Unit 10 The History of Customs in Russia and in the USA

Pre-text Assignments

10.1.1 Check up the meaning of the following verbs:

predate	originate	collect	purchase	allow
verify	defend	create	trade	approve
10.1.2 Learn the following vocabulary:
1 seal				клеймо, печать
2 enforcement			обеспечение соблюдения
				законодательства
3 yoke				иго
4 merchant			купец
5 princedom			княжество
6 to hand down			записать
7 on pain of confiscation		под угрозой конфискации
8 significant			значительный
9 to put into power			привести в действие
10 life-and-death mission		миссия жизни и смерти
11 on the brink of bankruptcy		на грани банкротства
12 miscellaneous			различный, разнообразный
13 fiscal prop			фискальный сбор
14 maxim				аксиома, изречение, сентенция
15 amendment			поправка
16 income tax			подоходный налог
17 major source of revenue		основной источник дохода
18 proliferation			распространение, быстрое увеличени

Read the text and translate it using the dictionary

Text A

The History of Russian Customs

The current Russian word for Customs, tamozhnya, originated in the times of the Mongol- Tatar yoke. The word tamga, in Tatar, meant “ a Customs tax, the official who collected it, and the stamped seal or statement verifying that it had been paid”.

Each market had its tamozhnya, and the right to collect duties could be purchased from the State. This right was often acquired by powerful merchants.

The Russian Customs Service, however, predates even the Mongol Yoke. Some three centuries before, in Kievan Rus, taxes were collected for the transportation of goods through the frontiers of its individual princedoms.

Thus, Russia has had a Customs Service in some form for the past 1000 years. The first Russian Customs statute was handed down in 1667. It was strict towards foreigners, who were allowed to trade only in frontier towns on pain of confiscation. Every tsar, from Peter the Great to Nicolas II, approved laws limiting the import of foreign goods and defending Russian producers.

During the Soviet period foreign trade was strictly monopolized in the USSR and Customs neither had any significant function in the economy or played any important role.

Much was done to create Customs legislation in Russia in the period 1991- 94. Two important laws were adopted: “The Customs Code of the Russian Federation” and ”On Customs Tariff”. All provisions and regulations in these documents are of the world standard.

Russia has the world’s longest border to police, much of it newly created and has a modern, multi-functioning Customs Service. It carries out the same functions as the Customs of other developed countries: fiscal functions, regulation oа foreign trade by means of tariff and non-tariff methods, law enforcement, collection and keeping of customs statistics concerning foreign trade, etc.

(1500 symbols)

10.2.1 Give the English equivalents of the following collocations:

fiscal function law enforcement

customs legislation

tariff method

non-tariff method foreign trade regulation

10.2.2 Find in the text the words which follow the verbs below:

to collect

to keep out

to approve

to limit

to defend