Activity 1

At the end of this chapter профессор Петровский, Джим and Таня meet at a Moscow cafe. Over the last decade the number of eating establishments in Moscow – restaurants, cafes, tea rooms, bars – has grown exponentially (see "А что дальше?" below).

One category of cafes that has become popular most recently has been, not surprisingly, Internet cafes. These vary greatly in style, size and services offered, and present a variety of options for every visitor to Moscow. Let's begin learning to navigate our way through Moscow's Internet cafes by visiting

http://www.icafe2000.ru/


1			Find the link to the listing of Internet cafes. Hint: the Russian term is a transliteration of the English expression; there are also at least two links to the listing – one right in the center of the page, under "Internet Cafe 2000," one on the left. Click on the link and study the list of Internet cafes that appear on the left. What do you notice about the names of the cafes? Approximately what percentage of the cafes listed has names that are recognizable to you from English (spelled either in Cyrillic or in Latin characters)?




2			Choose three of the cafes from the list on the left and click on their names to access detailed information about them. What type of information is provided for each cafe in addition to the address and phone number? What type of information seems to be listed under the heading "компьютеры"?




3			Some Internet cafes include their menus in their profile. Pick three of the cafes that provide that information (these could be the same ones you just examined). What seem to be the most popular items? What words do you recognize? Are non-drink items offered?




4			Let's look at the third section for each listing, entitled "цены в нашем кафе." "Цена" means "price," as you may have inferred; what form is цены likely to be? As you can see, in most cafes the prices are listed in two columns – "на доступ в Интернет" and "на игры." What do you think the second category means (Hint: in Chapter 3, Part I you learned the verb related to the noun "игра" and its plural "игры")? What is the distinction between the two columns? Compare the prices across the different cafes: what is cheaper – доступ... or игры? Given the context, what do you think the word "доступ" means (Hint: think of the English expression for 'connecting to Internet')? Compare the prices in the three cafes.




5			Now that you know how each cafe description is structured, let's find the cafes that have the most convenient opening hours. Rather than going through each listing, let's find a link to a listing of all opening times for all cafes. Look on the right side of the page and find a series of links under the heading "информация." Which one of the first four links will lead you to the table of opening and closing times? Click on it. Approximately what percentage of the cafes are open 24 hours? Careful: remember that in the 24-hour clock system, used widely in Russia, both "0:00" and "24:00" can refer to midnight, and that the 24-hour cycle does not have to start and end at midnight. Many cafes that are officially open 24 hours close their doors for the night and reopen in the morning, locking in those customers who are spending the night at the computers. Assuming that you need to check mail in the morning, and those cafes are unavailable to you because the have not re-opened, what is the earliest any non-24-hour cafe opens?




6			А ЧТО ДАЛЬШЕ? The largest Internet cafe in Russia, CafeMax, with 300 computers available 24 hours a day, opened in the summer of 2001: http://www.cafemax.ru For a listing of more traditional types of cafes, visit the two most comprehensive guides to eating establishments in Moscow http://www.menu.ru (in Russian) http://www.moscow-guide.ru/restaurant/index.htm (in English)

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