Spring comes to Moscow

Spring has arrived here in Moscow at last! The snow is gone, and the temperature is finally consistently above freezing! It still goes down to around 2-5C (32-27F) at night, but the days are reaching temperatures around 9-12C (47-54F). We're in the annoying period of spring where the temperature gets drastically warmer in the sun/during the day, but still cold in the mornings and at night, and even in the shade, so you still need a warm jacket. Oh well, in a few more weeks it should get warm enough to finally put the winter coat away!

It's interesting for me to watch the city go through its spring transformations. Growing up in the suburbs, things are different. Spring in the suburbs means people working outside on their yards or maybe preparing their gardens, doing some repairs on their houses, and the first signs of children playing outside. Public parks get flowers planted and some things get painted, if they really need it. Here, children play outside all year round (which I think is wonderful – kids shouldn't just sit around during the winter!), so the sound of children playing doesn't associate with spring at all. All the work is done by migrant workers, it seems, rather than the citizens. Moscow doesn't like its workers to be idle. Two weeks ago, they were chopping ice and shoveling snow, now they're painting things. Literally, anything that can be painted is being painted! They're even painting the manhole covers and trashcans!!!

Everything really does look nice with a fresh coat of paint – but the smell… well, that is anything but nice. They're using a really heavy duty oil based paint, and it's got such a terribly strong odor. The places that they're painting in the sun are the worst – the hot sun just exacerbates the smell! Add that to the pollution from all the cars… UGH! Moscow is not good for the lungs, I think.

The weather has ADD

Here in Russia it's been "spring" for three weeks now. Russian spring begins on March 1st - although I can't for the life of me figure out why! We've only had temperatures above freezing for 3 or 4 days, and just last week the temperature was back in the -15 to -10C (5-15F) range for a few days. Craziness - and COLD!

Currently, the weather can't seem to make up its mind about what it wants to do... and therefore every day is a surprise! Monday was a perfect example of this - when I woke up in the morning it was wonderfully sunny and the sky was a nice shade of blue... then a few hours later it was white and snowing.... then blue/sunny again... then grey and cloudy.... then snowing heavily... and finally by nightfall it stopped snowing and the sky was clear except for a few clouds! I've never experienced weather quite like that, with so many changes all in one day! On Sunday, I was out for a walk, and it had been a bit overcast for a few hours, but the sky certainly didn't look like it would snow soon. But the next thing I know, it's a blizzard! About 20 minutes later, not a single snowflake is falling from the sky! Today it decided to snow again - but it was a real snowfall this time - I think we ended up with about 8cm/3in in total!

Another very interesting thing for me is snow showers when it's sunny! This happened on two separate days, actually. It's sunny out, the sky is blue, there are some nice fluffy clouds in the sky... and it's snowing! Just flurries, but still...! I much prefer flurries to rain showers :) So there you have it - the beginning of "spring". At least today it was above freezing!