Here, some 65 metres below the sundrenched streets of Moscow, lies a disused communications bunker.

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Interestingly, most of the sides of the buildings that face large streets in Moscow and in Murmansk (the city where I spent all of my Russian life) are usually painted, but the sides that face small streets have not been painted in generations.

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In Moscow, the enterprise of scraping the snow off the streets and pavements, forming it into snow hillocks, carting it off in 6, 000-odd snow vehicles for dumping or melting, and finally zapping it with chemicals to speed the thaw is vast and costly (which helps to explain why Yuri Luzhkov, the city's mayor, threatened last year to fine meteorologists who make wrong forecasts).

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