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The history of attractions as a mirror of the country

The world and Russian histories of attractions are very different. And no wonder - after all, carousels and roller coasters seem like a frivolous subject only to an inexperienced viewer who comes to the park to look at the world from the Ferris wheel and eat cotton candy. In fact, the history of the appearance of attractions reflects, as if in a mirror, the political system of the country, as well as the joys, hopes and trials that befell its people. And Russia, as always, has its own, special path. If in Europe and America the development of amusement parks, the peak of which occurred in the industrial and post-industrial eras, proceeded naturally, without interruptions, with a feeling of connection with the entire previous tradition and inclusion in the global process, then in Russia the picture was radically different: short periods of prosperity and quick ups followed by downs, there was practically no sense of continuity. Two important milestones in amusement park branches - the era of Peter I and the revolution of 1917 - each time destroyed it “to the ground”, almost completely broke with the entire previous national tradition, and then built a “new world” on the ruins, relying on foreign developments. The initiative most often came not from below, but from above, was implanted artificially, and did not encourage “noble impulses” and entrepreneurial talents outside the permitted framework. The feeling of the secondary nature of one’s own entertainment culture and the “foreignness” of what is borrowed, as well as the lack of respect for the personal, private, “ non-state"Pleasure was always prevented from making parks a truly profitable business.

The history of amusement parks goes back hundreds of years. The very first attractions appeared in the West in the Middle Ages, and perhaps much earlier. We are talking about the usual children's fun - a carousel. On Byzantine bas-reliefs of the 5th century you can see prototypes of modern carousels: people in baskets spin around a central pillar. However, entertainment was not the main goal here: the attraction was much more often used for military purposes. More precisely, for training horse warriors who rode in a circle, trying to pierce imaginary opponents with a spear. So modern children's horses and elephants are a tribute to the serious pursuits of adult men. The mechanism was powered by a man, mule or horse. The word "carousel" itself comes from the Italian garosello and Spanish carosella , meaning "small war". Participants in the Crusades borrowed this military attraction from Arab and Turkish warriors at the beginning of the 12th century. The mechanism was kept secret - carousels were not built outside the castles of kings and barons.

Everything changed during the Renaissance. With the invention of gunpowder, chivalry ceased to be a serious military force, and tournaments turned into magnificent theatrical performances. The “discovery of individuality” in the Renaissance also meant the personal right of every citizen to pleasure; carousels became publicly available. The first such huge structure opened on the Parisian Carousel Square (La Place du Carrousel) - later a guillotine, another popular entertainment, was installed here. The Parisian carousel was already something of a parody of a knight's tournament; everything was not serious: the rivals tried to pierce the rings spinning in a circle with spears at full gallop, and also threw clay balls filled with flavored water at each other.

The prototype of mobile amusement parks was medieval carnivals and fairs in Western Europe. These holidays were associated with the emergence of cities and townspeople. Although timed to coincide with the church calendar, carnivals were pure paganism, inheriting the traditions of the Roman holiday of the Kalends - a colorful spectacle with dressing up, abundant food and drink, the departure of chariots and the construction of swings, as well as the inevitable skating from ice slides in countries with cold climates. By the way, the Kalends were celebrated in Byzantium right up to the 13th century, despite the desire of the church to replace it with the events of the Christmas cycle of holidays. One of the oldest fairs was held on S. Day. Bartholomew (24 August) in England since 1133. In the Elizabethan era (that is, in the 16th and early 17th centuries), such fairs became grand events where the public was entertained, fed, given the opportunity to participate in various games and showed freak shows. By the way, the famous Oktoberfest, held in Munich since 1810, was not just a beer festival, but also the heir to medieval fairs with all their inherent paraphernalia, such as small attractions. As for the first stationary amusement parks, they “grew up” from the late medieval European “gardens of love” or “gardens of pleasure.” Here they had dates, played music and played various games like chess, swam in pools, walked through labyrinths, danced on special grass areas, and went down slides.

And yet, the emergence of real amusement parks, or rather the transformation of early European “amusement gardens” into them, became possible only thanks to the same Renaissance with its fascination with various kinds of ingenious mechanisms and the industrial revolution it provoked a little later. As the famous researcher of landscape art, academician Dmitry Likhachev, writes: “In the gardens of the Renaissance, man became the main thing in the nature subordinate to him and his mind. Man not only idealized nature, but also considered himself capable of improving it.” The development of technology and medicine gradually led to the fact that man no longer needed to fight so fiercely for existence, the idea of ​​benefit played an ever smaller role, and more and more time was left for pleasure and recreation. People have become much more inquisitive; it is not for nothing that this time in European history is called the Age of Great Geographical Discovery. It was then that amusement parks appeared - regular ones, built according to carefully verified architectural plans and capable of accommodating huge crowds of festively dressed citizens.

The first permanent amusement park was the Danish one Dyrehavsbakken(“Deer Mountain Park”) - by the way, it is still active today. It was discovered in 1583, when a spring with fresh, clean water was found north of Copenhagen, the shortage of which was acutely felt in the city. Local residents began to come here on excursions, resourceful entrepreneurs opened tents with food and clay pots next to the source (so that there was something to drink water from). Quite quickly, the first attractions, playgrounds and taverns appeared in the park. In the 17th century, the lands and forests around the park were fenced off and turned into royal hunting grounds, allowing them to avoid logging or pollution. As a result, modern Bakke n is not just a park with hundreds of attractions, but also one of nature’s pearls. You can't drive cars here, only bikes. Another oldest amusement park, Vauxhall Gardens, was opened in London in 1661.

The industrial revolution gave a new impetus to the development of the attraction business. It was at this time that modern attractions appeared, which became an integral feature of amusement parks, whose visitors wanted to enjoy the wonders of civilization and engineering wonders on vacation. By 1896, there were 65 such parks in London alone. Interest in various kinds of “mechanisms” and “machines” attracted whole crowds to the so-called World Fairs, which began to be held in the late 1840s. The first such event, the French Industrial Exposition, took place in Paris in 1844. In 1851, the first World Fair was held in London, at which different countries demonstrated technical innovations. By the way, our VDNKh is the heir to the world fairs of the 19th century. It was a strange time when everyone competed with everyone else in achievements, and different countries tried to prove their superiority in economic development and in a visual way - by building giant attractions. The purpose of such events was to attract attention to the achievements of engineering, and this worked best if visitors were involved in the process itself, clearly shown how the mechanisms worked and allowed to admire the results of the inventors’ work. This is how attractions using ingenious machines appeared. And the most important invention was the now familiar Ferris Wheel.

Ferris wheel, or Ferris wheel - in English it is also known as Ferris wheel A- was made specifically for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This fair, the last in the 19th century and the largest of all that took place before, was conceived as an American response to the British and French; it could easily be accompanied by the slogan “Let’s catch up and overtake Europe!” It was organized as a large "city within a city" and had several goals at once - entertainment, presentation of the achievements of the American nation, convincing visitors that the country was doing well, education and profit. The amusement area occupied a clearly fenced-off space in this “city within a city.” Thus, the fair itself. and the amusement park in it were either a micromodel of the world, but without its wars and depressions, or an ideal city, built right in the middle of ordinary human life and stopped history, creating and fencing off a special time and place for entertainment.

As for the Ferris Wheel, according to the organizers, it was supposed to outshine the Eiffel Tower, built in Paris in 1889. By the way, the 300-meter Eiffel Tower served as the entrance arch to the World's Fair and was designed in order to, in turn, “defeat” the 169-meter Washington Monument. The Ferris wheel for the exhibition in Chicago was invented and brought to life by engineer George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. The dimensions of his attraction shocked the imagination of not only the simple-minded public, but also connoisseurs of engineering: diameter - 75 meters, weight - 2000 tons, 36 bus-sized cabins with 20 seats and 40 standing places. In total, 2,160 people could ride on the attraction at the same time. Ferris's wheel was driven by two steam engines, each with a power of 1000 horsepower. The forged steel wheel axle weighed 70 tons; such large parts did not exist at that time. However, it was still not possible to outshine Europe - the wheel was 4 times lower than the Eiffel Tower. After the fair ended, the ferris wheel was moved from park to park several times. It was finally dismantled in 1904. However, another attraction designed by this talented American engineer still stands in the world: in 1897, Ferris built a Ferris wheel in the Austrian capital. This attraction is still one of the main attractions in Vienna. The Ferris wheel was very quickly copied by young Australian engineers Adam Gaddelin and Garrett Watson. In 1895, the first Ferris Wheel was built in London according to their design; during the 11 years of its existence, 2.5 million people rode it. Subsequently, enterprising young people designed about 200 more similar attractions around the world.

Another interesting Western initiative was the so-called “trolleybus parks”. In the last years of the 19th century, "electric buses" appeared in V most American cities. In order to convince passengers to use the new type of transport, the companies that own trolleybus lines came up with the idea of ​​​​creating amusement parks at the final stops. Initially, such parks like Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta and Carsonia Park in Reading were simply a favorite place for “wild” recreation for city residents. However, trolleybus companies bought them as property and installed attractions and various mechanical wonders here, set up sports grounds, dance clubs, boat stations, cafes and restaurants and other things pleasant for visitors.

Amusement parks were also developed at resorts and along the shores of seas and rivers, as well as by railway companies at new stations. The main task was to attract for one reason or another - economic, commercial, town planning character - as many visitors as possible to certain places, cities and countries. Such parks were initially planned as a kind of bait, so not only entertainment, but also the convenience of visitors was thought out in detail there. The attractions of the English city of Brighton are well known, which originally emerged as a “water town” for the English nobility, but at the beginning of the 20th century turned into a city with a large number of attractions open to the public. In the United States, the most famous “attraction resorts” are Riverside Park in Massachusetts on the Connecticut River (founded 1840), and Coney Island in New York's Brooklyn. Based on the development of the last resort, one can see how quickly amusement parks gained popularity in the United States. Coney Island became a place of pilgrimage for townspeople wishing to relax back in the twenties of the 19th century, when one of the horse-drawn train stops was opened here. With the advent of the railway, it turned into a resort with attractions and hotels: in 1875 it was visited by a million passengers, and in 1876 - already two million. Finally, in 1895, the first permanent amusement park in the North American states, Sea Lion Park, opened here, followed by three more similar parks. By 1910, a million visitors came to Coney Island on a single Sunday. There were between 1,500 and 2,000 amusement parks across America by 1919.

What was happening at that moment in Russia? This is not an idle question. In a sense, the entire further history of attractions in our country - right down to some of the “special”, “Russian” problems of today - is connected with the absence, until the 17-18th century, of the tradition of mass and personal entertainment “just like that”, for the sake of pleasure. In fact, urban culture in the European sense of the word did not exist in Russia until the era of False Dmitry, or even Peter I - and it was precisely this culture that gave a powerful impetus to the development of attractions “for the soul”, and not for various military-official purposes such as training of soldiers. The types of festive processions in Rus' were strictly connected either with the religious calendar (various kinds of processions and church events in honor of Easter, Trinity, Candlemas, Dormition and Christmas such as the “Procession on a Donkey”, “Foot Action”, etc.), or with life the royal court, or - in villages - with various kinds of agricultural rituals. The Russian church was distrustful of music, theatrical performances (“demonic games”) and laughter in general, not to mention such entertainment as the performances of traveling buffoon actors (known since the 11th century, officially prohibited by the decrees “from the bottom” of Patriarch Nikon in 1648 and 1657) and fist fights (written information about the latter has been available since the 10th century). As for laughter, as A. Kotlyarchuk, a Bryansk researcher of the festive ceremonies of the Great Russian city of the Middle Ages, points out in his article, they fought it as a manifestation of paganism: as one of the religious figures wrote, “Christ did not laugh.” Gardens “with swings” (apparently the first Russian attraction) also existed either in the subsidiary plots of peasant families, or in the form of small courtyards of urban families, or as gardens at monasteries closed to the surrounding lay people. Basically, they were intended to “be useful” and not serve for fun; healthy vegetables and herbs were grown here. A public city park with its “amusement garden” in the form of a kind of “ideal city within a city”, which received such powerful development in the West, did not exist in medieval Russia. Thus, by the era of the reforms of Peter I, there was a huge niche gaping between private, family entertainment at home and huge religious and official processions on the occasion of great Christian holidays and coronations. In fact, there was no tradition of mass entertainment in urban areas in our country.

Parks for the entertainment of royalty and nobility began to be established in Russia only in the 18th century. Peter's "educational gardens" with "amusing" elements and various kinds of entertainment are widely known - for example, the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg. Peter “spied” the construction of such gardens abroad and even ordered books on park management from there. However, the Summer Garden became public only in the 19th century, when it was decided to open it “to a decently dressed public.” In the 18th century, a tradition of mass entertainment for city residents appeared in Russia - folk Easter and Maslenitsa festivities with the inevitable booths, “carousels” and “skating hills”. "Carousels with quadrilles" were invented under Catherine II. These were sports races, the idea of ​​which was borrowed from the West. Representatives of the court and high nobility took part in them, but ordinary people were also allowed to stare at them; Several thousand people gathered onlookers.

“Rolling Mountains” is a much more interesting phenomenon, since it is considered the product of domestic engineering. True, some researchers still claim that the idea of ​​this attraction came to Russia from Europe, but the mechanism was invented by local craftsmen. The first roller coaster was designed in the mid-18th century by the scientist-engineer Andrei Nartov, the personal turner of Peter I. In the 1740s, he built it for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo. In 1757, the architect Rastrelli built a covered mountain with a pavilion here. In 1762-1774, according to the design of the architect Antonio Rinaldi, the Roller Coaster was built in Orannienbaum. Its height was 20 meters, and the length of the route was more than 500. People skated from such mountains either in winter on ice on sleds, so-called “golovashki” (baizes covered with cloth) and skates, or in summer. Summer skating took place on strollers decorated with gilding and carvings, made in the form of wooden sleighs. These sleighs did not move on ice on runners, but on wheels along special grooves-ruts. The climbs on the route were overcome using the force of inertia. The inside of the carriages was decorated with every possible luxury, the seats were upholstered in expensive fabrics. The design of the strollers and the track was invented by Andrey Nartov.

The Nart slides were intended for the entertainment of the royal family and people close to the emperor. But the public liked the innovation so much that from the end of the 18th century, slides began to be built for ordinary people. The first “public” roller coasters, as well as large swings, appeared at Maslenitsa and Easter festivities. The slides were two wooden towers placed opposite each other, up to 10 or even 20 meters high, with a long slope of several tens of meters. The towers were decorated with fir claws, flags, decorated with carvings and sculptures, and illuminated with lanterns at night. From the winter mountains we rode on sleds, from the summer mountains we rode on rugs or so-called “lubkas”. Where did the name of the popular attraction “Russian roller coaster” come from? They are said to have been our gift to Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. The Russian wooden roller coasters made such an indelible impression on Bonnaparte’s army that upon the return of the defeated army home, such attractions began to be built in Paris. In French, the attraction is still called “Russian roller coaster”. However, in Russia, oddly enough, roller coasters are called American roller coasters. This name stuck because the first metal slides were nevertheless borrowed from the West: they were first erected in 1896 at the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition. A roller coaster with trolleys on rollers descending on iron rails appeared in New York in 1884. However, it is still not clear who adopted the idea from whom - either the Europeans and the Americans from Russia, or vice versa.

The construction of temporary roller coasters on an industrial scale was established in Russia by the mid-19th century and ceased by 1900, when their organization came under the jurisdiction of the Guardianship of People's Sobriety. Permanent slides were erected in 1846 in St. Petersburg's Alexander Park, and in 1913-18 in Luna Park (discussed below). As for permanent rather than temporary amusement parks in other cities (not in St. Petersburg and Moscow), there were practically none until 1821. Only existed royal parks and summer gardens, and even country estates. It is worth recalling that until 1861, most of the population was generally in the position of serfs, and the majority of free people lived in rural areas. Rural holidays were held in fields and on the edges, and city parks were visited by a small number of people. In 1821, the first official order appeared to establish permanent places for public celebrations in large provincial cities; it was dictated by economic reasons: the development of cities and the need for state supervision over the “rest time” of citizens. Until 1867, slides and other attractions were built at the expense of the state treasury, then local authorities began to maintain them. The tradition of private enterprise helping to build attractions and maintain city “amusement gardens” with the money of individuals and companies in Russia was rather poorly developed until the end of the 19th century. The already mentioned St. Petersburg Luna Park can serve as a positive example here.

We are not talking about the familiar Czech amusement parks of the Brezhnev era, but about amusement parks of the early 20th century. They appeared in Europe “in the manner” of the American ones (that was the name of one of the parks on Coney Island) and were popular among thrill-seekers. In St. Petersburg, Luna Park was opened by the merchant of the first guild and honorary citizen Khabibbula Yalyshev. A Tatar by origin, he “specialized” in various types of entertainment establishments - restaurants, taverns, theaters. Luna Park, which became the crowning achievement of his career, opened in the summer of 1912, on the territory of the “Russian family” Demidov Garden. It was grandiose for those times “Ferris wheel”, “mountain railway” (riding along it“the ladies and maidens screamed furiously, providing free entertainment to the visitors”), “the drunken staircase”, “the mill of love”, “the humorous kitchen”, “the sea battle off Havana”, as well as an open stage and numerous buffets. One of the adrenaline junkies, an elderly St. Petersburg resident, even died on the rides from a broken heart, as was written about in the newspapers. In Alexander Blok’s diary we read about the attractions of Luna Park: “What a delight!.. I rode until one o’clock in the morning, until the ticket office closed.” There was also a prototype of the “Behind the Glass” program: a special pavilion “Somali Village”, where the idle public could gaze at the daily life of African tribes. After the revolution Luna Park was closed and razed to the ground, and a little later the stadium of the P. F. Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture was built there. And the first “public pleasure garden” of this kind in St. Petersburg was opened in 1793 - and it was called “Voxal in the Naryshkinsky Garden.” On Wednesdays and Sundays, those who wished could take part in dances and masquerades for “a fee of one ruble per person.”

It is quite possible that the attraction business would gradually gain momentum in Russia and we would have our own entertainment industry. Russia here was quite in line with Europe and America, building parks and organizing large fairs. However, the era of world wars and revolutions began - and there was no time for fun. However, before looking at the development of urban amusement parks in the early years of Soviet power, let's take another look at the West. This must be done, since current domestic entrepreneurs in the field of attraction business rely not only on the traditions of the Soviet era, but are also trying to actively borrow elements of the modern American entertainment industry. An attempt to differentiate between the domestic pre-revolutionary idea of ​​folk festivals, the Soviet history of a communal park, based on ideas about mass character, joint leisure activities for workers, and a Western private, non-state amusement park can therefore be useful in arranging a modern domestic urban amusement park.

And in America and Europe, the tenth and twenties were the heyday park construction. This time is even called the “Golden Age” of attractions. Economic development in previous years has meant that Americans have more free time and money for entertainment. It was during this era that the foundations of the entertainment industry were laid with its colossal turnover of capital and the emergence of more and more technical achievements in gardening. The roller coaster ride became especially popular at this time. There was a special reason for this - people who returned from the front lines of the First World War were accustomed to the feeling of excitement and adrenaline in the blood. Roller coasters became steeper, but loops appeared on them only after the war, in 1959, at Disneyland. Another heyday of roller coasters began in the 1970s and continues to this day day.

Interest in amusement parks began to fade in the West during the American Great Depression and finally disappeared during World War II. During the war, those relatively poor inhabitants of large cities who had previously visited parks in search of inexpensive pleasures like roller coasters and cotton candy moved to V quieter suburbs. The main entertainment was the new television. Post-war devastation and crime took their toll - amusement parks began to decline and close, some of them burned down as a result of arson. In addition, the car has become one of the main entertainments of Americans, and it has become more and more difficult to find parking spaces near parks.

A new round of development of the attraction business in the West occurred in the mid-1950s. Then Walt Disney, both a brilliant animator and an entrepreneur with the gift of foresight, turned to his business partners with a proposal to build a completely new type of family theme park. The concept of Disneyland appeared by chance - even before the war, Disney and his two daughters Diana and Sharon were walking in Griffith Park not far from Los Angeles. In this fairly ordinary amusement park with its lunch areas and simple attractions like a carousel, Disney suddenly began to think about what a completely different park might look like - made from scratch, united by an unusual and interesting idea, carefully planned and equally attractive to children and adults. In addition, fans constantly wrote to the animator and wanted to visit his studio; for such an influx of visitors, a separate site was needed. Disney's father helped build the famous 1893 Chicago Fair, which sparked Walt's imagination. At that fair, space was divided into “countries” and “times” - so Disney’s idea of ​​​​dividing the park into “areas” and “countries” appeared largely under her influence. The Californian climate was favorable for the creation of such a park; in other areas, various factors such as rain, wind and snow required the design of much more durable structures and buildings.

In order to gather experience, Walt Disney visited many parks in America and Europe (for example, the famous Tivoli in Copenhagen). His partners refused to support him - after all, America had not yet recovered from the depression, war and post-war poverty, and the parks at that moment were in decline. Then the director decided to pawn all his shares and also turned to television people, creating the Disneyworld program. He raised enough money to buy a large plot of land in Anaheim, south of Los Angeles. Construction of the park began on July 18, 1954, lasted exactly a year and cost $17 million. The main unifying idea was a journey through the world of Disney cartoons. The park officially opened on July 18, 1955, and a special ceremony with future US President Ronald Reagan took place a day earlier. However, Disney suffered a major setback - suddenly hot, swelteringly dry weather set in (+38 C), there were too many people, so there was a crush, mechanics went on strike, so the fountains did not work, and part of the park was closed due to a gas leak. It is not surprising that park employees nicknamed this day “Black Sunday.” Newspapers wrote such caustic and critical articles about the event that a second opening had to be specially arranged for the journalists; this time everything went smoothly. Disney Park was divided into 5 areas. The train took children and their parents down Main Street to Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Discoveryland. Initially there were only 16 attractions, but each of them had to be “unlike anything in the world.” However, of course, they used all the same types of amusement rides and mechanisms - for example, there were roller coasters, but the material (steel, not wood for most parts) and design features were new.

The success of Walt Disney's theme park gave rise to a wave of imitations. Theme parks popped up here and there. Thus, Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, and several Lion Country Safari parks combined attractions with a zoo with large open-air enclosures. In Arlington (Texas), the Six Flags over Texas park was built - it is dedicated to American history. Opryland, a country-style park, was built in Nashville (Tennessee). In Europe and Asia, the boom of such parks began only in the nineties, with the construction of the largest Korean amusement park in Asia, Lotte World (Seoul, 1988) and the European Disneyland (Paris, 1992). Lotte World Adventure is currently the world's largest indoor amusement park (under a glass dome) and is included in the Guinness Book of Records (area - 7562 sq.m).

Let's return to Russia, or rather to the USSR. At the end of the twenties, a real park boom began here, although it was very short-lived. At this time, an official decision was made to build Soviet parks. The background to this event was twofold - and one can immediately note that both reasons were very different from those for which the attraction business developed in the West. On the one hand, it was about creating a truly new, collective form of recreation. As it seemed to enthusiasts at that moment, Soviet parks were supposed to truly unite people together, without exploitation and financial profit from their desire to relax. The idea was publicly discussed - after all, many people were excited about it. They wanted to make the parks something like a “club of clubs” - that is, give the working people what the House of Culture could not give them. On the other hand, Soviet parks and exhibitions had to “catch up and overtake” the decaying West. However, the decision to organize parks also had a completely understandable economic justification - as a result of rapidly carried out industrialization, as well as the devastation that occurred in the countryside, huge masses of people poured into the city. These were mostly former illiterate peasants. Torn off from the land, they were forced to master urban professions - and became a breeding ground for the criminal element. The leisure time of the new townspeople had to be carefully organized.

Important milestones in the development of amusement parks were the foundation of two Moscow parks: in 1928, the largest Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after Maxim Gorky was built in Eastern Europe, and in 1939, the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition (VDNKh). The site of the Central Park of Culture and Culture managed to be a meadow, a pasture for the horses of the Crimean Khan's embassy (16th century), royal stables, a battle field (in 1612 Kuzma Minin fought the Poles here), again a meadow and finally a grandiose landfill. In 1923, the garbage was removed by the unemployed, and the All-Russian Agricultural, Industrial and Handicraft Exhibition was held on the site of the former garbage dump. The park was opened in 1928, and it was first called the “Open Air Culture Combine”; It received the name Gorky in 1931, on the anniversary of the petrel of the revolution. On the first day, vacationers were allowed in for free. At the entrance they were met by a girl with an oar made by Ivan Shadr (the sculpture was destroyed during the war).

In those days there was a lot of debate about what a “fundamentally new center of culture” should be. The wits Ilf and Petrov scoffed at the plans with might and main: “We are obliged to give each man-walking unit. And this unit, comrades, should not walk, but... do enormous walking work.” The organization of recreation was indeed taken seriously: entertainers, cheerful athletes and professors wandered around the park, giving lectures to vacationers. The plans were even more grandiose: they wanted to annex the opposite bank of the Moscow River to its territory, right up to the Luzhniki Stadium. According to the ideas of the architect Alexander Vlasov, Luzhniki was supposed to become something like a living globe, a kind of cross between Venice, the Chicago Fair and the not yet created Disneyland. Vacationers from continent to continent with copies of local attractions and typical landscapes were to be transported by special boats, cable car trolleys and even “pedal-driven pleasure airships.” The entire world map could be seen from the observation deck of the Lenin Mountains. A little further away, on the site of the current Orlyonok Hotel, they were going to build a paleontological park.

However, grandiose plans never came to fruition. The war began, and in 1943 an exhibition of captured weapons was organized at the Central Park of Culture and Culture. The Ferris wheel appeared in the Central Park of Culture and Culture only after the war; its first passengers were participants in the World Festival of Youth and Students. The lifting height of the cabins was 50 meters, and the turnaround time was 8 minutes. Muscovites also fell in love with the boat station, the children's railway (there was also a children's steamboat on Golitsinsky Pond) and the 35-meter parachute tower. The design of the latter was so successful that it was subsequently used not only in parks, but also in flight schools. As an anecdote, the first practical “washing stations” are now remembered - public showers, which were installed to instill in Muscovites and guests of the capital a passion for hygiene. Apparently, the townspeople liked the tradition so much that even now paratroopers like to swim in the fountains of the Central Park of Culture and Culture on their professional holiday. Old-timers also remember the Pilsen beer bar - the only place in Moscow where “real” Czech beer was served. At a time when there were queues even for domestic beer, this bar was one of the most attractive points on the map of Moscow for lovers of not only active, but also passive relaxation with a mug in hand. They say that it was here that several types were found for the film “White Sun of the Desert” - they played cameo roles as members of Abdullah’s gang.

Competition for Gorky Park soon came from VSKhV, or the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (the future VDNKh, now the All-Union Exhibition Center). It opened on August 1, 1939 in Ostankino. Despite the fact that the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition was invented “at the request of the workers” - namely after appeals of the Second All-Union Congress of Shock Collective Farmers to the central bodies of the Communist Party and government - its idea basically repeated Western and Russian pre-revolutionary world exhibitions and industrial fairs. The “city within a city” on the northern outskirts of Moscow, smoothly turning into the Botanical Garden, had an area of ​​136 hectares with ponds, parks, sculptures, and fountains. There were, of course, attractions here. On the one hand, a special recreation area was made for visitors - and this was also quite in the spirit of the same Chicago World's Columbian Fair of 1893. In this zone, a parachute tower, a Ferris wheel, carousels, a laughter room, a special children's playground, as well as the Green Theater, a concert stage, a circus, and two cinemas were gradually opened. Various technical wonders can also be considered as a kind of attractions - for example, a working example of a collective farm hydroelectric power station on the Kamenka River with a five-meter earthen dam. The current generated by the station was supplied to the pavilion next door - it powered agricultural cars. The All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition was a huge success - in just less than three months, over 3.5 million people visited it; in 1940, the exhibition lasted 5 months, and was visited by 4.5 million people (for reference, the population of Moscow at that time was exactly 4.5 million .).

Probably, the park and attraction business would gradually reach quite significant results in its development. But a number of new shocks on a national scale occurred - the era of repression, famine, the Great Patriotic War - which again froze movement along this path for a long time. New interest in amusement parks arose in the late fifties, when life improved so much that people who survived the war again began to need entertainment. We already have memories of the 1960-80s of people who participated in the development of the attraction business in the post-war period. Unlike some other "leisure" industries (say, photography with its opportunity for private activity), this industry was completely controlled by the state. Culture and recreation parks were subordinate to the Ministry of Culture and financed from its budget. There was no talk about profitability; all the parks were “on subsidies.” According to the order, in large cities (over one hundred thousand inhabitants) a park was required. The set of attractions was also standard, purchases were made centrally: applications were collected at the Ministry of Culture, which formed quotas for regional and regional cultural departments.

Almost all attractions were designed at the Institute of Cultural Technology and were produced by one single enterprise. The Yeisk plant in the Krasnodar region was founded in 1959 and specialized only in amusement rides. Several more factories - in Nizhny Tagil, Dolgoprudny - made small attractions like “fun slides” and “breeze”, mini-carousels. A typical “gentleman’s” set of a city park consisted of seven attractions, sometimes there were more: a Ferris wheel, a chain carousel “Whirlwind”, “Orbit”, “Chamomile” (the listed attractions were the highest grossing), as well as “Sun”, “Bell” , "Jung" and "Herringbone". The last of those listed did not bring much profit, but they were necessarily “stuffed” according to the order in the parks. Sometimes this set was supplemented by an autodrome (also one of the highest-grossing attractions, but it was difficult to “get”), “Northern Lights” (it was produced by a plant in Dolgoprudny) and the popular attraction “Funny Hills” (it was designed and produced in Ukraine, in Zaporozhye). By the way, similar “amusement parks” also existed in large, rich collective farms, especially in the Krasnodar region. Collective farms received attractions “by barter”, paying with agricultural products - a profitable business for the plant in an era of food shortages.

The attraction equipment was quite cheap: the drawings were purchased in Japan, but our designers simplified the design, used cheaper materials, and removed the “extra” surroundings. In fact, the “dull” appearance of the attractions that the directors of today’s parks inherited from the Soviet era is associated with three things. Firstly, economy (the Soviet economy invested too much in competition with America and often “sagged” in other areas), secondly, the lack of competition and thirdly, the generally rather low status of personal pleasure and convenience in Soviet times.

Now the words “scarcity” and “get” are forgotten like a bad dream. However, at that time, whether or not a particular park received the desired attraction often depended on the ability of its director to “negotiate.” Attractions were received “according to the order” (they were distributed “according to the table” - in accordance with their service life), but it was also possible to apply directly, “above the order” to the Yeisk plant, where park directors lined up for the rides. In general, in a planned economy, much depended on the individual qualities of people: the professionalism and honesty of a particular official who distributed attraction equipment among parks, support for the initiatives of park directors by the chairmen of city executive committees, and the enthusiasm of the directors themselves. So, despite the centralized style of management of the industry in Soviet times and the unified nature of parks throughout the USSR, behind each achievement in the field of attraction business there are specific people, associates and inventors. At the highest level, the older generation of amusement park directors notes the contribution of two officials - an employee of the USSR Ministry of Culture, Anatoly Matveevich Dementman and the Minister of Culture, Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva.

Former Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Russia, Anatoly Dementman was a strong organizer who knew not only the basics and practices of park activities, but also personally all the park directors of the Soviet Union. According to eyewitnesses, Dementman’s opinion was so weighty and authoritative that any documents he prepared at the USSR Ministry of Culture on the issue of amusement parks were signed by the ministers without reading. Ekaterina Furtseva personally pushed through issues related to the development of parks through official structures. According to the director of the Penza Park of Culture and Recreation I.D. Balalaev, “Furtseva was the minister [of culture] under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, but she was not afraid to confront the government and the Politburo about the mistake made in relation to the parks. By that time, Ekaterina Alekseevna was already having troubles with the Politburo. And yet she achieved the adoption of a separate special resolution in defense of parks!”

Thanks to Furtseva, an exhibition and sale of foreign attractions was organized in Moscow in the summer of 1971. The phenomenon was unheard of at that time: attractions “over the hill” were practically not purchased at that moment. In 1971, park directors finally saw with their own eyes how different the products of Soviet factories were from the world's. It was after this exhibition that the phrase “entertainment industry” came into use. Muscovites were able to ride a roller coaster, play slot machines, and also go to the first bowling alley in the capital, located under a grandiose inflatable dome on the Mass Field of the Central Park of Culture and Culture. At that moment there was no money to purchase foreign attractions, and besides, it was considered unpatriotic. Some exceptions were made for central parks - for example, in the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky in the early seventies there was a German attraction “Steep turns”. But craftsmen spied on Western secrets - and in some parks attractions appeared, designed in the image and likeness of their foreign counterparts.

Finally, already at the end of the Brezhnev era, Czech “Luna Parks” began to come to the USSR. 16 such amusement parks constantly toured the Soviet Union. These mobile parks were entirely tested and completed in the Czech Republic. They attracted visitors not only with a carefully designed layout of entertainment or unusual attractions (like the “Panic Room”), but also with small details, such as, for example, prizes in the shooting range (“foreign” fizzy drinks in pouches, children’s rings with pebbles). In an era when few people traveled abroad, the flair of otherworldly life attracted no less than the attractions themselves. With the beginning of perestroika, several Luna Parks did not leave the USSR, but remained to tour the former republics of the Soviet Union.

Despite the rather boring appearance of Soviet attractions, one of the main achievements of the Ministry of Culture was the safety of their operation. Safety requirements were determined by industry standard 43-30-88, as well as by order of the ministry. Preserving the life and health of visitors was an unshakable value and task for which the Ministry of Culture was responsible together with the Ministry of Labor. In the late 80s and early 90s, amusement parks began to decline again; the population had neither money nor desire to have fun. The parks department in the Ministry of Culture was liquidated, and a little later, in 2002, the industry inspectorate was also liquidated. The park management system that had been created throughout the post-war years was destroyed, in which, in particular, all statistics on the number of parks and visitors, attraction equipment, and accidents were collected. It has become simply dangerous to ride on dilapidated rides in many parks; even in Moscow they had to close the large Ferris wheel in the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky.

However, the period of decline did not last long. Today, across the country, parks are coming to life again, Western attractions are being purchased, and new territories are planned to open. And in the light of the history of the domestic attraction business, the most important thing today, perhaps, is not only to study Western experience, but also not to feel a break with previous “park” eras - medieval rural holidays and the time of Peter’s “amusement gardens” with “skating mountains” and “ amusement parks" of Tsarist Russia, grandiose plans of the first years of the Soviet state and more modest embodied ideas of post-war park enthusiasts and the creators of the Yeisk plant. For centuries in Russia it was customary to destroy to the ground the achievements of previous eras and start from scratch, copying someone else’s and disdaining one’s own. However, our country also has positive experience in uniting the traditions of the West and the East, modernity and history. And amusement parks, built taking into account this experience, can become a truly new business - both profitable and bringing benefit, joy and pleasure to all our compatriots, big and small.

In pursuit of strong sensations, people are ready to go to the ends of the earth and part with impressive sums of money. The entertainment industry today is one of the most high-tech, capital-intensive, rapidly growing and developing industries. Complex engineering projects, multimillion-dollar investments and grandiose construction projects result in a sea of ​​adrenaline for brave visitors. The entertainment industry sets the most impressive records for speed, altitude, acceleration and cost of projects. But at the same time, these records are also the most short-lived: the viewer, hungry for strong emotions, constantly demands new shows, and new slides, carousels and observation wheels grow like mushrooms after rain. The prototypes of modern amusement parks appeared in medieval Europe: during fairs and carnivals, attractions (from the French attraction - to attract) were exhibited in squares - swings in summer, and ice slides in winter. In 1583, the first and oldest existing park, the Bakken, was built near Copenhagen.
As the legend goes, one girl noticed a spring with healing water flowing out of the ground in the Royal Deer Park. Endless crowds of those suffering were drawn to it to be healed, and enterprising people began to build inns, booths and attractions around the source. The location turned out to be so successful that the Bakken park still exists today, with more than 150 attractions and receiving 2.5 million visitors annually.

In Russia, the construction of parks for the entertainment of royalty and courtiers began only during the reign of Peter the Great. In the middle of the 18th century, the famous Russian scientist-engineer Andrei Nartov invented mechanical roller coasters. However, the name “Russian roller coaster”, popular all over the world, appeared only in the 19th century: it owes its origin to the soldiers of Napoleon’s army, who fell in love with the Russian national sport of skiing from the mountains during the campaign of 1812. At the same time, industrial production of roller coasters, a classic amusement ride, was established in Russia. The first mechanized slides with a descent on rails in special carts on rollers appeared in New York in 1884. And already in 1897 such an attraction was installed in Japan.

Katalny (walking) mountains were the main entertainment at every large fairground. And they didn’t say “take a walk at the fair,” but “take a walk in the mountains” or “take a walk under the mountains.”
These mountains were built from wooden beams, up to 10-12 meters high. The sloping part was laid out with ice and watered; Before the public was allowed in, they ran them through special “rolls.” The height of the slide and the angle were such that the sleds rushed for another 100 meters. Later, summer sledding hills appeared, from which people descended on small carts, on “lubok” (planks), matting and rugs.
They were transformed into mechanical structures with trolleys and rails by engineer-inventor Andrei Nartov, Peter I’s personal turner. This was truly a literal revolution in skating.
Only courtiers rode on the Nartov slides, and for the people, mechanical slides were built for the first time only many years later - in 1896 at the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition.

However, a real boom in the opening of new amusement parks began in America, and, oddly enough, trolleybuses contributed to this: on weekends the number of passengers invariably decreased, and experienced businessmen decided to attract customers with trips to the parks, locating them at the terminal stations of trolleybus routes. As a result, in just a quarter of the last century, about one and a half thousand parks were built in America, and entrance to their territory became paid. In the USSR, the park boom began in the late 1920s of the last century, but did not last long. In 1928, the largest Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after Maxim Gorky appeared in Eastern Europe.
The Second World War interrupted the global development of the amusement ride industry for a long time. Even a decade after its end, when in 1955 Walt Disney approached his business partners with a request for a large loan of $100,000 to build a family theme park, he was rejected everywhere. It is unknown what would have happened to the park industry today if Disney had not then pledged all of its shares for the construction of Disneyland in Orlando. The park was conceived as an exciting journey through the magical land of famous cartoons.

After the advent of Disneyland, the United States began building parks throughout America. A few years later, the Six Flags Over Texas park, dedicated to American history, appears in Arlington, Texas; Opryland, representing the country style, is being built in Nashville, Tennessee. Built in Jackson, New Jersey, several parks - Big Adventure and Lion Country Safari - combine attractions with an outdoor zoo where animals are kept in natural conditions. In other countries, the pause in park construction continued for several more decades: the most famous European amusement park, Disneyland Paris, was built only in 1992.
A little earlier, in 1988, the largest Korean indoor amusement park in Asia, Lote World, opened in Seoul. It is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest indoor park (its area is 7562 sq. m).


About the roller coaster.
In terms of the amount of adrenaline released into the blood, they are considered the most extreme attraction in the whole world. According to experts, during descent, passengers are subjected to a force of 4G, which is comparable to the load on jet pilots during complex maneuvers or even the conditions of space flight.
It is believed that mechanized slides with a descent at high speed along rails in special carts on rollers, i.e. in a form close to the modern one, were invented in America. However, it is not. The name "roller coaster" was invented by the Russians. In the USA, where the first such attraction was installed in New York in the 80s. XIX century, it was initially called the “Curved Railway” (Inclined Railway). But in everyday life another name has stuck to it - “Russian roller coaster”. Which is quite fair, since our idea is Russian, and the first mechanical ski hills appeared in Russia a hundred years earlier than overseas - in the middle of the 18th century. (see above).
The very name “Russian roller coaster” owes its origin to the soldiers of Napoleon’s army, who fell in love with skiing during the campaign of 1812. They brought stories about the Russian national pastime to France, and in 1846 the first Les Montagnes Russes and Belleville were opened in Paris - "Roller coaster in Belleville." The single trolleys of these slides moved along a closed circular path with a diameter of 4 m and were equipped with wheels that were fixed in the rail and ensured safety at high speeds.
In 1884, in a New York park on Coney Island, those wishing to ride a roller coaster were first offered to climb onto the platform on their own, with their “legs,” and from there they could slide down in trolleys that looked like benches. It happened like this: after rushing about 180 m, the train climbed to the second platform, after which it was rearranged for the return journey, and the passengers moved back down. A year later, the design was improved and replaced with an oval-shaped closed road, which used an automatic lift.
Americans began to indulge in similar entertainment about thirty years earlier. For just 50 cents, extreme thrill-seekers could “take a ride” along the “gravity road,” as the 14-kilometer railroad was called for moving coal from the mining site to the shipping point (it was distinguished from ordinary ones by the use of gravity for movement), launched in 1827 a mining company in Pennsylvania. The demand for breathtaking entertainment on coal trolleys prompted the enterprising inventor John Taylor to patent it under the name “Twisted Railway.” Engineer Edna Thompson became even more interested in this idea, having widely expanded the construction of slides in other cities of the United States and patented more than 30 different improvements related to them.

The engineering idea of ​​a “roller coaster” (we will call them that, as is customary for Russian ears) is not particularly complex. They are a specially designed railway system designed so that a train of trolleys with passengers passing through it suddenly changes direction and speed. And since the trolleys do not have their own source of energy, they use the conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy and vice versa to accelerate. However, thanks to the use of the latest technologies, today the attraction has become not only fantastically beautiful, but also fantastically sophisticated.
The Japanese are especially distinguished in this matter, building “roller coasters” of super-giant size, at which exorbitant speeds are achieved. For example, in one of the parks near Tokyo, the length of the slides is 1200 m; during the ride, a mechanical train overcomes a descent, the distance between the top and bottom points of which reaches 52 m, and the maximum speed of the cabins is 172 km/h. At the start, the cabins reach speeds of up to 100 km/h in less than 2 seconds! (For comparison: in Formula 1, cars reach speed of 100 km/h in about 2.5 seconds.) It’s easy to imagine the emotional and physical stress the “rider” experiences during this!
It is no coincidence that the largest number of accidents occurring in amusement parks is associated with roller coasters. Experts divide them into three categories. The first two include accidents caused by visitors themselves due to non-compliance with safety rules, and equipment malfunction. The third is purely medical. Not every body is able to withstand the overloads that occur during an attraction. Even in more or less healthy people, blood pressure rises, blood vessels rupture, peptic ulcers worsen, and cardiac arrhythmia begins, which can lead to a serious attack and even sudden death. According to statistics, most of those who died on the “roller coaster” were victims of strokes, cerebral hematomas and dysfunction of the carotid arteries. Doctors also drew attention to the increasing incidence of epilepsy attacks among attraction users caused by loud noise and flashes of light.
However, what are the numbers of some statistics worth compared to the power of a huge steel snake, twisted in zigzags, even if only for a few minutes, but giving an incomparable sensation of free flight in its sharpness.

Today, a real revolution is taking place in the entertainment market. Many large companies are happy to invest millions of dollars in the construction of grandiose attractions. Moreover, they amaze not only with their high cost, but also with the scope of their creators’ imagination. Want to know about the most amazing attractions in the world? Then read on.
Walking to Heaven
For example, you can admire the beauty of London from the London Eye Ferris wheel. The famous 135-meter wheel was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest. It takes 30 minutes to make a full revolution. The London Eye never stops, because its speed is so low that passengers can easily board and disembark while moving. But more recently, the creators of this miracle were surpassed, and now the tallest Ferris wheel is located in China. It is higher than London by as much as 25 meters.
In the Netherlands there is a Ferris wheel that takes everyone and their cars for a ride. Can you imagine what a pleasure it is to gaze at picturesque landscapes from the comfort of your favorite car? The wheel turns around in about 10 minutes and can simultaneously roll 4 cars with passengers, alternately raising them to a height of 35 meters.

Chasing the thrill
The fastest and highest ride in the world was created especially for speed lovers and those seeking the most thrilling sensations. It carries passengers 125 meters up at a speed of 200 km/h, and then rushes down at a right angle. One has only to imagine this, and it’s already breathtaking! Plus, the trip is accompanied by the roar of engines and the smell of exhaust gases. This creates the illusion of a real race.
The Walt Disney company truly spared no expense and opened the most expensive and closest to reality attraction. The creators spent $100 million to create the Mission: Space rocket. But, according to visitors, it was worth it. To equip the rocket, the same equipment was used as in the training of real astronauts. Visitors experience a whole range of thrills: from overloads that press them into their chairs to short moments of weightlessness.
Las Vegas boasts the tallest free fall tower. This is a giant swing installed on the roof of the hotel. The swing cabin swings at such a great height that it seems as if it is practically soaring into the sky. The attraction operates only at night, so it creates a complete feeling of space flight. However, that's not all! Then the person is fastened to a chair on a rail located at a height of 340 meters. The rail tilts down and suddenly slows down at the edge of the abyss. Moreover, the unfortunate passenger literally hangs over the abyss on a belt. Surely, the sensations are simply indescribable.

Crazy Train
In the world of roller coasters, there are two leagues of records - for metal and wooden rides. Of course, in wooden slides only the supporting structures are made of wood, while the rails remain steel. Wood can withstand significantly less load than metal, so the speed, heights, and overloads on such slides are lower. Wooden rides are known not for their dynamics, but for their entertainment value: decorations, retro surroundings.

Kinga Ka
Country: USA, suburb of New York Year of opening: 2005 Height: 139 m. The tallest metal slide in the world. The hydraulic mechanism accelerates the trolley to 205 km/h in 3.5 seconds, which makes Kinga Ka one of the most dynamic rides in the world. In May 2009, the hill was struck by lightning, necessitating complex repairs. The attraction is currently in full operational readiness

Son of beast
Country: USA Cincinnati Year of opening: 2000 Height: 66 m The tallest wooden slide in the world. Until 2006, it was the only wooden slide with a loop. The dangerous element was dismantled after an incident with 27 victims.

Steel Dragon
Country: Japan Nagashima Year of opening: 2000 Length: 2479 m The longest slide in the world. The slide with the eloquent name "Steel Dragon 2000" has the shape of a dragon's crest and was built in 2000 - the year of the dragon.

Superman: Krypton coaster
Country: USA San Antonio Year of opening: 2000 The highest loop in the world

Manta
Country: USA City: Orlando Year of opening: 2009 A marine-themed slide at the SeaWorld Orlando water park. Much of Manta's journey takes place through transparent tunnels inside ten aquariums. While enjoying the speed, visitors can also see more than 60 species of marine animals, including rare stingrays. Manta is a “flying” attraction where you can experience a state of weightlessness.

Worm's Journey
Australians are also not inferior in the originality of their ideas. They created the world's first and only worm museum. Its building itself “wriggles” in the shape of a giant worm, and a sign at the entrance invites you to crawl through the museum on all fours through underground passages. In their twilight there are models of huge worms and cocoons, and one of the main attractions is a tunnel that introduces you in detail to the insides of these cute animals. By the way, the museum has enough living exhibits of various types and sizes.
Living legends of the pharaoh
And let's return to America again. There is entertainment here, which is the embodiment of a computer “quest” - with riddles, traps, and puzzles. It is made in the form of the tomb of a pharaoh, through the labyrinths of which brave researchers will not be able to pass. There is something to be surprised by: collapsing ceilings, fogs and waterfalls, the haunting spirit of the pharaoh, many mysteries and secrets.
Top Thrill Dragster("Breathtaking Dragster") at Cedar Point, USA
The height of this structure is from 100 to 152 m. The train reaches a speed of 193 km/h. One ride lasts only 17 seconds, which cannot be said about the queue for the attraction. However, it's worth the wait.

Xcelerator (“Accelerator”) at Knott's Berry Farm amusement park, USA
"Accelerator" equipped with a powerful motor with a hydraulic catapult, which gives the cars an acceleration of over 132 km/h. in just 1.8 seconds. On the slide you can reach a speed of 188 km/h, while the pushing force is enough to send the train up and down the steep tracks of the attraction.

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Option 27. Assignments for the Unified State Exam 2018. Russian language. I.P. Tsybulko. 36 options

Read the text and complete tasks 1 - 3

(1) The first attractions appeared in medieval Europe, where simple adrenaline-filled fun was organized during fairs and carnivals: swings and other entertainment structures were exhibited in city squares, equally loved by both children and adults. (2) They decided to put the matter on a regular basis in the 16th century. in the Kingdom of Denmark: one girl noticed in the Royal Deer Park a spring with healing water gushing out of the ground, to which endless crowds of those eager to be healed were drawn, and enterprising people began to build inns, booths and attractions around the source. (3) The location turned out to be so successful that the Bakken park still exists today, with more than 150 attractions today.

1. Indicate two sentences that correctly convey the MAIN information contained in the text. Write down the numbers of these sentences.

1) In the 16th century. in the kingdom of Denmark, one girl noticed in a deer park a spring with healing water gushing out of the ground, to which endless crowds of those eager to be healed flocked, and enterprising people began to build inns and booths around the source: this is how the Bakken park arose.

2) The first attractions were fun events organized during fairs and carnivals in city squares: both adults and children could have a lot of fun on swings and other simple structures.

3) The history of the Bakken Park is as follows: in the 16th century. In the Kingdom of Denmark, one girl noticed in a deer park a spring with healing water gushing out of the ground, to which endless crowds of those eager to be healed flocked, and enterprising people began to build inns, booths and attractions around the source.

4) The first attractions arose in medieval Europe, and the first regular amusement park - "Bakken" - was founded in the 16th century. in the Kingdom of Denmark today there are more than 150 entertainment facilities.

5) The use of attractions, which people used to entertain themselves back in medieval Europe, was introduced on a regular basis in the 16th century. in the Kingdom of Denmark, where the Bakken park was founded, which today has more than 150 attractions.

2. Which of the following words (combinations of words) should be in the blank in the second (2) sentence? Write down this word (combination of words).

hence

For example

at first sight

as the legend says

3. Read a fragment of a dictionary entry that gives the meaning of the word WATER. Determine the meaning in which this word is used in the second (2) sentence of the text. Write down the number corresponding to this value in the given fragment of the dictionary entry.WATER, -ы, zh.

1) A transparent, colorless liquid, which is a chemical compound of hydrogen and oxygen. River, spring c. Tap water in. Marine v. Glass of water.

2) Seas, rivers, lakes, canals, straits related to a given state, region, territory. Inland waters (within a given state). Territorial waters (areas of sea space that are part of a given state). Neutral waters.3) Resort with mineral springs. Heal on the waters. Go to the water. Mineral water.

4) transfer, units. About something. meaningless and verbose (colloquial). Not a report, but a complete c. There is a lot of water in the message. Pour water (about empty chatter).

4. In one of the words below, an error was made in the placement of stress: the letter denoting the stressed vowel sound was highlighted incorrectly. Write this word down.

feeding

spoiled

take heart

5. One of the sentences below uses the highlighted word incorrectly. Correct the lexical error by choosing a paronym for the highlighted word. Write down the chosen word.

F.I. Chaliapin was unusually ARTISTIC both on stage and in life.

VALID measures have been taken to prevent the negative consequences of drought.

One of the stages in the development of HUMANISM is associated with the Renaissance.

The court decided to PAY compensation to the victims in the amount of three monthly salaries.

The teacher asked the children to ADD their classmate’s answer.

6. In one of the words highlighted below, an error was made in the formation of the word form. Correct the mistake and write the word correctly.

bunch of bananas

pair of MITTENS

Experienced CHARACTERS

to THREE HUNDRED and forty voters

7. Establish a correspondence between grammatical errors and the sentences in which they were made: for each position in the first column, select the corresponding position from the second column.

GRAMMATICAL ERRORS A) incorrect use of a numeral B) an error in constructing a sentence with homogeneous members B) incorrect construction of sentences with indirect speech D) incorrect construction of sentences with participial phrases D) incorrect use of the case form of a noun with a preposition

OFFERS 1) The way we live depends on our worldview, which is formed both from the knowledge we possess and from personal impressions. 2) I answered my grandmother that I woke up at about three in the morning because I was terribly cold. 3) A.S. Pushkin challenges society, declaring that “in my cruel age I glorified freedom.” 4) The girl who was sitting by the window and who sang well was remembered by everyone. 5) On weekends and holidays, trains will operate according to schedule. 6) Due to the long absence of the boat, two planes were sent to search for the vessel. 7) When leaving on a business trip, my father promised that he would definitely return for the holidays. 8) Nadya asked to be listened to to the end at least once. 9) History knows many examples when talents, who already accomplished a lot in their youth and promised even more in the future, die before reaching their peak.

8. Identify the word in which the unstressed unchecked vowel of the root is missing. Write out this word by inserting the missing letter.

academy

spare

simplify

material (proof)

exclamation

9. Identify the row in which the same letter is missing in both words. Write out these words by inserting the missing letter.

on..pushing, before..the eve (of the holiday)

ra..enthused, and..frightened

pr..wing, pr..possible

pr..wise, accepted

pr..jumped, ..close

10. Write down the word in which the letter E is written in place of the gap.

wink..wink

changeable

pull up

harden

picky

11. Write down the word in which the letter I is written in place of the gap.

fighting

discovered

offended...offended

chant..my

be cured

12. Determine the sentence in which NOT is written together with the word. Open the brackets and write down this word.

The cat Timofey (NOT)MEN is ten years old.

The air, which has not yet become sultry, is pleasantly refreshing.

(NOT) PICK IN THE SKY, but give the bird in your hands.

Nastya had (IN)CORRECT, but pleasant facial features.

The lecturer (NOT)IMMEDIATELY managed to convey his thoughts to the audience.

13. Determine the sentence in which both highlighted words are written CONTINUOUSLY. Open the brackets and write down these two words.

(C) FOR many days, a strong volcanic eruption continued, over which clouds of smoke swirled (LIKE a vortex), increasing in size.

(NOT) DESPITE our love for city landscapes, we STILL (STILL) did not remain indifferent to the beauty of nature in Valdai.

(And) SO, all my brilliant hopes collapsed, and (IN) PLACE of a cheerful Moscow life, boredom awaited me in a deaf and distant side.

It’s hard to even imagine WHAT WOULD happen to me IF the ship was late.

14. Indicate the number(s) in whose place(s) NN is written.

The house stands somewhat away from the forest, its walls here and there have been renovated (1) with fresh wood, the windows have been freshened (2) with whitewash, a small porch on the side, decorated (3) with carvings, also has an unusually (4) pleasant smell of resin.

15. Place punctuation marks. List two sentences that require ONE comma. Write down the numbers of these sentences.

1) After lunch, grandma went out onto the balcony knitting or sewing.

2) In the 19th century in Europe and America, science and production developed at a rapid pace.

3) Behind the snowy fog you can’t see any fields, telegraph poles or forests.

4) The rich and not poor, but complaining.

5) M. Vrubel’s painting “Lilac” was bought directly from the exhibition by P. M. Tretyakov, and for more than a hundred years this painting has been on permanent display at the Tretyakov Gallery.

16. Place all punctuation marks: indicate the number(s) in whose place(s) there should be a comma(s).

A damp, cold wind blew from the sea (1), spreading across the steppe (2) the thoughtful melody of the splash (3) of a wave (4) running onto the shore.

17. Place all punctuation marks: indicate the number(s), in the place of which(s) there should be a comma(s).

I (1) confess (2) am not too fond of aspen with its lavender trunk and gray-green metallic foliage. Aspen is good only on a windy summer day, when each leaf (3) seems to (4) want to break off and rush off into the distance.

18. Place all punctuation marks: indicate the number(s), in the place of which(s) there should be a comma(s).

A unique material (1) granules (2) of which (3) have the ability (4) to retain huge amounts of moisture (5) was created relatively recently by scientists.

19. Place all punctuation marks: indicate all the numbers that should be replaced by commas.

It’s always difficult to start doing a job you don’t like (1) and (2) in order to slightly delay the unpleasant moment (3) we often look for any excuses (4) that can somehow justify our lack of will.

20. Edit the sentence: correct the lexical error by eliminating the extra word. Write this word down.

This dilapidated piece of junk should have been sent to the attic long ago, but somehow my hand did not rise to my grandmother’s inheritance.

Read the text and complete tasks 21 - 26

(1) It’s a Central Asian summer evening, bicycle tires rustle dryly along a path along an irrigation ditch overgrown with elm trees, the tops of which are bathed in an incredibly calm sunset after a solar hell. (2) I sit on the frame, clutching the steering wheel, and am allowed to operate a signal bell with a semicircular nickel-plated head and a tight tongue that repels the finger when pressed. (3) The bicycle rolls, the bell jingles, making me an adult, because behind my back my father rotates the pedals, the leather saddle creaks, and I feel the movement of his knees - they constantly touch my feet in sandals.

(4) And one more evening is very clear in my memory,

(5) In a small room, the father sits with his back to the window, and it’s twilight in the courtyard, the tulle curtain sways slightly. (6) And the khaki jacket he’s wearing and the dark strip of plaster above his eyebrow seem unusual to me. (7) I can’t remember why my father is sitting by the window, but it seems to me that he returned from the war, was wounded, talking about something with his mother - and the feeling of separation, the sweet danger of the immeasurable space lying beyond our yard, my father’s the courage that was shown somewhere makes me feel a special closeness to him, similar to delight at the thought of the homeliness of our family gathered in this small room.

(8) I don’t know what he talked to his mother about. (9) I know that there was no trace of war then, but the twilight in the yard, the plaster on my father’s temple, his military cut jacket, the thoughtful face of my mother - everything had such an effect on my imagination that even now I am ready to believe: yes, in That evening my father returned wounded from the front. (10) However, what is most striking is something else! (11) At the hour of the victorious return (in 1945), like my father, I sat at the window in the same parental bedroom and, as in childhood, I again experienced all the incredibleness of the meeting, as if the past was repeating itself. (12) Maybe this was a harbinger of my fate as a soldier and I followed the path intended for my father, fulfilled what was unfinished, unfulfilled by him? (13) In the early stages of life, we vainly exaggerate the capabilities of our own fathers, imagining them as all-powerful knights, while they are ordinary mortals with ordinary concerns.

(14) I still remember the day when I saw my father as I had never seen him before (I was twelve years old) - and this feeling lives in me as guilt.

(15) It was spring, I was jostling with school friends near the gate (playing something on the sidewalk) and suddenly noticed a familiar figure not far from the house. (16) It caught my eye: he turned out to be short, his short jacket was ugly, his trousers, absurdly raised above his ankles, emphasized the size of his rather worn out old-fashioned boots. (17) And the new tie, with a pin, looked like an unnecessary adornment for a poor man. (18) Is this really my father? (19) His face always expressed kindness, confident masculinity, and not tired indifference; it had never before been so middle-aged, so unheroically joyless.

(20) And this was expressed nakedly - and everything about my father suddenly seemed ordinary, humiliating both him and me in front of my school friends, who silently, impudently, holding back laughter, looked at these clown-like large worn shoes, highlighted by pipe-shaped trousers. (21) They, my school friends, were ready to laugh at him, at his ridiculous gait. (22) And I, flushed with shame and resentment, was ready, with a defensive cry justifying my father, to rush into a brutal fight and restore sacred respect with my fists.

(23) But what happened to me? (24) Why didn’t I rush into a fight with my friends? (25) Were you afraid of losing their friendship? (26) Or didn’t you risk seeming funny yourself?

(27) Then I didn’t think that the time would come when one day I, too, would turn out to be someone’s funny, absurd father and they would also be embarrassed to protect me...

(According to Yu. V. Bondarev)

21. Which of the statements correspond to the content of the text? Please provide answer numbers.

1) Children tend to perceive their fathers as all-powerful knights, exaggerating their capabilities.

2) The narrator perceives the evening conversation between father and mother at the window in the room as a harbinger of his own fate.

3) Remembering an incident that happened one spring near the school gates, the narrator feels guilty before his father.

4) The narrator’s father always looked insecure, funny, ridiculous, his joyless face constantly expressed indifference.

5) Unlike the narrator, his son managed to defend the honor of his father, whom the schoolchildren laughed at.

22. Which of the following statements are incorrect? Please provide answer numbers.

1) Sentences 1-2 present the reasoning.

2) Sentence 11 explains, reveals the content of sentence 10.

3) Sentences 12-13 present the narrative.

4) Proposition 15 indicates the consequence of what is said in sentence 14.

5) Sentences 16-17 contain elements of description.

23. From sentences 15-17, write down one phraseological unit.

24. Among sentences 13-19, find one(s) that is related to the previous one using a possessive pronoun. Write the number(s) of this sentence(s).

25. “The image of the narrator’s father helps the author create various linguistic means of expression, including the device - (A)___ (“his face always expressed kindness, confident masculinity, and not tired indifference” in sentence 19). Memories of his father are inextricably linked with the atmosphere in which the narrator’s childhood took place and which the trope - (B)___ allows you to recreate ("the tops... bathe in... sunset", "after the solar hell" in sentence 1). The narrator's thoughts, inspired by these memories, convey the lexical device - (B)___ ("unfinished", "underfulfilled" in sentence 12, "ordinary", "ordinary" in sentence 13) and the syntactic device - (D)___ (sentences 23- 26)".

List of terms:

1) comparative turnover

2) synonyms

4) colloquial and colloquial words

5) metaphor

6) opposition

7) book vocabulary

8) exclamatory sentences

9) interrogative sentences

26. Write an essay.

Option 27
Job number	Answer	Job number	Answer
			so instead
	as the legend says
	effective
			1234 or any combination of these numbers
	academy
	I'll let you near the threshold		123 or any combination of these numbers
	harden		134 or any combination of these numbers
	you will be cured		caught my eye
	incorrect

Problem

The problem of showing parental love.

(How does parental love manifest itself?)

Parental love is manifested in caring for children, in creating an atmosphere of home comfort in which the child feels happy.

January 23rd, 2011

The prototypes of modern amusement parks appeared in medieval Europe: during fairs and carnivals, attractions (from the French attraction - to attract) were exhibited in squares - swings in summer, and ice slides in winter.
In 1583, the first and oldest existing park, the Bakken, was built near Copenhagen. As the legend goes, one girl noticed a spring with healing water flowing out of the ground in the Royal Deer Park. Endless crowds of those suffering were drawn to it to be healed, and enterprising people began to build inns, booths and attractions around the source. The location turned out to be so successful that the Bakken park still exists today, with more than 150 attractions and receiving 2.5 million visitors annually.
In Russia, the construction of parks for the entertainment of royalty and courtiers began only during the reign of Peter the Great. However, the name “Russian roller coaster”, popular all over the world, appeared only in the 19th century: it owes its origin to the soldiers of Napoleon’s army, who fell in love with the Russian national sport of skiing from the mountains during the campaign of 1812. At the same time, industrial production of roller coasters, a classic amusement ride, was established in Russia.

1). Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, USA

Today it is the largest multi-zone entertainment park in the world. It combines four themed areas and two water parks: Disney's Blizzard Beach and Disney's Typhoon Lagoon.
Magic Kingdom, the first area of ​​The Walt Disney World Resort, is a magical world that is the home of all Disney characters. Parades of Disney characters take place daily in the park. The symbol of Magic Kingdom is the fantastically beautiful Cinderella Castle.
The second zone, which opened exactly 11 years later, the Epcot center, is dedicated to the history of the development of human civilization. The huge pavilions clearly demonstrate the achievements of science, technology, communications, transport, and their past, present and future. Epcot's signature attraction is Spaceship Earth.
Disney's Hollywood Studios, an area dedicated to the "golden age" of Hollywood, opened to its first visitors on May 1, 1989. Here you can be transported to the atmosphere of film sets of the 30s and 40s. twentieth century and lift the veil of secrecy of filmmaking. The symbol of this part of the park was the huge Mickey the Wizard Cap from the cartoon “Fantasia,” which was installed during the celebration of “100 Years of Magic” in 2001.
Disney's Animal Kingdom opened on April 22, 1998. On the territory of 500 acres you can see more than 300 species of various mammals, birds and amphibians from all continents of our planet. The symbol of Disney's Animal Kingdom is the majestic 44-meter-tall Tree of Life.
In order to enjoy a family vacation, The Walt Disney World Resort has absolutely everything - its own comfortable hotels, many sports grounds for active recreation, a golf course, and, of course, a variety of restaurants and cafes to suit every taste.

2). Legoland

Legoland, located in the city of Bylund, is one of four parks of the same name, in which absolutely everything is built from the children's favorite Lego constructor. There is another Legodend in Germany, one in the UK and one in California. Danish Legoland occupies 100 thousand square meters. km and annually attracts about one and a half million visitors large and small. Creativity, play and development are the main values ​​of the park, which is specially divided into thematic areas designed for children of different age groups.
The main wonder of the park, as well as its main part, is Miniland, which was created using more than 45 million Lego children's construction kit parts. Miniland is miniatures of the most famous corners of Europe. The peculiarity of Miniland is that the cities recreated from the designer are not just copies, but working models - cars drive through the streets and people move, ships sail into the harbor, planes come in to land at airports, and in the evening this tiny Europe even turns on the lights. The picture is complemented by realistic sound effects and small living trees and flowers growing in cities and villages.
Legoland is truly a real Lego country. In addition to Miniland, visitors can ride extreme American races in Adventure Land, find themselves in the world of the Wild West in Legoredo Town, and plunge into the four-dimensional film “Lego Racers”, where the fourth dimension is realized in the form of smells, gusts of wind and vibrations from racing cars rushing past. Every year, Legoland Park receives about 500 thousand visitors from all over the world, as if once again confirming the proverb “it’s better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”

Ocean Dome is a man-made ocean located in the city of Miyazaki (Japan)
The Ocean Dome amusement park, opened at the Sheraton-Sigaya hotel, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest water park in the world. The water park is equipped with a retractable roof, allowing vacationers to sunbathe in sunny weather. In bad weather and in the evenings, the roof is closed, and the park turns on a unique lighting system with ultraviolet rays. Inside the water park there is an artificial ocean, a man-made tropical forest and a mini-volcano that erupts every hour. The air temperature here is always 30 °C, the water temperature is 28.

4). Europa Park, Freiburg, Germany.

Europa Park is rightfully considered the largest on the European continent; there are so many attractions here that it will take at least a couple of days to “run in” them. The park is divided into zones according to geographical principles - for more than thirty years the idea of ​​a united Europe has been brought to life here.
Each country has its own carousels and attractions, signature cuisine and attractions. Greece is proud of the Poseidon water slide, in Scandinavia visitors go rafting, in Germany children are given rides in vintage cars, in Italy they show the Commedia dell'Arte. “Russia” is represented by a real Russian village, the Mir space station and the excellent Euro-World slides: pot-bellied trolleys with tourists rise to a height of 28 meters and then fly down at a speed of 80 km/h, while rotating around their own axis.
However, fans of crazy speeds have plenty to choose from - Europa Park is a record holder for roller coasters - on its territory you can ride the fastest and highest in the Old World. A ride on the Silver Star will be full of the most thrilling sensations: while falling from a height of 73 meters at a speed of more than 130 km/h, you begin to say goodbye to life, experiencing overloads in 4G.
Traditionally, the holidays of Easter, Halloween and Christmas are celebrated magnificently in Europa Park. The famous Santa Claus Parade attracts many tourists in early December who rush to see an incredible number of Christmas grandfathers riding simultaneously on the park's attractions.

On the southwestern coast of Finland, near Turku, amazing events occur in late spring. At this time, the Moomin family wakes up from hibernation and begins to prepare to welcome guests from all over the planet on their wonderful island. Moomin Park, thematically based on the fairy tales of the Finnish writer Tove Janson, is open for only three months a year, but, nevertheless, more than 200 thousand guests manage to visit it. There is not a single carousel in the park, but there is a Blue House, where you can turn everything upside down, Moominpappa's ship, Morra's cave, Snork's camp and Mummy Grandma's cottage, where children do Mummy art. Here you are allowed to play pranks everywhere, climb and play mischief with Moommi Troll wherever you want. You can even cuddle with fairy-tale characters - they are so soft! The old Emma Theater also offers a program for children, where the Moomins perform funny performances several times a day.

6). Amusement park Asterix

The Asterix amusement park, located north of Paris, is based on the popularity of famous French cartoons and comics about the Romans and Gauls. Visitors journey through Gallic history, passing Caesar's carousel and Zeus' lightning bolts, boating on the Ellis River, and participating in fights and battles. In addition, vacationers can expect spectacular shows, incredible cinemas and endless French humor. There are fewer tourists, fewer queues and many water attractions that are not found in Disneyland.
Asterix is, first of all, a fascinating journey through the pages of world history, fantastic attractions, spectacular shows, a magical cinema, adventurous adventures, new meetings and acquaintances.
Compared to Disneyland, there are fewer tourists and fewer queues. And - many water attractions that are not in Disneyland. Water slides, waterfalls and labyrinths, a dolphinarium and ponds with carp, which you can feed by hand.
Asterix is ​​a journey through 6 periods of history from Ancient Gaul to the present day.

7). Six Flags park chain

The Six Flags park network is the largest in the world; there are 21 parks in the United States alone, and several more operate successfully in Europe. The main highlight of the parks is the ultra-modern roller coaster, which annually breaks records on the continent in terms of speed, mileage, steep screws and turns. The most famous attraction, Viper, is located at Magic Mountain Park in California. Over the course of more than a kilometer, the steel trolleys accelerate to 112.65 km per hour, fall seven times into “dead” loops and horizontal spirals from a height of more than 50 m. In the same park you can ride the innovative slide Superman: the escape: 15-seater the gondola is launched to a height of 236.5 m, and there it turns vertically at a speed of 160 km per hour. For those who, due to age or height, are not allowed on the dizzying rides, cheerful characters from popular cartoons await you on the simpler carousels.

8). Three parks: Universal studios, Islands of Adventure and Wet 'n Wild

Walt Disney's main competitor, the film company Universal studios, also opened two huge theme parks of the same name in Orlando and Hollywood. Visitors have a choice of three parks: Universal studios, Islands of Adventure and Wet 'n Wild (water amusement park). For those traveling with children of middle and high school age, the listed parks will probably be more interesting than even Disneyland itself. Heroes of popular films, extreme high-tech attractions, animated scenes from films in which park guests become participants will not leave either children or adults indifferent.

9). Aquafan water park

The Aquafan water park, located in Rimini, is the largest in Europe. The park has a huge number of water attractions for both children and adults: water slides with narrow labyrinths, rapid mountain rivers - and is the owner of five heated swimming pools with artificial beaches and waves. The area of ​​one of these pools is 2800 square meters. m, and the waves in it are real - oceanic. The water park has a diving school, and in the evenings, when children go to bed, there are night swims and discos for adults.

10). Port Aventura

The most famous Spanish park, Port Aventura, is located on the Costa Dorada, 100 km from Barcelona. The park opens at the end of March and is open every day until the end of October
In total, the park features more than 40 attractions. The park's area is 117 hectares and is a huge metropolis of five thematic zones: Mediterranean, Polynesia, China, Mexico and the Wild West with a wide selection of attractions for both children and adults.

Among the attractions, the most famous and popular among visitors is the “Free Fall” (Hurakan Condor), opened only in May 2005 and representing an 86-meter high tower from which the fall and the “Dragon Khan” roller coaster are carried out - the highest in all of Europe, consists of eight “dead loops” and allows you to reach a huge speed of 110 km per hour.

I have already introduced you to the etiquette, clothing, customs, decorations of the Middle Ages, the architecture of medieval castles is regularly covered in posts, and now it’s time for entertainment. Well, man is not fed by bread alone.... I want fireworks and emotions, tea is not king

Stare at strange animals, fight with sausages, drink from a wine fountain, attack a knight with a rake, play “Saint Cosmas”, visit a “glorious house”, gossip by the fountain and other ways to have fun available to city dwellers in the Middle Ages...

Fifty-two ordinary Sundays, a week each for the celebration of the main Christian holidays - Easter, Christmas and Pentecost, other obligatory holidays - Epiphany, Epiphany, Candlemas, Palm Sunday, Ascension, Trinity, Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, Day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Transfiguration, Exaltation Cross, Day of the Holy Family, Day of the Immaculate Conception, Saint Joseph's Day, Day of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, All Saints' Day, plus the days of various saints - patron saints of the city, craft workshops and so on, days of their commemoration and days of various events , associated with them, as well as the arrivals of rulers, bishops and other important persons - in total, the medieval townsman spent about a third of the year in idleness.

How could you kill this time?

Go to church and listen to the preacher

Festive services were performed with great pomp with the participation of the best choir singers. Already from the 9th-10th centuries, the festive mass began to look like an allegorical performance thanks to the dramatization of the Old Testament, Gospel or hagiographic stories. Such performances lasted until about the 13th century, when city theatrical performances took their place.

On the holiday, women tried to dress up: they went not only to worship, but also “to be in public” - to look at others and show themselves. Everyone in the church had their own place, which was determined by their position in society.

On Sundays and holidays it was forbidden to work, and after mass the parishioners wanted to have fun: dancing and singing often took place right in the church yard, although the clergy at least declaratively condemned such pastime.

Sometimes a preacher would come to the city, and then, if he did not speak in the courtyard of the temple, the burghers would build a platform for him, where the guest could pray with those present and then deliver a denunciatory sermon.

Watch the show

Medieval theatrical performances were mainly responsible for the spiritual entertainment of the townspeople and explained the Holy Scriptures in one form or another in the vernacular. The basis of the miracle were apocryphal gospels, hagiography, and chivalric romances.

In England, miracles were usually placed by members of craft guilds in honor of their patrons. In France, they were popular among members of the puys - urban associations for joint pious activities, music playing and poetry competitions.

The plot of the mystery, as a rule, was the passion of Christ, the expectation of the Savior, and the lives of the saints. Initially, the mysteries were part of a church service, then they began to be played in the courtyard or in the cemetery of the church, and later moved to city squares. Moreover, they were played not by professional actors, but by clergy and members of the Puy.

Moralite is a cross between religious and comic theater. In an allegorical form, they showed the struggle between good and evil in the world and in man. The outcome of this struggle was the salvation or death of the soul.

Performances were announced in advance, posters were hung on the city gates, and during the performance the city was carefully guarded “so that no unknown persons would enter the said city on that day,” as written in a document from 1390 kept in the archives of the city hall in Tours .

Despite all the conventionality of the productions, what was happening on stage for the audience completely merged with reality, and tragic events were adjacent to comic scenes. Spectators were often included in the action as participants in the events.

It was possible to have fun without moralizing. For example, look at traveling artists. Since about the 14th century, troupes of professional actors have been formed in France - “Brotherhood of Passions”, “Carefree Guys” and the like.

Traveling actors - histrions, shpilmans, jugglers - tried with all sorts of tricks to surprise and make the audience laugh. “The Instructions of the Troubadour Guiraud de Calençon to the Juggler” (he lived at the beginning of the 13th century) contains a whole list of skills necessary for an actor:

“…[He] must play different instruments; twirl balls on two knives, throwing them from one tip to another; show puppets; jump through four rings; get yourself an extra red beard and a matching suit to dress up and scare fools; teach the dog to stand on its hind legs; know the art of monkey leader; excite the laughter of the audience with an amusing depiction of human weaknesses; run and jump along a rope stretched from one tower to another, making sure that it does not give in..."

Listen to music or poetry

Miniature from “History” by Guiron le Courtois. 1380-1390.

Instrumental music was primarily the work of jugglers and minstrels, singing, dancing and performing to the sound of their instruments.

In addition to various wind instruments (trumpets, horns, flutes, Pan flutes, bagpipes), over time, the harp and varieties of bowed instruments also entered musical life - the ancestors of the future violin: crotta, rebab, viela, or fidel.

Moving from place to place, jugglers performed at festivals at courts, near castles, and in city squares. Despite persecution by the church, jugglers and minstrels managed in the 12th-13th centuries to gain the opportunity to participate in spiritual performances.

In the south of France, lyric poets were called troubadours, in the north - trouvères, in Germany - minnesingers. The lyrics of the Minnesingers were the property of the nobility, and were greatly influenced by the poetry of chivalry and the love songs of the troubadours. Later, the art of versification in German cities was adopted by the Mastersingers, for whom poetry turned into a special science.

Like artisans, city poets formed entire societies, similar to guilds. In Ypres, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and Bruges, festivals were held for the guild of the so-called rhetoricians - artisans and merchants who took charge of poetry. Each guild had its own coat of arms and motto in the form of a charade, as well as a special hierarchical structure: dean, standard-bearer, jester and other members of the “bureau of elders”.

The city authorities financed rhetorical competitions in the field of poetry and acting, based on the results of which several prizes were awarded: for literary success, for the best line of a jester, for the richest costume, for the most luxurious entry into the city.

Dance

Dance was a favorite pastime of all levels of medieval society; not a single holiday was complete without dancing. The jugglers complicated their technique by adding acrobatic elements, but the townspeople loved to move themselves, and not just watch the professionals.

The church was usually against such entertainment, and the city government did not always treat dancing well. However, later the authorities began to give permission to organize dances in the halls of city halls, and from the end of the 14th century so-called dance houses began to appear.

Usually the dance house was located next to or opposite the town hall and church. Loud music and laughter disturbed the pious mood of the parishioners and temple servants, causing their discontent and endless complaints.

In Bavarian Nordlingen, the dance house was located in a three-story building. During fairs, the ground floor was connected by passages to the nearby butcher shops and beer hall, and visitors could shuttle between establishments.

Where dance houses occupied several floors, the halls on the upper floor were usually intended for burghers of noble birth, while the lower ones were at the disposal of ordinary townspeople. In some cities, such a house, among other things, housed a hotel, and in Munich and Regensburg, prisoners were even kept in the basement of the city “tanzhaus”.

In addition, there were dance houses intended exclusively for ordinary townspeople: a roof was built on four pillars over a wooden deck, slightly raised above the ground. Musicians sat on them, and men and women danced in a circle around them.

If the nobility preferred measured and ceremonial processional dances, and at guild holidays dances with hoops, swords and other objects symbolizing handicraft products dominated, then among the urban people there were improvised dances and round dances, which the church called rude and shameless.

Go to the fair

Every week, small city markets were available to the townspeople, but fairs were held quite rarely - once or several times a year: on Christmas, Easter or on the day of a local saint - the patron saint of the city or the patrons of trade and craft shops.

For example, the fair in Saint-Denis near the walls of Paris took place once a year, but lasted a whole month. At this time, all trade in Paris ceased and moved to Saint-Denis. Residents flocked there not only to shop, but also to look at strange things from distant countries, to see the performances of jugglers, acrobats and trained bears, and to listen to the stories told by merchants who had visited overseas countries.

The spectacle was so popular that Charlemagne gave his managers special instructions to “see that our people do the work they are legally obliged to do, and do not waste time hanging around the markets and fairs.”

Fairs attracted a lot of rabble, so there were often fights and riots. That is why for a long time they were allowed to be held only in cities where there was a bishop or ruler who could maintain order and resolve disputes that arose between fair participants.

In medieval England there were even special courts with a simplified judicial procedure, which ensured quick resolution of cases. They were called “courts of dusty feet” (court of piepowder, pie poudre or pepowder) - in 1471 the English parliament decided that all persons associated with fairs had the right to demand just such a court for themselves.

P take part in the carnival

Carnival is inseparable from fasting: it was the last multi-day celebration, preceding a long period of abstinence, and it was accompanied by feasts, masquerades, processions and funny fights with cheeses and sausages.

Carnival is the realm of gluttony, chaos and glorification of all things corporeal. Masks and mummers, half-beasts, half-people and jester kings, the ship of fools and the election of a donkey pope - all church and secular rituals were translated into the language of buffoonery, and symbols of power were subjected to public ridicule.

The entire church service and sacred texts were turned inside out. The main events of the carnival took place in the church, although since the 13th century there have been attempts to prohibit these obscenities by official interdicts.

A message from the theological faculty in Paris, sent to the bishops of France in 1445, describes the carnival very colorfully:

“You can see priests and clerics wearing masks and monstrous masks during services. They dance in the choir, dressed as women, pimps and minstrels. They sing obscene songs. They eat sausages in the corners of the altar while the priest celebrates mass. They also play dice there. They incense with stinking smoke coming from the soles of old shoes. They jump and run around the church without being embarrassed. And then they drive around the city in dirty carts and carts, causing the laughter of their companions and comrades, making obscene gestures and uttering shameful and dirty words.”

During the carnival, everything that was prohibited on ordinary days was possible, the hierarchy was violated, the usual norms were overturned - but as soon as the holiday ended, life returned to normal.

Greet a guest or ruler

The ceremonial entries of emperors, kings, princes, legates and other lords into the cities under their control were always burdened with a multi-level symbolic meaning: they reminded of the nature of power, celebrated victory, and asserted political dominion over remote territories.

They happened quite often: in the Middle Ages and even in modern times, royal courts were nomadic - in order to maintain power, kings had to constantly move from place to place.

The ceremony consisted of several acts, each of which was strictly regulated. It all began with a greeting from the ruler, often far outside the city; then followed the reception of the crowned person at the city walls, the transfer of keys, the opening of the city gates, deputations of the nobility and clergy.

From the gate, the cortege moved along the main streets of the city, which were sprinkled with fresh flowers and green branches. Finally, on the central

In 1490, in Vienne, during the entry of Charles VIII, a fountain of good and evil was installed, which flowed with red wine on one side and white on the other. Such treats were intended to embody the image of a fabulous land of abundance, which the sovereign had to show to his subjects at least once.

Performances were staged for the guest. In 1453, a whole performance was staged in Reggio: the patron saint of the city, Saint Prospero, soared in the air with many angels who asked him for the keys to the city, so that they could then hand them over to the duke while singing hymns in his honor. When the procession reached the main square, Saint Peter flew down from the church and placed a wreath on the Duke's head.

In the German lands, the sovereign often entered the city surrounded by criminals sentenced to exile, and they did not just move in the retinue, but held on to the edge of the patron’s clothing, harness, saddle or stirrup of his horse - so they could return to the city.

So, in 1442, King Frederick III ordered 11 people to be taken with him to Zurich, and in 1473 to Basel - 37. True, the city authorities could expel the criminal again as soon as the ruler left the city.

View the jousting tournament

The tournament was a real celebration of the demonstration of military valor and knightly honor. Anyone wanted, if not to take part in it, then at least to see how noble youth gained fame and booty for themselves.

Initially, the whole action resembled a mixture of a fair and a real battle: the participants met side by side, some received serious injuries or even died, and a motley crowd gathered around, which, in addition to knights, their squires, foot soldiers and servants, also consisted of blacksmiths, sellers, changed and onlookers.

Under the influence of knightly novels, tournaments gradually became more organized, participants began to use special weapons, knights met for one-on-one combat, and the lists were surrounded by a fence. Tribunes were built for spectators, and each of them had its own “queen,” and the prize for the best tournament fighter was traditionally awarded to women.

In 1364, Francesco Petrarch describes the atmosphere that reigned during the Venetian giostra (from the Italian word giostre - “duel”): “There is no free place below... a huge square, the very temple [of St. Mark], towers, roofs, porticos, windows, not only full, but overcrowded and packed: an incredible multitude of people hides the face of the earth, and the joyful, numerous population of the city, spilling around the streets, further increases the fun.”

Eventually, tournaments became an expensive and elaborate court entertainment, accompanying various kinds of festivities on the occasion of a ruler's wedding, coronation, peace or alliance - along with festive masses, processions, dinners and balls, for the most part not intended for ordinary citizens.

The townspeople responded to this with a parody of a “knightly tournament” (often held during the big Maslenitsa carnival), in which the entire knightly ritual was turned upside down. A man imitating a knight rode out into a duel with a basket-helmet on his head, sitting on an old nag or barrel, and threatened the enemy with a rake or something from a kitchen utensil instead of a spear.

After the end of the event, everyone immediately went to celebrate it with a cheerful feast.

Take part in sports competitions

The burghers had every opportunity to practice and compete in the possession of real weapons. For training, archery societies and fencing schools were organized, which existed in Flemish, Northern Italian, English, French and German cities, as well as in Krakow, Kyiv and Novgorod.

Associations of archers and fencers had their own charters and resembled guilds. Preparation was carried out in different directions, but a certain type of martial arts was chosen for competitions in each city.

For example, in Spanish cities preference was given to fights with bladed weapons and horse bullfighting, in Southern England and Novgorod - to fist fighting, in German and Flemish cities - to fencing and wrestling.

In Italy, games and competitions for residents of city-republics resembled exercises. In Pavia, for example, townspeople were divided into two groups, given wooden weapons, and protective helmets were put on their heads. The winners were awarded prizes.

In river towns, fights could take place for the symbolic capture of the bridge. The image of a seething crowd fighting on such a bridge is a favorite subject of engravings of that era: in the foreground, gondoliers pick up those who have fallen into the water, and numerous fans crowd in the windows and on the roofs of the surrounding houses.

In England, a popular recreational activity for young men was playing ball. Everyone was welcome to participate, but there were almost no rules. The ball, filled with bran or straw, could be kicked and driven, rolled and carried in the hands. The goal of the competition was to deliver the ball over a certain line.

In cities, such crowded fights were fraught with great dangers, and it is no coincidence that restrictions were introduced quite early in London, Nuremberg, Paris and other places, with the help of which the authorities sought to moderate the ardor of the players.

Play

For those who did not like street fun, there was home entertainment. For example, blind man's buff and "Frog in the Middle". The rules of the last game are as follows: a person sat in the center, and the rest teased and beat him. The task was to catch one of the players without leaving the circle, and then he became a “frog”.

There were also quiet games: according to the rules of some, it was necessary to answer the question of the presenters without concealment, others - to tell a story. In addition, they played “Saint Cosmas”: one of the participants took on the role of a saint, and the others took turns kneeling in front of him. The presenter had to make the kneeling player laugh in any way, and then he would perform some task.

Already in the Middle Ages, checkers, chess, dice and even cards were popular. Chess was a pastime of the nobility, and chessboards made of wood or metal were considered a luxury item and were often a real work of art.

The rules for playing cards were different: for example, one of the participants took a card from the deck, everyone present bet money on it. If after this three or four cards of the same suit were drawn from the deck in a row, then the player who took out the first card received the entire amount bet on it.

Another popular medieval game was backgammon, literally: a game of tablets. Backgammon was perhaps more famous and accessible than chess. You don’t need a lot of intelligence, and you don’t need to spend much money either. They played with the help of the tablets and dice themselves. Today this game is known as backgammon, and its roots must be sought in the East.

It is believed that this game was spread to Europe by the Crusaders returning from Palestine. Separately, playing dice - cubes with numerical options on the sides - is the most favorite pastime of male warriors. And of course, there was money at stake. Otherwise, it’s just not interesting to play like that. There were several ways to play dice.

Every self-respecting knight and even a simple soldier had dice to play and was ready to play at any time of the day or night. The authorities were already fighting gambling back then. The clergy threatened with curses, King Louis the Saint took extreme measures - he banned gambling under pain of severe punishment. During the journey from the Holy Land, where Louis went with his army on a crusade, sick and therefore not in the best mood, the king even threw the game board, on which his brother and another nobleman were playing, overboard. The nobleman, however, managed to pocket the money that was at stake while the king and his brother were bickering.

However, it is in vain to prohibit gambling today - in this regard, little has changed. They have played and will continue to play. At first, cards were not a game in the Middle Ages. They depicted different pictures on the cards... for children, for educational and developmental purposes. Of course, for the children of nobles. The first such cards - naibis - appeared in Italy. Over time, they came up with the idea of ​​adapting cards for gambling, ordering the value of the cards, suits and quantity. There were decks of both 52 cards and 48.

But the most popular game was dice. Representatives of all social categories indulged in this game - in huts, castles, taverns and even monasteries - and lost money, clothes, horses and homes. Many complained that they lost everything they owned in this game.

In addition, there were often cases of fraud, especially due to fake bones: some had a magnetized surface, in others the same face was reproduced twice, in others one side was made heavier due to the admixture of lead. As a result, numerous disputes arose, sometimes even developing into private wars.

Along with intellectual games, medieval people also loved active ones. The game “hunters and hares” was quite famous in Europe. The game "hit the pot" was also very popular. For this entertainment you need a pot or jug ​​and a stick. A blindfolded player tried to find a pot and hit it with a stick. The fans helped him with tips, such as “hot and cold”, “close and far”.

Ordinary tags and blind man's buff brought joy and fun to medieval adults almost as much as they did to children. In the Middle Ages, common people had fun with this, as well as tug-of-war, a very popular game in medieval England. But the English nobility loved to play “balls”. King Henry VIII Tudor loved to play this game. It remains to add a regular ball game, with constantly changing rules: everything depended on the number and desire of the players. Even the clergy played ball. It's funny to imagine a clergyman in a cassock, chasing a ball across the field.

Hunting is a real passion of the nobility, an undisputed favorite among active entertainment. In addition, hunting also had a practical aspect: there is no such thing as excess food supplies and any game is always welcome. They kept a special kennel for hunting and trained falcons to catch birds. A gyrfalcon trained to hunt was a great gift during the Middle Ages, even for women who loved to hunt as much as men.

Go to the bathhouse and have a good drink

Most medieval cities had public baths. In Paris at the end of the 13th century there were 26 baths, half a century later in Nuremberg - 12, in Erfurt - 10, in Vienna - 29, in Wroclaw - 12.

A visit to the bathhouse was not limited solely to hygienic procedures; rather, it was a place for entertainment, pleasure and social interaction. After swimming, visitors took part in receptions and dinners, played ball, chess, dice, drank and danced. In German cities, wine merchants rolled out wine barrels onto the streets near the baths, placed stools around them, brought out mugs and gave everyone a taste of wine. A drinking party immediately broke out on the street, so the city councils were forced to ban this custom. An exception was made only for a few days a year, such as St. Martin's Day, when it was customary to open new wine. But these days people stood, sat and lay in the streets - and drank wine.

Despite prohibitions from the authorities and clergy, some of the baths and adjacent taverns acquired the character of a brothel: not only food and drink were available to the townspeople, but also massage and the services of prostitutes, who were often called “bathhouse attendants.”

In general, prostitution, although condemned by the church, was considered an inevitable phenomenon. "Houses for women", or "glorious houses", belonged to noble families, merchants, royal officials and even bishops and abbots, and the most prestigious of them were often located near the magistrate or courthouse. In the High Middle Ages, visiting a brothel by unmarried men was not considered shameful - this was seen rather as a sign of health and well-being.

Not all townspeople could afford to have a separate garden or pond built behind the house: many lived in rented rooms, closets and outbuildings.

Book of Hours by Etienne Chevalier

Water for the household was taken from a public well or fountain located in the square, usually not far from the church. In the Late Middle Ages, such fountains served not only as decoration and a source of drinking water, but also as meeting places and walks for townspeople.

View the execution

The execution site could be located in front of the city, on the other side of the fortress moat, it could be in the square or even in front of the victim’s house, but the execution was invariably a public event. The place and time of execution, as well as the route of the criminal, were known in advance to all townspeople.

Book of Hours by Etienne Chevalier

The spectators were summoned by heralds. The optimal time was considered to be noon; often the authorities carried out executions on market day in order to achieve the maximum crowd of people, although not on religious holidays.

The crowd gathered around the criminal gradually as the procession moved through the city. The entire ritual of punishing the offender was designed for spectators; the slow theatrical performance presupposed the participation of others in the ceremony. In some cases, the criminal was given the right to duel with the executioner and people could contribute to his release. This happened in Saint-Quentin in 1403, when during a fight the executioner fell to the ground and a crowd of townspeople demanded that the royal provost release the winner. Spectators watched the exact execution of the ritual and could demand a review of the case if something went wrong. The bodies of criminals were forbidden to be buried in the cemetery, and their corpses remained on the gallows for many years until they completely decomposed, serving as an edification for the public walking around.