What do you know about Russian winter? Maybe that it’s very cold, snowy and that it can go on for several months. I can’t say, that it’s so cold, for example, it’s a good time for swimming:
Warm wind with temperature little less than the freezing point will make your walk after swimming wonderful, you can just throw on yourself a towel. In late February, when the Sun is bright you can also take a sunbath. You can also swim in the river or in the lake - if you have an ax and enough free time to make a whole in the ice cover.
In Russia the people, who practice winter swimming are called “Walruses”, in USA - “Polar bears”, also this activity is popular in northern countries, for example, in Finland. Although Russia has really the coldest winter in the world, winter swimming is practiced even in Yakutia - the coldest region in our country, where many people from 5 to 90 years old swim in the ice whole in -55 degrees Celsius!
As for me, winter swimming is a good way to feel healthy: unfortunately, I felt ill with COVID-19 with a pneumonia in the end of summer, but the illness wasn’t so bad like the aftermaths of it. For more than a month after it I didn’t feel good and sometimes had a headache. In November I decided to start a swimming, and in the first time I was really afraid that it can be dangerous to swim in a cold water, but after it, I felt much more better, and now I try to swim stable every 2 or 3 days.
So, I tried a cold swimming last year in October, when the wind was still warm (+18…+20 degrees Celsius), but the water temperature was only just +9 degrees, and my first time was quite difficult for staying in the water more than 1 minute. But after, when the water and air temperature became more and more colder, I’m used to swim like in the summer. I also used a cold shower for getting ready to swim in late autumn, but in 2019, I was afraid to swim after the beginning of November. This year we had an extremely warm autumn, that’s allowed me to start swimming in November (as I was waiting for a good time after COVID).
But I had never felt sick after a cold swimming, I also can say, that between July 2019 and August 2020 I had never felt ill (often I’m feeling sick every autumn and spring for at least 1 time). And after swimming, you don’t feel the cold, even if the temperature colder than the freezing point (it’s feeling maybe like +20).
