fancy style popular in those days. It was also a treasure decorated with gold and jewels, which took the countrys best artists about ten years to make.In fact, the room was not made to be a gift. It was designed for the palace of Fredrick I. However, the next King of Prussia, Fredrick William I, to whom the amber room belonged, decided not to keep it. In 1716 he gave it to Peter the Great. In return, the Czar sent him a troop of his best soldiers. So the Amber Room became part of the Czars winter palace in St Petersburg. About four metres long, the room served as a small reception hall for important vistors. Later, Catherine had the Amber Room moved to a palace outside St Petersburg where she spent her summers. She told her artists to add more details to it. In 1770 the room was completed the way she wanted. Almost six hundred candles lit the room, and its mirrors and pictures shone like gold. Sadly, although the Amber Room was cnsidered one of the wonders of the world, it is now missing.In September 1941, the Nazi army was near St Petersburg. This was atime when the two countries were at war. Before the Nazis could get to the summer palace, the Russians were able to remove some furnitures and small art objects from the Amber Room. However, some of the Nazis secretly stole the room itself. In less than two days 100000 pieces were put inside twenty-seven wooden boxes. There is no doubt that the boxes were then put on a train for Konigsberg, which was at a time a German city on the Baltic Sea. After that, what happened to the Amber Room remains a mystery.Recently, the Russians and Germans have built a new Amber Room at the summer palace. By studying old photos of the former Amber room, they have made the new one looke like the old one. In 2003 it was ready for the people of St Petersburg when they celebrated the 300th bithday of their city.A fact of an opinionWhat is a fact? Is it something that people believe? No. A fact is anything that can be proved. For example, it can be proved that China has more people than any other country in the world. This is a fact.Then what is an opinion? An opinion is what someone believes is true but has not been proved. So an opinoion is not good evidence in a trail. For example, it is an opinion if you say “Cats are better pets than dogs”. It may be true, but it is difficult to prove. Some people may not agree with this opinion but they also cannot prove that they are right.In a trail, a judge must decide which eyewitnesses to believe and which not to believe. The judge does not consider what each eyewitness looks like or where that person lives or works. He/She only cares about whether the eyewitness has given true information, which must be facts rather than opinions. This kind of information is called evidence.Big Feng to the rescueHis friends and family call him “Big Feng” because he is bery tall and played basketball as a young man. But he is also big in a different way he fights hard to protect Chinas past. His real name is Feng Jicai and he has written many novels about life in China. Several years ago, however, he put down his pen for a while and began to protect the cltural relics in Tianjin, where he lives. Once someon asked him why he no longer wrote. He replied that at the moment he felt protecting cultural relics was more important. Feng loves his hometown. He believes that old things must be given a plave next to new thins, or people will soon forget ther great past. He does not make speeches to get others to help him in his projects. Instead he goes out and does what he can himeself. If others follow him, so much the better. One of his biggest projects was to protect the oldest street in Tianjin. Along that street some shops had done business for seven hundred years. Althought the city government rebuilt this street, they did save its oldest building. Another project was more successful: he persuaded the city government to buy some land in the centre of the city so it could not be sold for businesses. This area is very improtant for the history of Tianjin. It was here that the city was first built during the Song Dynasty. Later many treasures were found here.To Feng, digging down in to the earth is like reading page after page of a book. Each dynasty found in the earth is like an interesting story. Not long ago he and other writers and artists took photos of the old parts of Tianjin. The photos were put into a book which was very popular. The money from the book helps his prjects. Once, and old man asked Feng to sign a book for him, saying he would give it to his grandson who was not yet born. Feng was glad to do it - he knows that he past is not only for us to enjoy but also for the children of the future.Unit 2An interviewPausanias, who was a Greek writer about 2000 year ago, has come on a magical journey on March 18th ,2007 to find out about the present-day Olympic Games. He is now interviewing Li Yan, a volunteer for the 2008 Ol