The winter goes to its end, ice town is being destroyed

This winter was very strange. At first it could not start, the temperature kept unusually high in December and January. They built the ice town in the center of Yekaterinburg as always, and tried very hard to stop it from melting down. They decided to remove the ice town by the end of February. But here came the real winter with all the colds and its temperature of -25C. On the picture you can see the ice town being destroyed away in a real cold weather.

Holidays were good, but short. Back to work!

Our holidays in Prague were very good, but too short. We walked around Prague, consumed lots of meat and very good beer, listened to jazz music, visited Karlovy Vary and enjoyed our 5 days in Czech Republic very much. Now we're back to Yekaterinburg and back to work.

While we were in Prague, Yekaterinburg got another portion of snow. The picture displays Anna working hard to get the car out of it.

Ice town is being built

The ice town in the central square of Yekaterinburg is being built. The builders work very fast, they have little time left. They could not start earlier due to the weather. December in the Urals has been unusually warm, all the snow in the city melted away. Two days ago the winter finally enforced its rules and the ice town grew up quickly.

Another good thing about the cold weather is cleanliness. All the dirt and mud we have been experiencing for a couple of weeks is suddenly over. Everything is frozen and covered with white snow. The lines to car washes are very long. Yesterday (Thursday) I tried to sign up for a car wash and learned they were only signing people for Friday. I could not wait that long and went to a wash service with a "live line". I had to wait three hours in the line (almost finished reading my thick Misima book) but now I have a bright clean car. It is so enjoyable to drive a bright clean car, I almost forgot about it!

Dirty December - the pig year started early

Yekaterinburg is incredibly dirty these days. The temperature went up from -25C to +5C and all the snow is melting fast. Everything is covered with dirt. I could never understand where all this dirt comes from. Yes, I know there are lots of construction sites in the city and the trucks mostly prefer not to clean their wheels, so they bring the dirt from there to the streets. But it can't be that much!

The cars are dirty, I have to periodically wash the windows and the lights or I can't see anything while driving. The people on the streets are dirty because it is not possible to keep clean while walking. Terrible! And this is December!

Hope it won't last too long, the winter should be back soon anyway and the snow will cover all the dirt.

United Russia forum made traffic collapse in Yekaterinburg

It's really a collapse. All the city is covered with police, they put men along all the streets in the center of the city. The roads are getting closed in various parts of the city simultaneously. Traffic jams are tremendous. People have to wait for hours in their cars.

Why they had to make their meeting in Yekaterinburg? Why could not they choose some good rural place with a good nature and all the facilities? If the elections in Russia were not a fake, the United Russia partly would definitely lose a lot of votes in the fifth biggest city of Russia. But since it does not matter, they don't care.

The people's protest does not go beyond posting to the forums. People are afraid. Yes, the time when you were afraid of the KGB is returning slowly but steadily. It so damn pity. I did not like Yeltsin's Russia at all, but the Russia of Putin is a thousand times worse. And it is getting even worse each day.

Winter came instantly

Looking through the window to snowy trees and roads it is now hard to believe there was no snow at all only a week ago. The snow fell in one night and covered everything. Not a small amount of the first light and shy snow like it usually happens in November. This time the winter came instantly. The temperature fell from zero to -26^oC in one day (that's from +30 to -15 degrees Fahrenheit). I don't remember ever having such a cold weather in November. It's not January after all! In January you know the winter is in the middle, the daytime is growing and the spring is going to come soon. In November when the long winter is all ahead, such a rapid start frightens.

My car behaved perfectly in the cold. It started fine on the coldest morning when many other cars could not. That's good. I don't like public transport at all and I especially hate it when it's cold. My wife asked when we were going to finally move somewhere to a warmer place. I said that would not be until our retirement. She did not look very satisfied by the answer.

They say it will go warmer by the end of the week -- up to -10^oC (15^oF). That'll be better. I still hope the coming winter is not going to be as cold as the last one when we used to have -35^oC (-30^oF) for over two weeks. I wonder where's there the global warming everyone is talking about?

Foreign people in Yekaterinburg

I can't explain why I decided to use Goodle blog search to search for Ekaterinburg. But as a result I found two blogs that I couldn't stop reading. These blogs belong to two foreign students studying in Ekaterinburg now -- Betsy from the U.S. and Josefina from Sweden.

Reading these blogs made me very vividly remember the time when I was an exchange student in Belmont University, Nashville, U.S.A. Many feelings were so familiar - the excitement, the homesickness, etc. Well, I hardly believe now it was so long ago. Twelve years has passed, my English became much worse without much practice, but I am still very happy I had that opportunity to spend a year in a different country.

I believe temporarily living abroad for a relatively long time teaches one to understand different people, different cultures and accept different points of view. Unfortunately too many people believe there could be only one truth. They accept the fact they may be wrong sometimes themselves but refuse the idea that there might be many different points of view all being true.

Well, back to the blogs of Josefina and Betsy. When I was reading them at some moments I had a feeling of entering a private space without an invitation. Nevertheless I decided they didn't mind anyone reading their posts or they wouldn't put them in the Internet after all. I also hope they won't mind me posting links to their blogs here.

I thought for a moment about posting a comment to the blogs offering to contact me in case they needed any help here in Ekaterinburg, but decided not to do it. Such an offer from a stranger might look suspicious and I probably can't really offer anything more than friends of Josefina and Betsy can anyway. So I'm going to simply enjoy reading their blogs.