Finally, out of the front door

Well the cold weather isn't really letting up at all. Temperatures around -30 or the low -20s are forecast for the next week. I have even heard someone say that there could be some -40 days coming up. But then that could just be a Siberian rumour, from people who like to brag about how cold it really gets. I'm still hoping that it won't last a lot longer. It has been nearly two weeks now, and that is about right for cold weather in Krasnoayrsk, I think. We heard from a friend that often the official temperature is given as -29 when it is cold, as certain workers should be paid at a higher rate once the temperature hits -30. In the taxi, the radio presenter said the temperature was -29! (So perhaps it was colder.)

Still, we have had to give up hibernating and only doing indoor work and activities. Our area leader arrived from Moscow today. We checked out some travel agents for a Summer retreat location and then headed down to the ice sculptures by the river.
They were pretty and creative enough. Perhaps I am getting too hard to please, or perhaps it was that the sculptures had a lot of snow on them and they were not glistening enough, or perhaps it is simply that the first time I saw the sculptures in 2000 was a romantic experience for me. What ever it was, I felt a little let down. I do have a photo from 2000 showing at least one sculpture as being much bigger than anything we saw today. (View here) Unfortunately we did not see them early enough in the new year, as they are now starting to get covered with coins. This never happened back in 2000 either.

Happy new year. This display was set up for new year celebrations. The "old new years day" though was actually yesterday, January 14th.


I like a nice shot of the sun in the background. 3:30pm.


I have previously mentioned that Krasnoyarsk was founded in 1628. Settlers first came in to Siberia around the north end of the Ural mountains (lower elevation there) in 1581. Siberia was first settled in the north west, and then gradually further east and south. Therefore the first settlement on the Yenisey River (the main river in the Krasnoyarsk Territory) was in 1619. That is today a small city of 20000 people called Yeniseysk, named after the river. Yeniseysk is 300km north of Krasnoyarsk. The pioneer settlers came down the river on boats to found Krasnoyarsk.

To view the boat better click on the photo to enlarge.





This is one big Christmas (New Year's) tree!




Jim, our area leader.