Winter is here ! (or should I say "was" here)

 

Now that I'm finally out of hibernation it is time for me to publish this much overdue article on the Siberian winter. 

I wrote it in December and for some reasons I just haven't taken the time to edit it up till now. So here it goes.... 

After weeks, and let’s admit months of anticipation, it finally arrived. On the 11th November.

I remember the day perfectly, I was going to yoga when I stumbled upon the corpse of a dead cactus in the parking lot I was crossing. A dire omen of the departure of the warmth from this area of the globe. Less than 24 hours later, the city was covered in snow. Winter had come.

Here is an account on how we are dealing with it so far and some advice on how to dress in such low temperatures.

The first snowfall felt magical. For a European used to dreaming hopelessly of a white Christmas, I couldn’t help but feel that Christmas was near. 

But my birthday hadn’t even come yet and I quickly relinquished this feeling and focused on the moment again: November, weeks away from the holidays.

Christmas feeling in mid-November

Sooo, winter arrived. Or as people were telling us at first, not winter, solely their usual cold autumn. But when the temperature dropped to -26 ° C (feeling -32 ° C) they quickly stopped playing it down. Almost 1 month in and we haven't seen positive temperatures anymore. Nonetheless, not every day is as cold as the other and temperatures are varying a lot. Last weekend (NdE: mid of December) it rose to -2 °C and if the weather forecast is to be trusted, we should have a warm weekend: 2°C*!

Everyone back home is asking us how we are surviving the cold but to be honest I haven’t really felt cold so far. I felt colder in Strasbourg where our flat was leaking icy air from every side, where the heating system was never working at work, and where I didn’t wear as many layers as I do here. Because this is the real secret to it. Just wear as many layers as possible and you will feel neither cold… nor warm actually. Just huge and bulky. 

Russians are swearing by wool garments and we were offered camel wool socks (who knew it even existed!), homemade knitted wool collars, and warm tights by our friends.

In preparation for the winter we also bought warm clothes and especially jackets. 

I tried on soooo many jackets! and I only took pictures of the best ones.

Picking a jacket was such a dilemma for me! 

I wanted to find something warm, but also not too specific so that I could wear it in Europe. It excluded fur coats and “sleeping bags-like down coats”, but also all the cheap made-in-china jackets which seemed quite warm but were just ugly. It had to be knee-long to protect the thighs, fitted and not “oversized” as the current fashion seems to be. I wanted a hood but no glitters or writing!

I finally settled for a Columbia Jacket. It’s waterproof and seems quite resistant which would allow me to wear it in the city as well as on hikes or when skiing. It has a special technology (Omniheat) helping to keep your naturally generated heat inside the jacket and its down is responsibly sourced. Despite all these qualities, I must say that I’m not 100 percent satisfied as the down is not well distributed. If I’m not wearing a wool sweater underneath I feel the cold on my shoulders and on the inside of my arms. But maybe it just can't be avoided in -20°C. I saw what appeared to be a warmer model online, with a better down ratio and the Omniheat technology everywhere inside the jacket and not only on the chest but it was double the price (about 400 euros) and I felt that for only a year in Siberia it wouldn’t be worth it. It is to be noted that Columbia seems to have special models for Russia that aren't available elsewhere and vice versa. 

Nonetheless when I put the jacket to the test, hiking in the mountains by -24°C I must say I was quite satisfied. As I said, layering is the secret.

Daily winter look

What I wear on a regular basis in-15°C and below: 

• thermal pants, 
• wool tights, 
• windproof North Face pants, 
• wool socks, 
• faux fur stuffed leather boots. 

On top it depends on whether I’ll stay out for long or not.

If it's very cold (-17°C and below) I usually wear: 

• A thermal shirt 
• A fleece sweater 
• A wool cardigan or sweater 
• A kind of turtle neck collar that also covers the shoulder (knitted by one of my student’s mother) 
• A down jacket 
• A thin cashmere hat and my Peruvian alpaca hat on top + the hood 
• At -25°C and below the air is so cold that I like to wear a thick scarf to protect my nose and breath 
• And let's not forget wool lined gloves + wool mittens 

So far I haven’t been too cold. Except If I was hungry, then my feet and fingers stop generating heat. 

While hiking in the mountains in -24°C I tried on chili pepper plaster that I had found in a pharmacy. It helps activate blood circulation. I stuck a square of it on each of my feet and didn’t feel cold at all. It even started burning after a couple of hours and once home I had to remove them. I also saw some heat generating soles in shops, which I intend to try next time we are exposed to very cold temperatures for a long time.

Being over-prepared for the first -26°C of the season, the 16th November in the mountains

We haven’t given the cold a chance to get to us and despite needing 10 minutes just to get dressed and having to change into our regular clothes at work the winter isn’t affecting us. We still enjoy bright blue skies most of the time (which are the coldest days) and if there is one thing to really complain about is the air pollution due to cars running their motors constantly and to the charcoal burnt for heating the city.

In retrospect, I can say that one really get used to the cold. But I must confess that we were quite lucky and didn't really experienced an extremely cold winter. We did have more snow than usually, though. And even some rain! 

Soooo much snow!

It was a totally abnormal winter, according to the locals and a tiny bit disappointing for us. Such a mild winter (average of -15 °C) makes me feel like a fraud to brag about having survived a Siberian winter when it was, in fact not a typical Siberian winter.