Really?

Here is an interesting piece of local information I learned this week from He-Devil who posts on the Texas Devils in Russia Blog, (linked to the right of the screen) they have been here for two years now and have been a great source of information for us on many topics, but this one still blows my mind.... so you see in this picture of the River Neva, there is a strip in the middle that is broken away ice that forms somewhat of a straight water channel in the middle of the river. The first time I noticed this the ice was much crisper and not just snowed on as in this picture, so it was definitely apparent that an ice breaker had come through on purpose to make this channel. Although it wasn't a very large channel and it didn't go towards any of the coastal port type places which I thought odd....

It turns out that the purpose of this strip of water in the middle of the frozen river is not to enable some sort of transportation, but it is in fact kept open on purpose by the authorities in order to Prevent people stuck in traffic or behind a closed bridge from driving their cars across the frozen river...... Wow!