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Six minutes of sunlight
Mladen Antonov
Thursday 15 March 2018
Moscow -- By the end of December, it was getting beyond ridiculous. I’d been through plenty of Russian winters in my life, but this was a new low. There was no sun. Moscow can be famously gray in winter, but usually you get a day of sunlight every week or two. Not this time. For the entire month, we had a grand total of six minutes -- six minutes! -- of sunlight.
Worse yet, there was no snow. As I’d learned during my previous two postings in Moscow, the white stuff makes the grayness more bearable, softening the harsh features of the megapolis.
A woman walks in a park during a heavy snowfall in central Moscow on January 18, 2018. (AFP / Mladen Antonov)
But winters have been changing in the Russian capital over the past several decades. They used to come in November, with freezing temperatures and snow that would last through the end of March. But now they’re milder -- this December saw temperatures above freezing and Moscow without its usual coat of white.Mo
A girl jumps for a photo under the Christmas decorations set on a street in central Moscow on December 18, 2017. (AFP / Mladen Antonov)
More:
https://correspondent.afp.com/six-minutes-sunlight