Winter Is Over

A.P.'s Eddy Gilmore was sitting in a Kuibyshev hotel with a friend one night last week when they heard a noise: crack, crack, boom.

"What's that?" Gilmore asked.

They dashed into the lobby and asked a girl at the desk. She shook her head, looked worried. They ran outside. There the noise was louder, but they could see no searchlights, no shell bursts.

"What are the guns shooting at?" they asked an old man. "Have you heard a plane?"

"Net, net," he replied, "lyod tronulsya --the ice is on the move."

"Winter is over," said the friend.

"Of course," the old man said. "No matter what the calendar says, no matter what the weather bureau says, we know winter is over."

Gilmore and his friend walked home. All along the Volga, they heard the noise of spring, like the noise of guns: crack, crack, boom.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.