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The following story appears as an English-language reading lesson in
E. Belova and L. Todd,English: A Textbook of the English Language for the 7th Grade in 7-year and Secondary Schools (third edition)State Textbook and Pedagogical Publishers of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, Moscow, 1952; pp. 79-80.

In March the sun rises again in the far North. The long, dark winter is over, but there is still ice and snow everywhere. Ice-floes move into the White Sea from the Arctic Ocean in spring. They carry thousands of seals. Scout planes fly over the floes to see where the greatest numbers of thse animals may be found Then ships sail in among the floes and begin to catch the seals.

The March winds on the Volga steppes are very strong and they blow the snow off the fields into the rivers and gullies Therefore in March the collective farmers of the Volga steppes build wooden fences to hold the snow. Than it will melt on the fields and the crops will grow better. According to the great afforestation plan of 1948, belts of forest many hundreds of kilometres long will be planted in this part of our country. These shelter-belts, as they are called, will break the winds and hold the snow and in many other ways help the collective farmers to grow bigger and better crops, and at the same time make their work easier. This is one of the ways in which Soviet people, with the help of the Party and Government, change the ways of nature.

Soviet people follow the motto of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, the great Soviet scientist. Michurin said, "We cannot wait for favours from nature; we must wrest them from her."

In the Ukraine spring comes earlier than on the Volga steppes. In March the Ukrainian collective farmers already sow their spring wheat. The fields of winter wheat are green again and are growing fast. The collective farmers are all in the fields, for they must sow and plant very quickly before the rich black soil becomes dry.

The spring in Central Asia is also very early. In March pear-trees and apple-trees are already in bloom there. The collective farmers of the Central Asian Soviet Republics have planted their potato crops by the end of March and are already sowing cotton.

Spring comes from the south and little by little travels north. At the same time it climbs the mountains of the Caucasus. At the end of March snow lies only on the tops of the montains where it never melts. The fruit-trees in Georgia are in bloom. The collective farmers here plant out young trees and gather early tea in the first months of spring.

Now what dates are there in Spring which are important to the Soviet people?

The first is the 22nd of April. This is the day on which the great founder of the Soviet State, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born in 1870. The town of Simbirsk on the Volga, where Lenin was born, is now called Ulyanovsk in his honour, and the house in which he lived with his parents and his brothers and sisters is now one of the most loved museums of the Soviet people.

Victory Day, the 9th of May, comes in Spring. On the 2nd of May, 1945, Berlin, the capital of Germany was occupied by the Soviet Army. It was clear then that the Great Patriotic War against Hitlerite Germany was almost over.

There are still two important dates in Spring. These are international working people's holidays: the 8th of March, which is International Women's Day, and the 1st of May, the great holiday of the world proletariat.

On May Day the working people of the whole world display their solidarity. In the USSR and in the new People's Democracies, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, the working people freely take the streets and with banners and slogans celebrate their victories. As they pass through the streets, they greet and are greeted by their leaders.

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