Winter made in Russia

Today let's tackle two very weird caracteristics of the Muscovite winter.

One very strange phenomenon I have been experiencing since proper, Russian winter started here is sleep. This kind of sleep is very close to what I imagine hibernation is. Here, the sun is supposed to shine between 11am and 4.30/5pm, so we end up with a very few hours of natural light (sometimes even fewer, on snowy days the clouds won't let one single sunray pierce the sky). The organism seems to adapt itself to the scarcity of light incredibly fast and sets itself to literally stop working from the moment the sun sets to the moment it rises (and even after the sunrise, you'll find it quite hard to get up). Calculate, yes, you're right, you end up sleeping up to 12/13 hours A DAY. Crazy isn't it?

Another phenomenon that will seem weird only to foreigners is how quickly the organism gets used to cold, and by cold I mean real, Russian cold, the kind of cold that makes you reconsider what Europeans call "cold". Before coming to Russia I was told by my Russian friends that one can say what is cold only after having been through and survived one Russian winter. They were right. Winter temperatures in Europe are rather exotic compared to here. I've heard friends back in Europe freaking out about "freezing temperatures" at -5°C, feel free to come experience and enjoy our -30°C, with an nice extra wind from Siberia ;) The funniest thing about the weather here is the way the Muscovite radio informs you of all the temperatures everywhere else in the world, pretty hot indeed, and ends the list by telling you "and today, 30°C in Moscow city". Indeed, when people say "30°C", here, in winter, they actually mean -30°C, which makes it quite funny (or discouraging, it depends on your mood). To be honest, this is really not the hardest part of winter here, as Russians have everything to dress adequately and stay perfectly warm. For the most extreme temperatures, everyone puts on a long fur or skin coat, combined with knee-high fur lined boots for women. You would be amazed at women's high heels. After talking to my Russian friends, they told me it was the most effective way not to slip on icy pavements, French are actually familiar with this method, we call it "le planté de baton". To put it in a nutshell, there's no bad weather, just bad clothes, and Russians certainly are prepared to go through hell and back.

I was almost forgetting my first point: as your body gets used to living in such extreme conditions, it starts accepting -20/-25°C as an average temperature and therefore, when the weather suddenly plunges you in some 0/1°C, oddly enough, you find it really very hot! How I miss our -20/25°C now!
Fortunately, this "particularly cold" December as everyone says, is just the very beginning of our winter, and we still have four months of winter, which are usually much colder than December. Looking forward to experiencing this!