While things are going well for Putin in Japan, Moscow is having horrible weather: in the past 24 hours 5 inches of snow fell on the city, towards the evening it melts, towards the morning the slush freezes up, in the morning public transportation can’t make it up the hill (too slippery), the largest traffic jam so far last night was 15 miles long on the freeway from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

By the way, the so-called ‘freeway’ is 3 to 4 lanes without any separation, just like all the major Russian freeways; that creates thousands of fender benders and hundreds of fatal accidents. Russia's lack of decent highways is also why Napoleon and Hitler failed (well, may be not just because of that, but still), and remember from my previous post on Russian driving – weather is not a good reason to calm the Russian temper.

Russia's famous "General Winter" has arrived. Now wait for the temperature to drop down to negative 40 – 60 Celsius in Siberia, and negative 15 – 30 in Moscow, and any American would be amazed how the cities and the country still function – schools and offices stay open, shopping malls and casinos keep busy – life goes on. Moscow is not D.C., we can’t afford to shut down the city, there’s just too much stuff going on. Plus, think about this weather staying for six months? Are you going to stay home for that long? Now you see why global warming isn’t a bad deal for Russians.

If you want to visit Russia for a great White Christmas – go in January (Russian Orthodox Christmas is January 7th), if you don’t want to freeze – come in May or June, because July and August bring another extreme – 80-100 Farenheit...