When I first arrived in Russia in October 2017, there was an unseasonably bitter frost on the ground. It was the prelude to a luxuriously snowy winter – a sparkling white covering that appeared in November and melted only in April.
I relished every freezing moment learning the ropes of that first Russian winter. I found out that -10 is perfectly fine; -15 is just about survivable. Any colder is tough. I delighted in the two or three days when the thermometer brushed with -20, a temperature that bites painfully at any exposed skin. I was so captivated by the cold, I allowed myself to ignore the endless Muscovite grumblings about yet another oddly warm winter.
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