Pissed off in London: Angry Russian on the ‘Big Freeze’

Rant III: General Frost on the march

In the last few days, yours truly has been observing somewhat sarcastically the national  “catastrophe” that my hometown of Moscow, Russia, wouldn’t even notice, let alone other parts of Russia where a metre of snow overnight is just another day. For an average (OK, not so average) Russian snowfall check out these examples of Russian winter.

Photo Credit: englishrussia.com

Russia, as you probably know, is a very cold and snowy country. One thing we’ve learned is that you should always treat General Frost (nicknamed long before he won WWII for us by introducing the German army to frostbite) with respect. And respect means no fear.

So I can’t help but grin when I read all these panicking headlines about hundreds of schools closed, flights cancelled and roads blocked—all of that at zero degrees and not much more than a couple of  inches of snow.

I remember one single instance when our school was closed due to extreme weather conditions. Moscow was hit by the coldest winter in a century and the thermometer dropped to -39C. The temperature that they close school at is -35C.

My mother sent me to buy some bread from a bakery across the road (after wrapping me in three layers of clothing, of course) and I had much fun trying to spit as high as possible to make the gob freeze in mid-air. You know you’ve been outside for too long when you can barely move your lips, can’t feel your cheeks and your eyelids are getting heavier because the icy mist of your breath is stuck to your eyelashes.

I remember that day very clearly even now, 20 years later. The air was so crisp and the sky so blue that it almost hurt the eyes. And in this glowing, endless sky I witnessed the most majestic and terrifying sight I’ve even seen: two giant suns slowly drifting toward each other across the horizon. An extremely rare atmospheric effect, my dad told me later.

Actually, I wanted to praise the virtues of frolicking around in snow, building ice castles and sweating in a banya at 110 C, but all of those have already been wonderfully described here by Edward Lucas, a Eastern Europe correspondent for The Economist.

So I’ll keep it short. Winter, cold and snow are here, and if you slip and fall, it’s your own personal problem, not something that you can blame on the government. I think most Canadian readers will agree with me on this—just stop whining and deal with it yourselves.

Here’s what you need to do. Go to a hardware store and buy an axe blade (you don’t need a shaft) and an iron rod approximately 1.5 metres long. Preferably solid, but hollow will also do. Remember, you need to increase the force of impact, and what do we remember from our school physics lessons? Force equals acceleration multiplied by mass, so the heavier, the better.

Now go to your nearest chop shop and ask that nice Turkish guy to weld the blade to the rod. The result should look something like the picture below.

Ready? Now put on some warm but comfortable clothes (jeans, a fur vest and a woolen cap will do just fine) and sturdy boots, grab a bucket of sand and a snow spade, go outside, outline a territory and start hacking.

Your new personal snowplough. | Photo Credit: www.ati.com.au

Crack a couple of square meters of ice, shovel away, sprinkle, repeat. This is a physical exercise almost as rewarding as chopping firewood that you collected yourself and brought home from the forest on a sled.

And what’s even more important is that you control the situation, not a two degree temperature fluctuation or your inept and apathetic government. And learn to properly insulate your homes, for the love of God! These draughts are awful. My grandmother would be terrified. And she survived the winter of 1943—the one that won the war.

Follow this link and this one to see more Russian ways of enjoying the snow.

If you have any thoughts on how to deal with the snow or stories of how people get through it from home, let us hear them by adding a comment or emailing editor@thefirstpint.co.uk.

More from our Angry Russian:
Angry Russian on vodka literacy
Rants by an Angry Russian