Finding colour in Russia's mid-winter landscape (+photos)

Catherine Palace, St Petersburg. Photo / Jill Worrall

Midnight in Moscow and at the No. 2 platform at Leningradsky station the Red Arrow train to St Petersburg is just leaving.

I am cocooned in warmth in my compartment but a few minutes earlier I had been treading gingerly over the frozen station concourse, every breath hanging icily in front of me, the temperature about minus-10C.

My compartment has two red velvety banquettes, a table decorated with a vase of artificial roses, lace curtains at the windows, red bedroom slippers, white linen and a flat screen TV.

When I woke in the night the train had stopped, in what appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, then another train passed, the air whistled and then all was silent again. We sat suspended in a light snowfall.

The train drew into St Petersburg at about 8.30am - it was still dark.

A giant perfect pyramid of a Christmas tree blinked and glowed outside the station in the black of mid-winter.

The sun did not appear over the rooflines of the city until about 10am - setting the lance-like spire of the cathedral in the centre of the Peter and Paul Fortress on fire.

There is no snow on the ground here - Natasha my guide says it has been quite warm this winter and some days it has even reached 0C.

But there is ice on the River Neva, it is creeping out from the banks, heaving and twisting and leaving only a central channel that flows thickly, fighting the freeze.

St Petersburg is a confection of pastel-coloured architecture, a golden Romanov past and a Second World War history coloured blood red, but for me it is also a captivating glimpse of life in a cold climate.

Fur might be non-PC elsewhere in the world but here, where it reached - 15C this afternoon; it seems a natural defence against the cold.

Russian women in stiletto boots stroll the streets in mink, fox and wolf. Then there are the fur leggings and hats, and padded coats with hoods thickly fringed in more fur. I fight the urge to stroke coats at close quarters.

In the Hermitage Museum, before the hundreds of mostly Russian New Year visitors ascend the stairs to gaze at the Da Vincis, Degas, Rembrandts and Rodins, there is the glorious confusion of a Russian cloakroom in winter.

A flurry of fur - gloves, scarves and bodies unveiled briefly for a few hours before it is time to bundle it all on again.

Outside at 3pm the sun is low in the sky again and the lights of the skating rink in the centre of the square are twinkling; the green, gold and white onion domes of the cathedrals turn the colour of spilt blood as they grab the last of the light and a four-metre-high red-robed St Nicholas gives off a welcome warm glow into the Russian winter night.