A song of ice and fire

I thought about where to begin, and decided that i should start with one of the most widespread myths about my homeland: that it’s a vast and a cold place. Some people i talked to were sure that it’s about as cold in Russia as in Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, where the winter is coming! Well, there’s some truth in comparing this book and Russia: here you can find both frozen north-east where land never thaws and fiery south-west, where you’d rather drop dead than get outside in the hot summer.

Russia is vast. She (and it’s always “she” in our language, never “he”) spans around half the world – 171°21′ in longevity – and now has 9 time zones (actually, geographically we have 11 time zones, but some of them were merged for the sake of everyone’s sanity, because even now some regions are living in 3 different time zones, which is insanely hard). The land is enormous. Imagine anything you consider big and it’s nothing compared to how big Russia is.

I live in Rostov area which is a part of Southern Federal District, the size of this area is 100,967 square kilometers – which is about 62,737 square miles. By it’s size, Rostov area is only number #33 in the whole country, but guess what? It’s almost as big as the whole Iceland, which is 103,000 km2, and three times bigger than Belgium, which is only 30,510 km2. The biggest region of Russian Federation is The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which size is 3,083,523 km2. For comparison: France, Spain and Sweden – all taken together – would reach only half of its size.

Now, you can probably see why Russia is not a cold: in such a huge land there are countless variations of climactic conditions. In the far East (that is scarcely populated, save for a few really huge cities as Norilsk and Novosibirsk) the sun is never setting for 6 months a year, another 6 months are of complete darkness and you can get blown by the wind quite literally, because of its strength. In far South, where Sochi is (the city where Olympic Games 2014 will take place), winter is barely seen and all sorts of palms are growing happily. And they breed ostriches there, too, started less than 10 years ago. Yes, you heard that, fucking PALMS and OSTRICHES here in Russia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will write about North-East and its winters some other time, let’s focus on a summer time where i live. For about 20 last years it’s been hotter and hotter with each passing year, so in 2010 we hit a maximum of 47’C in shadow – now, speak about the cold in Russia! Add 87% humidity and price on conditioners doubling in a single month, and you’ll know what the conditions in Hell must be. In 2011 it wasn’t so bad, about maybe 34-36’C in shadow, a piece of cake.

Winters are a different thing. With the change of climate that we’re facing right now, it’s never safe to assume what kind of winter the next one will be. Some winters are so warm that it’s +10’C outside and the owners of sport shops who stocked up on snowboarding and skiing stuff are tearing their hair out. Some winters are so cold you have to sleep in several layers of clothing because the central heating wasn’t ready for that kind of cold and is failing to warm up everyone when it’s –35’C outside.

Same thing with snow: you can never expect when – and if – it’ll come. This year we had a huge snow disaster, when so much snow fell that our city services “weren’t ready” and “did not prepare on time”, so they failed to clear the city’s streets for over two weeks. At first, even city buses couldn’t get out on their lines, so people had to walk tens of kilometers to reach their workplaces.

A few central streets were cleared in an half-assed attempt to fix at least something, and the cars parked on these streets were buried in giant snow mountains that nobody was going to ship out of the city (later the mountains melt and the city turned into a giant dirty river). Driving a car during the time was much like having a sleigh ride, but on wheels.

Just like in “The Song of Ice and Fire” – they know the winter is coming, but nobody really expects it until it’s too late.