Frozen Rivers!

I participated in Kreshenia on Tuesday. It is the celebration of the Russian Orthodox Epiphany and is celebrated by dipping three times in a blessed river. Here and in most of Russia, it is necessary to cut through a few feet of ice to get to the water first, of course. There was a huge traffic jam on the road to the lake. It was, in short, very cold but surprisingly invigorating and feeling returned to my toes after 15 minutes or so.

There were two tents, one for men and the other for women, in which people stripped to their swimsuits before going out through the crowd to dip into the water. It was about -20 degrees Celsius and there were about 16 other KZ PC volunteers up to do a Teaching Conference here. Most of us participated in the event and then in the evening went to the Banya to warm back up.

I was also stopped today for the first time by the police asking for my documents. The guy seemed fairly young and was reasonably friendly. I had a bit of trouble understanding him a few times but my Russian was overall sufficient to chat with him. He carefully examined my document card for about 5 minutes, before I went on my way. He also refused to shake my hand for reasons not entirely clear, though it is possible that he is forbidden to do so by some policy.