听力文本

You may wonder why people live in such faroff places, why they don't move to other places that are more comfortable.
But people live where they can make a living, and cities usually start with a few houses and more and more houses are built until there is a city.
But there is a great city farther south than Archangel which was built all at once—to order.
It was built by a man named Peter, who was one of the rulers of Russia. They were called "czars."
Peter wanted to live by the water so that he could sail ships, just as you might like to go to the seashore to sail boats,
so he built a city by the sea, with streets, shops, houses, and palaces, and then, as he was a czar who could make people do what he wanted,
he made people come and live in this city.
Peter had been named for St. Peter, so he called his city St. Petersburg, which meant St. Peter's City.
That was two hundred years ago.
When Russia was fighting in World War I the people of St.Petersburg said that they wanted a real Russian name for their city,
for "burg" was the German name for city, and they were fighting the Germans, so they called it Petrograd, which was the Russian name for Peter's City.
But the people got tired of the war and all of a sudden they said they would not fight any more;
they had a revolution, killed the czar and set up a government of their own.
They wanted the city of Petrograd called for the leader of the revolution, a man named Lenin,
so they changed the name of the city again to Leningrad, which meant Lenin's City.
Russia, but it was so cold there they moved the capital to a city still farther south near the center of Russia that had been the capital before.
This city is called Moscow.

参考译文

你也许很好奇，为什么人们要居住在如此偏远的地方？为什么不搬到环境更舒适一点的地方呢？
但是人们一般都住在可以生存的地方，这个地方最初只有几栋房子，房子越建越多就发展成了城市。
然而，在阿尔汉格尔斯克南边较远的一座大城市，却是遵照命令一次就建起来的。
命令建城的人是一个名叫“彼得”的俄罗斯统治者。俄罗斯的统治者都被称作“沙皇”。
彼得想住在海边，这样他能随时驾船航海，就像你很想去海边驾船一样。
于是他就在海边建造了一座城市，城里有街道，有商店，有房屋，还有宫殿。此时，因为他是沙皇，他想怎么做，民众就得怎么做。
他下令其他地方的人搬到这个城市居住。
彼得的名字是根据圣彼得的名字取的，于是他将这座城市命名为“圣彼得堡”，意思是“圣彼得的城市”。
这是200年前的事了。
俄罗斯参加第一次世界大战的时候，圣彼得堡的人民说他们想为自己的城市取一个真正的俄罗斯的名字，
因为“堡”是德国人用来表示“城市”的，而他们当时又在和德国人打仗，所以他们把“圣彼得堡”改名为“彼得格勒”，彼得格勒在俄语中也是“圣彼得的城市”的意思。
后来，人们厌倦了战争，突然就决定不再继续打下去了。
他们发动了一场革命，处死了沙皇，建立了自己的政府。
他们想用这场革命的领袖——列宁—的名字来称呼“彼得格勒”这座城市，
于是，他们又将城市的名字改为“列宁格勒”，意思是“列宁的城市”。
这样，圣彼得堡、彼得格勒、列宁格勒都曾是俄罗斯首都的名字，但是这儿气候寒冷，于是人们将首都迁到更南边的一个城市，靠近俄罗斯的中心，那儿以前也曾是首都。
这个城市叫莫斯科。