Thursday, January 19, 2006

I have always been completely in love with Russia

and the last detail in these paragraphs about arctic temperatures in Moscow strike me as quite adorable (seriously, can you picture it? it should be Georgian champagne, or perhaps port...):

Temperatures in Moscow plunged overnight to as low as minus 24, said Tatyana Pozdnyakova, a Moscow weather forecasting service official. The temperature was the lowest recorded on Jan. 19 since 1927, she said.

Seven people died of exposure in the Russian capital in the previous 24 hours, city emergency officials said, pushing the nationwide death toll from the Siberian cold wave that swept into Moscow late Monday to at least 31.

At a zoo in Lipetsk, south of Moscow, director Alexander Osipov said monkeys would be given wine three times day, ''to protect against colds,'' the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

1 comment:

  1. I think the only adorable thing is the sheer bulk of people as they become spherical with layers of clothing! After about -20, you stop being able to tell how cold it is, there's no way to distinguish between -20 and -30. The first fact Minnesota children learn is that -40 F and -40 C are the same thing. Because it actually is that cold, fairly frequently. You don't have to go so far as Russia to find frigid temps, just try St. Paul! My favorite memory of 7th grade is the day it got to -60 up north (Feb. 2, 1996) and the governor cancelled schools across the state because it was a little chilly to stand at the bus stop. So of course, we all went outside to play!

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