Almost a miracle.

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As impossible as it seemed, I wasn't tired when we left Yartek so I went for a walk with Chiara. We walked in the snow alongside the river Kotorosl near where we live. It was minus 14 at midnight - the Kotorosl had frozen over so we even walked on it, as far into the middle as we dared. There was more than a foot of snow on top of the ice so we couldn't tell we were walking across a river, it felt the same as walking on the path. We're both confused at the idea of leaving Yaroslavl in two weeks, just as there seems to be more to do.

I got up late and walked to the factory with a large bag of my laundry. It is hard to talk in Russian when there is so much background noise, I'm not used to speaking it loudly over the rumble of the machines. The lady was friendly and did everything for me, scooping all my clothes into deep-sea diver's helmet number 52 and letting the water out through a valve every 15 minutes.

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