Cold

Coldness doesn’t exist in Russia, except outside (and in certain bad-tempered people). And even na ulitsa (literally “on the street”), it’s been mostly sweater weather since we’ve been in Ulan Ude, knock on wood. The dark, salty wood of a banya (a sauna-like sweat bath), the wise sturdy logs of a cabin in the middle of the Siberian forest outfitted with a heavy-duty stove that keeps me up all night, the worn pine of the kitchen table where a cup of hot tea is the only beverage served with steaming borscht and piroshky and kartoshky. Ice can be found in the northern tundra and maybe there’s some cold vodka in the freezer, though even that will make you feel really warm. Russians have a bizarre pathology about the cold, which explains (I’m beginning to see) why there are so many coat and hat stores: even on the warmest days by Boston standards, Russians are bundled up in their North Faces, sleeping-bag jackets, fur shapkas, etc. To make things even more confusing, it’s only on these days that the lines wind around the town’s ubiquitous ice cream stands. Hard to understand.