I spent Christmas in Yekaterinburg, a Russian city located on the Siberian border just east of the Ural mountains. The temperature got down to minus 27 degrees while I was there. My reaction was to stay mostly indoors until the temperature rose, at least a little bit.
Yesterday it was minus 30 degrees in Moscow. How did Moscovites react? By swimming in water that's too cold for walruses and gobbling up ice cream.
Clearly, I have no Russian genes.
Meanwhile, animal trainers kept their elephants warm by feeding them buckets of vodka.
