Snow, snow, go away…
The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country’s parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn’t exactly turned out as planned – scientists have said it’s not feasible – this time, Luzhkov says, there’s no way he can fail.
The plan was unsurprisingly rubber-stamped this week by the Moscow City Council, which is dominated by Luzhkov’s supporters. Then the city’s Department of Housing and Public Works described how it would work. The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15 – and only to prevent “very big and serious snow” from falling on the city, said Andrei Tsybin, the head of the department. This could mean that a few flakes will manage to slip through the cracks. Tsybin estimated that the total cost of keeping the storms at bay would be $6 million this winter, roughly half the amount Moscow normally spends to clear the streets of snow.