Winter weather is coming to Siberia, in winter.

From 0C today to -30C tomorrow: this is how rapid temperature variations are in this part of the world. Here you can see how a powerful stream of very cold air is moving from the European part of Russia to Siberia. It almost felt like spring with snow melting and birds chirping but it's still February so winter knows its business.

Tesla S in Siberia feels OK

Last summer Konstantin Gorohov from Barnaul bought a Tesla S, which was the first electric car in Siberia at that time. Despite the lack of infrastructure and service stations, he has been using the car daily, charging it at his home.

Tesla S in Barnaul, Siberia. Photo: Anastasiya Golenok

Winter brought doubts: how would the batteries perform at -30C? The owner worried that the LCD display would freeze and door handles won't extend. However, the only thing that stopped working after 12-hour stay at -30C was the kinetic energy recovery system that charges the battery during braking. 

The owner says that during winter he charges his Tesla S every other day for 8 hours using a standard 220V outlet. In summer, it's enough to charge the car once a week. The charge lasts for 500 km.

Best time for kayaking

Since I started this blog, weather in my part of Siberia has been trying hard to set new records: for minimum temperature, for maximum temperature, for snow levels... This time it's rains. In 30 minutes we've got half of the August's average rainfall: 44 mm (average is 70-80mm).

Even kayaking has become possible in the city!



For drivers, however, it was not so funny.

Usually you should trash your car after this.

All photos: http://vk.com/act54

Sunny days on decline in Siberia

Yes, in Siberia we have sunny days, too: it is not always snowing. However, in last 30 years the exact number of sunny days was cut by the government by two: from 130 to just 70 per year. The weather institute has published interesting stats for sunny days in Novosibirsk in July in different years:
1987 - 12 sunny days
1989 - 11
1998 - 15
2007 - 10
2008 - 6
2009 - 3
2010 - 2
2011 - 0
Yes, 0 sunny days in July in 2011!

Siberia is leading Russia's vodka consumption

From time to time different agencies try to count who in Russia drinks all the country's vodka. The latest data reveals that Siberian science town Koltsovo (in the Novosibirsk neighborhood) is the #1 place in Russia where most of vodka is sold: 102 liters per person in a year. Standard vodka bottle is 0.5l: this is 204 bottles/year. Of course there are people in Koltsovo who don't drink vodka, so some guys should drink every day to match the stats.

Well, it's worth mentioning that a huge vodka plant was recently built in Koltsovo. I hope the stats counted all manufactured vodka and bulk sales because Koltsovo is a nice and quite town famous for its virus research.

Photo by Vladimir Kkaritonov

Norilsk sets temperature record

Last weekend was the hottest ever in Norilsk:


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If you think it was +10C and everyone was sunbathing and enjoying melted snow, you are wrong. It was real +32C. This is the season of white nights (the sun always stays above the horizon) and it must be really great time in Norilsk.

Norilsk is the northernmost city in the world with more than 100,000 inhabitants and the world's second largest city (after Murmansk) north of the Arctic Circle (wiki).

Discovery channel looks for yeti

The yeti news again. Now the Discovery channel is going to Kemerovo highlands trying to find evidence for the never-seen yeti.

The crew is going to explore the cave where artifacts were found, presumably left by yeti.

You should definitely tune to Discovery in December 2013 - January 2014 when the series go live.

Actual word of mouth is that local citizens put on big feet cut of cardboard and leave footprints for journalists specially.

You decide.

I want to believe.