Outstanding People of Russia

 

It is necessary to say that great contribution to the development of the world science and culture, literature, music and painting was made by the Russian people. The names of Russian scientists and writers, poets, composers and painters are world-famous - Pushkin, Lermontov, Chehov, Levitan. This chain can be endless.

It is almost impossible to name a branch of science in the development of which the Russian scientists haven't played the greatest role. M.Y. Lomonosov, the founder of the Moscow University was an outstanding innovator both in the humanities and sciences. Mendeleev's greatest discovery was the Periodic System of Elements. Popov invented radio. Sechenov and Pavlov were the world's greatest physiologists. Russia is rightly called the mother of aviation and cosmounatics. Names of Tsiolkovsky, Korolov and Gagarin are symbols of new space era.

People in many countries admire paintings, portraits and landscapes created by Surikov, Levitan, Repin. Works of our Russian writes and poets are translated into many languages.

One of the greatest Russians is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, an outstanding Russian composer, born in Votkinsk in 1840. He was fond of music since his early childhood. His mother sang him beautiful songs and taught him to play the piano. He graduated from the Petersburg Conservatoire only in 1866 because of his poor living conditions. He was the best pupil of Anton Rubinstein. When the Moscow Conservatoire was founded, Pyotr Ilyich became a professor there. He created wonderful music: 10 operas, 3 ballets, 6 symphonies, 7 large symphonic poems and many other musical pieces, a new type of opera, which was a great success all over the world.

One more person I deeply admire is Sakharov, an outstanding scientist and public figure. He worked on hydrogen bomb and came to conclusion that any atomic and nuclear weapon should be banned. He protested against the invasion in Afghanistan, against any violation of human rights. Abroad he was recognised as a civil rights a ctivist and received the Nobel Prize. At home he was persecuted, deprived of all his titles and orders and exiled to the city of Gorky. Only in 1985 he was allowed to come back to Moscow. He was given back all his titles and was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. He said that our society should develop in a new direction and foresaw the changes that are taking place now.

Cross cultural communication

 

Our world is really a small world. Modern transport facilities make it possible to reach any part of our planet within a few hours. People have to communicate and solve common problems in all the spheres of political life, economy and culture. Communication is an interaction of cultures. The knowledge of each other's culture and traditions is very often important for successful business and political talks. We, Russians, very often surprise our foreign partners by our behavior and manners.

People of every nationality have their peculiar features. English and German people, for example, are very punctual, reserved, they are not very quick to make decisions, they dislike off-hand manners, and they try to follow very strict norms of behavior. People from Norway, Finland, Sweden are even more reserved and emotionless and not so quick to make friends. Italian and French people, on the other hand, are very emotional. All these things should be taken into consideration when we go to this or that country either on business or just as tourists.

Certainly, the knowledge of the language of the country helps a lot. Of course it is impossible to know all languages existing on the Earth. They say there are about 6.000 languages on our planet. Fortunately, those who study English are lucky enough because English is becoming the language of international communication. The English language spreads together with new high technologies and technical achievements. The English language is the language of the United Nation Organization and of most scientific international conferences and political talks. Without English you cannot be a success neither in business, nor in politics, nor in public relations. Thanks to cross cultural communication  people get to know each other much better, the more we communicate, the less is the danger of wars and other unfriendly feelings. I hope that Internet, traveling and international business will soon turn our planet into one big country with very friendly people understanding each other perfectly well.

Globalization

Globalization is a controversial issue for business and governments throughout the world. We recognize globalization mainly through its effects. It's a bit like electricity - we can not see it, but we certainly observe what it does.

Globalization can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces. It's a movement of people, goods, capital and ideas due to increased economic integration.

Globalization is a controversial issue mainly because different groups interpret it in different ways. For its opponents globalization is a threatening word. It prompts visions of large multinationals dominating the world in pursuit of ever-higher profits. Many pressure groups fear that globalization threatens the environment as well as national cultures - they predict that it will make the rich nations richer and the developing countries even poorer than they are. But its supporters have another point of view. They believe that increasing and freer trade between nations will offer prosperity and economic growth for all countries and businesses.

So globalization is likely to be a hot potato for the twenty-first century. As far as the benefits are concerned there it's possible to name next statements:

1. An opportunity to get acquainted with cultures of different nations;

2. A variety of choice for consumers: when they can buy in their local stores and supermarkets not only home-produced goods but also foreign ones;

3. Transnational corporations create additional work places for local people, at the same it is convenient for these large corporations as well: they may locate the labour-intensive part of their production process in countries with a relative abundance of labour in order to minimize their costs;

4. Another point is risk-sharing. It's more reasonable to invest money not in one company but to create an international company with great amount of subsidiaries in various countries, so it won't have so serious consequences if one of them will not stand cut-throat competition;

5. This cut-throat competition in the local markets between domestic and foreign producers leads to production of high-quality goods.

  The disadvantages of globalization are:

1. Pollution of the environment (and there one peculiarity should be admitted - developed countries try to locate their harmful for the environment factories and works not in their own countries but in developing countries);

2. Globalization destroys cultural identity, for example Europeans usually try to impose their customs and traditions on Asian people;

3. Multinational corporations prefer to use cheap labour-force of developing countries for instance in Asia. And at the same time they provide their workers with bad and sometimes even awful working conditions;

4. It's difficult for domestic producers to compete with multinational corporations especially if it's an infant industry;

The last but not least is that we don't actually know to what globalization can lead, we don't realize its consequences.