One step forward, another one back

摘要

ON AN early winter morning, with temperatures below -20℃ and a fierce wind whipping off the water, Vasily Sutula, the stern, moustachioed director of a nature reserve on the shores of Lake Baikal, happily surveyed a dozen young volunteers. The youngsters declared the day dubak, slang for a freeze deeper than the standard Russian word for cold, khohd, can convey. Yet they had come to work nonetheless. Coats zipped, they set off for the forest to clear dead trees.