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[Larry Paradine]

Readers already in Russia won't need this warning, but if anyone out there is planning to come to central Russia in the next couple of weeks, don't make the same mistake I did last Sunday. I allowed my wife to talk me out of packing my heavy duty winter coat and boots when I was preparing to board the overnight bus back to Samara. She objects to them on aesthetic grounds, and it's true that people call me "Muzhik" (Peasant) when I wear them, but that doesn't bother me, I'd rather be a warm peasant than a frozen follower of fashion. However, I agreed because I'd bought them in the Urals during the wolf winter three years ago and haven't really needed them since in the mid-Volga region, where even in January night temperatures seldom drop below minus 20 and day temperatures are at least five degrees warmer. So I packed my skis instead. Now something nasty is bearing down from the Arctic, bringing the sort of frost that nobody in his right mind would go skiing in; the local edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda has front page headlines (not denied by the local weather office) predicting that the temperature will drop below minus 40 (a psychological barrier as it's there that Centigrade and Fahrenheit meet), and I've noticed that Samara's numerous feral dogs are becoming increasingly aggressive in demanding food from pedestrians, which suggests they have an instinct for hard times ahead. Would-be arrivals should not only bring hot water bottles and long johns, more importantly they should check to make sure that schools they're expecting to work for are open. Schoolkids will be sent home as soon as the temperature reaches minus 30, even if you're going to teach adults for a private school there's no guarantee that the buildings will be open. This sort of weather wouldn't raise any eyebrows in the Arctic and northern Siberia where people are used to it, but it's causing consternation here even before it arrives.