Урок-экскурсия "The loss of two palaces"
методическая разработка по английскому языку по теме

                                 The loss  of two palaces

Hello, dear guests! My name is Ann and I would like to introduce to your attention an excursion devoted to the most tragic pages of my native,s town history –to the hard days of fascists, occupation of Tsarskoe Selo.The Nazi invasion interrupted the regular life of the museums in Tsarskoe Selo.

      The evacuation of museum exhibits began with the outbreak of the war, but many objects of great value were not saved.On the 15th of September 1941 a shell damaged the dome of the palace church and that was an awfull beginning of the distruction tragedy. The sight of the palace in 1944, after the liberation of the town, was awfull. It was the impression that the wonderful beauty created in the course of  two centures was irreparably lost.

    But the power of creativity proved to be triumphant. Restores could gradually returned  a historic appearance to the monuments and parks. The work is still under the way. The culmination of  this exclusive mastery became the revival of the Amber Room in 2003 .Much, however, is still be done.The significance of this period  –the period of restoration of distoyed works can hardly be overestimated –its purpose is to lend a new lease of life to the creations of the great masters of the past.

 The idea of the excursion has arosen after the  aquantance with a very thrilling and unaccustomed exibition  in the Katherin Palace which was called ,,The distruction of two Palaces” and was opened on the 25th of  January. Do you remember this remarkable day? Of course, you do. Every citizen of Saint-Petersburg and Tsraskoe Selo, being a patriot of his country never forgets this day - the day of the  complete liberation of Leningrad from Nazi blockade in 1944.Every visitor of the museum could see for the first time passionless photos depicting the splendor and the ruin of two former residences of  Russian Tsars in the fateful forties.

   But why do you call this exhibition exceptional or exraodinary? – can you ask me. Because of the fact that all objects exibited there are amateur  and made by the german soldiers during the occupation of our native town which lasted for long tragic 4 years. The exhibition was placed in the Third Anechambert. Look at this photo! It,s  the Third Antechamber after the distruction by fascists and the next picture –the modern Antiroom. We can applode the exclusive mastery of restores.

The main part of the exhibition is photos, magazines and newspapers from the collection of historians Bair Irincheev and Denis Zhukov collected by them for more than ten years. All rare photos were purchased at the german online auction sites, the majority –from amateur album of unknown  german soldier.

Wermacht soldiers willingly photographed in front of luxurious architectural ensembles of the former imperial residence. Pictures  were printed in Germany, than settled in home albums. Look at this photo – you see happy german soldiers, basking in the sun proudly posing  and smiling. But on the background  there is the burning Catherin Palace, the damaging  dome of the palace church. Nowdays, the descendants of those german soldiers are selling these materials at online auctions Looking at the rare photos obtained at German online auctions within the last decade, one of the collectors says that many Nazis obviously thought of their invasion as "tourism", an exciting adventure for shot-taking. Almost half of them brought cameras and made up photo albums, which then got into family archives and now are often sold out by the soldiers’ descendants.

The two collectors’ trophies are supplemented with items from our holdings, including the photographs and Leica camera of a German soldier, donated by his daughter, and a 1941-42 journal of a German officer stationed in Pushkin during the occupation (donated by his descendant).

For the first time on museum display in Russia, courtesy of the Berlin-based researcher Dimitri Silbermann her from the 58th Infantry Division, a unit of the German army (Wehrmacht) un

These documents are of great historical value because the period of  the occupation of our town is practically unknown. They are mutual witnesses of the great distruction tragedy of our wonderful Palaces.

Unfortunately, the exhibition was closed on the 3d of March but you can find the information about it on the official site of the Catherin Palace which address is…

Thank you for your attention!!