Journalism articles example. Vol.1.

Do you enjoy snowy winters?

When thinking about a snow usually only lovely thoughts come to mind, such as snowballs, snowman, fluffy snowdrifts and white flakes which fall down so handsomely. That happens usually, but not this winter. Snowfalls turned to be a real nightmare, display of a dashing temper of the nature and weather. It is March already, but an epopee with snow continues. Significant part of the city is still covered with snow logjams that will be a huge eyesore for the citizens. But that is not the worst.

Speaking about the harm of a snow and ice to the architecture of the city it is absolutely clear that damage is obvious. Primarily excessive amount of precipitation is an enormous weight which presses on the rooftops. Roofs often aren't able to stand such heaviness (especially those that haven't been repaired for a long time). Broken through housetops, damages on facades, injuries of building's exterior are just few problems that houses faced this year. Plenty of snow caused the demolition of the fence of the Obvodny canal on the 2nd of March for instance.

Open balconies awe people because they are filled with a waist-high snow. Fortunately there were no incidents of caving of them, but this kind of danger waylay us everywhere.

The historical centre perhaps suffers more than other parts of the city. Tight and ornate streets and courtyard's entrances don't facilitate the solution of this situation. When walking down the beautiful streets, which weave the pattern from Nevsky prospect to all sides of the city, it is so easy to understand that their beauty and diminutiveness are the main interference. On such roads of the city it is so hard to take down snow from roofs, because it is necessary to overlap the street and that means that it will be blocked both for pedestrians and cars. That is the reason why looking above you can easily see icicles that already transformed into stalactites and «hug» convex elements of facades.

It's essential to look at the city from a bird's-eye to see that snowdrifts covered playgrounds, green corners and all possible passages in yards. It is so difficult to clean small yards from the snow because of their specific forms and tiny sizes. And there is no one you can blame it on, except architects of the 18th and 19th century, who could unlikely guess what torments next generations will have to endure during such cruel winters. Also owners of cars who left their vehicles on the streets, so that you can hardly define where is the snowdrift and where is the car covered with snow, made a huge “surprise” for housing services.

And if you were lucky to see the city from some high point like St. Isaaks Cathedral, than stick to something with your hands because you can feel bad from the panorama of the snowbound city. At first sight you may find it lovely, fluffy and beautiful, but only one thought about St. Petersburg turning into something wet and slushy in the late spring with the first sounds of eavesdrop can make you dizzy. And that is the next problematic issue of this winter. Both pedestrians and car drivers need to acquire canoe or gondola.

This difficult period will bring not only visible problems, but also troubles to monuments and sculptures of our city. Although it was said dozens times that monuments won't suffer from snow and ice and from polluted atmosphere, it seems that they will. You can easily notice a lot of monuments around the city which are not protected at all and are covered with snow hats. Specialists say that toxic substances from air concentrate in water, snow and ice, and that is why it is a real threat to the beauty of St. Petersburg. It would be great, if the government would pay attention to the experience of European colleagues. They “pack” extra sensitive sculpture and monuments in transparent boxes which do not prevent tourists from enjoying them. And that is more useful and aesthetically than what is done in the Summer Garden, where unique sculptures are packed in vertical “coffins”.

But the only one thing left now is not to be lazy to look above at the roofs of houses, not to miss a dangerous icicle. For spring rubber boots will be extremely demanded and urgent. So you better start looking for them right now because we will have quite a complicated spring.

And to be honest, I feel very sorry about the fact that we can't travel by air or teleport.