In this chapter you heard much about various ways of being sick, getting better and staying healthy in Russia. Over the past few years, здоровый образ жизни (taking care of one’s health) has become one of the most actively discussed topics, and fashionable pastimes, in Russia’s largest (and wealthiest) cities, especially Moscow and St. Petersburg. Let’s visit the online home of a popular chain of фитнес-центры, «Планета Фитнес»:

http://www.fitness.ru/

1			The home page provides links to information about the chain’s (many) clubs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, and Kiev. Let’s begin by seeing what kind of services these clubs provide. Under the heading «Клубы Москвы» or «Клубы Санкт-Петербурга» select “Все клубы” from the pull-down menu (the default setting is ‘Выберите клуб’). When the pages showing the addresses and pictures for all clubs loads, examine the types of information listed for each club. What rating system does the chain use to distinguish their fitness centers?
2			As you see, you can take a виртуальный тур of many of these clubs. Let’s take them up on the offer and visit three or four clubs. Our goal is to try to gauge what differentiates a three-star club from a four- and a five- star establishment. Judging by the photos you see, what kind of conclusions might you make about the experience offered to the customers of the different clubs? What makes a club “better”?
3			Now follow the links (in yellow) above the “виртуальный тур” links for the clubs you’ve already visited. At the top of each page you’ll see a number of icons that identifiy services offered at the club. Some are fairly self-explanatory, others are fairly tricky to decipher; but not to fear - when you position your mouse over any icon, an explanatory caption appears. Many of the words used to describe the clubs’ services should be very familiar to you as they are imported from English. Can you find two or three words that are not cognates? What are they?
4			Having visited the sites of several clubs and compared the services they offer, what conclusions can you draw about what seem the most popular features? What features, by contrast, seem to be only available at the more ‘exclusive’ clubs?
5			Now let’s look at some of the other kinds of information offered to you by the Планета Фитнес site. At the top of each page you’ll notice a row of links with small icons (“Академия,” “Планетарий,” etc.). Click on the right-most link, “Оборудование.” If you don’t know this word (and there’s no reason you should, since we haven’t encountered it in the textbook yet), no problem – the meaning should become obvious once the page loads. See those brand names on the left-hand side of the screen? They also appear, as text links, on the right-hand side, under the word ‘Оборудование,’ followed by links like ‘оборудование для аэробики. Now what do you think ‘оборудование’ might mean?
6			If you still have any doubts about the meaning of the word, our next task will surely dispel them. Let’s click on ‘оборудование для аэробики.’ On the left you’ll see a number of... well, pieces of sports equipment. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at the descriptions of these items. What are the English equivalents of the Russian: • гантели? • скакалка? • штанга?

А ЧТО ДАЛЬШЕ?

7			For more information on the фитнес-craze in Russia, be sure to explore some of the other links at the top of the page on the «Планета Фитнес» site (especially “Дети” and “Конгресс”). Other фитнес-driven sites include: http://www.myfitness.ru/ http://www.fitness.agava.ru/ http://www.ladyfitness.ru/