2.How do the English spend their holidays? Do people in this country spend holidays in the same way?

Many British people have decided that it is not worth spending money on a holiday in Britain because the weather is so unreliable, so changeable. They prefer spending their money on package holidays in Southern Europe. A package holiday is a cheap form of group travel. You pay a travel agent a sum of money and he arranges the flight, hotel, food and entertainment. All you need is pocket money when you go to a foreign country. It is sometimes cheaper to go abroad on a package holiday than to stay in England. In spite of this, seaside holidays in Britain are still very popular with the majority of British people.

Britain is quiet a small island, and no one lives farther than 75 miles from the sea. As soon as summer begins, thousands of people in cars make their way to the coast. Many parents are willing to sit on crowded beaches, in traffic jams and – sometimes – in bad weather, to give their children a seaside holiday. The seaside is a place for a family holiday. Many of the towns and villages on the South coast of England are still very beautiful, but oil pollution in water has become a problem over the last few years.

Many teenagers prefer to go youth hostelling and hitch-hiking around the countryside. Youth hostels are cheap and simple. Hitch-hiking is a very cheap way of travelling, but sometimes you have to wait for hours at the side of the road before you get a lift.

A lot of people enjoy active open-air holidays such as walking or mountaineering.

Another traditional holiday destination, which was particularly popular in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, is the holiday camp, where visitors stay in chalets and self-contained villages with all food and entertainment organized for them.

People in Russia spend their holidays quite similarly to the English. The main destination for the majority of people is still the seaside. Some people prefer to spend their holidays at Russian resorts— Sochi, Anapa, while others go abroad more often. For example, the most popular countries for travelling are Turkey and Egypt.

Young people can get together in a large group and rent a small house by the sea, but they will have to cook for themselves, which can be uncomfortable.

Children are sent to camps most frequently. This allows parents rest from restless children, while children find new friends, go in for sports, take part in fun contests and go to discos.

Since Russia is quite a big country, many people want to see different cities and their culture. So, very often people go to Moscow, Kazan or St. Petersburg to see the architectural masterpieces of Russia.

In conclusion, I want to say that people all over the world may spend their holidays quiet differently, but there are also very many things we all have in common. No matter where you are or what are doing, the main goal is to relax!

3.Could you prove that “there is nothing an Englishman likes better than to do a bit of gardening”?

In England much leisure time is spent in individualistic pursuits, of which the most popular is gardening. Most English people love gardens, and this is probably one reason why so many people prefer to live in houses rather than flats.

Particularly in suburban areas it is possible to pass row after row of ordinary small houses, each one with its neatly-kept patch of grass surrounded by a great variety of flowers and shrubs. Many people who have no gardens of their own have patches of land or “allotments” in specially reserved areas.

Although the task of keeping a garden is so essentially individual, for many people gardening is the foundation of social and competitive relationships. Flower-shows and vegetable-shows, with prizes for the best exhibits, are immensely popular. In many places a competitive gardener’s ambition is to grow the biggest cabbages or leeks or carrots, and the plain fact that the merits of most vegetables on the table are in inverse ratio to their size seems often to be forgotten.

Gardening as a hobby (just like the English pub) is "humbled" by all walks of life in British society - from manual labourers to the royal family. TV programmes on the subject gather record numbers of viewers on the small screen. Books about gardens consistently appear on bestseller lists. One of the BBC's most popular Sunday radio programmes is Gardeners Question Time. On it, a panel of experts discusses listener questions for hours, explaining in detail how to make compost, prune roses, and fight aphids - and often in the middle of winter when nature is asleep!

Apart from large city parks and manor gardens, almost everyone in England has their own private garden. The average Englishman can't imagine life without a garden. That is why, for example, in London there are almost no multi-storey houses and nobody lives in the centre of the city, London consists of endless suburbs. Each family creates a garden 'just for themselves'.

The English passion for gardening also has practical applications. "Dig for victory!" - this was the call of the British government, led by Winston Churchill, to the population of the country during the Second World War. Britons (especially city dwellers) were encouraged to grow their own fruit and vegetables to supplement the meagre wartime rations. It was then that large garden plots appeared in the London suburbs, where any neighbouring inhabitant could get an allotment of about one hundredth of a hectare for a small rent. Many of these plots have survived to the present day.

Old English wisdom says: 'If you want to be happy for a week, get married; for a month, slaughter a pig; if you want to be happy all your life, plant a garden'.