I had my first experience of Russia's merciless winter on my last field trip to Moscow in November 2016. Although I had anticipated deep snow, frost, and ice, nothing prepared me for the punishing cold, especially when I settled once more into the daily routine of market traders – leaving for the market at 5.00am and returning home around 6.00pm, if not held up in traffic due to snowstorms. It was a particularly frigid November when the temperature dropped to as low as -12 degrees Celsius at one point, which made the 13-hour daily routine in the open area of the pavilions section at Sadovod an ordeal for many people working at the market. My mobility, even within the market compound, was considerably restricted because it snowed almost every day and, on days when the temperature dropped below -10 degrees Celsius, the biting wind chill made a five minute walk from one part of the market to another a challenge. I spent most of my time either in the côngs, equipped with electric heaters, or inside the centrally heated AN building. However, not everyone was able to retreat to a heated, enclosed space. There was no escape from icy gusts of wind for those trading at pa láts (open sale spaces along the horizontal lanes of the pavilions section) and in the congs along the four edges of the market. Long-term exposure to the cold could be debilitating, even deadly. During my fieldwork, a Vietnamese man running a công along linia CT4 on the southern edge of the pavilions section got frostbite and later developed blisters all over his face, from which fluid kept oozing and which he had to cover with layers of gauze and Scotch tape to prevent himself from scratching. A few years back, another man fell asleep on a stool at his pa lát during a freezing winter day and never woke up.