“...The thirty-seventh year began with snowfall. It snowed - with short breaks - for almost two months, and covered the streets, houses, roads, fields and forests. Blizzards and snowstorms stopped trains in other places. The army and population were thrown into clearing the roads. There are almost no sunny days in January and February. On the streets of Moscow, because of the snowdrifts, no passers-by are visible, except perhaps the hat of some particularly tall citizen. They waited with fear for early spring and a big flood. Not only peasants. The townspeople, who had not yet forgotten the village signs, lifted their heads up and, watching the low-crawling clouds, tried to predict the future harvest and even possible changes in the life of the country...”