For over a month, Moscow has been boiling in 40-degree centigrade heat and heavy, sticky, eye-burning smog. Carbon monoxide levels have reached crisis levels, at six times the maximum allowable concentration. Other toxic substances in Moscow’s air are at nine times the normal level.
In early August, a journalist called the office of Moscow’s mayor, seeking comments on the situation. “The office is closed,” a woman at the press office answered, adding that the smog had even penetrated into the mayoral building, which is located less than 2 miles from the Kremlin, so that everyone was ordered to go home. This was a weekday, shortly after lunch. “Is it at all possible to get a comment from Mayor Yuri Luzhkov?” the reporter asked. “He is not in Moscow,” the press woman replied.
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