In an episode that would be hilarious if one read it in the works of Nikolai Gogol or Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, but is actually a grim illustration of Russia’s environmental sickness, officials in a Siberian town were reprimanded last year for painting snow white. Pollution in the coal-mining region is so horrendous that the snowfall is thick with soot and ash. The officials responded, in the time-honoured manner of provincial Russian bureaucracy, by painting over a problem they felt helpless to solve.
去年，俄羅斯西伯利亞地區一個小鎮的官員因用白漆粉飾被汙染的雪而受到斥責——如果在尼古拉•果戈裏(Nikolai Gogol)或米哈伊爾•薩爾蒂科夫-謝德林(Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin)的作品中讀到這樣的情節，你會覺得極其滑稽，但實際上這是俄羅斯環境惡化的一個赤裸裸的實例。採煤地區的汙染如此嚴重，以至於降雪中佈滿了煙塵和灰燼。官員們的回應就是對他們感到無力解決的問題進行粉飾——俄羅斯地方官僚機構由來已久的一種做法。
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