Cold St. Petersburg

Everyone here has been telling us that St. Petersburg usually had really mild winters. The newspapers are saying the snow we have been having for about ten days now is very unusual, something like the worst snow this city has had in 130 years. It caught the town quite unaware and they are being very slow at removing any of it. Today it was 9 degrees below 0 and the snow is just piling up and not melting like it usually does. Some of the merchants have come out and moved a little of the snow from in front of their shops. It think the city came by and moved some from some of the sidewalks also. Our two city workers who are in charge of garbage removal at our apartment shovel a path from our containers out to the road so they can wheel the garbage out each day. We are making friends with them and get a nice hello each time we meet them.

We walk two long blocks in sort of snow-scraped sidewalks. They put sand and salt on the sidewalks and the roads. This helps some, but the sand mixes with the dry snow and makes it hard to walk in. The third block is the worst. The sidewalks are built up in places with ice and none of it is shoveled. So now all the foot traffic is in the street. It is a one way road so when we hear a car coming, we step off to the side till it passes and then we trudge through the loose sand/snow. It is very tiring walking. It is also scary at times as the drain pipes from the roof have built these ice ridges every so often and they are hidden under the snow and very slick. We cling to each other and hope that when one slides the other is steady.

Then yesterday I noticed the icicles hanging from the roof tops. They are hanging over all the area we walk. I have asked several Russians if they are a problem when warmer weather comes and they all seem to not know what I am talking about. Now that could be a bit of the language problem, but I think they just haven't experienced this type of situtation before.

We had a party/service project at the institute on December 26th. It was great and over thirty of the youth came. We watched a movie on giving service and then they all assembled around the ping pong table and made Christmas cards to take to an orphanage on January 7th, Christmas day, and sing Christmas carols to them.

What a wonderful time we are having in spite of the weather. We had a wonderful New Year's Eve as we picked up from the post office a package that our children and grandchildren had put together for us at Thanksgiving time. It had pictures and goodies and almost made up for not being with them at this wonderful time.