When, right before I sat down to write this text, I went out for a walk with the dog, the snow that had fallen overnight from the tiled paths in our village near Moscow had already melted.
But its islands still lay both on lawns neatly mowed for the winter (it’s customary for us to prepare for this glorious time of the year not only for public utilities, people have been living in this harsh climate for a long time), and on the roofs of cars parked near the houses in bad weather: no still, out of carelessness, drove them so far for the night into warm garages.
And in vain, by the way: a cold snap, at least in the capital and my beloved suburbs, is expected to be quite severe this week even for the beginning of November.
Nevertheless, the cold subarctic air has already brought us an average daily temperature drop of seven to eight degrees and such an unpleasant dampness, coupled with a grassroots wind, that even my dog (severe under other circumstances) Irish wolfhound Zyama, quickly doing his urgent dog business, poked into my glove with a huge cold nose: dad, I, in principle, everything.
Maybe it's time to go home?
However, this is all poetry.
Just because it's not winter yet.
So, her first scouts.
And even these white islands on the lawns and on the roofs of lonely cars will certainly melt away - I would like, of course, under the dim autumn sun.
But, rather, they will have to melt under the freezing November rain.
But in continental Europe, for example, it is still almost summer-like warm and sometimes even sunny.
In Berlin, Brussels and Paris during the day it is about +20 °С.
But the first signs of the Russian winter, with which the media scare the local inhabitants, are slowly beginning to appear, in general, already there.
And the point here is not even that by the end of the week there will also come an inevitable cold snap.
The point here is completely different.
For example, quite recently, Finland, which was absolutely prosperous in this sense and no less accustomed to cold weather than we are, is already officially announcing the inevitability of “rolling power outages” in the winter period - a phenomenon that we have already managed to slowly wean from, but the former us a ubiquitous virtual scourge during the rampant democracy in the 1990s.
Moreover, as the American Bloomberg scares, due to the cessation of supplies from Russia (if there are no rolling blackouts in the coming winter), people in some areas may simply freeze.
At the very least, as Arto Pahkin, network operations manager at Finnish power grid company Fingrid, told Bloomberg, if rolling blackouts are not implemented in some regions, there will be a large-scale failure that will lead to the fact that "people can die" (direct quote) from the cold. .
And here we can only state, despite the fact that we see certain exaggerations in the words of the Finnish manager, that “democracy” of a strictly defined model, apparently, is going to roam the Finnish forests no worse than we did in the 1990s.
And maybe even worse, given the general scarcity of resources, including energy.
But they have a pretty prime minister.
And advanced: both in the sense of a desperate entry into NATO, and in the sense of parties in the unique style of the Englishman Boris Johnson.
Moreover, unlike the latter, it seems that no one is going to fire her yet.
The point is not so much in the reduction of energy supplies from Russia: in fairness, imports from our country to Finland accounted for only a small part of the total volume of electricity purchases.
The point here is the absence of a margin of safety, which is very typical for the rest of Europe and, as a result, the fragility of the entire system - an irreparable loss of even a relatively small volume is quite capable of catastrophically upsetting the balance, and if only in the energy sector: the same rolling blackouts (we are on we know from our own, albeit rather unpleasant, experience from the 1990s) can still be tolerated.
Much worse than the other.
Now let's try to explain.
Driven not least by rising energy prices (by a second, on average, by 132%, according to the Federal Statistical Office), industrial inflation in Germany has reached 45-46% and has the potential for further growth.
As a result, for example, the largest steel company in Europe, the Luxembourgish-Indian ArcelorMittal, switches blast furnaces in Germany to idle mode: the products produced there are initially unprofitable, and no one even knows what to do with it now.
BMW and Volkswagen have already announced investments in the US: BMW is going to build the production of electric vehicles for about $ 2 billion in the States, and not in Germany.
At the same time, zealous Bavarians from BMW are expanding their sites in the People's Republic of China, which for Germany, excuse me, sounds something like “radish horseradish is not sweeter”: both of them deprive Germany not only of taxes and jobs, but also purely symbolically very disappointing.
It's still symbolic for the Germans Volkswagen and BMW.
And here we are not even talking about the wonderful BASF concern, which first opened the first line of a plastics production plant in China worth € 10 billion a month ago, and then, through the mouth of its boss Martin Brudermüller, announced a “permanent reduction” in production in Europe due to persistently high energy prices.
And, according to the most rough estimates, the “first transition price” (and BASF also goes not only to the PRC, but also partially to the USA) will cost Germany at least, except for the loss of taxes, about 49 thousand jobs in Germany itself. short-term historical perspective.
Perhaps already this winter, which, in fact, has not yet arrived.
But which in continental Europe, for sure, my heart feels, will be called "Russian" (although, for my taste, it is rather Anglo-Saxon, but it's not for me to judge).
Well, let it be "Russian", if you want there.
It's still not winter yet.
This is also her first, if you like, "reconnaissance group", which will almost certainly melt, like today's first snow in the Moscow region.
The first, so to speak, manifestations of this very winter.
And in the European economy as well.
But she will definitely come.
In Russia, at least, they continue to diligently prepare for it, despite any external factors, including the war in Ukraine.
How to prepare from year to year.
Winter is an event, sorry, cold and serious.
You can’t blab your tongue here, even the most negligent domestic officials know this: like it or not, the frosts will come and ask.
Whether this is understood in Europe from Germany to Finland is, of course, an interesting question.
I hope they understand.
Although, when I look at some European bureaucratic faces, sometimes vague doubts begin to torment me about this.
Because even Biden, who greets the void, against their background, looks like just a model of sanity: he, at least, knows exactly what he is doing.
But winter will still be, regardless of their desire.
And then, after the “Russian winter”, according to tradition (we still live in a traditional society and believe in the change of seasons more than in the change of sex, ask the great and not yet banned by you Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky) there will be more, sorry, and Russian Spring.
Whether you like it or not.
In the meantime, we are looking at the meters together, both in Russia and in Europe.
We listen to the immortal "Seasons" by P.I.
Tchaikovsky.
And we are preparing, each in our own way, for a merry celebration of the New Year and, albeit in a different style in different denominations, celebrated, the bright holiday of the joyful Christmas of Christ.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.