Remember Moscow's summer heat? Well, it's time to forget the heat. This weekend's weather hit -30C (-25F). While the temperatures are below normal, the city deals with the anomaly without interruptions in heating. Moscow spends an average of $2.5 million a day on snow cleaning during the winter season, that lasts from November until March. The good news - when temperatures are that low, no snow is falling, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and the air is dry. If you've never visited Russian in February - bring wool sweaters, a down jacket, buy a fur hat upon your arrival from a street vendor near the Red Square, and enjoy Pushkin's Winter Morning: "Frost and sun - what a glorious day!..." (read the rest of the poem in the extended post).
Winter Morning
by Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)
Frost and sun - what a glorious day!
Yet still, sweet friend, you sleep away -
It's time, gorgeous, for you to stir:
Open wide your dreamy eyes
To catch the dawnglow in northern skies -
Rise up like a northern star!
Last night, remember, a blizzard seethed.
In sombre skies, the thick clouds heaved.
The moon, a livid blotch, struck shadows
Through the dark and churning brume,
While you sat miserably in the gloom -
Well now... look out through the windows!
Under vivid azure skies
A luxurious pure carpet lies -
Snow, sparkling in the brilliant light.
Bare trees present their blackening sheen;
Through the white, spruce growing green;
Beneath the ice, a river glistening bright.
Our room is filled with an amber glow
And now the kindling's on the go,
Crackling merrily on the stove inside -
How nice to sit by its warmth all day!
But hey...why not order out the sleigh
With the chesnut mare and ride!
Swishing over the snow we'll race.
Surrender, sweet friend, to the pace
As our urgent steed pulls fast!
We'll shoot through lonely fields and thence
Through thickets so recently too dense
To my beloved riverbank, at last.
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