A RUSSIAN WINTER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 9417, 10 June 1882, Page 3

A RUSSIAN WINTER.

Whilst (says the Gobs) we enjoy such a warm winter, some parts of Russia are visited by terrific cold weather. The Trans-Caucasia which is generally warm, has been exceptionally cold this winter : the oldest inhabitants do not remember haying witnessed such a persistent frost. The gigantic chain of the Caucasus is covered with snow to its very foot. The immense and flat valley of the Kur and Arax rivers present only an illimitable snowy plain. Rivore which had never been seen frozen over, and rivulets which had not been so for twenty years, are now covered with a thick layer of ice. The inhabitants of that district, unaccusto cold, are obliged to stay in their wretchedly-built smoky little huts,

packed up together round their toundhirs (holes dug in the middle of the hut to bake the bread), where some few pieces of charcoal arc burning. The workmen and laborers, uhuso houses have no doors, arc submitted to the most terrible privations. In the valleys the snow is several yards deep. In the forestless plains, where the wood is always very dear, it can only be had now at exorbitant prices, and the poor are almost condemned to be frozen to death. The cattle which are generally fed on the pasturage at the bottom of the mountains, are also condemned to a sure death from starvation, as it is not the habit of the country to make provisions of hay ; the flocks. of sheep will doubtless share the same fate. The coming spring promises to be terrible for the Caucasian mountaineers.