Heat

To me personally heat is no problem – be it +40°C or whatever, I feel okay – just view it as an excuse to buy yet another top – the kind that leaves as much of one’s body uncovered as possible – or a hat. But that’s just me – the rest of my extended family and most of my colleagues go very grumpy about it. Mum cools herself using wet handkerchiefs; Janna refuses to go for a walk, and who could blame her? The forecast for the next week is over 40 every day, and nobody promises that it will ease up after that.

Guppies jump out of overheated tanks and die on the table. People on the bus avoid touching each other at all costs, because everyone is as hot and sweaty as everyone else. But this can be dealt with. Much worse are dead crops in 16 regions of Russia. Wild storms ravaging cities and villages are no fun either – but nothing beats the forest fires.

14 regions on fire, villages burnt to the ground – it all came suddely this week, and, starting with occasionally mentioned fires here or there, turned into something resembling reports from war today. Medvedev sent Putin to Nizhny Novgorod this morning to visit a place where a village stood yesterday, but now nothing is left – and all TV channels are showing he horrible sight over and over again. The number of such villages grows every hour.

Scary. In all my 38 years I can’t remember anything like this happening in Russia before, ever. Peat bog fires around Moscow are usual enough, and so are forest fires in Siberia, but they seldom reach settlements. Now it’s the European part of Russia that’s burning, and it’s much worse than just peat bogs. There have been real firestorms. 25 people dead and counting – the numbers of burned houses, injured people and people left homeless are mind-boggling. The government promises to rebuild every house…

The regions with huge issues with fires include those immediately to the west, north and south from Saratov oblast. By some kind of a miracle my region is safe so far – not sure for how long.

Hope is the last to die. I definitely hope to see you all again tomorrow, dear readers.

Here is one of many articles where you can find out more.