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Windsurfing around the world:
Russia

by Alex Shubnyakov

You really wanna know what it's like??? To tell you the truth it sucks!!! period.

Moscow (where I live): Spring - end of April-May (temp 2 C - 8 C...hehe cold actually): Max- 2 weeks of 4 BFT, 4-5 days 5 BFT, 2 days 6 BFT Min 1 week of 4 BFT, 1 day of 5 BFT, 0 days of 6 BFT

Summer - June-August (temp 10 C - 30 C): Max- 2 weeks of 4 BFT, 3-4 days of 5 BFT, 1 day of 6 BFT. Min (last summer)- 1 week of 4 BFT, 1 day of 5 BFT, 0 days of 6 BFT..

Fall - September- end of October (temp 6 C - 15 C) Max- 3-4 weeks of 4 BFT, 1 Week of 5 BFT, 3-4 days of 6 BFT, 1 day -7 Min- 1 Week of 4 BFT, 1 day of 5 Bft, 0 days of 6 BFT.

Winter - November-April (temp -30 C - 10 C) no riding, ice everywhere...we do iceboarding on lakes...

As you can see I get very little time sailing during the year if i stay in Moscow + as you can see the wind is very unpredictable and hell!!! it usually blows when I study, work or else, and have no time for surfing... We have about 5 big lakes in our area, it's usually pretty flat here and therefore pretty good for practicing the jibes and flat water tricks, but there's lotsa trees around, so we basicly get pretty gusty winds...this is why I use only racing sails and many (wise) people do the same...most of us have very huge rigs in the 8,0-10,7 range as well as floaty widestyle boards up to 90 cms of width (I hate them and only use my Sputnik 275 which is 53 cm wide) it helps them to always plane and my Sputnik helps me to always "SMOKE" their asses (when I get up to plane)

In St. Petersburgh it's much better...it's almost always quite windy, quite cold and radical...there's Baltic Sea as you know...it's pretty much like Sylt in Germany with crappy, mushy and rainy onshore conditions, very extreme and nice for those who like napkin-size sails (I don't)...overall if you are into Pozo-sailing it's precicely what you need...

Black Sea (where I usually spent half of my summer time) can sometimes be pretty nice... There's many spots with absolutely flat water for speed and there's many with shoal break up to 3 meters...well's it's not that comfy and sweet as in Canaries or Hawaii as it's usually pretty mushy there with side-onshore winds and the waves are mostly close-out...however I like it, as it's not that nuclear there, the temperature is mild (not in Winter) and you can get some really epic backside conditions or sweet B&J...there's also NO sharks at all (for me a big plus actually) If you come there in Winter you gotta be good or really good as it is very cold (3-10 C) and really extreme with mushy 3-6 meter waves, hurricane winds and dirty waters...I wouldn't go out there in the winter storm. It looks much more dangerous than in Hookipa or any other places with even bigger waves, because it's so insane there, you can get killed easily....

This is basicly it...there's other places like Baikal lake, which I don't know good (I've heard it's cold, fresh, and super-windy) and some other places which are not worth mentioning...Overall, I'd say it sucks...for me it's better to spend 1 mounth at Cannaries than 4 mounths at the Black Sea...

Alex from Russia

(6.02.01)

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