Bitter Cold Is Sweetest Season for Russians

PEREDELKINO, Russia — \o7 The Fantasy: "Frost and Sun! A wonderful day! And you are still asleep, my sweet friend. It is time, beauty. Wake up!"\f7

--A.S. Pushkin, 1829

\o7 The Reality: "Nine people froze to death in Moscow and 162 were taken to the hospital with frostbite" in the first week of this year.\f7

--Interfax news agency, 1997

\o7 The Moral: "He who likes sledding [had] better also like to pull."\f7

--Ancient Russian proverb

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It is where fairy tales and horror stories converge, this hoarfrosted season of fabled landscapes, frozen drunks, sleigh rides and Siberian exile.

While Europeans and Americans shiver and curse this season's record cold and disruptive snowfalls, winter--with all its severity--is just a natural part of the Russian year's rhythm.

Winter is a time of more fondness than fear for Russians, despite the hardships and hazards regarded by less hardy folk as cruel whims of Mother Nature.

Steeled by tradition and long familiarity with matters beyond their control, most Russians greet cold, dark and discomfort like bosom buddies with whom they have spent time brooding. To most Russians, that Western visitors shrink from outdoor activity and cringe at the sight of laborers toiling heedlessly without gloves gives smug reassurance of superior national mettle.

"Cold is part of the Russian character. People here believe that it helps harden them and make them unpretentious," sociologist Oksana Fais says. "When it was still mild and gray in November, everyone was complaining and demanding, 'Where is winter?' It was like waiting for guests who are late."

This season's saga of snow frolics, skiing and sledding got a later start in central Russia than in most years; the gray and muddy urban landscapes were transformed into white wonderlands only in mid-December.

The force with which winter arrived just before the holiday season horrified uninitiated outsiders but barely ruffled a Russian feather. When the mercury plunged to 15 below zero during the last week in December, not yet the holiday season in this Orthodox Christian country, the streets and sidewalks and embankments were as full of strollers as on any summer evening.

Winters before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution saw the aristocracy sometimes retreat to kinder climates favored by fellow bluebloods--the Crimea, Venice, the south of France.