Thursday, March 12, 2009

Spring

Spring comes late to the Baltics. What's left of Monday's snow lies in blackened piles on the pavement or in deep, slushy puddles by the sides of the road. At home, the radiators (controlled by a district heating network and charged per each square metre of house space) are stuck on full blast. And while the clouds and the ice sheets on the Daugava are breaking up there are no flowers or buds anywhere to be seen. Last week's rumour was of fifteen degrees by the end of March. Yesterday it was down to ten - and icy cold again in April.

2 comments:

Bryan said...

That looks like an intimidating piece of architecture in the photo. What’s the building?

Michael said...

The Latvian Academy of Sciences, locally known as Stalin's birthday cake. There's one exactly the same in Warsaw and a whole bunch in Moscow.