Everything you ever wanted to know about snow removal in Moscow — but were afraid to ask ❄️
Until 2002, snow collected in the capital was loaded into special trucks (KAMAZ) 🚛, hauled away, and dumped into rivers. Some of it froze and stayed on the ice until spring or a thaw; some melted and flowed downstream. The downside was obvious: road snow mixed with sand, de-icing chemicals, and vehicle emissions went straight into the water.
Since 2002, the city has been building snow-melting plants. There, snow passes through filters before melting, removing large fractions like sand and debris 🧹. It’s then mixed with wastewater heated to about 30°C, melts, and returns to the sewer system. Part of that water is reheated and reused with new snow. Some plants discharge melted snow not into sewers but into rivers hidden in underground collectors — Moscow has plenty of those. For example, at the start of Lyublinskaya Street, runoff goes into the Nishchenka River and then, near Kolomenskoye, into the Moscow River 🌊.
There are 48 snow-melting plants in total, with a combined capacity of up to 160,000 cubic meters per day. One recent snowfall (the first wave brought by Cyclone Francis) dumped 790,000 cubic meters of snow on the city — about five days of nonstop melting ⏱️. The second wave added another 240,000 cubic meters.
In 2022 alone, the plants processed 16 million cubic meters of snow 💪. While trucks queue at the melters, snow is temporarily stored at designated sites in every administrative district. In the city center, one such site is on Miusskaya Square — filled every year, but this time it went viral 📸. People take photos there and ride down massive snow hills.
And the key takeaway: not a single snowflake or ice patch will remain on Moscow’s roads. In four months — for sure ☀️
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