RUSSIAN WINTER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 27 October 1941, Page 7

RUSSIAN WINTER

A TEST OF ENDURANCE ABRUPT CHANGE IN NOVEMBER Winter in Russia is a product of i innermost Asia, not of Atlantic Europe. Therein lies the key to its severity, and to the absence of those caprices j of the cyclonic belt which bring the ; alternating warm and cold weather ;to the British islands. The resource- ! fulness of the German army will (a writer in the "Manchester Guardian Isays) be severely tried when his armies ! begin to suffer the paralysis which : comes from excessively low lempera- ! tures. November is , climatically speaking, the critical month for the eastern i campaign; it is the first month of hatd 1 winter. All Russia freezes from { November to April, and the transition I from cool to frigid conditions in Octo-ber-November is strikingly abrupt. There are northern districts of the i British Isles where, in .what we call j “the depth of winter,” temperatures ’ drop as low as they do in Central Russia during October. Indeed, we j can make a fair comparison between Manchester in January and Moscow in i October. But a month later there is not a place in European Russia, except i only the southernmost fringe close to 1 the Black Sea, where the mean temperature for November is as high as 40deg. F. "CRIMEAN RIVIERA’’ i The littoral of the Crimean Peninsula, whose resorts include lovely Yalta, is quite exceptional, being protected from northerly winds by the Yaila Mountains, and warmed by a lake almost as spacious as the North Sea. Yet even on the "Crimean r-Riviera” the months of January and February are as cold as those of I Northern Scotland (Fort William, 38.7 deg. F.; Yalta, 38.3 deg. F. for January). In European Russia, which, however I vast, is merely the western fringe of ! the Soviet’s Asiatic territory, there is I no mountain barrier to prevent the : Arctic winds from extending their i grip to the extreme south. Latitude ! does not seem to count for much in | determining temperature, and districts lying many hundreds of miles south (j the Arctic Circle share in the same severity of winter. So we find Kazan a? cold as the Arctic port of ArchMore influential than distance : from the Pole in determining the temperature of the Russian Plain is the isolation from warming Atlantic influences. Travelling eastward along the same parallel of latitude, there is a regular deterioration of temperature. It is in the far east of the Soviet Union and not the extreme north where cold is most intense. The winters of Moscow are almost warm bv comparison with those of Siberia. Go sufficiently far to the east and you reach the "cold pole” of the world, v. ell over 1000 miles to the south of the North Pole. Here Verkhoyansk holds the world's record for low temperature—a record made in the winter of 1892-3, when the thermometer descended to minus 90deg. F. —and yet the annual range is so enormous that by July this Siberian town is warmed up to the summei standards of Manchester. FREEZING OF THE COASTS Along the Pacific coast also the winters, dominated as they are by bitter winds blowing from Central Sibeiia, rank almost the most severe of the world. In spite of its high latitude, the Arctic coast of European Russia has a more genial climate. Along the coast of the Kola Peninsula, where stands Murmansk—the most useful Arctic port—the influence of the North Atlantic Drift is felt throughout the year, and in all but the most severe winters the seaway to the open Atlantic is kept free, with the aid of u fleet of the world’s most powerful ice-breakers. The strategic importance of this may soon be proved, lor when the harbour of Vladivostok

i freezes, as it will quite early in DecemI her. the only port—apart from the ! Iran entry—where British and United States naval power can be brought to bear to aid Russia will be Murmansk.; Since the time of Peter the Great I the Baltic way to Russia has been re- j garded as the most critical of all rnari- j time approaches, the most valuable , for commerce, and. in view of the j geographical distribution of naval strength in Europe, the most vul- I perabJe in time of war. In November begins the freezing of the Gulf of Finland, at the head of which is Lenin- , a-ad. the city designed by Peter as a j "window opening on to the west.’ j By the end of the year the freezing j over is complete, and maritime traffic ceases. If. in this war. Leningrad were to be menaced by the German Navy, winter’s blockade of the gulf would be an advantage, but as at present Russia lias local naval supremacy based or.' Kronstadt the stoppage of all naval movement during winter will not necessarily assist the defenders of Leningrad.