YOUTH ENGLISH SECTION

Winter Forest

A dark and misterious winter forest was waking up. A grey sky was hanging over it. The trees stood terribly tired carrying heavy snow lying on them. A virginal white snow was having a rest at the feet of the trees. The tree tops greeted each other after a deep sleep. Everything became alive looking at the smiling sun. The snow-flakes were dancing with the wind giving joy to everything around. Birds ware singing a wonderful song. That was the beginning of a new unbelievably beautiful day.

Zlata Shangina

It was a chilly winter morning when we entered the forest. The path led us among the sleeping trees. We looked around us as though we entered a fairy tale. The trees were dressed in white magic clothes. The snow was crunching under foot and the air was so fresh the crunching sounds were scattered everywhere.
The sky was so crystal clear that I thought that if I touched it with a stick it would jingle like a vase. But suddenly it started to snow. The snowflakes were flying and falling to the ground like petals of white roses.

Alexandra Peterson

My favourite season is winter, I especially like the winter forest. It is an unimaginable sight, when in the rays of bright but not hot sun every drop, every snowflake shines as a diamond. And trees like little children at rest-time, covered with white warm counterpane, have fallen asleep till the coming of spring.
What beautiful little fir-trees and bullfinches with red breasts stand out against the background of snow as white as a lily.
Every twig, every root – everything has gone into a deep sleep, only snow underfoot sings a melody of winter and snowflakes dance in the fresh, frosty air.
Winter has smothered everything with a white veil. The brushes of the trees shoot out on the bushy branches.
The forest alertly keeps silent, but sometimes whispers with the wind. Under the blue heavens, magnificent carpets, shining in the sun, the snow lays.

Olga Lebedeva

How beatiful winter forest it is. The snow is falling in large blotches as if to cover the carpets and bridge a river. The flecks of snow as light as air fly wanton in the wind and alight on the paths through the woods. The trees stripped of their leaves are wrapped by powder as if by circlet. The old trees crack from the ringing frost. The snowdrifts glare like diamonds. The bullfinches sit in the trees like rose apples. The clouds are drifting across the sky. A wizard forest is in repose waiting for the spring.

Natalya Sinyagina

My blue dream is to walk in a winter forest. To see the eternal pinetrees with their snow hats. I imagine that I touch the branch of one of these giants and snow rains crash on me. A gust of wind carries a new wave of snow. Everything is covered by this downy and silver snow and it looks like a white desert. Feet are swamped in this cold and tender carpet. The tile revives on my eyes. The silence is so impressive, that it rings in my ears.

Tatyana Sadykhova

The whole forest sleeps in winter at the end of a long year. Trees stand still and silent. They guard all inhabitants of the forest. The earth lies still under the silver carpet of snow waiting for the coming of spring.
On frosty quiet days the golden merry sun looks out of the fluffy clouds and lights the motionless sleeping forest, and at once red-breasted bullfinchs start to chatter. A white fluffy hare appears from behind the snow-drift, sits for a while listening attentively and runs away. And when the night comes everything gets quiet and still and only the lonely moon producing no sound examines the dumb forest below.

Olga Korzsh

A flight of imagination makes me burn with desire to visit the winter forest.
Marvellous foxes and lovely squirrels are running around. The air is sparkling fresh. I have a triumphant smile on my face. This is my golden opportunity to take a picture of this beauty, and I don’t let it turn to brass. “Oh, heavy lightness!” Said my friend. I was so impressed that asked my friend: “Is life worth living?”
And she answered me: “It depends on the liver”. She dropped a tear and her handkerchief. Then we saw a hunter. He was as drunk as a lord. “Oh, damn your eyes!” said my friend and threw a snowball at the hunter.
He looked at us and began to approach us. “A thousand pardons”, I told him, frightened to death. He stopped. His grey face was so long that he could wind it twice around his neck. With his presence we continued to admire the beauty of the winter forest.

Tatyana Shaporeva

The winter forest always played jokes with him. It covered him with its spidery kind and calm hands of big trees. He always pictured and even saw the damp (for him, I was snow) laying on the ground as if some goblin has been crying there all night or he saw the damp laying on the bare bushes like a coarser sort of spiders’ web; draping itself from twig to twig. So, all that seemed to run at him at once. The forest was high and the fourth was broad and the forest was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky.
He spent his green years in the winter forest. He always called it “my wonderful, passionate, sensible, frightening and terribly charming friend”. He forgot all misfortunes there. His soul coincided with the soul of the winter forest. When he was at a mass, had some troubles, he came there and a cry of pain escaped him, the forest screamed in return, only screamed in silence. His life was like the past of this old forest, full and deep. It was as remote as his own life yet such a baby of a thing, hopelessly ignorant and innocent. He used to say that trees in the forest rose sheer from the blue green plain, as if out of a sea. The winter forest was the only place where he could be happy.

Ludmila Orekhova

Through the blinding brightness of the sunlight reflecting from the mirror of snow there can be seen the naked leafless trees. The birds sitting in Hell-freeze don’t even make a move like small feathered toys. There is no food in this glittering white wilderness. A lonely woodpecker hollows the trees and echoes overflow the sound of the winter forest. Beside it, there are a lot of sounds, practically a wall of noise, including the howling of wind, the creaking and moaning of trees bowing to the earth, the distant sound of civilization and happy shouting of children sledding all day long. A small river that by wonder hasn’t been trapped under ice bears her currents to unknown lands, gathering forces to overflow in spring. But now it is calm, shy, hidden and can be found only by hearing the quiet warbling of the stream. The thick blanket of snow covers everything. Nature is sleeping like a child in its bed.

Denis Golovatch

The winter forest is surprisingly beautiful. Winter decorates trees with white sparkling lace. Silver snow looks marvellous on the tops of the trees and makes them look like crowned heads.
First the forest greets you silently. Snowflakes fly slowly as small butterflies. The playful rays of sunlight penetrating through the majestic crowns of the trees try to involve you in their mystery.
The huge dazzlingly white snow-drifts stand guard protecting the peace of their master – the kingly winter snowy forest.
Then sudden wind makes the silent brunches dance and tell their secrets.

Oksana Bayuk

The face of any forest is very beautiful in winter. There are a lot of wonderful snow caps on the trees. Bright threads of light came through the firs. Snow-flakes fall on the earth like shooting stars. When it’s fine and the eye of heaven shines the snow plays like jewels, but when the weather is bad you see an angry gloomy sky and feel a gusty wind. The silence in a winter forest is so deafening that it rings like a bell in your ears. On any day you can have a walk between the firs and enjoy the best faces of the winter forest with admiration. Here you can see a red-breasted bullfinch, a whiter-tailed hare, a red fox and a smart squirrel. In this soundless and lonely place you feel calm and peaceful.

Olga Ivlieva

The dark gloomy forest looks at me with widely opened eyes. The trees whisper something frightening in their language. I try to understand what they tell but the only thing I can hear is the roaring of the wind. The wind cries as hysterical as a child, then his cry changes to a hysterical laughter of a crazy old woman. I just stand inside the forest and fear fills me from hand to heals. But the only thing I can do is to go straight on. I carefully step on the snow and it creaks like a rusty wicket. The forest seems to be an unfriendly old castle disturbed by an uninvited guest. All his nature is against me. But I try to be as careful as a mouse running near a cat. I go through the invisible paws of the darkness and they embrace me cold and terribly. But now I have no strength to go – I lay in the snow-drift. It is the only creature who understands me here in the forest – it is always ready to serve as a bed for a tired traveller. I close my eyes and fall asleep waiting for the sunlight.

Ksenia Bessonova

The snow blanketed the ground, wrapping the earth for a long winter nap. A sleepy winter wood calls to show its mysterious beauty. The trees have lost their dresses, and now silver covers their branches. The grass is captured by the snow. The white trunks of birches disappeared in the pearl snow of the morning light. The silent pines are missled up in winter greatcoats. Nothing breaks the magic silence of winter wood. The sun rays touched the ground and a flying snow played sparkles with cheerful stars.

Katya Menshova

Especially in deep night, a winter forest looks like a magic kingdom. Trees, proud and solemn, are dressed in white soft fur coats and the cold, lonely and silent moon is blaping with light, which falls unreal on the shrubberies and makes thin elongated glints upon a fluffy counterpane, covering the land. Falling snowflakes, as light as feathers, are like twinkling stars and it seems that it’s a silver rain. Not a breath of wind is heard; nature is sleeping like an innocent child.

Margaret Souproun

The essays on this page were written by the 3d year students of Moscow State Pedagogical University. We invite students and schoolchildren to contribute to the YES section of the newspaper English. Don’t forget that for one page submission (10-11 thousand computer characters you will get free half-year subscription to English.

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