Don't Ask Me for Snow in Winter!

То ли дождь – то ли снег, то ли будет – то ли нет.
Maybe rain, maybe snow, maybe yes or maybe no.

There’s nothing like this good old Russian proverb to characterize this year’s winter, as well as Russia’s general political and economic situation. For, if you take this idiom in its figurative sense, it means “everything is up in the air, it’s hard to tell right now.”

This is an apt description for Russia in her current period of transition, when the Communists keep making apocalyptic prophesies, calling for the President’s and Prime Minister’s resignation every time they attend the Duma. Their political colors don’t vary much, so you could label them all with the answer to the wintery riddle: зимой и летом одним цветом – (“What is the same color be it winter or summer?” – if politics is not one of your passions, the usual answer to this riddle is a fir tree).

The “ones who show the same colors in all seasons” have been trying vainly – or better yet, trying как рыба об лёд (like a fish flopping on the ice) – to improve their flagging political fortunes by taking advantage of Yeltsin’s prolonged absence. Now, as the president gets back into his working rhythm, he may well demonstrate another famous winter phrase, invented by the writers Ilf and Petrov: Лёд тронулся, командовать парaдом буду я (The ice is broken, it is I who will lead the parade), while his subordinates, as well as ordinary Russians, might welcome him back with: Сколько лет, сколько зим! – the Russian wintery equivalent of the English, “Long time no see!”

On the other hand, if you take the “maybe rain, maybe snow” proverb at face value, you could easily apply it to the weather we’ve been having in Moscow of late.

Last November and December, temperatures hit all-time highs for this time of year. As Alexander Pushkin would have put it, Зимы ждала, ждала природа! (Nature was waiting, waiting for winter.) – but in vain. At press time, there was no snow at all – just some ridiculously light precipitation, which Russians call “white flies” (белые мухи) and can’t even be taken as real snow in a country which is traditionally rich in this natural resource.

Therefore, when Russians want to suggest that someone is extremely mean, they say: “У него зимой снега не выпросишь” (“You can’t even ask him for snow in winter”). Of course, the saying is very applicable to this winter. Our present snow-free conditions may even make snow a sort of hard currency and send demand for the white flakes skyrocketing.

Perhaps soon, in order to keep their offspring happy, New Russians will be spending Christmas and New Year’s in Switzerland, or will buy imported snow for outrageous sums from enterprising northern minorities. Knowing New Russians, who want everything that’s expensive or hard to come by, and want it now, the idea may not be so far-fetched. This season, snow-making or snow-selling could become a lucrative business in the European part of Russia. Conse-quently, the Chukchis [indigenous people native to the Chukotka peninsula and ethnically tied to North American Eskimos] could make a good business selling snow. Why not set up a company called, for example, Снег Лимитэд (Snow Limited)? Snow supplies are limited indeed.

In the meantime, Russian children won’t be able to play with snowflakes (играть в снежки), let alone make snow babas (лепить снежную бабу) or frolic en masse in сугробы (snow drifts).

Those who favor this new shortage – climatic this time around – are definitely the municipal services, which have been traditionally plagued by slippery roads and haunted by the severe problems of black ice (гололёд) or snowstorms (метель; снежная буря). A continuing shortage of adequate snowplows (снего­уборочная машина) is usually the talk of the town – and will be again – as winter вступит в свои права (comes into its own).

To paraphrase a great winter-related proverb, the city should be preparing its cart in December and its snowplows (sledges) in July (Готовь сани летом, а телегу – зимой) so that problems don’t come suddenly and unexpectedly – r, better said, как снег на голову (like snow on one’s head).

With luck, these weather-cliches will stay with you и в зной, и в стужу (in heat and in cold), will have a snowball effect (эффект снежного кома) on your vocabularly growth, and won’t melt like the first snow (растает как первый снег).