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It’s dark and cold very cold when we leave the warm embrace of our hotel, walk across the square past St Isaac’s Cathedral, and make our way along the river until we can get close to the water’s edge.
Even in the darkness of a late winter’s night, the sight is breathtaking great ice floes, massive sheets the size of flattened double-decker buses, are all drifting gradually towards each other in a slow but mesmerising ice dance.
All around us the city is silent, so what, then, is that strange noise?
We drop our heads closer to the river to listen; ah, there it is again; the sound of the ice itself as it grinds its way to a halt, gradually fusing into one massive slab, until the whole river is covered in a thick, white, winter blanket. On this late November night, just a few hours after we arrive into the city of St Petersburg, the River Neva freezes over, its flowing water now stemmed until spring comes around again.