian astrologers can find a downside.

"A growing energy field during this week will be a stimulus for ac­tion," the astrologer of Moskovsky Komsomolets predicted recently. "But if you don't surrender to its influence, the result may be a serious dis­ease or nervous breakdown."

It is no secret, of course, that Americans love happy endings - to the point of childishness, many Russians say - while Russians enjoy wallowing in the trough of despondency. No one curls up with a bowl of popcorn and "The Brothers Karamazov" to cheer up.

Neither is there any question that many Russians' lives are exceed­ingly troubled.

If you fight for the communal toilet every morning, get splattered by street slush every day and scrimp on sugar for your tea each evening, you may justifiably feel sceptical of a rosy horoscope.

But the difference in astrological approach raises questions: Are the planets really so different over the Western Hemisphere? Are American astrologers lying to spare their readers pain? Or could it be that Russians are unhappy, at least in part, because they read their horoscopes too faithfully?

"It can be pretty pessimistic," acknowledged Yelena Myasnikova, chief editor of the Russian edition of Cosmopolitan.

In the current issue of that magazine, for example, Tamara Globa listed the "fortunate" days in November and December, a total of 12, and the "negative" days, 28 in all. "We're not very happy about that, because we want Cosmopolitan to be a very optimistic magazine," Ms. Myasnik­ova said. "But when you're dealing with a famous person, a real authority in the field, of course it's very difficult to say: 'Don't write what you really think. Write that everything will turn out O.K.'"

Ms. Globa appears to be in no danger of that. "November is the hardest month," she warned Aquarians. "It will bring the loss of friends and protectors, hostility and deceit, and problems with your parents. Be careful about your health."

Valery Ledovskikh, the pen name of the astrologer who writes weekly in Kommersant, Russia's leading business newspaper, would have his readers simply wait for another day.

"All attempts to interfere with the natural course of events and to change it for the better will lead to no good results," he wrote on one re­cent gloomy day.

"The only thing you can do," he added, "is tighten up security on your delivery trucks."

International Herald Tribune

ТЕКСТ 10

TUNGUSKA COMES DOWN TO EARTH

Few natural events this century have excited as much popular sci­entific interest as the gigantic explosion that rocked the Siberian taiga near the Tunguska river on the morning of 30 June 1908. Second only to the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot in the popular science press, the Tunguska explosion has moved otherwise reputable scientists to pro­pose explanations ranging from antimatter meteorites to mini black holes to near-critical fissionable masses. One theory popular in 1930s Russia attributed it to the explosion of a nuclear powered (!) spacecraft. And the UFO explanation seems prevalent in some quarters even today. How­ever, serious scientific study has been converging on a more prosaic explanation wrapped up by Chyba and colleagues.

At its simplest, this explanation holds that the Tunguska explosion was caused by the fall of a large meteorite that broke up and deposited its energy in atmospheric blast waves before reaching the ground. The essentials of this picture were established by L.A. Kulik, who made the first on-site investigations of the explosion in the years 1927-30. Kulik attributed some boggy depressions near the explosion site to meteorite impacts, a proposal that was later discredited. No impact crater or large meteorite fragments were ever found at Tunguska.

Kulik's work was refined by E.L. Krinov, who proposed that the ex­plosion was created by a comet. The idea of a cometary impactor was strongly supported by more recent work, although the density of the re­quired comet is very small, 0,01-0,001 g cm-3. Compared to the density of roughly 0,6-1,0 g cm-3 reported for comet Halley. This would make the Tunguska object decidedly unusual. However, Chris Chyba, Paul Thomas and Kevin Zahnle now argue that a full consideration of the dy­namics of a meteorite traversing the atmosphere shows that the Tun­guska explosion is fully compatible with the entry of a roughly 30-m di­ameter meteorite of the common stony class.

H.J. Melosh, Monthly Nature

The 1908 Tunguska Explosion: Atmospheric Disruption of a Stony Asteroid

The explosion over Tunguska, Central Siberia, in 1908 released 10 to 20 megatons (high explosive equivalent) of energy at an altitude of about 10 km. This event represents a typical fate for stony asteroids tens of meters in radius entering the Earth's atmosphere at common hyper­sonic velocities. Comets and carbonaceous asteroids of the appropriate energy disrupt too high, whereas typical iron objects reach and crater the terrestrial surface.

Light Nights over Eurasia

Widespread "light nights" were observed over Eurasia for the first few nights after the Tunguska event. The Tungliska explosion may have lofted enough material high enough to account for the European "light nights".

Ch. F. Chyba, Paul J. Thomas & Kevin J. Zahnle, Monthly Nature

 

 

КОНТРОЛЬНЫЕ ЗАДАНИЯ

I. Перепишите предложения. Письменно переведите их на русский язык. Подчеркните глаголы в различных временах. Определите, в каком лице и числе стоит глагол.

II. Перепишите предложения. Письменно переведите их на русский язык. Определите видо-временную форму глагола в страдательном залоге.

III. Выразите числительные буквами и цифрами.

IV. Перепишите предложения. Определите степени сравнения прилагательных. Переведите предложения.

V. Прочтите текст. Перепишите его и письменно переведите.

VI. Выпишите все глаголы-сказуемые из текста и определите их видо-временные формы. Переведите предложения.

ВАРИАНТ 1

I. Перепишите предложения. Письменно переведите их на русский язык. Подчеркните глаголы в PRESENT SIMPLE. Определите, в каком лице и числе стоит глагол.

1) You’ll have some time to relax before dinner if you are tired after the journey.

2) I usually work in the roads department but this month I’m working in the tunnels department.

3) I read an interesting novel yesterday.

II. Перепишите предложения. Письменно переведите их на русский язык. Определите видо-временную форму глагола в страдательном залоге.

1) Houses are built very quickly now.

2) A new theatre will be built here next year.

3) America was discovered by Christopher Columbus.

III. Напишите числительные полностью.

1) the 1st

2) 206

3) the 25th

4) 1.985

5) 130