Сочинение "My Refuge"

Nowadays most of young people in the country want to live in town, and only few of them after graduating from some universities come back. As for me, I think, that ”There is no place like home“, because every person should be thankful to the land where he or she was born and should do as much as possible for his motherland. I would like to tell everybody about my native place, its natural beauty, its difficult history.

Ust-Charyshskaya Pristan is located in the central part of Altai Krai. It is a center of Ust-Pristan region. The town of Ust-Pristan is situated in the mouth of the river Charysh (this fact explains the origin of its name), and is surrounded by many lakes and woods, which are the home for many different kinds of birds and animals. Here you can meet squirrels, hares, foxes, wolves; the main species of birds in the woods are heath-cock and wood-grouse. The rivers Ob and Charysh around Ust-Pristan, as well as numerous lakes of the region are rich with different kinds of fishes. So you can understand why fishing and hunting is said to be excellent here, and why every year you can meet in our woods and on our rivers hunters and fishers from different corners of Altai; but even without a fishing-rod and a gun you can have nice time in some picturesque place not far from our town.

As for the town itself, it occupies an excellent situation. It lies on the high bank of the river, and this position was for sure one of the decisive reasons for our ancestors to settle in this place more than two centuries ago. To be more precise, people lived on this territory even before Christ, and that is proved by numerous relics of the past (some of them you can see in the Ust-Pristan regional museum of local lore). But the settling of our time dates back to 1773.The first settlers were attracted by the high bank of the river Ob, which was not threatened by spring floods, rich vegetation, fragnant in spring and summer, and animal world. Gradually a little village became a big populated settlement and an important commercial center. It is not known precisely, when numerous tradesmen appeared in our town but it is very well known that by the end of the 19^th century they bought grain by hundreds of thousands of poods and sent it to many cities of Siberia, Mongolia and China. In the beginning of the 20^th century Ust-Pristan was famous for its fairs and factories which produced and sold many kinds of different goods, for example spare parts for agricultural machines, pottery, valenki, hardware (here was made a cannon which is now in the Central Museum of the Russian Army) and all kinds of food: cheese, butter, honey, meat, flour and so on.

Ust-Pristan has lived through different times: years of prosperity changed for years of problems and difficulties. There was a period when my town was inferior in its commercial significance only to Barnaul and Biysk. Nowadays it is not the best time for Ust-Pristan, but there is a very wise proverb: ”East or West, home is best!” I agree with it and I love my town. It is my refuge. Forever.