The cold, and what people actually do about it
Winter, darkness, heating, and the parts nobody photographs.
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- Not yet re-checked for 2026
The cold is real but it is not the difficult part. Buildings are heated centrally and heavily: the heating comes on across a city on a schedule in autumn and stays on until spring, and flats are often too warm rather than too cold. You dress for the street and undress indoors.
The harder part is light. In December, Moscow gets a short day, and the sky is grey more often than it is clear. People compensate with routine — long indoor evenings, cafés, saunas, the metro as a heated corridor between two warm places.
Snow in a city is not the postcard version for most of the season. It is cleared, salted and turns to slush, which is why footwear matters more than a coat. A genuinely deep cold snap happens most winters and lasts days rather than months; schools and work continue.
Russia is not one climate. Sochi is subtropical, Kaliningrad is Baltic and damp, Siberia is colder and drier than European Russia, and the far northeast is in a category of its own.
Limits and exceptions
Any temperature depends entirely on where and when; treat this as European Russia unless stated.
Open question
If you have spent a winter somewhere cold, was the cold the problem — or the dark?