THIS was Lake Michigan in Chicago IL during the recent Polar Vortex cold snap. It was -45 degrees (-48 Fahrenheit) still air, NOT wind chill. I’d be wearing my snuggies, to be sure. The guys would need a fur jockstrap and a full set of longjohns on top of that! I’ve been in Chicago in the winter, it’s brutal as all hell, but this year it was extra special, as the above photo indicates.
BRRR!!
BMD
Recently, it was -42 (-43.6 Fahrenheit) in Krasnoyarsk. That would shut most world cities down. It didn’t stop those Sibiryaki! No, siree, they were right out there in the cold, doing what they had to do. You can see why the -20 (-4 Fahrenheit) outside Moscow in 1941 didn’t faze the Siberian troops… hell, they were used to a lot worse! They scared the shit out of the Germans by pouring buckets of water over their heads and jumping in ice pools. Russia is what it always was… Russians are what they always were… the hubristical Anglo toddlers had best take notice.
Those who march on Russia with a sword in hand, by that sword shall they die!
That hasn’t changed one bit, either…
BMD
Border marker at Severnaya Bay on Alexandra Land in the Frants Iosif Land Archipelago
On Thursday, the Sun rose over the horizon on Frants Iosif Land, the northernmost Arctic archipelago in Russia and Eurasia, signalling an end to the four-month-long pitch-dark polar night. Aleksei Barakov, a deputy director of the Russian Arctic National Park, told us:
The Sun rose over Alexandra Land Island where the Omega permanent field base is located.
The polar night began on Frants Iosif Land, an archipelago lying only 1,100 kilometres (684 miles) away from the North Pole, on 18 October. Vadim Zakharyin, the chief of the national park’s expedition centre, noted:
The night is very cold, windy, and dark there. The Northern Lights rarely occur on the archipelago because the cloud cover is rather thick and low. The temperatures usually hover at around -30 degrees (-22 Fahrenheit), with high humidity that’s difficult to bear. Besides that, winds reach hurricane-like speeds of 36 metres per second (80.5 miles per hour). You have to be especially careful in that darkness because you can run into polar bears there.
On Thursday, the weather on Alexandra Island was frigid and calm. Two park staff-members are always present at the Omega field base of the Russian Arctic National Park. Only two of the 192 islands making up Frants Iosif Land are habitable during the winter. Alexandra Land, the westernmost island of the archipelago, is home to the Nagurskoye border outpost and a Northern Fleet base, in addition to the national park’s field base. A weather monitoring station, also known as “the observatory”, is on Kheysa Island in the very centre of the archipelago. A source at the Northern Department for Meteorology and Environment Monitoring said:
Currently, there are six workers at the Ernst Krenkel Observatory.
22 February 2018
TASS
This is a real-deal Russian preparing grilled shashlik for CHRISTMAS. I shit you not. I do believe that the eaters are waiting inside… it’s true that shashlik over charcoal is legit to the max, but sometimes we Russians justify the Western view that we’re Europe’s crazy cousins. Not that I’d want to change that…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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