Where is everyone from (rebooted)

[Vortex]

Getting the Skeptiko forum rebooted, is a good piece of news for sure: in the latter time, it became a bit stagnant and inactive. And I decided to make a small reboot of my own – to reactivate an old “Where is everyone from?” thread, to provide some occasional pleasant distraction from the more serious topics we tend to discuss here.

So, here is my reflection on the nature of the European part of Russia, where I reside, as well as some popular cultural activities connected with it. I encourage all other forum members to follow my steps and provide some descriptions of such natural-cultural circumstances they find themselves in!

***OF ENJOYMENT AND ENDURANCE: EXPERIENCING NATURE OF THE EUROPEAN RUSSIA***​

1. THE TIMES OF COLD AND WARMTH


Happy is a person, who finds nature of his or her place of residence suitable, rather than a source of constant distress. But happier is someone who can enjoy this natural conditions fully.

However, the natural conditions a human can enjoy are, oftentimes, also the ones a human has to endure, from time to time. The moderately continental climate of the European Russia is exactly the case.



The continentality is the most crucial feature of the Russian climate, whether of its European or of its Asian part. Such climatic type is common for the large landmasses of the Northern Hemisphere: first and foremost Eurasia, but also, to a lesser degree, North America. In the Southern Hemisphere, the continentality of climate is a rarity, only observed in few specific places, due to a deficit of land and abundance of oceans.

What is continentality? Roughly speaking, it is the range of temperatures common to a certain climate zone, be it annual (yearly) or diurnal (daily). The higher the degree of continentality is, the more notable is the difference of temperatures between seasons and between times of day – and the more extreme are the highs and lows of temperatures, observed (and felt) during summer and winter, as well as during day and night. Beyond the wider range of temperatures, and the distribution of temperatures in the range closer to the extremes, continentality also affects the speed of the change of temperatures: the higher the continentality is, the faster it gets warmer – or colder. Such quickness of the temperature change affects the lengths of the seasons: in a continental climate zone, mid-seasons – spring and autumn – are relatively short, while main seasons – summer and winter – are much longer: so, most of the year it is either very hot summer or a very cold winter, with only a short transitory periods of moderate temperatures between them.

All of above works well for Russia. In its European part, continentality is relatively moderate – but still significantly higher than in the rest of Europe or in most of the North America. This means, that Russian winters are notably colder than in the rest of Europe and most of America. Due to the large, and most densely populated, part of Russia being also further to the North in comparison with the most populated areas of Europe and North America, winters are also quite lengthy. But this is compensated by hot and relatively long – due to an aforementioned quickness of season change and shortness of spring and autumn.

It is practically useful to separate the yearly cycle in Russia not in four classic seasons, but just in two periods that radically differ in their climatic features, and thus in nature-related activities of the populace: the Cold Period and the Warm Period. The former is a time which starts with the first snowfalls and icing, and last till ice and snow cover fully melts; the temperatures are usually either near or below freezing point (0˚C), at least in nighttime. The latter, to the contrary, is characterised by the absence of snow, ice, and frosts, and by temperatures that are persistently and significantly above zero even in nighttime. Of course, further refinement of such classification, with more precise distinctions and separations within these seasons, is always possible – most notably, one may demarcate the full snow cover period within the Cold Period, as well as the wild swimming period (the period with water in the outdoor water bodies being warm enough to bathe and swim in it without a warm wetsuit for a person who is not exceptionally healthy and hardened) within the Warm Period. But, knowing the relative lengths of the Cold and Warm Periods, it is quite possible to calculate the shorter “inner periods” within them, since the ratios are more-or-less similar.

To be specific, full snow cover period – the period of a full-blown winter season – lasts roughly two-thirds of the Cold Period; so, if the Cold Period is, say, 6 months long, it means that “the winter proper” would last about 4 months. Other 2 months – one preceding it and one following it – will be, respectively, late autumn (the one with occasional snowfalls, icings and frosts, as well as temperature fluctuating close to the freezing point) and early spring (the period when the snow and ice covers on land and water are in the process of melting, yet have not yet largely gone; the temperature is also not highly above freezing, and “relapses” into frost happen from time to time).

As for the wild swimming period goes, demarcating its precisely is a somewhat tricky endeavour, since its defining feature – the swimmability of the open-air water bodies, such as rivers, lakes, ponds or channels –fundamentally depend on what exact minimum temperature one would consider enjoyable enough to swim. For me personally, the water temperature of +18˚C would be enough to experience enjoyment of the wild swimming fully and deeply; but for many other people, such cool temperature is completely unenjoyable – and for many others, even outright unendurable. Even more common lower swimmable temperature limit of +20˚C would still be experienced as far too low by a sizable amount of populace. Another problem is that water temperature is not the only one relevant for the swimmability – the air temperature, quite understandably, is also a significant factor, as well as precipitation (swimming in a rain is not what most people will prefer, and swimming in a thunderstorm is not the best idea for the one valuing one’s bodily existence). So, let’s say that, for an average person with average demands (but, well, how to define “average”? what is considered “average” is itself differing and changeable, and a subject to deliberation) the wild swimming season would last very crudely for a half of the Warm Season: so, if the Warm Season is, for example, 6 months, 3 of them would be potentially swimmable on the days with suitable wetter.

For how long do the Warm and Cold season last in the European Russia? It generally depends on what northern latitude one finds oneself. Here is a table, made by me, which separates the whole territory of the European Russia in seven distinct climatic zones, located on different northern latitudes, characterised not only by the length of the Warm Period, but also by other factors, such as their common humidity, the fertility of their soils and the dominant type of vegetation growing there:

Climatic Zones
Northern Latitudes
Warm Period
Humidity Level
Soil Fertility
Predominant Vegetation

Far North
65 and higher
3 months (Jun – Aug)
humid
permafrost to infertile
tundra and forest-tundra to coniferous forests

North
61 – 64
4 months (mid-May – mid-Sep)
humid
infertile
coniferous forests

Semi-North
57 – 60
5 months (May – Sep)
humid
infertile
coniferous and mixed forests

Center
54 – 56
6 months (mid-Apr – mid-Oct)
semi-humid
infertile to fertile
mixed forests

Semi-South
50 – 53
7 months (Apr –Oct)
semi-humid to semi-arid
fertile
mixed and broad-leaved forests to forest-steppes and steppes

South
46 – 49
8 months (mid-Mar – mid-Nov)
semi-arid to arid
fertile
forest-steppes and steppes to semi-deserts and deserts

Far South
45 and lower
9 months (Mar – Nov)
semi-arid to semi-humid
fertile
steppes and forest-steppes to broad-leaved forests​

(Yeah, it looks not so much as a "table"... But I failed to copy an original table from the MS Word file here. So I had to improvise.)

So, as you see, the Warm and Cold Periods are roughly of the same length in the middle of the European Russia, while, if moving either to the north or to the south, one of them gradually becomes longer than the other – predictably, the inhabitants of the north-from-the-center zones have to endure the Cold Period that is lengthier than the Warm one, while in the south-from-the-center zones the populace may enjoy the Warm Period that exceeds the Cold one in its duration.

And this distinction – the difference between endurance and enjoyment – is, despite its apparent subjectivity, is probably the most fundamental demarcation that separates the Cold and the Warm Periods: during the former, Russian climate is hard but endurable; during the latter, it is soft and enjoyable.

And these two experiential responses to the nature and climate – the endurance and the enjoyment – worth being reflected on in more detail.


2., ENDURING NATURE, ENJOYING NATURE


One only truly lives, as long as one wills to live; a willed life is a worthy life, a blessing. Without willingness to live, without worthiness with that the will imbues life, the life becomes worthless, a damnation. The same can be said about death: if willed, death can be worthy, and a blessing, rather than a worthless damnation. It is only one’s will that distinguish between blessing and damnation, choosing life or death in accordance with one’s willed worthiness.

And as long as one wills to live, rather than to die, one finds something in life that makes it worth living. And this is, invariably, some form of enjoyment, no matter whence it comes and whither it goes, be it enjoyment of creativity, of exploration, of communion, of activity or simply of amusement. Nature is such source of enjoyment, among others; and it is a rather significant source, since during our transient embodied existence within time and space, we have to experience natural conditions surrounding us day to day.

But to obtain enjoyment, one oftentimes needs to face some challenge to overcome – that, in turn, requires endurance. Rarely is enjoyment achievable without facing any difficulty.

Is it a desirable or an undesirable feature of life, that is has to be endured in order to be enjoyed. Probably yes, as long as enjoyment as much present as endurance. Humans’ interaction with nature provides us with examples: if one looks at various tribes of people, living in various conditions, one can see that tribes that show development of their culture are the ones whose natural conditions of life are both require endurance and provide enjoyment. If endurance prevails too much, if life is a constant struggle for the mere survival – like it is for the people living in the Arctic – the tribe has no possibility to develop its culture beyond the primitive level. But if, to the contrary, the tribe lives in a climatic paradise of a tropical island, its culture will also remain on a primitive level, since, if everything is fully enjoyable already, there is no necessity to struggle and thus no stimulus to develop.

One may say that culture is born from exactly this tension between endurance and enjoyment: it is itself a form of endurance, providing us with the means of overcoming challenges, and a source of enjoyment that the engagement in it brings.

More than that, the endurance and the enjoyment are interconnected on a deeper level, since the successful feats of endurance may themselves be a source of enjoyment, like the one of mountaineering or of a laborious research. And some intense forms of enjoyment, like the ones involving alcohol or any other psychoactive substances, requires certain endurance to participate in them.

The nature of the European Russia is can be an especially good case to demonstrate how endurance and enjoyment works in the relations between the human populace and the natural environment it inhabits, since the Cold and the Warm Periods are the times of, respectively, predominant endurance and prevalent enjoyment. It may be shown how the Russian people find enjoyment even in the Cold Period of the endurance, and how they seek certain forms of endurance in the Warm Period of enjoyment (in order to enjoy it even more, of course!). So, let’s do this.

In my description, I will concentrate on the conditions of my home city of Nizhny Novgorod, situated on the 56th northern latitude in the Central Climatic Zone, with both Cold and Warm Periods equally lasting for about 6 months, somewhat humid climate, relatively poor soil fertility and mixed, partially coniferous and partly broad-leaved, forests as the main type of vegetation.





(continued below)

 

[Vortex]

3. ENDURING RUSSIAN NATURE: THE COLD PERIOD

In Nizhny Novgorod, the Cold Period lasts for about the half of the year, roughly from the second half of October to the first half of April. It is the time when the Russian climate demonstrate all the ugliness it could spawn.

The most unpleasant features of the Cold Period may be intense precipitation and high cloudiness: the humidity of the Russian climate tend to be very unevenly distributed through the year, with the Cold Period being very wet and the Warm Period much drier.

This preponderance of humidity becomes visible in the mid-October with the intense and abundant cold raining, sometimes lasting for days and days. Due to it, any ground not covered by stone or concrete turns into an intraversable swamp, a phenomenon known as “rasputitsa” (it’s hard to translate this Russian word into English, probably “lack of clear road” would be the best).

It gets worse when, by the beginning of November, snowfalls and frosts start: all the water freezes, making road horribly slippery and very dangerous to traverse, a phenomenon known as “gololyod” (literally “naked ice”, means icing of surfaces).Each year, many people suffer from falling accidents sometimes resulting in serious physical traumas. Such phenomenon may also be dangerous for the trees, whose branches become encased in ice due to the rainwater freezing on them, and thus may break and fall (occasionally on an unlucky passerby).

When the full-blown winter – the stable snow cover period – finally starts in the mid-November, it is usually a great relief: not only it become easier and less dangerous to walk and drive when the snow covers the initial ice, it also gets quite beautiful: a shining white scenery of the snow-covered Russian landscape can be stunning.

But to fully grasp its beauty, one needs sunshine, and sunshine is a rare occurrence during the Cold Period because of the high cloudiness. Most of the days, the sky will be overcast and gloomy.

And days themselves will be very, very short: due to the relatively northern latitude of its location, the difference of day length between summer and winter is very significant in Nizhny Novgorod. This is especially notable in December, the darkest month of the year, when daylight becomes painfully short and sunlight is rare to be seen.

And the precipitation continues to be high in winter, now taking the form of long and intense snowfalls. The amounts of snow falling to the ground may be colossal, once again creating traversability problems comparable to the late autumn “rasputitsa”. During that time, nearly the whole effort of the municipal services is dedicated to removing the snow from the roads and streets, so people may walk and drive freely again.

And if an abundant snowfall conflates with the strong wind, a mighty snowstorm ensues. This is a really dangerous occurrence, since visibility on the roads may fall to near zero; a sharp rise in the traffic accidents is an inevitable consequence of that.

Icicles are another danger: while municipal workers try their best to clear all of them from the roof edges, some always remain here or there, and they may fall on a misfortunate passerby.



But the hardest in the Russian winter are the severe frosts. These are what truly has to be endured, since the cold of the Russian winter is of the kind rarely, if ever, experienced by the Western Europeans and North Americans.

To be clear, on most days the frost is not especially severe, fluctuating in the “minus single digits” and “minus tenths” range of the Celsius grads (e.g., -1…-19˚C). Is this cold? Well, for Russians it is just a habitual winter temperatures, but for the Western Europeans and North Americans any temperature lower than -10˚C would be felt as “very cold”… wouldn’t it?

Well, then brace yourself for the “cold waves” – the true challenge of the Russian winter. It is the relatively short time, usually several days long, when temperatures fall to the “minus twenties” Celsius (‑20…-29˚C). This is truly cold, even for Russians who are used to cold winters. One who has not experienced such frost, will hardly understand how hard it may be to bear: even very warm clothes may not be a full protection (especially for your feet and hands, that are especially vulnerable), let alone your face that will burn from the searing cold. During such cold days, the medical emergencies due to exposure to cold and frostbites are common, and the technical infrastructure of cities and villages must withstand intense stress.

But this is not all: very rarely, an “extreme cold wave” may come, and then the temperatures will fall even lower than during the ordinary “cold wave”, below -30˚C, to remain in the upper half of “minus thirties” (-30˚…-34˚C) for some days. This is bitterly cold, and a real endurance test for the populace and for infrastructure. Happily, a cold so outstanding is, as I said, a rarity, happening only once in a several years.

And one must remember that all the temperature ranges above are the one for the large city of Nizhny Novgorod itself, where it is always somewhat warmer; far in the wilderness outside of the city, on the flat and low places, the frosts can be even more severe; in the most extreme (and fortunately very rare) cases, they can fall to about -40˚C, making the cold not just bitter but outright brutal, barely endurable even for the most hardened and warm-clothed person.

(And this is just the European part of Russia, an area of the moderate continentality, with winters being comparatively milder than in its Asian part, Siberia and Russian Far East, where continentality reach extremes. There, the winter temperatures around -50˚C or even -60˚C are quite possible. Can’t imagine how locals manage to bear this.)

What is interesting about the “cold waves”, however, is that they are usually connected with bright sunlight and clear sky – during them, the common winter cloudiness is usually gone, and sky becomes perfectly pristine; so, the days of the brutal winter frosts are also the days one could observe, and enjoy, the incredibly beautiful winter sceneries of snowy and icy landscape shining under the sunrays. And air itself becomes visibly pure, like all vapour and dust have disappeared from it… It is hard to catch in words what this frosty air and sky look like, it must be seen with your own eyes to fully grasp and enjoy. Such joyous beauty is a gift only for the ones who endures a challenge of Russian winter frost, I doubt that something akin to this can be seen in the much milder Western European and North American winters.



Beyond cold waves, the opposite temperature changes – the thaws, in that temperature rises slightly above freezing point, thus melting snow and ice a bit. This should have been a relief from the frosts; but, rather, it is a nuisance, since it brings slush on the roads (thus somewhat resembling “rasputitsa”) and then another freezing and icing of all surfaces, including roads, leading to high slipperiness (again, “gololyod”).



After roughly four months of the full-blown winter, with its snowfalls and frosts, in the second half of March, an early spring comes – and, with it, a fast and intense melting of the giant amounts of snow accumulated during the stable snow cover period. Sudden release of such large amounts of water, that may be further increased by rains, leads not only to the recurrence of the “rasputitsa”, but oftentimes to the outright floods in the low places, with the damage to the property and danger to the populace.

But this is the last challenge of the Cold Period: after the water is gone, short daytime, low temperatures, abundant precipitation and thick cloudiness are gone together with it, and so, the time of hardships and dangers is finally over – for another half of the year. The Warm Period comes, bringing with itself countless opportunities for enjoyment.

(continued below)

 

[Vortex]

4. SEEKING ENJOYMENT IN THE COLD TIMES OF ENDURANCE



But as for the opportunities of enjoyment, the Cold Period can also provide some of them, thus helping Russians to endure it somewhat easier; the means for the populace to fight back against darkness and cold in various ways.

One of them is the winter illumination, devised to protect against gloomy mood in the times of gloomy (or pitch black) skies. During the winter, the Russian cities are provided with all types of light-emitting installations, many of them quite artistic, to banish the darkness with the dance of the light.



Another are holidays, most of them happening within the Cold Period, so people may distract and enjoy themselves; to be precise, 5 out of 8 Russian state holidays - Day of National Unity, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, Men’s Day / Army Day, Women’s Day - are within the cold time of the year, celebrated on 4th November, 31st December – 1st January, 7th January, 23th February and 8th March, respectively; given that New Year and Orthodox Christmas are united in a single “holiday decade” starting on 31st December and lasting until 8th – 10th January, the preponderance of celebration days in the Cold Period is notable. Such celebrations are taking place both indoors and outdoors, no matter the frost.

This exact year, the part of the New Year “holiday decade”, including the day of the Orthodox Christmas itself, Nizhny Novgorod was engulfed in an extreme cold wave, the one that comes only once in several years. And it was truly extreme, with temperatures outside of the city falling to -40˚C in some places, which hasn’t happened for decades! In the city itself, it wasn’t that unbearably brutal, but bitterly frosty nevertheless. Yet, despite of that, large masses of the people roamed the city center in search for the company and the entertainment, and the cultural events had a wide attendance.

Cultural life is also a way to enjoy oneself in the Cold Period, since it is in the times of cold that it is most active; in the Warm Period, most people escape the city constraints go to the nature, to obtain the enjoyment it provides only during that part of the year, so cultural life is somewhat suspended until the cold returns. So, while it is chilly outside and natural opportunities to enjoy oneself are in a deficit, the cultural opportunities are in abundance; so, most people gather on art exhibitions, theatrical performances, public lectures and any other events that humans invented to produce enjoyment for themselves while the nature is somewhat reluctant to provide it to them. This remains true, even if it requires certain endurance to get to the event destination if the air in the street burns one with intense frost.

Winter sports, such skiing, skating, sledging and so on, are another joy-bringing outlet for many Russians. The snow mountains, grown because of snowfalls, can thus be not only a hindrance to overcome and a problem to resolve, but rather be put to a joyous usage.

Yet another possibility is warm oneself is to experience the vaporous heat of a “banya”, a Russian wet sauna – the mean tested, quite successfully, for centuries and generations.

And, finally, the great bringers of warmth to Russians during winter are beloved Russian cats. Russia is the most “felinised” country of the world, so to say, with the cats-to-humans ratio being the world’s highest. Cats in Russia are welcome in most places, oftentimes kept not only in homes, but also in museums, monasteries, factories, hospitals, cafes and any other human installations.



(contnued below)

 

[Vortex]

5. ENJOYING RUSSIAN NATURE: THE WARM PERIOD

By the mid-April, the snow cover is usually largely gone (a few small patches of snow may still remain in shady places up to the end of the month), and the water bodies are free from ice. The temperatures are above zero around the clock, usually in the “plus tenths” (+10…+19˚C), and on the sunniest days, may exceed +20˚C. Levels of precipitation and cloudiness have significantly fallen, with most days being dry and sunny. So, the Warm Period has started.

In the beginning of it, a peculiar event is being organized across the Russian cities – so-called “subbotnik”. This name can be translated as “Saturday work” – but, in fact, it happens of one of the common working days, from Monday to Friday (with Friday being the most usual). So, what it is? It is, essentially, a grand cleaning of the whole city, done by masses of volunteers, who are given a day out from their workplaces just for this occasion. It is performed somewhen in the second half of April, in a very short time when snow is fully gone yet the land is not yet covered in plants – barren and ready to be cleaned of all the garbage that accumulated for a year.

This is a tradition formed in the bygone times of the USSR, and persisting even after decades of its fall. The reason its name is connected with Saturday lies in the Soviet official sacred-secular mythology, which told a parable of the early Soviet Communist workers, who, being divinely inspired by the glorious vision of a coming earthy Communist paradise, voluntarily worked for Saturdays after completing their hard and exhausting main jobs, and were once joined by no less than the Soviet pantheon’s supreme living deity, Vladimir Lenin himself, who carried a heavy log together with them. In the Soviet era, “subbotniks” were de-facto obligatory, justified by the sacredness of communal labour ordained by the Soviet secular religion. After the USSR fell, its political religion and most of its public rites, maintaining its peculiar path of communally evoked secular sacredness, dissipated – yet some were willingly kept by people themselves, in a transformed and semi-playful, and thus neutralised, form – much like the way many pagan rites persisted in Christendom.

Nowadays, “subbotnik” is a voluntary event massively joined by the people who enjoy a day off the job and on the open air – especially given that, for whatever reason, weather is always perfect on this preplanned day (a mass psychokinesis effect, like the one detected by the Global Consciousness Project? maybe). No special effort is demanded, people just work as much as they will on the small patch of territory delegated to them for cleaning, and when they deem they have done enough, they go home. It is a celebration of its own kind, eagerly anticipated by many (including myself), even if it involve open air work rather than feasting and drinking.



By the end of April, a period of active vegetation starts. First the ground become green and covered by grass; a bit later, leaves start to grow back on the broad-leaved trees; then, blossoms appear on many plants. By the mid-May, everything is blooming, and the whole Russian landscape is covered by flowers. This includes cities: the Russian cites are anything but concrete tombs, they are very green, with an abundance of various trees, shrubs and grasses growing everywhere; many of them are not planted by humans by grew in their place originally – when Russian cities are build on a land of a former forest, a multitude of patches of such forest, small and large, are deliberately kept intact, so the urban dwellers do not lose a touch with nature completely even within the city limits.

Because of this, some wild animals also continue to live within a human city: for example, hedgehogs, treading the high grass near the road in search for insects; squirrels, leaping across the branches and running across the ground, to the people’s amusement; foxes, who are easily found plundering the garbage piles in search for nurture; or even large elks, who sometimes may freely wander the city streets.



In the initial stage of the Warm Period - in the second half of April and the first half of May – days become pleasantly warm, with temperature usually being either in the “upper tenths” (+15…+19˚C) or in the “lower twenties” (+20…24˚C), while nights still may be chilly, in the “lower tenths” (+5…+9˚C).

The second half of May is already very much summer-like, with the typical day temperature being in the “plus twenties” (+20…+29˚C) in shadow, and “plus thirties” (+30…+39˚C)under the sunlight. The diurnal temperature fluctuation is notable, however, so the nights are notably cooler than days, typically in the “lower tenths” (+10…+14˚C).

Such substantial difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures is a constant within the Warm Period, being a basic feature of a continental climate of the European Russia – even if the degree of it may vary as the Warm Period develops. It is most pronounced in its initial and conclusive phases, and somewhat mitigated in the middle section..So, when, by the end of May, a full-blown summer arrives, to remain until the beginning of September, the day heat generally remains on more-or-less the same comfortable level of “plus twenties” in shadow and “plus thirties” under the sun, but the nights become a bit warmer, moving to the “upper tenths” (+15…+19˚C). But even as such, nights still remain relatively cool, in contrast with the rather hot days. It is common for the Russian summer that people sunbathe and swim when the sun is up in the sky, yet still has to take their warm clothes on after the sun sets.

In any summer month, a heat wave may arrive. During it, temperatures move to the “upper thirties” (+30…+34˚C) even in shady places, while the sunlit ones are heated to the “lower forties” (+40…+44˚C). And, rarely, an extreme heat wave may arrive, with temperatures rising to the “upper thirties” (+35…+39˚C) in shadow and to the “upper forties” (+45…+49˚C) under the rays of the sun. Night temperatures rise as well as the day ones: for a few nights during and after a heat wave, the night temperature can sometimes reach “lower twenties” (+20…+24˚C), thus providing a few really warm nights, when even night swimming is possible.

Another pleasant characteristic of the Warm Period is its relative dryness and brightness, compared to the Cold one. Precipitation becomes much lower, with most days being rainless; but, when it happens, it may take the form of a mighty summer thunderstorm, with hurricane-level wind, torrent rain and constant strikes of lightning. Cloudiness is also much lower: while a completely cloudless sky is a relatively uncommon sight even in summer, during the whole Warm Period cloudiness remains either partial or slight, thus allowing the sunlight to illuminate and warm up the earth freely.



In the beginning of September, the day warmth begins to decrease together with the night one, signaling the coming of an autumn. Yet September still remains quite warm, with daytime temperatures still commonly remaining in the “plus twenties”, especially in the first half of the month, that is still pretty summer-like. Nighttime is also not yet too cold. In some cases, even wild swimming remains possible. Only by mid-September, the summer is fully gone.

The early autumn - the second half of September and the first half of October – is known as “the golden autumn”: after remaining fully green for four months, the broad-leaved plants started to turn gold, bronze and crimson. In this time, forests, coloured in all tints of flame, are a magnificent sight. Warmth still somewhat lingers, daytime temperatures are in the “upper tenths”, and occasionally may still exceed +20˚C, rising to the “lower twenties” Nights are cold, but not chilly. This is the last opportunity to enjoy warmth, dryness and sunlight in an ongoing year.

And then it all ends – for another half of a year. Heavy rains and thick cloudiness of the late October come, and the Cold Season comes back with them. People turn their search for enjoyment to culture rather than to nature, and prepare to endure another frosty winter, longing for summer to return.

(continued below)

 

[Vortex]

6. SEEKING ENDURANCE IN THE WARM TIMES OF ENJOYMENT

The ways Russians enjoy their nature in the Warm Period are numerous. I will describe the most popular ones. What is notable about all of them, however, is that they, despite being certainly highly joyous to the people practicing them, also require some feats of endurance as well.

The ultimate example of such enjoyment-through-endurance are Russian dachas. These are, to put it crudely, small patches of privately owned land outside of the city, with a house, a garden and – sometimes – with some additional constructions or installations, be it a “banya”, a gazebo, a seesaw or a mini-pond, located on them.

Dachas are crucial to the Russian lifestyle. During the whole Warm Period, urban dwellers massively move out of their city apartments to their dachas, residing there either part-time – spending weekends there, while returning to the city apartment on the working days – or even full-time, effectively living in their dacha all week long, driving to work in the city each working day morning and returning in the evening. Such seasonal swap (at least partial) of a place of residence is one of the reasons why Russians prefer to live “culturally” while there is cold, wet and dark outside, and to live “naturally” while there is warm, dry and bright.

Dachas are the “hub locations” (to call them so) for all types of nature-connected enjoyments. From them, people drive to the nearby (or distant) water ponds to practice wild swimming, or to the forest to engage in wild mushroom and berry gathering. It is there where circles of friends and relatives gather for the open air feasts and celebrations, where people just enjoy fresh air and natural scenery.

And, of course, gardening. It is highly popular in Russia, with people being proud of their gardens they made by their own labour – and thanks to their own endurance, since gardening in Russia is, indeed, a thing that requires a lot of endurance – even if it provides even higher amounts of enjoyment.

The reason is, on the large part of Russia, neither the soils nor the climate are highly conductive to agriculture. If you remember the table I provided in the beginning of this text of mine (well, just look at it again if you don’t!), you’ll recall that the soil fertility of the four of seven climate zones of the European Russia – Far North, North, Semi-North and Center – is described as largely infertile. The reason is, all these zones are situated in the “upper half” (to say so) of the European Russia, known as “Nechernozemye” (Non-Black Earth Land); to the contrary, “the lower half” of it is “Chernozemye” (Black Earth Land). The radical difference of soils between these two parts is caused by the European Russia’s geological and climatic history: millennia ago, during the last full-blown Ice Age, the “upper half” of the territory known nowadays as the European Russia was covered by a glacier, while the “lower half” was spared such fate. Later, as it was getting warmer, the glacier melted and moved to the north, releasing the land once encased in it; yet, in its movement northwards, it damaged the uppermost fertile layer of the soil, rendering the released land relatively infertile. Because of this, while wild forest plants have no problems growing there, most agricultural plants require richer soils to be cultivated without difficulty.

And yet, they were and are cultivated there, massively and successfully – just due to persistence and diligence of Russian peasants of the past (and agricultural workers of the present). Modern dacha owners, most of whom are descendants of these tenacious peasants, still proceed on their laborious path of growing agriculture in an environment that is anything but suitable for the process, despite no longer facing a necessity to do so – just for their enjoyment, the one of the type that comes only with enduring – and overcoming – difficulties. So, infertility of the soils is overcome either by ameliorating them with fertilizers (in the past, large amounts of simple dung were used by the peasants for this very purpose; dung trade was widespread and highly profitable), or just by buying the sacks of the fertile soils coming from the to-the-south-from-the-center regions of “Chernozemye”, to create a new, fertile upper soil layer for one’s own garden (again, such practice persists since old times; in the past, it was predominantly used not by peasants, who was too poor to afford transporting large amounts of fertile soil, but by the aristocracy for their gardens; and nowadays, creating a upper soil layer of your own is affordable to anyone).

One more difficulty to overcome is cold – both the severe frosts of the Cold Season and the cool nights of the earliest and latest stages of the Warm Period. To counteract the former danger, all perennial plants are covered with thick linen, fixated in place, in the beginning of the Cold Period, to remain protected until its end (abundant snowfalls are further helping with the protection, since thick snow cover shields the plants from intense frosts). And in the late spring, the newly grown annual plants are protected from the nightly chills by mini-greenhouses made of polymers.

So, with laborious efforts, Russian gardeners manage to cultivate even the most fastidious plants, including the ones that apparently shouldn’t be able to survive in this relatively cold climate at all, such as some African flowers. Such is the enjoyment coming with the endurance.

(Oh, and growing fastidious southern plants in the just moderately inhospitable Center of Russia is far from the most heroic feat of that the enthusiastic – or obstinate? – Russian amateur gardeners are capable of. What about growing such plants on the permafrosted soils in the brutal subarctic climate of the northern parts of Siberia and Russian Far East? Some local inhabitants are proud to achieve even such barely believable results, just by investing insane amounts of effort and persistence into the process.)

Some people are also keeping livestock on their dachas, such as chicken, geese, rabbits, cows or goats.




Another activity in that the Russians massively engage during the Warm Period, is the wild swimming. During the summer, all open-air water bodies, be it natural rivers and lakes or man-made ponds and channels, are surrounded, and filled by, large crowds of people bathing and swimming; in the weekends, there may be more people in a lake (or other water body) than water.

Wild swimming is an immensely enjoyable activity, yet it also require some endurance, since Russian wild waters are no tropical seas: even in the summer, they may be judged to be cool by some captious person used to the warmer climate. On average, what one may expect from the summer waters in European Russia is the temperature of about +22…+24˚C; during and after an “ordinary” heat wave, the water temperature may sometimes rise to +25…+26˚C for some days, which is usually the highest point in reach during a summer. Any water temperature above that is a rare phenomenon, observed only during and after extreme heat waves once a several years.

As I already told in the beginning of the text, the potentially swimmable period in the Center of European Russia is about 3 months – from June to August. In reality, the borders of such period may move from year to year, depending on specific circumstances of a particular time. If a late spring is much hotter than average, it may happen that the second half of May may be already fully swimmable; if an early autumn is much warmer than usual, the first half of September may be quite swimmable as well.

The length of the wild swimming period also depend on a particular swimmer: the one who can endure cooler waters, such as +18˚C, may not only prolong the potentially swimmable time of the year up to 4 months, but also experience a special blend of enjoyment that only such a cool water can provide. I enjoyed myself like this many times. It requires endurance to enter such cool water, and to start swimming it; in the first moments after I begin swimming, I can only wonder at the power of my own enthusiasm that let me endure it. Yet, after I swim the first 200 meters or so from the shore, there is an adrenaline rush and intense enjoyment. Cool water suddenly feels warm; the body is filled with energy; so I can swim further or just relax and enjoy the deep waters for some time. This is a joyous experience, but not to derail it, it is important not to remain in such cool water for too long: after the adrenaline release wanes, one may feel oneself really cold. So, after a short time, I turn back to the shore, to rub myself with the towel and quickly put on the dry clothes, if the day is not too hot and sunny; if the sun and heat are there, they would be enough to restore the body’s common warmth.

With the warmer water, the described effects is not so pronounced, yet the general principle – enjoyment only after endurance – remains, since the water temperature in the Russian summer is still rarely enough to allow one to enjoy the warmth of the water immediately; initially, one still have to feel the water coolness, while the warmth is felt only afterwards. But for the purpose of swimming in this water, not just bathing in it, it is actually even better: active and prolonged swimming in a water that is too warm is not the best experience, one grows tired quicker. Even +25…+26˚C can actually feel unpleasant and exhausting for a swimmer like me, and a water hotter than that becomes really hard to swim in, it is like it drains your energy. I prefer cooler water; +22…+24˚C is; in my opinion and according to my feelings, this is the best water temperature for an intense and relatively long-distance swimming (in such a swimming water, I may swim more than 2 kilometers in total for one day – with pauses on the shore, of course – and only feel myself invigorated afterwards).



Forests are yet another place for many joyous activities for the Russians, such as gathering, fishing and hunting.

As for the gathering in a forest, the most popular object of it are wild edible mushrooms. These grow in Russian forests in great abundance – and are taken away from the forests by the enthusiastic gatherers in grand quantities. The picturesque photos of the baskets filled with loads of pretty and tasty wild mushrooms are the source of pride for a Russian mushroom gatherer.

Another popular object of gathering are wild berries, such as wildly growing strawberry, raspberry, bilberry and whortleberry.

Wild flowers are also sought by many, to make bouquets, garlands and artistic flower pictures and installations out of them.

Many seek medicinal herbs as well, as a form of an unofficial medicine.

Or they go fishing.

Hunting for wild animals is highly popular in Russia as well. For many Western Europeans and North Americans here, this may seem a cruel activity. I, personally, do not take part in it – killing living beings is not my forte, and I wouldn’t like to witness it as well. But, since I’m no vegan and love a tasty piece of roasted meat (especially prepared on a campfire), this may seem a bit hypocritical for some as well. In fact, I did tasted the meat of several wild animals –a boar, a bear, an elk and a hare – provided to me by my hunter friends. And these avid hunters I’m acquainted with are not cruel people at all, for them it is like a natural path. For others I know, however, hunting is something they find detestable (yet they are also no vegans… so the hypocrisy accusation may work here as well). So I make no moralistic judgements and let anyone live by their own will.



Everything that was grown, gathered or hunted are then prepared for food or some other usage, sometimes in way that allow long-term storage, such as pickling, marinating, desiccating and so on; many are producing home-made canned food this way. Some people are also actively making milk products of their own, or confectioner’s products. Such self-made canned food and other edible stuff can be highly valued gifts for friends, relatives and colleagues; a person capable making them masterfully will be highly respected in a communal circle because of it.

It is not only food – many other items can be hand-made, such jewelry, clothing or souvenirs, and then used as cherished gifts for the people you value. People are not highly capable of handicraft can buy what others made by their hands, usually for a handsome price (or not so handsome, if you have some positive personal connection with a handicrafts(wo)man, thus your purchase becoming a semi-gift in its own style); some skilled handicrafts(wo)men make a profitable business of it. But it is worth the money, since such hand-made products and items are much higher valued that any production line commodity one can buy in a common retail outlet.

* * *​

So, this is all. Was the result I presented here to you worth the effort? I would like to know!

I would also like to learn of the natural (and nature-related) circumstances of your own lands of residence. Since we here gathered from many different countries, they may be a lot to tell each other. So, I’m waiting for your own similar texts, ideally illustrated with photos as well!

 

[dpdownsouth]

That was fascinating. Really. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

I don't know how you survive those cold snaps, though.

A couple of years ago, I moved from the sub-tropics to the mountains where it occasionally gets to -14°c at night. That first year, in winter, I nearly ******* died. Then again, on the plus side, the cold season here is also the dry season, so snow is rare and the daytime temperatures usually stay quite warm.

Thanks again!

 

[Vortex]

That was fascinating. Really. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

I don't know how you survive those cold snaps, though.

A couple of years ago, I moved from the sub-tropics to the mountains where it occasionally gets to -14°c at night. That first year, in winter, I nearly ******* died. Then again, on the plus side, the cold season here is also the dry season, so snow is rare and the daytime temperatures usually stay quite warm.

Thanks again!

How we survive? Well, something like that:

In addition to all the clothes this guy mentions, I also sometimes put on a cotton jacket under the thick warm wool sweater, so to provide an additional layer for my upper body. I also tend to wear long-sleeve shirts, rather than a short-sleeve T-shirts, in such a cold.

But overall, he covered all crucial points for the extreme cold clothing, such as double socks, including the thick wool ones (these are sometimes hand-made in the family, wool knitting is a popular activity in Russia, especially among senior-aged women) and very thick mittens - palms and fingers, as well as feet and toes, are most vulnerable to frostbites and should be especially protected. A thick scarf is also of great importance, since the neck is another vulnerable point. A hood is critical in a strong ice-cold wind, no matter how thick and warm a sock cap is.

But most important is a simple habit to endure severe winters: if you lived in such climate since babyhood, it is just the way things are for you. Note the comment for the video, made by a German, who tells that, in Germany, the people wear comparably warm clothes in much less severe cold, since they are not used to it.

In fact, many Russians themselves even like such super-frosty days, since they have a tendency to be bright and sunny; and the deficit of sunlight characteristic to the Cold Season, due to the very short daytime and high cloudiness, is probably the hardest challenge for Russians themselves.

Here is a comparison between a winter day and a summer day in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg (situated in the Ural mountains, on the brink between European and Asian Russia):

Note the gloominess of the sky in the winter and the brightness of it in summer. This is the crucial difference for Russians themselves: being largely deprived of a sunlight for months requires some mental endurance. The summer sunshine and the long daytime, are valued and enjoyed no less the summer warmth.

 

[Alex]

6. SEEKING ENDURANCE IN THE WARM TIMES OF ENJOYMENT

The ways Russians enjoy their nature in the Warm Period are numerous. I will describe the most popular ones. What is notable about all of them, however, is that they, despite being certainly highly joyous to the people practicing them, also require some feats of endurance as well.

The ultimate example of such enjoyment-through-endurance are Russian dachas. These are, to put it crudely, small patches of privately owned land outside of the city, with a house, a garden and – sometimes – with some additional constructions or installations, be it a “banya”, a gazebo, a seesaw or a mini-pond, located on them.

Dachas are crucial to the Russian lifestyle. During the whole Warm Period, urban dwellers massively move out of their city apartments to their dachas, residing there either part-time – spending weekends there, while returning to the city apartment on the working days – or even full-time, effectively living in their dacha all week long, driving to work in the city each working day morning and returning in the evening. Such seasonal swap (at least partial) of a place of residence is one of the reasons why Russians prefer to live “culturally” while there is cold, wet and dark outside, and to live “naturally” while there is warm, dry and bright.

Dachas are the “hub locations” (to call them so) for all types of nature-connected enjoyments. From them, people drive to the nearby (or distant) water ponds to practice wild swimming, or to the forest to engage in wild mushroom and berry gathering. It is there where circles of friends and relatives gather for the open air feasts and celebrations, where people just enjoy fresh air and natural scenery.

And, of course, gardening. It is highly popular in Russia, with people being proud of their gardens they made by their own labour – and thanks to their own endurance, since gardening in Russia is, indeed, a thing that requires a lot of endurance – even if it provides even higher amounts of enjoyment.

The reason is, on the large part of Russia, neither the soils nor the climate are highly conductive to agriculture. If you remember the table I provided in the beginning of this text of mine (well, just look at it again if you don’t!), you’ll recall that the soil fertility of the four of seven climate zones of the European Russia – Far North, North, Semi-North and Center – is described as largely infertile. The reason is, all these zones are situated in the “upper half” (to say so) of the European Russia, known as “Nechernozemye” (Non-Black Earth Land); to the contrary, “the lower half” of it is “Chernozemye” (Black Earth Land). The radical difference of soils between these two parts is caused by the European Russia’s geological and climatic history: millennia ago, during the last full-blown Ice Age, the “upper half” of the territory known nowadays as the European Russia was covered by a glacier, while the “lower half” was spared such fate. Later, as it was getting warmer, the glacier melted and moved to the north, releasing the land once encased in it; yet, in its movement northwards, it damaged the uppermost fertile layer of the soil, rendering the released land relatively infertile. Because of this, while wild forest plants have no problems growing there, most agricultural plants require richer soils to be cultivated without difficulty.

And yet, they were and are cultivated there, massively and successfully – just due to persistence and diligence of Russian peasants of the past (and agricultural workers of the present). Modern dacha owners, most of whom are descendants of these tenacious peasants, still proceed on their laborious path of growing agriculture in an environment that is anything but suitable for the process, despite no longer facing a necessity to do so – just for their enjoyment, the one of the type that comes only with enduring – and overcoming – difficulties. So, infertility of the soils is overcome either by ameliorating them with fertilizers (in the past, large amounts of simple dung were used by the peasants for this very purpose; dung trade was widespread and highly profitable), or just by buying the sacks of the fertile soils coming from the to-the-south-from-the-center regions of “Chernozemye”, to create a new, fertile upper soil layer for one’s own garden (again, such practice persists since old times; in the past, it was predominantly used not by peasants, who was too poor to afford transporting large amounts of fertile soil, but by the aristocracy for their gardens; and nowadays, creating a upper soil layer of your own is affordable to anyone).

One more difficulty to overcome is cold – both the severe frosts of the Cold Season and the cool nights of the earliest and latest stages of the Warm Period. To counteract the former danger, all perennial plants are covered with thick linen, fixated in place, in the beginning of the Cold Period, to remain protected until its end (abundant snowfalls are further helping with the protection, since thick snow cover shields the plants from intense frosts). And in the late spring, the newly grown annual plants are protected from the nightly chills by mini-greenhouses made of polymers.

So, with laborious efforts, Russian gardeners manage to cultivate even the most fastidious plants, including the ones that apparently shouldn’t be able to survive in this relatively cold climate at all, such as some African flowers. Such is the enjoyment coming with the endurance.

(Oh, and growing fastidious southern plants in the just moderately inhospitable Center of Russia is far from the most heroic feat of that the enthusiastic – or obstinate? – Russian amateur gardeners are capable of. What about growing such plants on the permafrosted soils in the brutal subarctic climate of the northern parts of Siberia and Russian Far East? Some local inhabitants are proud to achieve even such barely believable results, just by investing insane amounts of effort and persistence into the process.)

Some people are also keeping livestock on their dachas, such as chicken, geese, rabbits, cows or goats.

View attachment 2528


Another activity in that the Russians massively engage during the Warm Period, is the wild swimming. During the summer, all open-air water bodies, be it natural rivers and lakes or man-made ponds and channels, are surrounded, and filled by, large crowds of people bathing and swimming; in the weekends, there may be more people in a lake (or other water body) than water.

Wild swimming is an immensely enjoyable activity, yet it also require some endurance, since Russian wild waters are no tropical seas: even in the summer, they may be judged to be cool by some captious person used to the warmer climate. On average, what one may expect from the summer waters in European Russia is the temperature of about +22…+24˚C; during and after an “ordinary” heat wave, the water temperature may sometimes rise to +25…+26˚C for some days, which is usually the highest point in reach during a summer. Any water temperature above that is a rare phenomenon, observed only during and after extreme heat waves once a several years.

As I already told in the beginning of the text, the potentially swimmable period in the Center of European Russia is about 3 months – from June to August. In reality, the borders of such period may move from year to year, depending on specific circumstances of a particular time. If a late spring is much hotter than average, it may happen that the second half of May may be already fully swimmable; if an early autumn is much warmer than usual, the first half of September may be quite swimmable as well.

The length of the wild swimming period also depend on a particular swimmer: the one who can endure cooler waters, such as +18˚C, may not only prolong the potentially swimmable time of the year up to 4 months, but also experience a special blend of enjoyment that only such a cool water can provide. I enjoyed myself like this many times. It requires endurance to enter such cool water, and to start swimming it; in the first moments after I begin swimming, I can only wonder at the power of my own enthusiasm that let me endure it. Yet, after I swim the first 200 meters or so from the shore, there is an adrenaline rush and intense enjoyment. Cool water suddenly feels warm; the body is filled with energy; so I can swim further or just relax and enjoy the deep waters for some time. This is a joyous experience, but not to derail it, it is important not to remain in such cool water for too long: after the adrenaline release wanes, one may feel oneself really cold. So, after a short time, I turn back to the shore, to rub myself with the towel and quickly put on the dry clothes, if the day is not too hot and sunny; if the sun and heat are there, they would be enough to restore the body’s common warmth.

With the warmer water, the described effects is not so pronounced, yet the general principle – enjoyment only after endurance – remains, since the water temperature in the Russian summer is still rarely enough to allow one to enjoy the warmth of the water immediately; initially, one still have to feel the water coolness, while the warmth is felt only afterwards. But for the purpose of swimming in this water, not just bathing in it, it is actually even better: active and prolonged swimming in a water that is too warm is not the best experience, one grows tired quicker. Even +25…+26˚C can actually feel unpleasant and exhausting for a swimmer like me, and a water hotter than that becomes really hard to swim in, it is like it drains your energy. I prefer cooler water; +22…+24˚C is; in my opinion and according to my feelings, this is the best water temperature for an intense and relatively long-distance swimming (in such a swimming water, I may swim more than 2 kilometers in total for one day – with pauses on the shore, of course – and only feel myself invigorated afterwards).

View attachment 2529

Forests are yet another place for many joyous activities for the Russians, such as gathering, fishing and hunting.

As for the gathering in a forest, the most popular object of it are wild edible mushrooms. These grow in Russian forests in great abundance – and are taken away from the forests by the enthusiastic gatherers in grand quantities. The picturesque photos of the baskets filled with loads of pretty and tasty wild mushrooms are the source of pride for a Russian mushroom gatherer.

Another popular object of gathering are wild berries, such as wildly growing strawberry, raspberry, bilberry and whortleberry.

Wild flowers are also sought by many, to make bouquets, garlands and artistic flower pictures and installations out of them.

Many seek medicinal herbs as well, as a form of an unofficial medicine.

Or they go fishing.

Hunting for wild animals is highly popular in Russia as well. For many Western Europeans and North Americans here, this may seem a cruel activity. I, personally, do not take part in it – killing living beings is not my forte, and I wouldn’t like to witness it as well. But, since I’m no vegan and love a tasty piece of roasted meat (especially prepared on a campfire), this may seem a bit hypocritical for some as well. In fact, I did tasted the meat of several wild animals –a boar, a bear, an elk and a hare – provided to me by my hunter friends. And these avid hunters I’m acquainted with are not cruel people at all, for them it is like a natural path. For others I know, however, hunting is something they find detestable (yet they are also no vegans… so the hypocrisy accusation may work here as well). So I make no moralistic judgements and let anyone live by their own will.

View attachment 2532

Everything that was grown, gathered or hunted are then prepared for food or some other usage, sometimes in way that allow long-term storage, such as pickling, marinating, desiccating and so on; many are producing home-made canned food this way. Some people are also actively making milk products of their own, or confectioner’s products. Such self-made canned food and other edible stuff can be highly valued gifts for friends, relatives and colleagues; a person capable making them masterfully will be highly respected in a communal circle because of it.

It is not only food – many other items can be hand-made, such jewelry, clothing or souvenirs, and then used as cherished gifts for the people you value. People are not highly capable of handicraft can buy what others made by their hands, usually for a handsome price (or not so handsome, if you have some positive personal connection with a handicrafts(wo)man, thus your purchase becoming a semi-gift in its own style); some skilled handicrafts(wo)men make a profitable business of it. But it is worth the money, since such hand-made products and items are much higher valued that any production line commodity one can buy in a common retail outlet.

View attachment 2533

* * *​

So, this is all. Was the result I presented here to you worth the effort? I would like to know!

I would also like to learn of the natural (and nature-related) circumstances of your own lands of residence. Since we here gathered from many different countries, they may be a lot to tell each other. So, I’m waiting for your own similar texts, ideally illustrated with photos as well!

 

[Vortex]

View attachment 2536

Your dog, Alex? If yes, what is his / her name? And where was the shot taken?

 

[Alex]

Your dog, Alex? If yes, what is his / her name? And where was the shot taken?

his name is Freddy. we got him about 6 months ago. we've fostered about 50 dogs over the years... this is the first keeper.

We live in Southern California and I walk with Freddy on the beach almost every day.