There weren’t many weeks left until the thaw, but a film of snow was still gripping Kyiv’s sidewalks, stubbornly. It was February, and benign temperatures fluctuating from slightly above to a bit below zero had made this winter moderate. So moderate that I had yet to reach for my thermals – a first, through six winters in Ukraine.
Word was that the “blocking low” that stretched all the way from Siberia down to the Black Sea last winter (and which turned the River Dnipro into a block of ice) had either retreated or relocated.
