First Snow in Moscow

Here is a fascinating article about the first snow in Moscow, which fell this week, and how the city is preparing to deal with it using 30,000 employees and 15,000 snowploughs. The issue helps to provide fascinating insights into the politics of the city and its rivalry with national government, which already appears to have begun the transition from outgoing President Medvedev (whose lasting legacy may well be the abolition of daylight saving time as it brought "unhappiness to the cows") to presumably President Putin again, once the small matter of an election has been addressed.

PS Photo of snowplough is courtesy of the China People's Daily - more photos here!