Job Discussion Forums

[mitsui]

I survived Irkutsk.
Snowshoeing and skiing are fun.
I find the Japanese summer worse since I sweat so much.

Magadan is really cold.

I had a student from Yakutsk, and he thought Irkutsk was warm.
Bratsk gets cold. I think the lack of daylight in winter is harder than the cold.
Mongolia is brutal, due to that wind chill, but the south of Siberia gets warmer.

Think like it is Manitoba - hot in the summer, cold in the winter.
It is a dry cold. Buy a good coat and hat, but buy them there. Go with a Russian. Need good boots since that ice gets thick.
You learn to walk carefully after you fall down hard on your backside.

You are not out much, unless you go shopping.
I just walked between warm buildings, from the apartment to work.
From the obshaga to the university. The curfew sucked.

I remember a big dog with puppies. They had no home and slept outside.
The cold did not kill them.

My father lives in Vermont, and it gets cold there, especially with the wind blowing from Quebec and the lake.

[coledavis]

As has been suggested, individual tolerance varies. However, hoping that anecdote will lend somewhat to generality, this is my experience. I have lived in two Siberian cities, which are cold but not as cold as Yakutsk (which is probably the coldest city on the planet). A typical day was minus 25. I come from a cold country (England) and found it very uncomfortable to go out in, with my face feeling like it was going to crack. However, when used to it, minus 15 became rather pleasant. So you are at a disadvantage as an Australian, as you would usually find a British winter to be quite unpleasant (I can remember an Ozzy footballer returning immediately after arrival). However, solid wrapping should mean you can stay out sufficiently for travel.

But don't go to Yakutsk; why go to the very coldest place? Have a look on the internet for typical temperature fluctuation and then think about it. Which reminds me: if you decide on European Russia, avoid St Petersburg, where the damp makes it a horrible mixture of British and Russian weather - yuck.

[maruss]

I can still remember the afternoon in Moscow in January 2006 when the temperature began to plunge suddenly-next morning it was minus 28 C. and stayed that way for several weeks!The worst thing is exposing your face and eyes and of course anywhere else where you don't cover up!!The other thing is to avoid hurrying outside and breathing in too deeply as the very cold air can affect you and make you feel ill.....going in and out of the metro and overheated buildings doesn't help much either!
St.Petersburg has a notoriously unstable climate with humid winds off the Baltic and temperatures that can fluctuate widely within hours-I once experienced ice and snow at breakfast time then,fog, then rain..and then warm sunshine in the late afternoon with a temperature of around 17 C!But despite all that,there's no denying that it's a place worth seeing!

[Sashadroogie]

Dreary deary me! Such big girls! Just take a nip of the good stuff from your hip flask and you'll be fine no matter the weather! Come on! Be strong! How else to build Communism?

[maruss]

Byelomor canal too!

[mitsui]

It used to be colder but in the 1960s the Soviets built hydroelectric power, which made the temperature higher in places like Irkutsk.

Irkutsk is not that bad in the winter.

Most of the time you are in inside. inside you are not cold. When you go shopping and are riding around on a tram you could feel cold, but it temporary.
if you are from the northern US, you will be used to it.

Siberia is a dry cold, but places like Chicago could feel worse, due to wind and humidity.

[coledavis]

For the uninitiated, do note that Yakutsk and Irkutsk are not the same place. Yakutsk is well-known for being much colder.

[teacher X]

The Russian staff were horrified by my long black coat. They told me that I would freeze to death when the snow came. They insisted that I MUST purchase one of those hyper expensive down jackets with high tech insulation and magic winter protection.

I told them that I would simply wear layers.

This just confused them. One Russian friend told me that layers just wouldn't be enough and that I was a fool not to buy a very expensive (because expensive = good) jacket. My come back was to simply ask what Russians did before they had high tech magic jackets. She was unable to answer and was confused by my use of logic. I tend to find that Russians struggle with logic.

Anyway, winter came and I wore my long black coat with a couple of layers. I survived. I survived quite comfortably.
They looked at me in disbelief, as though I were some kind of monster with blood of fire.

It was like being back in Japan, where you simply MUST spend an outrageous amount of money on some piece of shit, mainly because the TV tells you that it's good. Although, that said, I'm sure a down jacket would be nice. I just don't intend on paying the price.

[coledavis]

Before these coats, a similar stance was taken about fur coats. My synthetic great coat just wouldn't do; presumably in those days, something needed to die to protect you from the weather.

[Sashadroogie]

Who were these people, Teacher X, that were confused by the notion of layers? It was the locals and admin staff who told me about this way of dressing.

And Russians struggling with logic? No more than British and Americans do. Are you sure their difficulties weren't more language related?

[teacher X]

[maruss]

I know exactly what you mean-do it,we know it's pointless but do it anyway because WE tell you what to do and you just obey!(I usually made the excuse that I was 'working on it' until they forgot about it!)
I also agree about layers-this is how I survived the winter of January 2006 which was unusually cold-two pairs of socks and several layers of clothes,some of which I could remove indoors where the heating was often stifling!
But recent winters in Moscow have apparently been comparatively mild,supposedly due to global warming etc?