They are stealing the snow !!!
Hello I’m back sorry about that, I will fill in the gaps as we go along but first I thought I would tell you about the snow stealers.
They come in the dead of night with diggers and big trucks and shovel it all away. During the day time the road sweepers shovel it all into nice piles then overnight it gets taken away and then they start again. Now you might think why move it at all just let it melt well let me tell you it’s -10 and likely to stay that way until late March so this snow is not going anywhere soon. Not sure where it ends up but I imaging a real ski slope somewhere around the city which will probably operate until April.
We were in England over Christmas and whilst they are experiencing the worst winter for 20 or 30 years it’s not the same. For the most part it is pretty and lasts a few days bringing catastrophic predictions of shortages of Gas and grit, food, travel disruptions and worst of all cancellation of football (soccer) matches (even in the US snow is not allowed to stop sports matches). People scramble to get sledges or something else to slide down the local hill on. Here the snow is not pretty at all it absorbs all of the smoke and fumes and is a light brown color.
They don’t grit here you just take smaller steps if you know what’s good for you. Every few minutes you see someone sliding around and you remember short steps. In a few places they add some specks of something but it is not salt as it does not melt anything it just makes some patterns until it get covered by the next dump.
You would have thought with all of those salt mines in Siberia they would have some spare but no.
Here of course they are used to this type of weather and just get on with things. The roads seem ok as everyone has winter tires on and driving is not really an issue in fact it is slightly better now as they don’t drive at such reckless speeds. The pavements are a different matter. All the buildings have downspouts I say downspouts rather than drain pipes because they just splash out onto the pavement as they don’t have drains. So when the sun does shine and some of the snow on the roofs melt they fall onto the pavement and create mini ice rinks. There are also huge icicles hanging from the roofs as the downspouts freeze up and overflow. This has people putting out barriers to stop you walking underneath them. Fine except you then have to walk into the road or over the mounds of snow waiting to be stolen. So you need your wits about you looking up down to see where the next hazard is. Our road which normally has people parking on both sides (and the pavement) and still had room for two lanes of traffic is now a single lane track as it gets narrower due to the mounds of snow being piled up by the sweepers that is when they are not hiding in the bus shelters drinking that is (the drinking has reduced but not stopped).
Right now I can see a man walking across the roof opposite pushing the snow of the edge and banging the guttering to remove the ice. No safety harness or protective roping off for these people they just climb up and bang away. I think I need to stop watching him as I am getting a bit queasy.
Almost everyone has a big hat and coat but not many have scarfs not sure why maybe they think it is sissy. Well I don’t and mine gets double wrapped around my neck just to be sure. Judi says there is now 20 minutes “Faffing around” before we go out as we prepare. (Remember always go to the toilet BEFORE you start) and the same when we get back and of course now we understand why all good Russians take their shoes off outside. There are lots of fur coats on display and one has to believe they are effective and there is no stigma attached to them around here.
They do know how to heat the shops and houses and I am typing this in my t-shirt, well the office but wearing a t-shirt. Our radiators came on 1st of October and there is no thermostat just on or off so heat regulation is simple. No 57 page document to quiz to set up the heating just on or off which even I can manage.