Dear friends

My name is Natasha Fyodorova. I live in Samara, Russia. I study at school 132 in the ninth form. My school is not an ordinary one and I want to tell you about it. Some yeas ago it entered it entered the international association of Slav school.  

Russian people belong to the Slav world so in our lessons we study history and geography of the Slavs, folk music, folk art and other things. I find that it is very interesting. Annual Folk Festivals take place in our school. We like them very much.

Eeven in the English lessons we study the history of the Slavs. We try to learn English deeply in order to share the knowledge with our friends from overseas. We read the stories on history and then discuss them with our teacher of English Mfrina Nicolaevna Nechaeva. We have already read such stories about our past as: "How The Slavs Lived in the Past", "Origin and Settling of Eastern Slavs", "Folk Art", "The Ancient Slav Towns" and others.

We have learned that there are some versions of origin of the name "The Slavs". Some scientists think that this word transformed from the word "Slavutich", the ancient name of the river Dnieper, which means "people living by the water".

The others connect it with the word "Slovo" (word), that means "people speaking clearly". However, nobody knows for sure what this word means. It is a secret of our history.

The Slavs living on the bank of the Dunai were named Bulgarians, Serbs. The other Slav tribes living in the North were named Poles, Slovaks, Chachs. The Slavs living in the East were Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians.

In the 6-th century the Slavs lived in tribes. Each tribe had its name. They were the Polyane, the Severyane, the Dregovichi, the Krivichi and the Sloven. Have you ever read about it?

We also learned who were the neighbours of eastern Slavs, how our ancestors called their children, what were the clothes of ancient Slavs.

In the sewing lessons we make dolls in national dresses like  this: 

At school we also have Folk and Dance Company. At the performance girls and boys are dressed in national costumes. Come and see our performances. They are great!

Literature opens a wonderful world of fairy-tales to as. People, living many, many years ago left different sings: in the ground, on stones, on paper.

Our ancestors left one more trace. It's folk art. People couldn't read or write. They handed down their knowledge from Father to son, from one generation to another by word of mouth. Now we learn these legends in the literature lessons with Liliy Victorovna Galuzina, our literature teacher.

Antient Slavs lived in forests. The silence of the sleepy, dance forest frightened them. And they populated the forest with all kinds of fantastic creatures. It was the dark kingdom of Leshey, Baba Yaga.

In the depth of waters lived the Rusalka, a lovely haked girl with silken hair and emerald eyes. All these tale character are known from our early childhood. Look at them!

I have drawn these pictures in the drawing lessons. We drew not only the characters from Russian tales, but also ancient huts, palaces, churches - all the masterpieces of Russian architecture.

Did you the story about my school and our history? If you want to know more about our school like, come to our school or write us a letter.

Last year we were visited by the delegation of pupils from Bulgaria. We'll be happy to meet all friends welcome to Samara.

I thank my teacher of English Marina Nikolaevna Nechayeva. She has taught me to speak about many things and helped me.